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I raced through Sir John A.'s Crusade, but only because the copy I had was an inter-library loan and could not be renewed.

Here are a few things to look out for:

Bullshit
Rohmer imagines at least two characters – Robert Wilmot and George-Étienne Cartier – uttering the word. Fathers of Confederation both, I felt this was in poor taste, doubly so since its use can be traced back no further than 1915 America.

Errors in calculation
Foul-mouthed Cartier pegs Macdonald's age at 52. In fact, he was 51.
     Macdonald describes the year in which all action takes place as the twenty-ninth in Victoria's reign. In fact, it is the thirtieth.

Exclamation marks
I'm certain that there are more here than in any other Rohmer novel.

Kelly
Rohmer likes to position himself as something of a seer.
     "Balls!" you say. "The man couldn't have been more wrong about the Soviet Union."
     "True enough," I reply, "but consider last week's events in Buffalo. One of the dead was found in a car covered by snow."
     As if further evidence was needed that Rohmer is in tune with Geller, I point out that Sir John A.'s Crusade features a villain with the very same surname as one of his future critics.

Resplendent
Reading Richard Rohmer, you begin to recognize common threads. Vodka and how to dull its effects is one example. Not everything is so obvious. It wasn't until Sir John A.'s Crusade that I first noticed "resplendent", a word I don't think I've ever used in my own writing.
     Going back, I see that it was there from the beginning. In Ultimatum we find members of the RCMP "resplendent in their traditional red-coated uniforms". It's used in describing Patton's garb in Patton's Gap. The word appears in Red Arctic and – spoiler – Rohmer's biography of E.P. Taylor. Resplendent is used four times in Generally Speaking. It also appears four times in Sir John A.'s Crusade. Which brings me, finally, to…

Fetishism
You'll not find so shameless a display of perversity as this passage from Sir John A.'s Crusade:

The Right Honorable Henry Wellesley, Earl Cowley, was resplendent in his ambassador's uniform. He wore a black jacket, with a high collar and epaulettes; the gold braid decorating it was enhanced with royal reds and blues. A crimson sash crossed from the right shoulder to the opposite hip; half a dozen medals on multi-coloured ribbons were pinned to the left side of the jacket, over the ambassador's chest. Below them sat thge star of his rank with which his Queen had vested him. His black trousers bore wide gold stripes down the outside seams. Those stripes disappeared into highly polished half-Wellington boots.
     A short ceremonial sword in an elaborately engraved and embossed scabbard hung from a broad gold-decorated belt that encircled Earl Cowley's considerable girth. On his head sat, foursquare, a large black cocked hat covered with more gold braids, its forward point jutting straight out from his wigless wide forehead. Across the hat's crest several white plumes…

There's more, but you get the picture.

Lest you wonder, I don't mention the "busby-capped soldiers of Her Majesty's Grenadier Guard" because "resplendent" is not used.

Yes, I am hurt.

Red Arctic III

From Fox News:

Canada says 1 of the lost ships from doomed 1840s British Arctic expedition is found

It would be funny if Scotland left before they got a share of the BRITISH ARCTIC

"Look... under these rocks... it's a buckle... the buckle of a kilt!"

RED ARCTIC II! 

From today's Daily Mail:
 

Russia ships lay claim to Arctic's energy riches: Putin sends naval convoy to reopen military base

• Move supports Vladimir Putin's claims to vast mineral wealth under ice cap
• Russia contests Canada, Denmark, Norway and US for right to exploit riches
• Arctic Circle estimated to hold 22 per cent of recoverable energy resources
• Base will also supervise the Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia

Not only will I not fight you on this, Chris, I'll kinda sorta agree. Massacre 747 has one great cover. Just look at that red foil! I'll bet that caught the browser's roving eye. But does it have to be wrong? Have the Su-15 head up, not down, and Bob's your uncle. The Black Brigade would agree. Coronet got it right with Massacre 007.

On the subject, is this the worst Rohmer cover?

No. Patton's Gap is the worst, but Red Arctic is the laziest. A bit of scribbling with a dried out marker, a logo lifted from some hockey tournament, and those blue, white and red lines from Ultimatum. 

Wait 'til you see the cover of Poems of Arthur Henry Ward, Jr.

  

RUSSIAN SPIES EXPOSED!

A Discussion with an Actual Former York University Student about Richard Rohmer’s Red Arctic

A former York University student responded to questions from Reading Richard Rohmer by email. Here is a transcript of the exchange, edited to remove some sections for reasons of national security

Reading Richard Rohmer: The plot of Richard Rohmer's Red Arctic hinges on York University in 1989. Turns out? Riddled with sexy Soviet agents. Was this your experience?

Eileen Gallagher McPhee: York in the 80's did feel like I imagined Siberia would feel like so the Soviet agents might work. I was only there at night and the parking lots were vast and chilly.

Reading Richard Rohmer: Can I quote you -- anonymously, if you'd like -- about York on the Rohmer blog? Do you want to comment? Do you want to add anything?

Eileen Gallagher McPhee: Quote freely… Full disclosure I was actually at York from 1990-92 so the agents may have left by then.

…an eternity in politics

In his early fifties, he had been prime minister for only six months after leading his party to power in a general election that gave him a small, precarious majority [emphasis mine].

— Red Arctic, p 44-5

Crump could tell that the PM was scarcely listening. "What's this going to do to my reputation, my popularity, David? Things are bad enough as it is. I'm at the bottom of the heap in the polls even though I've been pulling off miracles. The economy's up, unemployment is down. We've repaired the holes in the free Trade Agreement. We've cut the deficit down to only $10 billion a year. And I've been able to show leadership in international matters. But nothing happens at the polls. I'm still at the bottom…"

— Red Arctic, p 151

I hate to even bring this up, but...

After two years as Reagan's National Security Advisor, Colin Powell became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1989, the year Rohmer published Red Arctic.

Twelve novels in... only four to go... have we encountered a single black character? 

I Have Seen the Future, and it Rohmers

I skipped ahead and read Massacre 747 last month.  My copy arrived the same week Ukrainian separatists shot down a civilian airliner (with Russian weapons) and the coincidence was too eerie to ignore.  Is life more like a Richard Rohmer novel -- repetitious and banal – than we care to admit?

Separation (1975) features a British prime minister named Margaret Thrasher four years before Margaret Thatcher takes office.

In 1980, Rohmer has PLO sappers in rubber rafts blowing holes in the sides of supertankers in Periscope Red.  In 2000, Al-Qaeda uses a small boat to blast a hole in the USS Cole.

In Triad (1982) Iraq uses a nuclear weapon to stop Iran from taking Baghdad.  In real life, Saddam starts using weapons of mass destruction against Iranian invaders in 1984.

In 1984’s Retaliation, Rohmer imagines Canadian banks buying American ones and making everyone crazy with awe. In 2004, Toronto-Dominion buys Banknorth, and then Commerce Bancorp in 2007.  Although the Boston Bruins are compelled to play their home games in the TD Garden, war hasn’t broken out.  Yet.

In Starmageddon (1986) Reagan builds Star Wars and it works.  You can’t win them all.

In Red Arctic (1989) the Soviet Navy and the RCMP battle for control of Canada's far north. And that was before the ice started melting.  Look, here’s the Economist, June 16, 2012:

“For half the 20th century the Arctic, as the shortest route between Russia and America, was the likeliest theatre for a nuclear war, and some see potential for fresh conflict in its opening. Russia and Canada, the two biggest Arctic countries by area, have encouraged this fear: the Arctic stirs fierce nationalist sentiment in both…
“Yet the melting Arctic will have geostrategic consequences beyond helping a bunch of resource-fattened countries to get fatter. An obvious one is the potentially disruptive effect of new trade routes. Sailing along the coast of Siberia by the north-east passage, or Northern Sea Route (NSR), as Russians and mariners call it, cuts the distance between western Europe and east Asia by roughly a third. The passage is now open for four or five months a year and is getting more traffic…
“For Russia, which has big plans to develop the sea lane with trans-shipment hubs and other infrastructure, this is a double boon.”

Spooky.  He’s like that guy who could see the future.  You know, Chris de Burgh.  And here’s the kicker, from the Economist:

“There are risks in this, of dispute if not war, which will require management. What is good for Russia may be bad for Egypt, which last year earned over $5 billion in revenues from the Suez Canal, an alternative east-west shipping route.”

What’s good for Russia may be bad for Egypt?  Not if snowshoe-wearing PLO assassins have anything to say about it.

Doe$ anyone el$e $mell a be$t seller?

If the major-general isn’t working on Red Arctic II, we may have to do it ourselves.

Red Arctic is the shortest Richard Rohmer novel – not half as long as Balls! – so why is it such a mess?

Let’s begin with the premise: Evidence is discovered that in 1763-64 a randy circus freak from Yakutsk claimed a bunch of islands for Mother Russia by spreading his seed and replicas of an “enormous silver buckle” throughout the Arctic Archipelago. Twenty-three or so decades later, Dr George Marshall, “the Osgoode Hall authority on international law”, finds that the claims are valid.

No need for a second opinion. Newfoundlanders are advised to prepare for the arrival of the Danish Navy at L’Anse aux Meadows.

The Soviets find Dr Marshall’s opinion so convincing that they begin set up camp, quite literally, throughout the Archipelago.

Again, no need for a second opinion. That said, the Politburo feels it necessary to get a ruling from the International Court of Justice.

Q: Why do both? Why not just wait for the Hague?

A: Because this is all part of Operation Red Arctic.

Q: Yes, but why risk “World War III” when you are certain that the ruling will go your way?

A: “Conflict and consequence are the basis of plot”, writes Rohmer (emphasis his) in How to Write a Be$t $seller. The man may be a lawyer, but he knows that when it comes to conflict guns, missiles and flights in planes with half-inflated tires trump legal argument.

Of course, Rohmer is much more than a lawyer. What he is not is an archeologist, a preservationist, an archivist or historian, which is why we have Inspector Frank Boychuk, RCMP, disturbing a grave, pawing through 18th-century logbooks, and flying about the country with irreplaceable documents and instruments of the highest importance.

I’ve got a sextant in my room. Want to see it?

Something I noticed early on with Rohmer, but have never addressed, is his problem with time. We see this with the many hour-long meetings found in his fiction. Dialogue, which amount to transcripts, never matches the length. I was thinking of this during the scene in the King Eddie bar – the one in which sexy Raisa walks dodges gawkers “like a ballerina slipping through the defensive line of the Denver Broncos.”

(I think Tyrone Braxton could've nailed Karen Kain. I don't mean this to sound at all sexual.)

Read the dialogue that follows aloud and you’ll find that just over a minute elapses between Raisa sitting, downing her white wine, and leaving with Boychuk.

Did anyone else notice that Boychuk orders wine for Raisa before she even arrives? How weird is that? And what a missed opportunity! She would’ve asked for vodka – which would’ve raised a red flag.

Pun intended.

But then there’s so much weirdness in Red Arctic, isn't there? Why is the RCMP in charge of everything? Why is Staff Sergeant Inspector Boychuk in command of the Armed Forces? Why can’t satellites detect Soviet activity in the Arctic Archapelago? Where are the American submarines? Why is the rest of world so silent? What makes Mikhail Gorbachev and the American president so chummy? Why is everyone so knowledgable about the 1989 Progressive Conservative budget?

I see the making of a drama set in the King Eddie bar (w/ dialogue drawn from the original):

Admiral Blank, CAF: The Mulroney government killed us in that 1989 budget and we’re paying the price now. 

President of the United States: Not only was morale crushed, every capital program for tanks, aircraft and other essential replacement equipment was ‘deferred’, meaning cancelled. 

Constable Joe Palmer, RCMP: Of all the dumb things to not go for a nuclear-powered sub. It’s the only kind of vessel Canada could get up here under the ice and look after defending these goddam waters in wartime and exercise sovereignty in peace time [sic]. We had the whole thing organized.

Inspector Frank Boychuk, RCMP: Yeah, it just took some goddam politician to blow it out of the water just the way old Diefenbaker destroyed the Avro Arrow program back in 1957 

President of the United States:  Since the 1989 political castration of your military, you’ve got nothing, no defense [sic] capability to use up there at all. 

The 1989 federal budget was delivered at the end of April. Red Arctic hit bookstore shelves in time for Christmas.

“Ohio” was released the month after Kent State shootings.

It’s like that.

Things I Learned from Richard Rohmer’s 1989 Thriller Red Arctic

Two superpowers (and Canada) stand toe-to-toe-to-toe in the far north in Richard Rohmer’s Red Arctic.  Submarines, jet fighters and de Havilland Twin Otters race to recover ancient Russian artifacts that could redraw the map of the world and tip the balance of power forever.  Think Ice Station Zebra plus Raiders of the Lost Ark, if what everyone wanted was a belt buckle.

Besides providing white-knuckle thrills, Red Arctic also reveals why Richard Rohmer, who was born to be in the Canadian Senate, never made it: He hated Brian Mulroney, and couldn’t stop saying it.

Red Arctic is sort of about high stakes action.  But it’s mostly about how Richard Rohmer thinks Brian Mulroney is a cheap, stupid dingleberry.

Because Rohmer lets us know, repeatedly and in no uncertain terms, that none of the action in Red Arctic would have happened – the Russians wouldn’t have tried to pull any of their crap -- if Canada had nuclear submarines.  And who didn’t buy those subs? Prime Minister Dumbass.

How many nuclear submarines should Canada have had to stand up to the Commies?  Rohmer doesn’t say, but according to the US Naval Institute, in 1991 the USSR had 235.  So let’s say 100.  (Let’s not go nuts.  It’s just a deterrent. We don’t have to match them boat for boat.) A Trafalgar-class hunter killer submarine cost £200 million in the 1980s.  So £200 billion worth.

A small price to pay.

Q.  Does Inspector Boychuk notice big tires?

Half an hour later the slow-moving Twin Otter was circling… the helicopter pilot satisfied Constable Palmer that, with its fat, oversize wheels and short-landing capability, he could put his aircraft down safely.  p.3

Boychuk looked out the hanger’s office window the short distance to the squat, white Twin Otter.  Its fixed undercarriage carried two outsized main-wheel tires… p.77

“It’s not gravel,” he spoke his assessment to Boychuk… "It looks to be fairly smooth although there’ll be lots of sharp edges. Looks okay with these fat tires.” p.87

“OK, Inspector,” the pilot said.  “As I said, our big fat tires are built for exactly that kind of stuff.” p.87

 “It’s an all-terrain vehicle,” Boychuk answered.  “It’s a Swedish design, being built for the army by a Calgary firm.  This is the first one I’ve seen.  Look at those big fat tires.” p.125

 Q. What do the Soviets call their secret mission in Richard Rohmer’s Red Arctic?

“Would the name ‘Operation Red Arctic’ be too descriptive, too close to the point?” p.60

“I think it’s a good name, Red Arctic.” p.60

Red Arctic p.61

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic, Red Arctic, Operation Red Arctic p.62

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic p.63

Operation Red Arctic p.64

Operation Red Arctic p.65

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic, Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic p.67

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic p.68

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic, Red Arctic p.69

Operation Red Arctic, Red Arctic p.70

Operation Red Arctic p. 130

Operation Red Arctic p. 131

Q. What do Russians drink?

Vodka, Vodka, Vodka, Vodka, Vodka p.54

Vodka, Vodka p.56

Vodka p.57

Vodka p.60

Q. What the hell?

“How in heaven’s name did it get there?” p.16

“How the hell do I do that, Inspector?” p.82

“What the hell are you hooked into the Pentagon for?” p.95

“And the president of all those wonderful United States of America, what the hell does he think he’s doing channeling to me through Greco and you?” p.100

“Where the hell is George Daniels?” p.101

“What the hell is that?” p.109

“What the hell is that? It’s huge.”  p.125

“How in hell could the Russians have all those submarines and landing parties in place and we don’t know about it, Admiral?” p.140

“How in the name of Christ did the Soviets get those documents?” p.141

“…what the hell am I supposed to do if we have to attack the sub?” p.143

“How in hell do you know that?” p.148

“Who the hell do you think you are, you arrogant son-of-a-bitch.” p.148

Q. Tell me something I already know.

“Commissioner, as you well know, the prime minister is a very busy guy.” p.45

“As I told you, Uncle, this case arrived on my desk today, just this morning.” p.57

“As I told you, what I need is your counsel, your advice, your experience.” p.58

“The first is that, you all well know, he is the nephew of our esteemed former chief of the general staff and still my close advisor.” p.67

“They’d also been able to trap white fox and rabbits but, as you know, they got into the muskox in a big way.”  p.77

“But I told you, no one knows about Shalaurov.  The Soviets can’t know!”

“And as I told you, I wouldn’t put anything past the KGB, nothing.” p.85

“I’ll get onto our National Security Agency people.  As you know, their job’s to monitor Soviet communications that might affect Canada.” p.96

“…the admiral has instructed the commander of air command to put his Hercs straight into the small airport at Pembroke.  As you know, it isn’t far from Petawawa.” p.98

…having regard to length of time it would take for the court to hold hearings on the matter, then finally come to a judgment, well, as everyone knew, that would have to be measured in terms of years rather than months.  p.130

“As you are fully aware, Prime Minister, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had filed an application with the International Court of Justice, claiming that which rightfully belongs to our nation, namely, most of the islands in the Arctic Archipelago lying north of the Northwest Passage.”  p.158

As you know...

Actually,  I'll ignore the many "as you knows" that once again pop up in the dialogue and concentrate on the unnatural way people are always speaking in Rohmer-world.  After HTWAB$ and his encouraging comments on dialogue getting to the point, again in Red Arctic we again have to suffer through lines and lines of information that is supposed to represent the way a conversation might sound, fact after fact after fact.  For example, as Boychuk, Raisa and pilot Joe Palmer are getting ready to leave in the Twin Otter to go flying off in search of  Shalaurov's cairns, Boychuk tells the other two about the Soviets trying to find alternative routes from the Arctic to Atlantic Ocean.  In one uninterrupted stretch of dialogue - one stretch! - he references the following geographical locations:

1. The Perry Channel
2. Ellef Rignes Island
3. Amund Rignes Island
4. The Perry Strait
5. The Wellington Channel
6. Barrow Strait
7. The Northwest Channel
8. Lancaster Sound
9. Baffin Bay
10. The Belcher Channel
11. North Kent Island
12. Jones Sound

And this is as they're getting ready to fly off on their mission, not while they're sitting around having a drink.

I actually wouldn't mind if this was part of the book - specific details can add verisimilitude if done right - but why is always done through forced dialogue? 

Random thoughts:

- all Russians apparently refer to their country as "Mother Russia".

- The Soviet foreign ministry officer is named Mikhail Akhromeyev; Dr. Sokolov's first name is Raisa.  Considering the book was written when Mikhail Gorbachev, husband of Raisa, was in power, couldn't he have cast the net a little wider looking for names?

- The central plot in Red Arctic - in which a document is discovered that gives Russia/The Soviet Union claim to much of the Canadian Arctic - is very similar to the Get Smart episode "Hello, Columbus – Goodbye, America", in which an ancient document is discovered that gives one of Christopher Columbus's descendants legal ownership of North America.  Not the same, but similar.  Though I doubt very much Rohmer would have thought very much of the episode title's Philip Roth joke. 

You’ll Be An Inspector, Have No Fear

Skipping ahead to Richard Rohmer’s Red Arctic, prepare yourselves for the return of an old friend… page 14…. the Mackenzie Delta!

A sweet reward for getting through Massacre 747, which is no fun at all.

Also on page 14 of Red Arctic, recently-widowed RCMP sergeant Frank Boychuk gets promoted to the rank of inspector.

“Betty would have been proud of you,” Garneau said as he shook Boychuk’s hand.

“Don’t worry. Wherever she is, she’s smiling.  If the truth were known – if it hadn’t been for Betty I would have left the force a long time ago.”

Wherever she is?  Like she might be in Hell? Or maybe she came back as a flatworm? Or maybe she’s just decomposing, underground, in a box?  I never quite understood this phrase as a nice thing to say.

Commissioner Garneau’s wife turned on the beside lamp.  “What is it?” she demanded. “Get it off your chest, or neither of us will get any sleep."

“Something Boychuk said today…”

“Didn’t he like the promotion?”

“It’s not that.  It’s just… it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Claude.  I've known you too long, and you’re too good a cop for that. Give!”

“It’s just, I said, ‘Betty would have been proud of you,’ and I could swear he said, “Wherever she is, she’s smiling.’”

“Are you sure? That’s so sick.  He must have hated her.”

“That’s what I thought.  But hated her enough… to murder her?”

Garneau was out of bed, pulling on his pants. “I’m going down to the office…”

“But it’s three in the morning!”

“I’ve got to see that autopsy report!”