cover image Temple and Shipman

Temple and Shipman

Donald Pfarrer. MS in a Bottle, $12 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-9667540-0-1

What starts out as a typical police brutality yarn takes a schmaltzy turn while examining racial justice, familial bonds, and the price of perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Three white police officers--Banes, Ruthenbeck and Temple--are hunting for a black rapist when they come upon a young black man, Hawk Shipman, who fits the description. During questioning a fight erupts and Temple, a former pro football player with a short fuse, kills Hawk with his fists. Hawk, as it turns out, is an innocent college honors student on his way to the barbecue restaurant owned by his father, John. Ruthenbeck plants a knife on the dead youth and invents a plausible scenario to justify their murderous mistake: Temple was using necessary force to restrain the armed and violent suspect. Hawk's death strikes a sentimental chord for Temple: he has a son of his own, and thwarted dreams, too, with his troubled marriage and hopes of becoming a lawyer. Temple wants to come clean, and all but exposes Ruthenbeck's fabrication. Another painful decision is made by John Shipman, who initially is a poorly characterized figure who seems to accept the death of his son all too easily. More from plot contrivance than sustained development, John suddenly begins to plot with a security guard friend to avenge Hawk's killing. While Pfarrer (Guerilla Persuasion) delivers a bang-up action beginning, he slows the narrative with ruminations on race that veer away from the suspenseful core of the novel and give a maudlin edge to the plot. Yet this is an earnest attempt to come to terms with serious questions that plague our society. (Feb.) FYI: Journalist Pfarrer covered the civil rights movement for national newspapers. He founded MS in a Bottle to address questions of racial relations.