North Chatham, New York — U.S.A. Should you ask of us here in the hills of rural New York State, a region of apple orchards and dairy farms and green mountains and our hamlet of five hundred and three souls, my wife Kim and I are faring well enough since fleeing the big city three weeks ago. More than two hundred kilometers to the south lies New York City, population nine million—epicenter of the coronavirus global pandemic, and hometown of a dangerous buffoon in down in Washington whose name IRead More

North Chatham, New York — U.S.A. Last time in this space, we dealt with the theme of stupidity as complement to incompetence—both forces kill—and how the world’s leading example of this deadly synthesis comes in the person of Donald J. Trump, dedicated to ignoring science and empowered by a supine Republican Party and backstage oligarchs. Ever since, Mr. Trump’s ineptitude and ignorance, seeds of his anger and amorality, has metastasized in ways too numerous to mention—preventing any rational or coherent national strategy for dealing with America’s greatest medical crisis sinceRead More

NEW YORK CITY, near America Lawrence Peter Berra—sportsman and grand master of spoonerisms—warned us of epochal times like these: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The late Mr. Berra (1925-2015) is affectionately known by generations of New York Yankees fans as “Yogi.” When he can bear to look down from where he resides in Baseball Heaven, I believe he is distressed by what he sees: an unholy number of us Americans’ failure to grasp the caution implied in his most famous lapsus linguae, beguiled as we habitually are by allRead More

By Thomas Adcock Copyright 2020-Thomas Adcock  NEW YORK CITY, near America As I write on this final day of January, it appears that Donald Trump will be found not guilty in his so-called impeachment trial in the upper chamber of the United States Congress. Despite the dishonest verdict—orchestrated by a once grand old American political party, now destined to live in infamy—I encourage a cheerful view: Donald Trump is toast. In this bleak moment, my outlook may be considered Pollyannaish. But as surely as the calendar moves forward to ElectionRead More

Thomas Adcock –Ann Anders –Friedrich Ani –Max Annas –Bruno Arich-Gerz –Matthias Arning – Thomas Adcock This year, I have but one nomination for the best in cultural offerings: “The Irishman”, a motion picture tour de force from Martin Scorsese, the American director/producer/screenwriter.  Over his stunningly productive sixty-year career, Mr. Scorsese has gifted the world with twenty-five narrative films, among them what are often cited by cinephiles as the greatest ever made, viz. “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull”, and “Goodfellas”. Now comes his masterpiece. As a gangster epic, “The Irishman” is madeRead More

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – U.S.A. With respect to religion and/or spirituality, I am a devout believer in the God of Irony. As testament to my faith, behold the present-day, oddly coifed idol of Christian Evangelism and Pentecostalism—an American president who proudly prostitutes a code of decency given unto the world two millennia ago by a Nazarene carpenter of note. During an earlier once-upon-a-time—June of 1998, actually—some of the biggest machers of American Christendom assembled in Salt Lake City, Utah, to adopt a “Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials.”Read More

“When authoritarian figures can do no wrong, the problem is not so much with the leader but with the followers, who, like followers of religious cults, willingly drink the proverbial Kool-Aid regardless of how high their IQ may actually be. Seeing their unearned, privileged positions threatened by merit-based concepts such as equality, they embrace cult leaders who present themselves as the only solution to their downward-spiraling predicament, or as Trump proclaimed while mounting the Republican National Convention stage: ‘I am your voice. I alone can fix it.’” —Miguel A. DeRead More

[NOTE: Following are remarks delivered by Thomas Adcock – in an condensed version – to an audience of writers, editors, translators, filmmakers and television producers gathered in Köln in late September for KrimisMachen 4. They have been adapted for publication here.] KÖLN – Germany With each new decade of my life, I have heard this expression: “The world’s gone mad!” Until recently, I considered this an overstatement by friends and family—people I love and admire for caring about the good things of life: peace among nations, human fulfillment, art andRead More

„Ein Romancier muss die Wohlhabenden verstören“ Ein Interview von 1994 – als Begrüßung des Ehrengasts von KrimisMachen 4, vom 27. – 29. September 2019 in Köln CrimeMag-Lesern ist Thomas Adcock mit seinen zuverlässig jeden Monat gelieferten Essays zum Stand der Dinge in den USA wohl vertraut. Aber kennt man ihn auch noch als Autor von Kriminalromanen? Vier von ihnen sind – damals hoch beachtet zwischen 1989 und 1995 in Deutschland erschienen (auf Deutsch bei Spraybooks vorrätig). Das Interview von Thomas Wörtche aus dem Jahr 1994 macht geradezu mustergültig die Haltung des RomanciersRead More

First glimpse into a brand new novel Thomas Adcock, author of the Neil Hockaday novels is back in all the old glory The hero of Thomas Adcock’s „Painted Devils“ is a world-weary New Yorker by the name of Matty O’Neill, who describes „the markers of my previous lives“ as „U.S. Army war criminal, a red-headed boxer called Rusty O’Neill, a boozer, a policeman, a crime reporter [and] all too briefly, a husband.“ We follow Matty’s painful remembrances of growing up in an immigrant household full of resentments—and unspoken mysteries—against theRead More

In the Beginning, a Terrace in Manhattan                                                                                                                                                                 Running out of room for Mother Nature  Ah, the Country Life … No End to Savage AmusementViolent geese, vile squirrels, toads in love, etc. Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NORTH CHATHAM, New York—U.S.A. Once upon a time, my wife and I were content as full-time denizens of hustle-bustle Manhattan—brash heart of a loud city populated by hundreds of skyscrapers and nearly nine million squabbling strivers; where anyone not beating you over the head with a club has friendship potential. We lived—and still do, Monday throughRead More

RHINEBECK, New York—USA We are halfway through 2019 as members of the United States Congress are scurrying en masse back to home districts across the land, in accordance with one of their numerous recesses from important business we voters elected them to attend. Per the previous two years’ periodic recessionals, they abandoned Washington having done zilch about the most important business at hand: a one-man crime wave named Donald J. Trump. Upon his inauguration as president, in January 2017, the ridiculously coifed Mr. Trump set forth to consolidate power. InRead More

by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America In January 2016, in Montréal, the old man lay dying.  Perhaps he silently cursed having reached the age of ninety-nine rather than a full century well deserved. Surely he reflected on his long ago life in Berlin; in particular, Kristallnacht—the night of November 9 in 1938, when Hitler’s brown-shirts assaulted Jews in the streets, smashed the windows of Jewish-owned shops, burned synagogues to the ground. Perhaps he gave silent thanks to his having the wisdom andRead More

by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America In last November’s federal legislative elections, Democrats swept to party leadership in half the two-chamber Congress of the United States—the House of Representatives, affectionately known as “the people’s House.” At last! Power to the people! Voters turned out in historically high numbers to demonstrate their profound disgust with the cupidity, immorality, and criminality of Donald J. Trump and his enablers of the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil Republican Party. Heeding the message of upstart Democratic contenders, featuring a bumperRead More

NORTH CHATHAM, New York—U.S.A. William Barr, attorney general of the United States, did exactly what Donald J. Trump hired him to do: On the afternoon of March 24, in Washington, he granted absolution to his lord and master—Donald J. Trump, suspected of treason and obstruction of justice. This act of legal mercy occurred on a Sunday, when evangelical Christian Trumpisti throughout the land undoubtedly spent their Sabbath morning beseeching Jesus and the Holy Father to spare the Golden-Haired One from impeachment or imprisonment. As the world knows by now, aRead More

Please…Call us ‘People of Means’ New York to world’s richest man: Fuhgeddaboudit by Thomas Adcock –Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock  NEW YORK CITY, near America A prosperous dolt named Howard Schultz scored his most notable life achievement in 1995 by inventing the Mocha Frappuccino, a briskly profitable confection peddled throughout his empire of Starbucks coffee houses. A quarter century later, now comes Mr. Schultz asking voters to believe that his caffeinated brainstorm, and the billions of dollars accrued, qualifies him to be president of the United States.   Bad timing, Mr.Read More

NEW YORK CITY, near America Picture the current American presidency as gangster-laden film noir, a tawdry movie with two leading rôles: a thuggish lawyer called “The Fixer,” employed by “The Don,” malevolent godfather of a crime syndicate. The stars: Michael D. Cohen as consigliere, Donald J. Trump as capo di tutti capi. So it was, in life off the screen, for ten sorry years. Then came the morning February 27, a cold and sunny Wednesday in Washington. One of the stars broke character on live television. During five hours ofRead More

Get Out! Curtains Closing on a Carnival of Crime Down Among the Dead Men Let Him Lie’  by Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America Happy New Year to all you fighting men and women of The Resistance! Ever since the surreality of a bellicose Know-Nothing’s criminal ascension to the presidency, back in November 2016, you have acted in the grand spirit of the American Revolution of some two centuries ago—a nervy peasant uprising, begun in 1776, that ousted a crazy-cruel British tyrant. You own the triumphal moment at hand: OurRead More

Thomas Adcock Ann Anders Friedrich Ani Max Annas Bruno Arich-Gerz Rolf Barkowski Thomas Adcock: Best of American Culture – Year 2018 – This was the year when the United States began a return to civic normalcy. What feels so long ago, the presidential election of November 2016, began a dark aberration from what we Americans like to think of ourselves—in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Now justice is at hand for a crime syndicate that has coöpted the White HouseRead More

‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …’ (Oh, never mind) Baby Jesus, go home by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America  Where to begin on the subject of the most loathsome mobster currently at large in the United States? Every thirty days as I sit down to compose my monthly offering to CrimeMag, I ask this question. Today, I ask again, Where to begin with Donald J. Trump? Mr. Trump’s endless racketeering, mendacity, and racism are daily cyclones ripping throughRead More

Fear, Loathing and Madness in the White House Eine merkwürdige Paralyse grassiert unter maßgebenden amerikanischen Politikwissenschaftlern, Historikern, Journalisten und aktiven Politikern: Wenn über das Thema Impeachment diskutiert wird, lautet die Devise der Wegducker: „Don´t mention the I-word“! Warum eigentlich? Als wirksame Drohkulisse hatte die Einleitung eines Impeachmentverfahrens bereits 1974  „Tricky Dick“ Richard  Nixon vor einer endgültigen Amtsenthebung zum Rücktritt veranlaßt. Von Peter Münder Den Wahlkampf von Donald Trump hatte Allan Lichtman genau verfolgt und sogar den völlig überraschenden, sensationellen Wahlsieg des egomanischen Dealmakers vorhergesagt, worauf der Wahlsieger T sich sogarRead More

Messiah of the Maniacs America’s Red Hat Road to Hell Donald Trump’s bad hair day by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America The racist crime syndicate occupying the White House, headed by what psychologists identify as a malignant narcissist, has gone to panic mode. The signs are plentiful. State and federal elections held on November 6 delivered a massive political rebuke of il capo di tutti capi, namely Donald J. Trump. The reaction has been a daily cascade of falsehoods from Mr. TrumpRead More

Moral Civil War Decency vs. Debasement  Seeking exit from the New Confederacy by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America Reasonable citizens trapped in the bedlam of Trumpistan are angry—or depressed, or disgusted, or distressed, or despairing, or drained of energy needed to absorb the drumbeat of cupidity and criminality emanating daily from a debauched White House. Some days, all these emotions meld into an existential sorrow: Cry the beloved country. We limp through these last gasps of October in hopes that next month’sRead More

‘White People Have Lost Their Damn Minds’ Mad dogs, ideologues & 2-year-olds in Crazytown by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NORTH CHATHAM, New York—U.S.A. Even now, twenty-one months into life under a White House crime syndicate facilitated and funded by Kremlin spies and oligarchs, I cannot wrap my head around a seemingly minor statistic here in the land of Trumpistan: On Election Day 2016, fifty-three percent of white female voters—fifty-three percent—decided that a man with a ludicrous yellow hairdo and a hamburger gut who appeared on televisionRead More

Lord Trump Almighty Gladdening the Heart of Lucifer  ‘Ego te absolvo’ by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock   NEW YORK CITY, near America Scheduled to open in October in more than a thousand “select” American cinemas is a motion picture entitled “The Trump Prophecy,” produced by Liberty University of Virginia, a bottom-tier institute of evangelical Christian instruction. The university is hustling advance ticket sales via online movie trailers meant for the mesmerizing pleasure of stalwarts in a religio-political cult whose lord and savior is said to haveRead More

Trump-Drunk ‘End Times’ for ‘Pipsqueak Putin’ Bigots, boobs & bible bullies—Aus! Weg mit Dir! by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America Sadly for the United States and beyond, a degenerate fraudster, mendacious vulgarian, misogynistic swine, and all-round scrofulous lout occupies the White House—from whence he reigns as the racist godhead of a fascistic religio-political cult. The reasons for this plague of the moment are murky, debatable, and pathetic. Among them: Hillary Clinton’s stunningly inept presidential campaign of 2016; a cyber-attack of Russian disinformationRead More