Jeffrey M. Hopkins, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, questions who is evil and the operations of the US military in his debut novel, Broken Under Interrogation. This sprawling epic achieves its twin aims by examining the past and present of protagonist John Powers. In the novel’s present, 2012, the depressed and angry Powers is apprehended by the Gestapo-like police, accused of torturing and killing twenty-five drug dealers with his friend and fellow Iraqi veteran, Mike Miller. Interspersed among scenes of John’s interrogation are flashbacks to his entry into the military, his career as a counterintelligence officer, and the killings he carried out with Mike following his questionable military discharge. Readers get to know John, Mike, and their victims as humans so that the violence perpetrated on the characters makes readers ask if torturers should brutalize other tormentors in the name of security. What’s more, the novel shows how the official organizations of the police and the military justify their brutalization by having rules for torture—interrogation—and making the process highly efficient. However, Hopkins reiterates that all these guidelines and efficacy do nothing to minimize the human toll of torture: the deaths of the victims and the guilt experienced by perpetrators like John. “Who are the evil people?”one character asks another. Broken Under Interrogation is a harrowing examination of the layers of wickedness in the human soul, with echoes of 1984 and A Clockwork Orange.

The analysis and ultimate indictment of our nation’s military machine is trenchant and astutely observed. For example, Hopkins contends basic training is just a game to figure out and that the poor are refusing to enlist in the military—once a way for them to join the middle class—for fear of being deployed to a danger zone. Shrewd assertions such as these convince civilian readers that military veteran Hopkins is truly an authority on this subject.Unfortunately, the author’s structural choices and grammatical gaffes blunt the novel’s impact. Readers don’t understand why John is being held prisoner until near the end of the book in Part 2, when the crimes he committed with Mike are described in detail. More mention of these acts in Part 1 would have made readers feel the book was gearing up for something. Moreover, transitions between the book’s past and present are choppy and abrupt, leaving the reader to reorient themselves to each new section. Grammatically, Hopkins favors protracted sentences held together by comma splices, and improper use of apostrophes. Yet, despite its flaws, Broken Under Interrogation remains a valuable philosophical look at war, the military, and the frailties of human nature.

“The Gideons” begins very promisingly. A story of an enigmatic cult, I was captivated by the society that Hopkins painted and was intrigued to see how this isolated community fit into the world at large. Clearly futuristic, small clues helped piece together a bigger picture and it was completely fascinating. Introducing the principle character, Isaac, as a boy nearing manhood, we see him struggle to find his place in the clan. Idolizing his older brother, held in esteem by an elder mother figure, and unraveling the secrets not meant for the children of the tribe–this is a terrific story! Exciting and mysterious, Hopkins had me hooked. The dramatic stakes intensify as Isaac becomes more and more aggressive in his pursuit of knowledge–and the results are devastating.

Eventually, Isaac must make his way without his family or people. In the forest, Isaac meets many eclectic characters–but none have more impact than the lovely Deer who becomes his bride. Soon separated, Isaac commits the rest of his days to tracking her down at all costs. Along the way, he battles violent bandits, religious zealots, and mad scientists. And in these pursuits, Isaac starts to uncover the truths about the planet and what it has become. Excessively violent, these adventures will definitely keep you interested and Isaac’s single minded determination in the face of adversity is mind boggling. I do think, however, that Deer is developed only slightly and their relationship barely registers in the context of the story–so his persistence can sometimes be mystifying.

One of my concerns is that the disparate characters rarely spoke with individual and distinctive voices. Whether educated, uneducated, native, urban, otherworldly, religious, scientific, military, sheltered, or using an electronic translator–everyone shared the same cadence and phrasing of speech. The dialogue ends up sticking out as “written” as opposed to organic. This might seem an odd criticism, but by structuring the novel with so many different types ofpeople–it is really something I became aware of as the story progressed. Another concern is that “The Gideons” may definitely set itself up as a novel geared toward male readers. It is a pretty bleak representation of women–90% of all women are depicted as property or prostitutes with the remaining percentage existing as sexual predators and lusty maidens. To be fair, the male characters aren’t much more appealing in this world gone mad–but at least the noble Isaac stands in for decency.

But for it’s faults–and, in truth, I probably could have lived without the final sequence–”The Gideons” is never less than fascinating. A futuristic roller coaster–you never know where you’ll end up! KGHarris, 12/10.

Read the Review on Amazon.com and order your copy of The Gideons.

Very briefly the story is told by one John Powers, an Army Intelligence officer who has served multiple assignments in Iraq and returns to Peoria, Illinois, mentally injured by his past and unable to cope with the massive amount of crime that surrounds him at home. He struggles with the fact that society has become populated with youngsters who work in the drug business and the many ‘victims’ of drug addiction and sets out on a vigilante mission to destroy the problem. He teams with a fellow believer, Miller, in the need to destroy the decadence of the drug gangs, and uses heinous means to destroy that element of society gone wrong. Captured by the police – more a corporate security group in the year 2012 – Powers undergoes torture for what he has considered the only way to correct the evils of the world to which he returned after war. Powers may seem to be a victim of sociopathic transformation due to his war experiences, but the author uses the solid technique of flashbacks to Powers’ time in Iraq to make this injured protagonist understandable in his motivations and deeds.

To better appreciate the worth of this writing, writing that may sound as though it is not about something we wish to hear, it is best to quote form the author’s gifted pages: ‘The gnawing black raven of American nihilism takes wing from the suburbs and flies home to roost in the inner city. It lives, breathes, and takes in nutriment there amongst the abandoned homes and crumbling schools. Without the misery and despair of the ghetto, there would be no impetus for people to flock to the safety of the suburbs. Without the homes abandoned by people moving out of the city center in fear, the low property values caused by the abundance of properties on the market, and the slumlords to buy them up looking for a fast buck – there would be no ghetto. The raven was feeding on racism, and the raven was getting fat. It s**t on the American Dream and pecked out the eyes of hope. John thought to himself, if there was an American Dream it should exist for all Americans, but it didn’t, and if it ever did, it was dead and rotten as the Founding Fathers. John could cut the tension around him with a knife….’

Hopkins delves deeply into the topic of torture, relating that topic to the things he witnessed in Iraq as well as to the deeds in which he is engulfed. This portion of the book is as harsh as the torture it describes, as vicious and cruel as any previous books on the subject. Yet Hopkins has the sensitivity to use that topic to find his way out of the bleak reality of now and make us consider just where we are and can go unless we address the evil of the day. Grady Harp, December 10

This is the question that my little brother, then aged approximately 7, asked at the dinner table after one of our family Bible readings.  My parents did not have an answer to it.  I think my mother poo pooed the question after stammering to find an answer for a while.  I, then aged 11, sat there and the wheels started turning.  Go ahead and poo poo the question like my mother did.  Sure, we don’t have any evidence for aliens.  We do know, however, that the Bible was written in a time where men living in the desert thought that the Earth (and they didn’t even know it was an entire globe at that point) was the only thing that existed.  I never quite overcame this question.  It lead me to the belief that the Bible was written by men in order to explain their way of life and provide some support for it.

How did I come to this belief?  How did I overcome what I was taught as a young child?  How did I overcome the songs that I was taught to sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”

I started with the question.  It seems a strange and non-sensical question from a 7 year old child, who also asked questions such as:  are there more birds than trees.  The question can be unraveled to ask other questions, though, such as:

1)  Would God author a Bible for each intelligent species of being in the universe?

2)  Would God have a chosen intelligent species in the Universe, just as he has a “chosen people” on the planet Earth? (via the Bible)

3) Would God have given these intelligent species the same directives (Ten Commandments) that he dispatched to the people of Earth?

4) Would these civilizations naturally come into conflict?

I was taught that God wrote the Bible, that he delivered it piecemeal through the Prophets.  I was taught that this is a Holy Book.  I was taught that this is a book to be respected, to learn from, to plan my life according to.  My doubts soon overweighed all of these great reasons for putting any thought into the primary book, the book with the most literary allusions accorded to it, in all of the Western world.

I believe that the Psalms are lovely poetry.  I don’t believe that King David or King Solomon wrote many of them.  Talented poets were probably commissioned and sold out to the highest bidder and erased their names in favor of the King’s.

Right now in the United States of America, there are individuals who believe that the Bible is the direct Word of God.  They follow the Bible as literalists and they attempt to impose their beliefs on other people, in direct opposition to the United States Constitution.  They impose their beliefs thorough Creation Science and “Intelligent Design” on children in schools.  Just look at what the Texas Board of Education is doing.

Why is Intelligent Design and Creation Science even a matter for debate?  To oppose them means to destroy a fundamental underpinning of an entire way of life.  To sow doubts about the beginnings damages the roots.  To sow doubts about the beginnings is the first step to revealing a naked humanity without a protective blanket of “God”, alone, shivering, going to die, on a rock in an unforgiving universe.  Woe is us.  No God to protect us.  No Jesus to save me.

Is that necessarily the case though?  Humanity has fashioned a tool.  That tool is the method of science.  It is expanding outwards in search of knowledge.  It is not contracting, eschewing knowledge in favor of one interpretation.  It is robust in its ability to explain phenomena.  Those explanations are not always correct first go, but science is self correcting.  Science is itself an evolutionary process.  Just like an individual human life.

I know I’m going to die eventually.  I don’t care.  I don’t need to feel comfort in anything to prepare me for my end.  It could come any number of ways.  I don’t care.  I care about life and living.

There is no evidence for either side of this question:

If God wrote the Bible and there are Aliens then God had to write a Bible for the Aliens too.  Do they use our Bible?  Do they delight over stories of plucky humans around campfires?  In Holy Roman Catholic Churches?  These questions seem absurd.  The Religions that we know about are a human phenomenon.  Perhaps there are Alien religions.  Perhaps there are Alien “Holy Books”.  Perhaps there are Alien Prophets.  There may even be an Alien Son or Daughter of God.  Does it mean that these concepts are true, or that they worked for these peoples?

I wrote the Gideons to introduce in the mind of the reader the same doubts that my younger brother introduced me to unwittingly, so many years ago.  I cannot thank him enough for the question that he asked.

You Can View the Gideons on Amazon.com and Purchase by Clicking This Link

JEFFREY M. HOPKINS

http://www.amazon.com/Gideons-Jeffrey-M-Hopkins/dp/0984567321/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290810378&sr=8-1

The Gideons, by Jeffrey M. Hopkins is available on Amazon.com for purchase.  Please support independent literary artists and get your copy today!

Literature should elevate dialogue in a society, not serve as the dross and lubrication of entertainment. If our literature indicates the state of our culture, then we are Dead On Arrival. I am thankful for Amazon.com because I cannot stand to set foot in old school bookstores anymore, they are so packed to the gills with junk.

Here is what I want to do:

1) Show that the publishing industry is not needed anymore. It is a has been, a rate limiting step in the production of art.

2) Demonstrate that real literary talent lies outside of the mainstream and that the mainstream media has the effect of making people stupid conformists.

3) Never sell out to anyone.

4) Never conform to any standard other than grammar.

5) Never write a novel I would not read myself.

If I do these things then I am bulletproof.

Jeffrey M. Hopkins is the author of Broken Under Interrogation and The Gideons, as well as several short stories.

The phone call came as the sun crept slowly below the horizon like the desert tarantula slinking out of its death hole, tapping legs into the darkness.

“Our man will meet you tonight so you had better be ready,” the sweet as honey female voice on the other end said.

“I will be ready.”  Alvarez told her, wondering what she looked like.  She sounded part nun part hooker on the phone.  Who knew who she was?  She was a cutout.  Cutouts for cutouts is how the Family operates, so that you never knew who you were working for.  It kept the trail of murder from getting too far up to the top; whoever that was.  A cutout is someone who introduces someone to somebody else then leaves the scene not knowing why they introduced the two people in the first place.

His wife called him to the supper table where his annoying uncle sat enjoying some of his leftover empanadas.  The sick things made him choke.  He couldn’t see selling them on the corner for the rest of his life like his fat Uncle Naco; but unless Alvarez wanted to slave over a hot stove in his family’s empanada business he had to come up with a job fast.  Cooking did not suit him.   It served slobs like Uncle Naco.  Servile slaves slopping up their fare all day for nothing.  Uncle Naco walked the streets for thirty years, and what did it get him?  His knees had a horrible case of the gout.  What a chump.

Alvarez was a man of action.  Everyone in his command posting told him so, but his wife hated him being gone.  She complained all day long and her telephone calls and threats of leaving him made it impossible to do his job.  She was the only thing in the world he valued.  Her body would make Jesus sin and she was nice to him too, when she wasn’t giving him the business over the phone.  He thought it over for a day and put in for the early retirement they give to sub par soldiers.  It was twenty five percent of his salary pension, but it was the only way they would let him out.  He was an excellent soldier; but a bribe paid to the right people got him the paperwork.  After his discharge from the Army, he was hurting for work.  He knew only a few things on the world, how to fire a weapon, and how to go looking for trouble.  He found trouble, but the good thing about trouble was that trouble paid well.

Alvarez departed from his home early in the morning before the sun came up.  His wife slept in the bedroom without stirring.  The church bells had not even rung.  The pigeons were asleep on the balcony above his door, puffed out against the chill.   It was a Saturday.  The streets would be full of life, and death if he met his mark.

A man, shorter than Alvarez, dressed in a Chivas soccer jersey stood at the door.  His hair was slicked back and seemed cemented in place.  Only two small tufts came out the back of his head like bull’s horns.  Otherwise he was an unremarkable ugly little man.  His eyes bugged out of his head a little, making him look like one of those fish that come up from the deep ocean and can’t take the pressure of the shallows with its eyes bugging before they burst from the skull sockets.

“The man sent me.”

“He did?”

“Yes.  And you’re coming with me, it’s a job.”

“Good.”

Alvarez grabbed a jacket against the morning chill and locked his door.  He glanced at his watch under the flickering streetlight.  It was on the later side of three in the morning.

The short man engaged Alvarez in conversation that made him uncomfortable.  The little guy laughed about aspects of his job that he should just be stony faced serious about.  Any time someone who killed people for a living laughed about it, he was not a professional.  He was in it for the thrill of it alone.  These were dangerous people.   These people were psychos who were used to killing and made it a sport.  He walked down the promenade in bold steps, forcing the shorter guy to speedwalk to keep up with him.  But the short guy always caught up and started talking again.  Alvarez liked silence, but the little impy bastard goaded him into talking.

“You know what kind of work you’re looking for right.? You know what it is I do?”

“Right.  I do.”

“So you know what it is I do then champ?”

“Yes.  It’s no secret.”

“The organization doesn’t like secrets.  It likes to be sort of, you know, out in the open with its business.  Only it don’t like to have people knowing who did the deed.  It just wants people to know the deed was done.  You know, our business really is in making people do what we want them to do.  It’s about shock and awe.  You toss four or five heads in a disco when its full of partiers and people take notice, newspapers take notice, hell presidents take notice.” the short man said with a snicker.  Alvarez looked at him as they passed underneath a giant beer sign and his face glowed red like a devil.  Alvarez thought that if there was any worst part of the test, it was doing it with this guy.

“I’m up for it.  It’s not like I haven’t done this shit before,” Alvarez said.

“We don’t know that champ.”

“I gave the man my resume.  He knows.”

“A resume?   What’s that?”

“ A document with everything I’ve done on it.”

“That’s stupid.  Why would you write everything you’ve done on a piece of paper for the world to see?”

“That’s what he asked for.”

“The man asked for a resume?”

“Yeah, I gave it to the bartender at Padron’s, you know that discotechque all those gringo fuckers love.”

“Yeah the one with the fifty cent tequila shots.  The tequila cut with so much water it won’t even light on fire.”

“But he’s got chicks.”

“Yep, who doesn’t got chicks though?  The city’s full of em.  Anyways that bartender,  his people said they’d call if they liked what they saw.  I guess they liked what they saw, cause here we are.”

“A fucking resume.  That qualifies you to do what I do?  But you can write anything.  You can make up anything.  I’m here to make sure you can do things.  Five heads in a disco, that’s things my friend,” the little man said as he chuckled to himself.  He made five succinct motions like he was pitching a head like an underhanded softball through a door.  Alvarez noticed that the little man brought his hand up to his mouth to cover up his smile when he talked of such things, like he was trying to hide his sheer delight from the world.

“You’re going to test me?”

“Yeah.  You gotta be tested.  We can’t just fling you onto some high profile operation.  The test comes before.”

“But its an operation right.  I was told you’d send me to hit a soft target.”

“Who told you?”

“Well that’s what I heard.”

“Who told you?”

“Some army friends.”

“They don’t know shit about us.  If they aren’t working for us, they don’t know shit.”

“They may be.”

“You’re the first Army guy I’ve met, we usually don’t like working with you.”

“Why not?”

“Y’all have too many values.  Too much a part of the system.”

“I’m different.”

“I bet you are Alvarez.”

“They told you my name?”

“Sure.  I have to know who I’m working with.”

“What’s your name then?”

“You’ll find out after we get the job done.”

“Okay have it your way.  Who’s the target then?”

“The target’s a guy that’s done some bad things.”

“In the Army I killed plenty of bad people.”

“In what capacity?  A war?  A war isn’t killing my friend.  In a war you’re killing a man with a gun trying to kill you.  That’s survival.  Now you kill a busload of nuns because they saw something they shouldn’t have.  That’s killing.  That’s real killing my friend.  You have to be able to tolerate looking into their eyes, the terror in their eyes knowing it’s the end.” the little man said with his grin like he had gotten away with stealing cookies from his mother’s cookie jar.

“I won’t talk about it.  I don’t have to tell you what I’ve done.”

“We can’t check out what you don’t talk about.  But it sounds like you’ve done a lot of nothing to me.”

“Whatever.  Forget it.  I’m ready for this,” Alvarez said walking quicker towards the bridge.

“Slow down.”

“Okay.  I didn’t know you’d get winded.  I’m from the Army, we always walk fast.”

“You just slow down Army friend.  I have to talk to you.”

“What is it?”

“The test.  We’re going to see if you’re a real killer or not.”

“Easy, I can do it.”

“Easy for you?  You’re a  killer then?”

“Yes.”  Alvarez said in a grave voice.

“Some guys can talk about killing, but when the time comes they cannot pull the trigger.”

“I’m not one of those guys.”

“The target will come by the bridge.  You know the bridge that separates the new city by from the old?”

“This a Guzman guy?”

“Yes, something like that.  Good hitmen don’t ask questions.  They execute the target and get rid of the body.  But they don’t ask questions.  They just do the job.”

“So we just wait under the bridge for him to come?”

“Yes.  He comes, you kill him.  Two in the chest and when he falls, one in the head.  That’s what the Family does to these Guzman guys.”

“Got it.  The Family.  Where’s my weapon.”

“In my bag here, FN Five Seven.  Cop Killer.”

“This guy a cop?”

“No.  We don’t trust you enough for that.  Its just the name of the gun.”

“Hand me the piece.”

“Keep it stowed until later.  Put it in the back of your pants so no one can see it.”

“Got it.”  Alvarez said and put the weapon in his waist band.  He had handled pistols before, but this one barely felt like it weighed anything.  It was more like a toy for children.

“The gun doesn’t feel like much.”

“The NATO uses them.  I’m surprised you don’t know about them.”

“I’ve heard of them.  Just never used one.”

The little man was silent.  Alvarez could hear his little feet pattering off the broken pavement, echoing his own.

They walked past up the silent promenade and headed into a maze of back alley shops.  The only people that were still out and up were the ones with dead eyes that watched them pass; the hookers and addicts and homeless that made up the leering public of the streets.  A woman called to them but stopped when they trudged by not even acknowledging her existence.

“Demons.”  Alvarez said.

“Our clientele.”  The man corrected him with a laugh.

The bridge spanned the Rio Grande River.  A footpath curled underneath.  In the daytime the place was a market where enterprising salesmen sold items to tourists crossing into the United States and vice versa.  Now there was much more traffic departing than coming, owed to the disproportionate murder rate in the cities separated by the river.  El Paso, Texas marked only twenty murders for the preceding year.  Juarez, Mexico would mark its 1832^nd murder after Alvarez passed his test.  The two men waited by a pylon, for their mark to stroll by.

In the streetlight an empenada vendor peddled his wares calling in a strong voice, peddling his wares to the public.  It was a lonely night and no one was buying.  The vendor crossed underneath the bridge and his cart squeaked a steady groan of dissolute rage at thwarted success.  Alvarez would never fail to recognize that cart and that voice, for they had been burned into him since he was a boy peddling the empanadas to the peasants in the dusty shit crusted streets.

“My God it’s my Uncle Naco.”  Alvarez said.

“No.  it’s your target.”

Alvarez gasped, “He’s not bad.  He only sells empanadas.”

“He won’t pay up.  He owes the Family.  He gets close you step out of the shadows and do him.”

“You don’t understand he’s family.”

“You wanted to be tested, well here is your test.  It’s either the Family or your family.  It’s an easy choice Alvarez.”

Old Uncle Naco hobbled towards the ghosts in the shadows calling out for anyone who would listen, “Empenadas fresh and delicious.”  He looked pathetic there hobbling on his gouty knees through the darkness, only a flashlight to light his way.

Alvarez stepped from the shadows and the streetlight crowned his blank face like a halo.  His arms were at his side.

Uncle Naco looked up from his cart and took in a breath of empanada steam that escaped from the container.  He startled at the sudden shaped stepped out from the empty blackness.  He stared at his nephew but could not tell the light from the darkness or the darkness from the light.

“Uncle Naco,” the voice said.

“Santa Maria, who is there in the shadows?”  Naco called.

“It is I, Tomas your nephew, here with Death.  Please Uncle go home.”

Naco shined his flashlight in Alvarez’s face then down to his hands holding the gun like a child.

“What have you done Tomas?”

“I said go Uncle!”

The gunshot rang out and Uncle Naco dropped to his knees, then forward on his face.  He was dead before he hit the ground.  The dusty neighborhood heard the gunshot as just another echo in the dark.  It was followed by another short shot that barely pierced the silent black veil of night.

The sun rose on night dwellers forcing them into their dark holes.  The policia discovered the bodies of Uncle Naco and Alvarez, killed facing each other with their arms outstretched.  The bodies looked as if in their last moments, the pair struggled to embrace each other, but never quite made it.  As the sun rose over Juarez, death slunk deeper into the shadows while the living took to the streets in pursuit of an honest day’s bread.

OTHER DEATHS IN JUAREZ, 2010, Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press, LLC, All Rights Reserved