Mayim Halton Hills OUTLOOK published each faaliirday by II Home Newspaper of Itllli A of Canadian Newspaper Company Limited at Guclph Street Georgetown Ontario I Second Mail Registered Number ACCOUNTING Borne Pauline Miller MARKFTING Sharon 1 1 oiling worth Cathy PRODUCTION PAKTMh NT Dave Hail in Annie Mary Ijou foreman Tbeir Review Twos a Crowd Celebrity namedroppers By Big BUTTLE ByBARRIFHAYNE For two decades authors and Gore Vidol have been bringing real historical figures into characters They brought into this factual fiction real people such as he Rosenbergs and Stanford White Aaron Burr and Theodore Roosevelt The likes of George Baxt and Sluart have been doing the same thing with a mixed cast of real people and not so real such Alfred Hitchcock and the Round Table the Munehkins and Mac West Elliot following Margaret Truman icluallj minglw the reality of his own First with a set of fictional sleuths and criminals And now hire are two novels rather in tin same vein drops celebrity names with the liberal hand of chef scattering Ttlc other novel is more restrain It is written an ictua close tn the centre of ill power who may we are enticed into thinking Ih writing Horn in clef to guess who who Nun ind Ivon Lyons who scored such a success io with So meone is the Chefs of Europe trj again with The dent is Coming to lunch day pages This s the name dropper The other the result 1 icm Sal inger second with Leonard Gross is Mortal Games pages The first of these oil squarely in the Kim school and is marked even disfigured by the constant sense that its luthors move land of course Lai in ex a I ted circles the analyze as we d not Thcj irehly drop a few crumbs of information for the hungry Tht Lyons novel begins with the central figure the beautiful ex show girl now owner of New- York most exclusive restaurant surveying her domain of in grouped tables She sees in the space of a few pages Norman Liar Audrey Hepburn 1 am turning into a Meryl Chris Reeve Woody and Barbara Walters who doesn t lisp presumably because that isn inside TRENDY LEVEL this were done satirically or with self regarding humor it might be tolerable but it is all at that sub- Kami nsky trendy level that con firms S S Van Dine s judgment of 60 years ago that banned humor from the detective story Not that this Is really a detective story there Is no central perspicacious consciousness one step behind whose deductions we plod no Watson to assure us by con trast of our own superior in telllgence The level of writing however assures us or that and the perspicacity is inadequately sup plied by the CIA agent who Is preparing the way for the presi dent visit to Libby Restaurant where you seem to be able to get anything you want from catfish bis que I Stallone loves it to tied white and to the restaur an louse herself tin the checkroom on top of ill those herself many before has secretly given birth to the dents son now growing up gay in the restaurant business After an assassination attempt the CI agent ami the rest ran git together In the meantime there really speak them What the hell arc you so worried about Nothing special The some thing every one Is worried about Killer bees The shroud of Turin Going metric You know Everyone in LA is bisexual They like men and the like There are some choice similes There arc even occasional literary allusions She was eager to leave it all behind brokenhearted that her departure would have so much more meaning for him than her presence understood the sweet sadness of Charles final slept It was a far far better thing she had It would show all too well that we were not numbers of the in to lhat the whole of that story wis Charles did not have to mount scaffold These literarv Lyons arc presumablv thinking of Sydney I ibb might call him if he penid to be tippling in her If the President is Comim to l ha affinities with those re trends of in roup Mortal Games to thi older genre of paranoia willing or not seems to pa tribute to i of W en Presidents Mystery Plot written i of Vin Dine Fulii r at the pre of Roosevelt himself When this mm I was republished in it carried an Arthur Jr of Pierre Salinger coworkers in lite Kennedy House Bui where it the hem I Tin Pros dint Plot was fleeing from a mundini ix to one where he could mankind the hero of Mortal the leading dent in Purine who discovers Nazi past of the candidate supported by the government for the presidency He also discovers a group within the CIA that is working against in the service of some higher patriotism it is a mark of this kind of fiction that its plots are often from today s headlines The hero is therefore the target of an issassinalion attempt along with his young wife fie is secretly saved and inducted into a new identity in which he will be able to track down the renegades At the end of the novel the hero unable to resist any longer the young wife who has devoted her widowhood to his memory resumes his relationship with her in his new identity The book closes in a way a reviewer should probably not reveal All this may strain the credulity though t Phillips Oppcnhcim did something like it nearly years ago in The Great Impersonation though perhaps In 1988 it is less plausible that a wife should foil to the marital bod than it was for Salinger and Gross tell their story with conviction and they have teamed the lesson of the police pro cedural that the detailed descrip tion of a routine or process can ground in vert similitude the grossest incredibilities of plot The most ab sorbing part of Mortal Gomes is the section in which we hove in great detail the plastic surgery the voice retraining and the alteration of the whole style of living of the hero as he prepares for his new Identity This is an emergency Send a plumber right away or hell try doing it himself Go ahead and ask Ottawa Report After that little across front pages of mi newspaper in tin country Mr Turner could lose little time in inging in a new in whose respunstbililj Is Quebec this crucial time such posts cant be left empty too lone especially when the party is wrestling with nn debts of more than million And when there arc only 17 MPs from Quebec many of thorn known signatories to those Dear John let tors the field of choice was obvious ly narrow One suspects there was even some anguish over Mr appoint since more than one Quebec MP is to swear privately at least the new was infavorofMr Tumors departure However he did not put in writing And when it comes to ting on his slind during the latest revolt Mr seems to choose his words with extreme lion He flatly declares he was not part of the operation to have Mr Turner go I had a personal conversation ind this is personal between him and me says the former If Andre is such a great choice as cochairman of the Liberal Parti s national campaign organization why wasn I he chosen long leader John Turner Go ahead and ask Lots of others do It wis only a few days ago that Mr Turner dipped into his lightly bond caucus and selected Mr Quelle a year veteran of Parliament to Join ben it or Graham in oil up the party campaign machinery And the leader digging deep for enthusiasm declared that we re ready and we re on war footing If an election writ wore issued it on we would be llajne and l the of Toronto He has written a number of on the detective lion Is president of beautiful the Popular Well that not the way all Liberals see it but then Mr Turner does have a unique responsibility to psyche his troops for bottle Whether the appointment of Mr will do much to enhance Liberal battle readiness to speculation When ho said himself that his job would be that of a healer Mr was displaying his own que ability in the art of understate It I easy for practising Quebec politicians to get a firm grip on what a happening to federal liberalism in the province It doubly difficult for journalists who generally ply their trade outside Quebec borders But the appointment of Mr Ouellet in a role that vita for the party in Quebec would seem to be at best a calculated compromise The big question is was it well calculated 1ITTIECIIOICF In fairness to the troubled Mr Turner and if we can borrow no of his own terms he didn have options alter he was to Ire Senator the preui is cochairman Scmtnr uti v instrument in him Mr did help Mr Turner during the 1991 leadership cam But his success made him some powerful political enemies in Quebec where many felt he should have been supporting Jean tien leadership bid There is no doubt that a deep rift still exists between these two groups For that matter there are still rifts in the caucus between the proTumor ami Turner forces When MP Lucie was asked b a reporter why Mr would privately favor Mr Turners departure but not sigi letter to effect she wai is saying he alwiys wants to and light Rock n roll ruminations Comment Where has all the music gone Rock n roll that is Barrelling down Highway on my way Into work on Thursday morning I help but wonder ha kids these days would think of real rock roll music The impetus was some Insipid song on the radio by what us to be a good rock band I want to know love is is a smash hit but Iheir is indichvi if whits happened I music in the When tins midt his I il em ehaek with Hunk of Iiurntig Suspicious Minds some In ij forgotten to rock Hinds that same dim about fortetlirig how to rock i to i jootl speetrum What 1 want in know is Wh to the rock of roik n roll Back In the late 70s disco wifhstindlng those bad rick i roll bands knew how to put me mini and into their musu Don me wrong The Hi an of Roll is still just The Me decide showed Us stuff Hit Wooded hail Vision lone before the to know what is Elton John thought Saturday Night wis for before Michael J He it And who knows what Boy was watching when the Cars were watching their best friend girlfriend Meatloaf found Paradise the Dashboard Light Loverboy almost found it j cars later Bruce Springsteen wis Horn to Run before he even considered the meaning of being Bom in the Styx had a Grand Illusion before Whitney Houston wanted to Dance Boston had More than A heeling Amanda You could even spend a Day at Iho Races or a Night it the Opera and still gel rocked off jour seat And we children of the 70s watch in dismay as Kim Mitchell bless his heart forgot about his bud Max Webster and started singing some Irish girl named Pattv O The pressure on bands these is to become poppish like moon Suite The effects can even be seen on perennials like David Bowie went through Changes before he Let Dance And Paul Mcarney Hani definitely on the Hun Defenders of the faith m ght But I Bon the first hciw metal band strike a number inn Heavy They do know ho to rock but even just the instruments and styles of rockers and it But still the kids today keep Ik pin on And who i flag for these days all Inn and i mure I than the eighties