It must be something about this time of year. It's Halloween, with little kids everywhere dressing up as their favorite whatevers (pink princesses, Harry Potters, witches, Power Rangers, and Other). So, naturally, I'm seeing B7 characters hiding in books, cleverly disguised as other people.
I've been reading Anne Perry's latest William Monk mystery (spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't) and it suddenly hit me he could be Avon (although there are parallels with other characters as well).
Oh, probably not (although the main detective in her other series looks suspiciously like Tom Baker's Doctor, so who knows?).
Also, this got longer than I expected, but check out the quotes. They really do fit Avon.
For the first B7 episode comparison, when Monk is introduced, he is a police detective who has just lost his memory in an accident, a fact he is at pains to hide. Although an evil government cospiracy is NOT trying to frame him for unspeakable crimes, somebody is, and Monk doesn't know himself whether the evidence he is looking at is real, false, or misinterpreted.
Despite that, he's more Avonish. He quickly discovers nobody he worked with liked him and that he had never shared details of his past with any of them. Reflecting on one of his first meetings with a sargeant, we're told "Then is had been fear in the man's face, an instant respect born of the experience of Monk's lacerating tongue and his expectation that everyone should match his own standards, in precisely his way.'
When Monk has to deal with an officer he used to treat with contempt, he's not happy. We're told, "It was largely pride. It stung like like a burn on the skin, but he could not possibly ignore either the duty . . . or the inner compulsion to learn the truth. The purity and the danger of knowledge had always fascinated him, even when it forced him to face things that hurt, stripped bare secrets and wounds. It was a challenge to his skill and his courage, and facing Runcorn was a price he never seriously thought too high."
There's no one named Blake, but there is a doctor named Beck who fought in the 1848 revolutions in Germany. There's also no one named Cally, although one of Monk's few friends is a woman named Callandra. Oh, and Monk doesn't have a brother who appears briefly in the plot only to vanish and never appear again. He has a sister who apears briefly in the plot only to vanish and never appear again.
However, in this latest book (Funeral in Blue), that themes of revolutions past come up. One woman who was a leader is described in Blakian terms. Her ability to inspire others is described as "it was the passion inside her, the force of her vision, which made her unique. She had the power to carry others into her dreams."
Beck the revolutionary is described as "a pretty good hero too, a real fighter. Not only brave, but pretty clever, a sort of natural leader. He had the courage to face the enemy down. Could read people rather well, and knew when to call a bluff, and just how far to go. He was tougher . . . and prepared to take the risks."
Also, when the soldiers had been given the information where to corner Beck and some others, he wounded their leader, his Travis-like archenemy in fact, leading to the guy losing his leg.
Oh, there's no one named Anna, but there was a Hanna. She was in love with Beck, betrayed and captured by the enemy, and died under torture rather than betray him and the others (for the RoD Anna, that's the woman who betrayed Hanna and married Beck [only to be murdered in this book] and the first part of whose name, Elissa von, can _almost_ be rearranged into Servalan).
Come to think of it, in discussing criminal motives, Monk speaks in revealing, hypothetical terms of how a man might react to an attack on a woman he loved. "[Does] he go storming off to kill the man he believes responsible . . . ? In his own rage and guilt that he was not there to protect her, he can attack someone who may or may not be responsible, and risk injustice and his own catastrophic blame, almost certainly arrest, and possibly prison or [death] for himself . . . Is that reasonable or intelligent? Is it going to produce good for anyone at all?"
Oh, and Monk, in digging into his own past, did discover some unsuccessful bank fraud (Monk seems to suspect he was the guilty party and that the man who was accused and died in prison [who may or may not have been like a father to him] was innocent. Readers may give Monk the benefit of the doubt, noting that he joined the police right after that).
OK, I could go on forever, but I'll stop with this quote which would be perfectly Avonish in a PGP.
"I used to imagine that no one would act against their own iterests or do things that are going to result in something they passionately don't want. But that isn't true. Sometimes we just react to the moment, and don't look even to the very next thing after it. We lash out in terror or outrage. Something seems so monstrously unjust we seek reparation, or revenge, without looking further to think what it does to us, or to anyone else."
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