Bird of Prey

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review, the review was done by Book Review contributor, Pat Koelmel:

Most days, I get my exercise from a brisk, five-mile walk, and along the way, I sometimes see roadkill. It isn’t often I see a dead cat, but when I do, it breaks my heart even more than seeing a dead squirrel or opossum. So I usually find a way to pull the cat’s body off the road to spare it further insult from passing cars. Therefore, I admit I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the thought of reading a book about a sadistic, kitty-killing seagull.

And once I started to read Bird of Prey, I wasn’t thrilled with its execution either. The seemingly never-ending sentences (the one I chose to add up totaled a whopping 131 words) were distracting as well as the bunching up of the dialogue of multiple characters into a single paragraph rather than separating it out as it is traditionally done. On top of that, there were a lot of grammatical errors. I also initially had a hard time getting into the story. In fact, the first pages left me wondering if there was ever going to be one. I was actually ready to slap a two-star rating on this novel and call it a day (which I now wonder, after finishing the book, if that could have been due, in part, to all those distractions).   

But, lo and behold, with the onset of Chapter 3, a story did appear to emerge with a character by the name of Mrs. Crick, an elderly, arthritic bird lover. Unfortunately, Mrs. Crick’s fascination with birds is described in too much detail and goes on way too long for my taste. And again, I started to wonder if a real story was ever coming. And, yes, Virginia, not only is there a Santa Claus, it turns out there is a story too … and a pretty good one at that. (Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the Christmas reference. ‘Tis the season after all.)

So how could a story about a seagull bent on killing cats be so good? Well, first of all, there’s a bit more to this 128-page novel. Set in the English seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea, public outcry over the discovery of one dead cat after another soon gets the police involved and on the hunt for the killer, assumed to be a man. But it is Mr. Ryan’s droll British wit, vivid imagination, and talent for creating a range of unique and quirky characters that truly hooked me.

    

I was also impressed with Mr. Ryan’s knowledge of gulls and how he incorporated facts about them throughout the storyline. For instance, did you know that a gull can drink sea water and expel the salt through its eyelids? (It’s true; I googled it.) Additionally, Mr. Ryan provided some excellent visuals of the gull’s attacks on the cats. For example (after dropping a cat into the sea to drown): “He [the gull] fancied diving down and grabbing the cat by the face so he could bring it back up to the surface again, to watch it sink for a second time, but he’d done this before and was captured in the clutches of two desperate paws with sharp protracted claws and nearly dragged down by the weight of the desperate, tired and dying creature.” (I do wish, however, that the author took more care to not use a word like desperate twice in one sentence.)

So you can see that, while it is difficult to forgive the grammatical issues, the further I got into this book, the more I enjoyed it. Intricately woven, Bird of Prey is a rare bird and well worth the read.  

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: After reading Bird of Prey, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 thriller The Birds. Based on a story by Daphne du Maurier and set in the California seaside community of Bodega Bay, it tells the story of the sudden and unexplained onset of invading flocks of homicidal birds.

Here are some interesting “behind-the-scene” facts from a list of 25 posted by Moviephone:

  

1. Daphne Du Maurier's novella, on which the film was based, was originally published in a 1952 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. Hitchcock had adapted two previous films from Du Maurier's work: 1939's "Jamaica Inn" and 1940 Best Picture Oscar winner "Rebecca."


2. The director had long had an interest in birds. He'd been a bird-watcher as a boy. He also took inspiration from a newspaper article he read in 1961 about hordes of dead birds washing up onto the streets in the seaside California town of Capitola.



3. Hitchcock initially wanted his 1950s leading lady Grace Kelly for the role of Melanie Daniels, but after she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, she retired from acting and declined all offers to return to Hollywood. He'd also sought Anne Bancroft for the role, but even with his expansive budget, he couldn't afford her. Others on his wish list included starlets Sandra Dee, Carol Lynley, Yvette Mimieux, and Pamela Tiffin.



4. He discovered his eventual leading lady, Tippi Hedren, a model with no acting experience, when he spotted her in a TV commercial for a diet drink during NBC's "Today" show. He would eventually groom her into one of his classic icy blondes (a la Kelly, Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Janet Leigh), choosing her clothes, hairstyle, and even her lipstick for her role as Melanie Daniels.



5. Hitchcock took his customary cameo at the beginning of the film; he can be seen outside the pet shop, walking two dogs, which were the director's own pets.