Books
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
THE GREAT PULP HEROES
Don Hutchison
Book Republic
Pub Date: April 24,2007
Before Superman and Batman, there were Doc Savage and The Shadow. The Spider and The Phantom Detective. Tarzan and Captain Future. They were gaudy, glorious, larger-than-life heroes who fought for justice and truth. But these pulp do-gooders weren’t afraid to pump a bad guy full of lead either. They lived in the pages of such pulp magazines as “Black Mask,” “Argosy,” “Jungle Stories,” “Amazing Stories,” and “Adventure.” And in the 1930s and ’40s they were everywhere. It was the golden age of short stories and heroes, and inspired hacks churned out millions of words during that time. It was, as author Don Hutchison writes, “the greatest explosion of mass entertainment via the printed word that a thrill-seeking public ever experienced.”
In “The Great Pulp Heroes” (revised edition), Don Hutchison chronicles the rise and fall of these old-time do-gooders and the hard-working wordsmiths who brought them to life. It’s an exciting ride that makes a 21st century fanboy wish he lived through the Great Depression.
The preeminent hero of the pulps was The Shadow, that mysterious, caped man who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. But his origin is far from inspiring. He was created after publisher Street and Smith decided to capitalize on the popularity of the mysterious voice, who went by The Shadow, on their radio program. The assignment has handed to a newspaperman and part-time magician named Walter Gibson. He was given no outline or character description, just the task of writing a 75,000 word story about someone named The Shadow. Gibson did so, under the pen name Maxwell Grant, and the magazine soon began to sell 300,000 copies an issue. Then, like Superman years later, The Shadow became the standard that every pulp publisher tried to reproduce. (more…)
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Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, 84, the author of such classic satirical sci-fi novels as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle,” and “Breakfast of Champions,” died yesterday.
His wife, photographer Jill Krementz, said Vonnegut had suffered brain injuries after a recent fall at his New York City home.
Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis. He wrote at least 19 novels as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays.
“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut once told a gathering of psychiatrists.
He had been retired from fiction writing in recent years, though he continued to publish short articles and, in fact, had a best-seller with 2005’s “A Man Without a Country,” a collection of nonfiction.
Vonnegut once quipped that of all the ways to die, he’d like to go out in a plane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.
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Tuesday, August 29th, 2006
Sure, Elmore Leonard is in his 80s. So what? The guy is getting better with age. Over a six-decade career, he’s written more than three dozen novels — most of them classics — and even a children’s book (A COYOTE’S IN THE HOUSE). The latest, THE HOT KID (available in paperback today), may be his best.
The setting is Depression-era Oklahoma — a hornet’s nest of outlaws, speakeasies and gun molls. But wait! There’s a new gun in town: Carl Webster, who’s fast becoming the most famous lawman in the land, thanks to True Detective writer Tony Antonelli. Soon Webster’s hot on the trail of Jack Belmont, the sociopath son of an oil millionaire who wants to usurp Pretty Boy Floyd as Public Enemy Number One. Bullets are flying. Bodies are dropping. And Carl Webster’s legend grows. Throw in a little red-head named Louly, who might be even deadly with a gun than Carl, and you have the perfect blend between Leonard’s early Westerns and modern crime tales.
THE HOT KID is Elmore Leonard in top form: cooler-than-cool characters, pitch-perfect dialogue, and a page-burning plot.
I can’t wait to see what Leonard’s writing in his 90s.
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Monday, April 17th, 2006
Part biography, part anthology, part social commentary, “The R. Crumb Handbook” is an insightful and entertaining introduction to the weirdo cartoonist.
Robert Crumb was a founder and leader of the underground comics movement that began in the 1960s. His sexually and politically outrageous work influenced scores of artists over the years, and some of his cartoons, such as Fritz the Cat and Keep on Truckin’, have even crept into the mainstream.
“The R. Crumb Handbook” weaves photos, images, and comics through Crumb’s narrative of his evolution from a tormented child to “America’s best-loved underground cartoonist.” Crumb also discusses the influence of other artists, such as Carl Banks and Will Eisner, on his work, and his thoughts on media and comics.
The book contains reprints of Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat as well as new work. There are also reprints of record covers, oil paintings, and scultptures created by Crumb.
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Saturday, December 31st, 2005
ROBERT GODDARD
INTO THE BLUE
BORROWED TIME
Delta
Pub. Date: January 31, 2006
Robert Goddard’s acclaimed mystery books, some long out of print and others never before published in the U.S., are being re-launched from an American publisher. The first two books in the in the six-book launch are INTO THE BLUE and BORROWED TIME.
In INTO THE BLUE, Harry Barnett, an Englishman on permanent vacation in Greece, finds himself at the center of the mysterious disappearance of a young beautiful woman. Trapped in a web of intrigue, Harry searches for the truth, discovering blackmail, lies and murder along the way. Goddard, who’s been compared to P.D. James and John le Carre, displays his mastery at suspense in this suspenseful character study. The plot continuously twists and turns, and Harry Barnett proves that middle-aged losers can be heroes, too. INTO THE BLUE should keep you up late flipping its pages.
In BORROWED TIME, English businessman Robin Timariot has a chance encounter with Lady Louise Paxton. Soon after, the woman is found dead, having been strangled and raped. Though a man is convicted of the murder, Timariot has his suspicions. As he seeks to learn what really happened to the dead woman, he becomes entangled with her dysfunctional family. Slowly Goddard, through his elegant prose, reveals the secrets and lies of this tortured clan. The plot twists are plentiful and the characters intriguing. BORROWED TIME is a must-read for any serious mystery fan.
However, the biggest mystery is why Robert Goddard has been held from our shores for so long.
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Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
JOHN SAUL
PERFECT NIGHTMARE
Ballantine Books
Pub. Date: August 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-345-46731-0
John Saul moves into Thomas Harris country with his latest novel, PERFECT NIGHTMARE, about a sexual-psycho who kidnaps two teenagers and a single mom for some perverted games.
At the heart of the story are the Marshalls. Kara and Steve’s marriage is disintegrating because of his increased time spent at work. So to save the family, they decide to leave the idyllic Long Island, New York town of Camden Green to be closer to Steve’s job. Teenage daughter Lindsay, about to enter her senior year in high school, isn’t happy about the move, and makes life tough for her parents. But things get even tougher. During the open house at the Marshall residence, a maniac hides under Lindsay’s bed and, when the time is right, snatches the poor girl. Soon Lindsay finds herself gagged and bound to a chair in a dark chamber, about to become a member of a bizarre, captive family. The police think Lindsay is just another disgruntled teen runaway, but they change their minds when it’s discovered that two others have also been kidnaped after open houses. The newspapers dub the perp the Open House Ozzie (I know, kinda lame).
Getting through the first few dozen pages will be the most difficult part of reading PERFECT NIGHTMARE. From there the story picks up; though, if you are a savvy mystery reader, you should figure out the identity of the stalker by page 120. Saul throws in red herrings, but they can been seen for what they are.
The psycho’s first-person narration adds some eeriness to the story, and the third-person scenes of the psycho in action are often brutal and intense.
Despite its many faults, PERFECT NIGHTMARE does keep you turning pages, if only to answer that menacing question, “What’s gonna happen next?”
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Monday, February 28th, 2005
JONATHON KING
A KILLING NIGHT
Dutton
Pub. Date: March 28, 2005
ISBN: 0-525-94865-1
Female bartenders in South Florida are disappearing left and right. Police detective Sherry Richards has a suspect: Colin O’Shea. But no one in the department will back her crusade. No bodies, no evidence…no crime, they tell her. Enter Max Freeman, a P.I. who lives in an Everglades shack and works for a lawyer with a bad stutter. Sherry recruits her onetime beau because he has a link to O’Shea. They were once fellow cops in Philadelphia. But Freeman has another connection to the freewheeling O’Shea—the guy saved Freeman from getting pumped full of lead one night. What’s a private dick to do? Get to the truth. And that’s just what Freeman does—with a side trip to the life he left behind in the City of Brotherly Love, where his ex-wife is now a lieutenant in the Internal Affairs Department. Torn between loyalty to his friend and his old lover, and between the past and present, Freeman has to navigate waters more dangerous than an Everglades swamp.
Jonathon King’s A KILLING NIGHT, the fourth Max Freeman novel, is a thoughtful, engrossing mystery. The story is rich in detail and keeps your pulse pounding as it alternates between Freeman’s first person narration and the third person chronicles of the killer at large. Recommended for any fan of P.I. literature.
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Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
CHARLIE STELLA
CHEAPSKATES
Carrol & Graf
Pub. Date: March 8, 2005
ISBN: 0-7867-1479-4
All Peter Rizzo wanted after getting out of Fishkill Penitentiary was the fifty grand his ex-wife stole from him. Instead the poor slob got three slugs to the chest. Rizzo’s former cellmate, Reese Waters, takes up his dead friend’s quest and goes after the dough himself. But Rizzo’s ex-wife is one nasty, cheap broad. Not to mention that there’s a few other sleazebags who want the money for themselves. Everyone is working some kind of angle, and it all—sort of—comes together at the end like some kind of Elmore Leonard gangbang. Except one thing—Elmore Leonard is a god and Charlie Stella is a mere mortal.
Stella was once described as a combination of Elmore Leonard and Mario Puzo. Their influence is evident in the wacky mob tale CHEAPSKATES. But Stella’s not as cool as Leonard or as romantic as Puzo. He’s a pretty cheap imitation. Then again not many writers are in the same league with Leonard and Puzo, so I’ll cut Stella some slack. CHEAPSKATES isn’t a total waste, though. It has its funny moments and a few well-written characters.
If you want Leonard, get OUT OF SIGHT. If you want Puzo, get THE GODFATHER. If you don’t take your crime fiction too seriously and you’re not expecting to be knocked off your feet, give Charlie Stella are try.
Postscript:
After this review was posted on iloveamysterynewsletter.com, I got a response from the author of “Cheapskates.” Here it is:
From: charlieopera@aol.com
Subject: Cheapskates
Sorry you weren’t Knocked off your feet.
For the record … I’ve been compared to Elmore Leonard 9 times … Higgins an even dozen … and the two bad reviews I’ve received over 4 books now (including yours), both mentioned Elmore Leonard …
It’s an honor being mentioned in the same sentence as him anytime and every time.
best to you and yours,
Charlie Stella
www.charliestella.com
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Saturday, January 1st, 2005
GRAHAM MASTERTON
UNSPEAKABLE
Pocket Star Books
Pub. Date: February 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7434-6294-7
Being deaf is the least of Holly Summers problems. By day she’s a child welfare officer; by night she’s a lip-reader for the Portland police department; in between she fends off sleazy men and cares for her young daughter. Life is hectic, but manageable. Then Holly encounters Elliot Joseph.
Joseph, a Native American who nearly beats his wife and son to death, puts the curse of the Raven on Holly, and soon Holly’s luck goes from bad to worse. She loses her job, she’s betrayed by friends, her daughter is kidnapped, and then she finds herself the victim of a bizarre sex club.
Graham Masterton’s new thriller UNSPEAKABLE is a fast-paced thriller full of twists and drama. Holly Summers, who is based on a real-life lip reader, is a sympathetic and interesting character. And the ending is sure to leave your mouth hanging wide open.
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Monday, November 1st, 2004
DONNA ANDERS
AFRAID OF THE DARK
Pocket Books
Pub. Date: December 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7434-2731-9
Jessie Cline was having a bad day. First she was attacked by a perp in an alleyway; then her son was threatened by gang members. The single mom, and San Francisco police officer, prayed for help — and a few paragraphs later those prayers were answered. She has inherited her ancestral home, Wind House, in a remote village on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
But not so fast. Jessie’s mom has reservations about the move. After all, she fled Wind House with Jessie after her husband died under mysterious circumstances. Then there’s a stipulation — Jessie has to live in the house for a year before she can inherit it. And when Jessie arrives at the house, she discovers the life-sized portrait over the fireplace. Could it be? Yes; it’s the spitting image of Jessie.
At this point (and there’s still another 340 pages left) it’s obvious the clichés are going to fly. And fly they do in Donna Anders’ new thriller, AFRAID OF THE DARK.
Things get worse — vandals attack Jessie’s house, threatening letters are sent, things go bump in the night. Then there’s a weird cult that lives on the island, a weird old lady who lives on a boat, and a controversial political cartoonist who has a past with Jessie.
Anders works hard, too hard sometimes, but AFRAID OF THE DARK never delivers on the thrills.
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Sunday, October 31st, 2004
FLAT CRAZY
A Blanco County Mystery
BEN REHDER
St. Martin’s Minotaur
$24.95 (308 pages)
Pub. date: September 7, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32135-X
Blanco County game warden John Marlin has his hands full.
An unidentified wild beast is on the loose in the Texas hill country. Is it a mythical creature called a chupacabra? The residents of Blanco County sure think so. Things get worse when a hunter’s body turns up with a bizarre neck wound and sleazy TV journalists come looking for a hot scoop. Meanwhile, good ol’ boys Billy Don Craddock and Red O’Brien concoct the perfect scheme: catch the chupacabra and make a bundle. Then, as if things weren’t absurd enough, an Asian dwarf porno star with erectile dysfunction is thrown in the mix. And Viagra isn’t the answer to his problem.
Somehow it all comes together in FLAT CRAZY, the hilarious, but overwritten, third installment in Ben Rehder’s Blanco County mystery series.
The plotting is relentless. Rehder is constantly weaving in and out of the various story lines, never allowing a scene to play out in one take. The jump cuts keep the tension high, but their effect weakens through overuse.
The pace is breakneck. Rehder never fails to keep the story turning, but things slow down when his pen goes into overdrive, bloating the story with insignificant details and a ton of plot lines. Nothing liberal editing couldn’t easily cure, though.
But the charm of Blanco County is in its wacky characters and even wackier occurrences, and FLAT CRAZY has plenty of both. You’ll certainly bust a gut, just as long as you have a juvenile sense of humor and an appreciation for the outrageous. If you don’t crack a smile when you hear the phrase “Asian dwarf porno stars,” look elsewhere.
For those who don’t take their mysteries too seriously, FLAT CRAZY is wonderful, light fun. The only problem: Are you laughing at Texas or with it?
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Sunday, September 5th, 2004
DOUBLE HOMICIDE
JOHNATHAN & FAYE KELLERMAN
Warner Books
$23.95 (256 pages)
Pub. date: October 5, 2004
ISBN: 0-446-53296-7
Johnathan and Faye Kellerman have put their best-selling minds together and come up with DOUBLE HOMICIDE, a new series of short crime books.
The first installment contains two novellas, “In the Land of Giants” and “Still Life,” each co-written by the husband and wife team.
“In the Land of Giants” is set in a frigid Boston, where detectives Dorothy Breton and Michael McCain have a real mystery on their hands. College basketball star Julius Van Beest is gunned down in a downtown nightclub, and all fingers point to a rival hoopster. A slam-dunk case, right? Wrong, says medical examiner John Change.
In “Still Life,” the weaker of the two stories, Santa Fe detectives Darrel Two Moons and Steve Katz spend the holiday season investigating the bludgeoning murder of a wealthy—and despised—art gallery owner.
The tales are straight-up police procedurals ruined by inexpert storytelling.
The plotting is handled ably, but the Kellermans get clumsy when drawing their characters. “Still Life” lapses into a coma on several occasions from long-winded character histories. At one point the plot is interrupted for thirty pages of character sketches. It’s only a 133 page story, for goodness sake.
There’s another big no-no. “In the Land of Giants” opens dramatically with Detective Breton discovering a gun in her son’s backpack. There’s an old theater adage that says, “If there’s gun over the mantel in Act I, then it must go off in Act II.” Neither the gun nor the son ever figures in the story. So why open with this plot device? Does it have something to do with characterization? Theme? Plot? Seems more like a cheap tease.
DOUBLE HOMICIDE isn’t either of the novelists’ best work. Two Kellermans certainly aren’t better than one.
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Tuesday, August 10th, 2004
Double Play
by Robert B. Parker
Putnam
$24.95 (288 pages)
Robert B. Parker mixes fact with fiction in “Double Play,” a bare-bones, fast-paced baseball fantasy set during Jackie Robinson’s 1947 rookie season.
Parker is best known for his Spenser novels (the basis for the TV series “Spenser for Hire”), but has stepped out of the mystery genre on a few occasions. Over a 30-year career, he’s written a thriller (“Wilderness”), a romance (“Love and Glory”), and a Western (“Gunman’s Rhapsody”).
“Double Play” focuses on Joseph Burke, a World War II veteran who was severely wounded at Guadalcanal. Burke returns home after a long, difficult rehabilitation to find that his wife has betrayed and abandoned him, leaving him bitter and hardened. But the fearless, tough-as-nails former Marine gets a chance for redemption when he stumbles into baseball history. Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey needs someone to protect Jackie Robinson as he attempts to break baseball’s color barrier. No doubt the baddies will be coming out of the woodwork looking to make life difficult for the pioneering black man. And Burke is just the man to keep them at bay.
Things heat up when a Harlem wiseguy named Paglia takes aim at Jackie. Burke must weave his way through the New York underworld, pitting gangster against gangster, to protect Jackie, and himself. Along the way Burke comes to admire and respect the baseball legend, and falls for a wild socialite named Lauren. Then, after a bloody showdown at Ebbets Field, Burke finds what he was running away from all along: love and meaning. Heart warming. But don’t expect much depth in “Double Play.”
The characters are tight-lipped, the detail sparse, emotions non-existent. The only reaction you’ll get out of Burke is a shrug—and he shrugs a lot.
Parker tries to add depth with his “Bobby” chapters, in which the author offers his reminiscences on the era. But that only highlights what is lacking in the main story. What makes minimalists good is that they do more with less. Here you just get less.
Parker fans might enjoy “Double Play,” but others should sit this one out.
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Sunday, June 13th, 2004
BROOLYN NOIR
Edited by Tim McLoughlin
Akashic Books
$15.95 (366 pages)
Release date: July 2004
Brooklyn’s reputation as a gangland full of loudmouth goombas and cold-blooded wiseguys is deeply etched in the American imagination. It is, after all, the birthplace of such lowlifes as Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, and Salvatore “Sammy The Bull” Gravano. Mention Brooklyn today and people still think of Murder Incorporated or John Travolta strutting down 86th Street in “Saturday Night Fever.” Yeah, Brooklyn has a lot more to offer – a museum, botanical gardens, that bridge – but for those romantics who remember a time when men proudly displayed chest hair and real cars were equipped with curb feelers, the borough will always be about the criminal underworld and tough-guy swagger. So a collection of 20 new crime tales, each set in a different Brooklyn neighborhood, seems like a great idea, right? Well, the idea is good. It’s the book that sucks.
“Brooklyn Noir,” edited by Tim McLoughlin, takes the reader on an often bizarre, seldom entertaining trek through the borough’s dark and murderous streets – but you might want to wait for the next ride.
The first stop is Park Slope, the setting of Pete Hamill’s “The Book Signing.” In the pensive tale, a writer who abandoned Brooklyn for sunny California along with the Dodgers returns to the old neighborhood and confronts the past he thought he buried back in 1957. McLoughlin’s “When All This Was Bay Ridge” also reaches into the past to conjure up demons. In the story, a young man discovers his dead father’s darkest sins after a conversation in a Sunset Park bar. Several of the anthology’s other writers also build their stories on this tension between the past and present, but not to equal effect.
However, in the collection’s two best, and most gripping, tales the tension is very much in the here and now. The first, Arthur Nersesian’s “Hunter/Trapper,” is a creepy thriller about an obsessive Internet correspondence that leads to vivisection. And in the subtle suspense tale “Dumped” by Nicole Blackman, a trio of inconsiderate boyfriends are repaid for their bad behavior.
The rest of the ride, unfortunately, is full of dead-ends. Too many stories run like a bad Joe Pesci movie, idly exploiting the borough’s tough-guy image and employing wooden characters who talk as if they just took a Berlitz course in Brooklynese.. Or, the stories ignore Brooklyn altogether and instead offer bland cops-and-robbers fare. Brooklyn, with its rich history of shady characters, deserves better.
If you mind slogging through the muck to stumble upon the occasional good story, then fuhgedaboutit…. but for the curiosity seeker the odd cast of characters might be worth the fare. Not many mystery anthologies can boast such dramatis personae as a Hasidic private eye (“Hasidic Noir”), an East New York horse thief (“Triple Harrison”), a white Rastafarian drug dealer (“Crown Heist”), and a hardcore rapper seduced by a shemale (“The Code”). Diversity has always been among Brooklyn’s many charms.
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