No. No, no, no.

[jmc_bks]

"Not implausible, knowing...his purported shady dealings with off-the-books government agencies like Blackwater."

No. Hell no. Blackwater is not a government agency of any type, off the books or on. It is a privately owned FOR PROFIT business. Yes, it gets a great deal of money from the government to do things that ought not be put out to bid (or even given no-bid contracts). Being paid by the government to do a job does not make a company the government. It is a limited liability company only, I believe, meaning that it has no authority from any document like the Constitution, in terms of its raison d'etre or its governance, mission or vision. Instead it is governed by Articles of Organization, a bare bones document usually, normally filed with the charter office of the state in which the entity was formed/organized. More specific governance information can be found in the Operating Agreement, which is usually NOT a public document.

To read that sentence in the text of a mystery novel disturbs me mightily, as it implies to me that the narrator does not understand the difference between a government of/by/for the people and a company that is out to make money. [A company can be patriotic and still profitable, but the two are not interchangeable, IMO.] Maybe that was the author's intent, I don't know. But it yanked me right out of the story, and has me wondering about the author's politics and those of the narrator, which I'm pretty sure is not what the author wanted from me as a reader. Was this a thoughtful hint about her politics and world view? Or was it just careless writing? As much as I enjoy her voice, I've found the writing in her earlier books (and this one, too, although to a lesser extent) to be a little loose and sloppy, which makes me not as tolerant about this single, toss away line as I might be otherwise.

Afterthought: Of course, maybe the author was extremely careful with the usage of the word "agency" and I'm just reading into it. Maybe the author was not refering to generic "government agencies", but instead to a specific legal relationship between Blackwater and the government under the law of agency. So I'll shut up now and get off my soap box, leaving with just this reminder: this tangent that I've gone off on is probably not the response that the author was seeking from readers. Just sayin'.

Comments

Dropping out

[(Anonymous)]

If I'd read that sentence it'd have dropped me out too, but now you've piqued my curiosity. Which book was it? Perhaps the author was referring to certain conspiracy theories that involve the U.S. gov't and private businesses and war and money and on and on ..

Amanda

Re: Dropping out

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Snow Blind by Lori G. Armstrong

Book title

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the title. Sounds intriguing in a horrible train wreck kinda way.

Amanda

Re: Book title

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Actually, the book itself was pretty good, and I'm working on a review. This line, though, really bothered me. The narrator is thinking about a minor character who has been established as an ex-commando kind of guy, who still is involved probably in some shady stuff. I was just set off by the idea that *anyone* (even a character) could think that Blackwater was a government agency rather than a company in the business of making money.