tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35188245475713836352023-07-17T21:53:27.664-07:00Black AlibisRog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-52301939052831676592012-11-24T16:33:00.001-08:002012-11-24T16:54:55.589-08:00The Gutter and the Grave by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8205/8214573379_134caced87.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8205/8214573379_134caced87.jpg" width="197" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover Painting by R B Farrell</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Matt Cordell was a private detective until the day that he
found one of his employees in bed with his wife and whipped him with a gun. Now his
wife has gone, he’s lost his license as a result of the pistol-whipping, and
spends most of his time in the Bowery in close communion with a bottle. At
least that’s how it is until Johnny Bridges tracks him down and asks
a favour. Johnny is a tailor and suspects that his new partner Dom Archese is
dipping into the till. Won’t Matt at least take a look around the place for an
old friend? But when Matt and Johnny visit the tailor’s shop, Dom is already there,
shot dead.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8210/8214564437_a9cea62537_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8210/8214564437_a9cea62537_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Hunter pictured 2001<br />
a.k.a. Ed McBain<br />
a.k.a. Curt Cannon<br />
(1926 - 2005)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are a lot of blondes in this one and they’re all trouble. Christine Archese is Dom’s widow, but Matt learns they’ve been separated six months. So who’s she sleeping with now? Larainne Marsh is Christine’s twenty-four year-old younger sister who works in a five and ten store but sings with a band and just could have the talent to make it to the top. And ever present for Matt is the phantom presence of Toni McAllister, his former wife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the
police find that Matt is involved, Lieutenant Miskler puts a tail on him, the
wonderfully named Albert de Ponce detective 3<sup>rd</sup>/Grade. Matt’s
treatment of women here is rough even by the standards of the old <b><i>Manhunt
</i></b>magazine (where Matt Cordell first appeared). Extra-marital
relationships are rife in this book, and another murder is on the cards before
the end. But what really causes the trouble is that everyone – <i>everyone</i> – is lying. This is real <i>noir</i>, great <i>noir</i>, the pace is breathtaking and I was hooked from the start. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8207/8215646918_5c7165e8b3_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8207/8215646918_5c7165e8b3_n.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first issue of Manhunt<br />
including Die Hard by Curt Cannon<br />
January 1953</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-converted-space">The first Cordell short story <span class="ds2"><b><i>Die Hard</i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> written under the pseudonym ‘Curt Cannon’
appeared in the fi</span>rst issue of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ds5"><b><i>Manhunt</i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> magazine, January 1953.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>The Gutter and the Grave</i></b></span>
was originally published as <b><i>I’m Cannon – For Hire</i></b> under that pseudonym (the title was one that Evan Hunter hated, according to Booklist).<b> Charles Ardai</b>, editor of
<a href="http://www.hardcasecrime.com/" target="_blank"><b>Hard Case Crime</b> </a>writes of the character’s name “Cannon was a name foisted upon
McBain by the editor’s at Gold Medal; the character’s original name in his
magazine appearances was Matt Cordell. When McBain decided to let us reprint
the book, he asked us to change the character’s name back to what it had
originally been.”<br />
<br />
Ardai’s – and Lawrence Block’s comments can be found here:<br />
<a href="http://vintagesleazepaperbacks.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/im-cannon-for-hire-by-curt-cannon-aka-evan-huntered-mcbain-gold-medal-1958/" target="_blank">Vintage Sleaze Paperbacks</a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8063/8215687480_666afb461e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8063/8215687480_666afb461e.jpg" width="185" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gold Medal 1958 edition</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Another useful page is: <a href="http://www.thrillingdetective.com/curt_cannon.html" target="_blank">Thrilling Detective Website</a><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
Three episodes
of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer were based on Hunter’s stories (as Curt Cannon). Evan Hunter had just finished proofing the galleys of the <b>Hard Case Crime</b> reprint of <b><i>The
Gutter and the Grave</i></b> when he died of laryngeal cancer <st1:date day="6" month="7" year="2005">July 6<sup>th</sup>, 2005</st1:date>.<o:p></o:p></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-54491527711418127312012-11-18T09:48:00.003-08:002012-11-23T04:09:56.585-08:00The Cocktail Waitress by James M Cain (2012)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8487/8197251938_516a3e528d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8487/8197251938_516a3e528d.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James M Cain's posthumously<br />
published novel<br />
Hard Case Crime (Titan), 2012<br />
Cover by Michael Koelsch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of Cain’s tentative working titles for this novel was American Beauty. The book reads like a romantic melodrama, but for readers over a certain age who will remember the significance of a drug Joan is given by a friend while she’s on honeymoon, the novel takes on an added dimension. This is a horror story. <br />
<br />
Most of the details given here come only from the first 11 pages. The story opens at a funeral where twenty-one year-old mother Joan Medford is burying her husband Ron. Joan hasn’t lost much sleep over Ron’s death; he’d always resented the marriage he felt forced into when Joan became pregnant, and even as his coffin is being lowered into his grave, Joan and Tad are both still recovering from his last beating. The last time he’d come home drunk Joan had sent him packing and he’d driven a borrowed car into a culvert wall at 70mph.<br />
<br />
His sister Ethel makes it clear she believes Joan deliberately sent him to his death. Joan has to bite her tongue as she has to depend on Ethel to take care of her small boy Tad, while she looks for work. Ethel is only too pleased to have Tad in her care; she and her husband Jack Lucas are childless, she’s recently had a hysterectomy, and it’s clear she’s going to have a problem letting go of the boy.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8350/8196122277_4fc956438e_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8350/8196122277_4fc956438e_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Mallahan Cain <br />
(July 1 1892 - October 27 1977)<br />
Photo by William L Klender<br />
(1970)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Also at the funeral is Tom Barclay who’s standing in for another cab-driver and is strongly taken by a glimpse at the young widow’s legs.<br />
<br />
When Joan gets home, she’s visited by Sergeant Young and Private Church, who advise her that someone has been attempting to blacken her name by spreading rumours about her. The officers had previously met Joan when informing her of her husband’s death; now Joan guesses that Ethel is spreading rumours, attempting to have her declared an ‘unfit mother’ for Tad. Learning that she’ll have to seek work, Sergeant Young suggests she try waitressing at The Garden of Roses restaurant.<br />
<br />
Joan quickly makes new friends there, and her looks make her popular with the customers. Two of these are Earl K White the III, a wealthy investor in his sixties, and the young and attractive Tom Barclay. Very quickly this develops into a romantic triangle, with Joan having to decide between an elderly and wealthy investor with a heart condition, who physically revolts her, and an attractive but penniless young man.<br />
<br />
Whether the story has the same impact on readers will depend largely on whether the reader is familiar with the name of a drug introduced in the late 1950s and banned in the early 1960s. Some won't get it, though many will continue to read James Ardai’s enlightening afterword. This has all the elements of a detective story as Ardai reveals how he learned of Cain’s unpublished novel, the search for it, the discovery that it existed in more than one version, and gives some details of what must have been an agonizing editorial process of collating and refining numerous pieces of a literary jig-saw until the novel had (hopefully) reached a state that it’s author would have been satisfied with.<br />
<br />
<br />Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-10893959210549454222012-11-11T13:12:00.000-08:002012-11-11T14:01:54.613-08:00The Iron Gates (Taste of Fears) (1940) by Margaret Millar<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8059/8176619177_fa0c5f03c2_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8440/7849136030_6989aea27e_k.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dell Mapback #209 (1948)<br />
Cover art by Gerald Gregg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The novel opens with a dream – it is immediately obvious that it’s a dream – in which Lucille Morrow sees her husband Andrew’s dead wife Mildred leaving the house to walk in the park at night, despite the thick snow – and the hideous wound in the back of her skull.<br />
<br />
Although Lucille is happy with her marriage, it quickly becomes obvious that her step-children Polly and Martin are hostile toward her, and Polly hates her father for having married again after her mother’s death. Mildred was murdered one night in the snowbound park, and although there are stories of a figure with an axe seen in the neighbourhood at that time, her killer has never been caught. Although the children have never accepted her, Lucille is a calm and organised person, and is valued as such by Andrew and his unmarried sister Edith.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img class="escapedImg" height="200" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8210/8176416344_33b2e70dae_m.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="200" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Margaret Millar<br />
(1915 - 1994)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Polly is about to marry Lieutenant Giles Frome. When she goes with Andrew and Martin to bring him to the house for his leave, the return journey is interrupted when they happen on a major rail crash and stop to help with the injured and dead. Giles is disturbed both by the sight of so much death and the family’s apparent calm in its presence.<br />
<br />
The next day a shabby-looking stranger visits the house to deliver a box to Lucille. A housemaid hears a scream from her room, and later that day the family discover that she’s disappeared. Lucille is eventually found in a hotel room, but she is now in an unresponsive state, and is placed in the Pentree nursing home under the care of Dr Goodrich. The mysterious box remains undiscovered.<br />
<br />
The case is taken up by Inspector Sands, who soon connects Lucille with another murder and reopens the investigation into Mildred’s murder; an investigation he believes was badly mishandled by another member of the force, years before.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8490/8176401586_5bfc897a8d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8490/8176401586_5bfc897a8d.jpg" /></a>Margaret Millar’s story explores the motivations of complex characters in intensely structured environments; the iron gates of the title refer to the gates of the Pentree asylum, which isn’t far removed either geographically or in nature to the Morrow family’s house at the edge of the park. The first acts of violence strike outside of these environments, the strangely tranquil snowbound park or the squalid city backstreets. The dream with which the novel opens sets the mood for the rest of the book, this at its most intense in the chapters dealing with Lucille’s residence in the asylum, when her deranged state is conveyed through disturbing stream-of-conscious passages (and James Joyce is name-checked here). Millar’s husband John Ross Macdonald sometimes introduced gothic motifs in his novels, and here there’s a similar suggestion of something fossilised or corrupt at the heart of a romanticised setting, the house in the frozen waste of the park.<br />
<br />
<br />
My copy of <b><i>The Iron Gates</i></b> (UK title <b><i>Taste of Fears</i></b>) was included in a paperback volume, <b><i>Alfred Hitchcock presents Stories for Late at Night</i></b> part 2 (this volume actually edited by <a href="http://www.threeinvestigators.net/SD.html" rel="nofollow">Robert Arthur</a>), published by Pan 1965. Millar wrote one other Inspector Sands novel, <b><i>Wall of Eyes</i></b> (1943).<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/13163971-rog-pile">View all my reviews</a>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-46272961685135041372012-11-10T15:18:00.000-08:002012-11-10T15:30:15.466-08:00Hollywood and LeVine by Andrew Bergman (1975)<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1109579.Hollywood_and_LeVine" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Hollywood and LeVine" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1322523837m/1109579.jpg" /></a><br />
I really enjoyed this, but I'd probably enjoy any story that concluded with Humphrey Bogart at the wheel of a speeding car. Set in Hollywood in the 'Forties. LeVine, to use his own words, is a balding, overweight private eye. An old friend in the screen writing business calls him to Hollywood to work on a case, but Le Vine gets there only to find his client swinging from a gallows on the Warners studio lot.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8486/8173375749_183dc537c7_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8486/8173375749_183dc537c7_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrew Bergman</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
LeVine Guesses that more is going on here than mere artistic conflict, and soon stumbles onto a CIA scheme to uncover Communist infiltration into the Hollywood movie system. There are numerous appearances by celebrities of the time (including a very young congressman, Richard Nixon). And if this book has pressed the right buttons for you so far, you'll probably love the car chase at the end (the best since the one in Richard Brautigan's Dreaming of Babylon) with none other than Humphrey Bogart at the wheel. Leave your serious face at the door and enjoy. <br />
<br />
This is the second in Andrew Bergman's Jack LeVine trilogy, the others being <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Big Kiss-Off of 1944 </i>(1974), and <i style="font-weight: bold;">Tender is LeVine </i>(2001)<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'times new roman';">.</span><br />
<br />
Very short write-up this time, mainly because my review was scanned from stuff written in the days I used a steam typewriter. But God, overall I wrote more in those days before the net!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/13163971-rog-pile">View all my reviews</a>Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-25539664194953922252012-11-08T08:18:00.002-08:002012-11-08T13:51:51.562-08:00They Don't Dance Much by James Ross (1940)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8200/8166931926_f3bdd87a01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8200/8166931926_f3bdd87a01.jpg" width="199" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harrap's 1986 UK edition of <br />
James Ross's<br />
They Don't Dance Much (1940)<br />
(Cover design not credited)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt;">The story is set in a </span><st1:state><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">North Carolina</span></st1:place></st1:state><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12pt;"> backwoods town, in the Depression years, and as the story
opens,</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">the narrator Jack </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">Macdonald</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">, has just </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">lost</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> h</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">i</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">s farm
through non</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">-</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">payment of taxes. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New';"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8167029524_82e59b5abe_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8167029524_82e59b5abe_m.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Ross (1911-1990)<br />
Said by William Gay to be <br />
“the man who invented Southern noir.” </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New';">Jack
spends a lot of his time hanging around the garage
and roadside store run by his friend Smuts Milligan.
Smuts has some big plans for the store,
and soon Jack is working for him as Smuts expands his business into a roadside diner and dance hall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">But business turns out not to
be as good as Smuts had hoped and soon he's looking for alternative sources of income.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">The novel</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">'s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">
curious idyllic backwoods charm is interrupted by a harrowing</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">torture and murder as Smuts tries to learn
the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">ecret of an old reclu</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';">e's hoard.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New';">It’s a novel of rare
brilliance. Raymond Chandler described it as “a sleazy, corrupt but completely
believable story of a </span><st1:state><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">North Carolina</span></st1:place></st1:state><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> town.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8065/8166938484_86c6fe5e08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8065/8166938484_86c6fe5e08.jpg" width="191" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> Signet #913, abridged</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">edition, April 1952</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When Daniel Woodrell reviewed Joe R Lansdale’s <b><i>Mucho Mojo </i></b> (1994) in The New York Times, he cited as Lansdale’s predecessors James M. Cain, Erskine Caldwell and Jim Thompson, but went on to say: “James Ross is scarcely ever mentioned, though his one novel, <b><i>They Don’t Dance Much </i></b>(1940), might be the finest of the lot.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And in that last sentence lies the rub. James Ross only wrote one novel. Which somehow makes it all the more important that you read it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The photograph of James Ross shown here was found as part of the fascinating essay <a href="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2012/sep/11/essay-james-ross/" target="_blank">My Search for James Ross, One-Hit Wonder</a>, by </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Anthony Hatcher, who obtained the photo at Elon University, North Carolina. I recommend the essay to any who wish a more detailed account of this novel and its author.</span></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-15479664096979548022012-11-05T13:27:00.000-08:002012-11-06T01:02:54.021-08:00Murder Always Gathers Momentum by Cornell Woolrich<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Years ago Richard Paine had deferred half his wages to help his employer Ben Burroughs through hard times; but now, after Burroughs has declared himself bankrupt
and cancelled his company’s debts, he’s been left comfortably well-off, while Paine
is unemployed and he and his wife face eviction. Paine decides it’s time to ask Burroughs for
the money he owes and goes to visit him by night. Through a window he sees Burroughs opening a safe, and, not believing that the old man will honour
the debt, he decides to rob him. Things go wrong and Paine is precipitated into a
chain of events which lead to him escaping across the city, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is not a favourite story of mine. This story of a
frightened man in desperate times has an air of doomed inevitability about it
from the start; almost from the first lines we know that no good is going to
come out of Richard Paine’s night journey to Burroughs’ home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a
portrayal of a man trapped in intolerable circumstances, it’s powerful stuff. Francis
M Nevins wrote in his book <b><i>Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You
Die</i></b>: “<strong>When it comes to putting us
in the skin of a frightened little guy in a miserable little apartment with a
hungry wife and children and no money and no job and fear of tomorrow eating
him like a cancer, Woolrich has no peers. There is more of the anguish of the
thirties in stories like <i>Murder Always
Gathers Momentum </i>than in volumes of social history</strong>.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
True, and
it’s interesting that the editor of <b><i>Detective Fiction Weekly </i></b>decided to
publish this story in a time (December 1940) when its readers had not long emerged
from the Great Depression and the world was slipping back into war, a time when
most would surely have preferred to read more escapist stuff than being
reminded they were themselves living in such desperate times. <br />
<br />
As social
comment the story is a valid document, while as fiction, criticizing Woolrich
can be likened to throwing rocks at the moon. Let’s face it, we read Woolrich
for his bleak worldview. But this one’s so remorselessly downbeat, and the
final lines which reveal too late that the whole mess only began because Paine
and his wife didn't communicate enough, left me with a flat and disappointed
feeling. The problem wasn't the Great Depression, it was just a couple who
should have talked more. And people say Americans don’t understand irony?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br />
Below is a link to a free download of the 27th October 1949 broadcast of Woolrich's <i style="font-weight: bold;">Momentum</i><i>, </i>an episode of <i style="font-weight: bold;">Suspense </i>scripted by E Jack Neuman and starring Victor Mature and Lurene Tuttle. Details differ from Woolrich's original story.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.4shared.com/mp3/uAphVpDs/Cornell_Woolrichs_Murder_Alway.html" target="_blank">Woolrich's 'Momentum' broadcast in Suspense</a></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-7598597142511548382012-10-30T14:21:00.003-07:002012-11-05T13:32:51.117-08:00THE IVORY GRIN by John Ross Macdonald. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8139600923_435bde0d90.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="190" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar)<br />
1915 - 1983</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8191/8139454558_3c8dd2d84f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8191/8139454558_3c8dd2d84f.jpg" width="203" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Was this splendid Pan 1957 cover<br />
art the work of John Edwin Keay<br />
(better known as Jack Keay)<br />
Or could it be John R Keay?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Sometimes you pick up a book and immediately get that certain feeling, which was what happened when I started this one - which just happened to be my first John Ross Macdonald thriller. That was back in 1988. On the back cover I found some connections with other authors. ‘John Ross
Macdonald’, the cover blurb informed me, was a pen name used by Kenneth Millar who had written several thrillers under his own name and whose wife Margaret was no slouch herself when it came to tapping out an occasional mystery. Like <i>The Iron Gates</i>? I hardly needed further encouragement, and anyway, the
plot had already got its claws into me and wasn’t letting go.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 23.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">The
plot: Lew Archer is hired by the butch Una </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Larkin</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">
to find a former employee, a young coloured girl who has run out on her. Archer
doesn't like Una and only half-believes the reasons she's given for wanting to
trace her former employee, when the girl turns up dead</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Archer wants to know why, and by this time he’s
changed his employer and has begun searching for a missing man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 23.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">His new
search takes him to a G</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">othic</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> mansion, an
insane mobster and a doctor who has lost all self-respect in his obsessive
fixation with a faithless wife.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 23.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Beside
the quirky gothic touches, Macdonald conveys a brilliant picture of small town
nineteen-fifties </span><st1:country-region style="line-height: 115%;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 115%;">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> which Ray Bradbury would
have liked (and probably did).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 23.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">The
cover is graced with a positively lum</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">i</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">nous
cover painting by '</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Keay'. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">At first glance it's
a fairly typical late nineteen-fifties cover.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">But the near-photo-realism is unusual and also the luminosity</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">of</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">the
colours.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">The picture of the grey-suited
detectiv</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">e</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> sitting on the edge of a desk as
he que</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">tions a suspect while a policeman in
the background stands in the horizontal shadows of a</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Venetian blind,</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">combines to creates a brilliantly </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">time locked</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> image redolent of</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">countless American TV cop shows or <i>noir</i>
movies. It’s no wonder that the presenter of a BBC series about the tough women
who featured in so many <i>noir</i> films delivered her chats years later sitting in front of this
image. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%;">Now does anyone remember the name of that series?</span></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-47156981619989119292012-10-29T16:12:00.000-07:002012-10-30T05:05:09.922-07:00The Night I Died by Cornell Woolrich (1936)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8193/8136662487_a7aff39ac3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8193/8136662487_a7aff39ac3.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detective Fiction Weekly <br />
for August 8th 1936, <br />
showing the story as an<br />
anonymous publication</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“The Point about me is
that I should stay on the right side of the fence all those years, and then
when I did go over, go over heart and soul like I did – all in the space of one
night. In one hour, you might say.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve no
idea how many <i>noir</i> stories pivot on
the idea that a man’s life can change in an instant (usually for the worst),
but I’d guess lots. Usually in these stories it’s the <i>man’s</i> life which changes; the woman is the one who’ll make the
changes happen because she’s got into some mess, been kidnapped maybe, or is being
blackmailed, so he has to rescue her or get her out of trouble. Or she’s a Machiavellian
scheming bitch that any man with sense would run a mile from, but we just know
he’s got such a bad case of the hots they’re going to end up swinging together.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are
some things that a man in a <i>noir </i>story
should <i>never </i>do. He should <i>never</i> let his wife take out life insurance
for him. And he should <i>never never</i> go
home early to give her a surprise. You just know if he does that, the one in
for the real surprise will be him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So when Ben
Cook goes home earlier than usual with a bag of toffees for Thelma, he probably
deserves all he’ll get and, as he goes into the house, we’re not the least
surprised that he hears voices. Or that
the voices are those of Thelma and a man he doesn't know. And the next thing he
knows, he hears the two of them plotting his death.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With the
advantage of surprise on his side, Ben takes control of the situation and
Thelma’s scheme now undergoes some fundamental restructuring as Ben drops out
of sight in order that the world will believe he’s dead and that that all-important
insurance claim will be paid – initially, at least – to Thelma.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But we have
a fair way to go before we’re at the end, and the path is likely to get a mite
bloody.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This story was first published in Detective Fiction Weekly, <st1:date day="8" month="8" year="1936">August 8<sup>th</sup>, 1936</st1:date>. Happily I've been able to locate the cover of that issue at The Fiction Mags Index. <b>And look closely at that cover. Did he really publish this story anonymously?</b> I read the story in <b><i>Four Novellas of Fear</i></b>, 2010, A J
Cornell. Publications.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-10704593514771794102012-10-29T13:51:00.000-07:002012-10-29T13:51:41.688-07:00Thin Air by Robert B Parker<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8327/8136203637_5bf17a1d10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8327/8136203637_5bf17a1d10.jpg" /></a>Thin air is what Lisa St
Claire has vanished into, at least that’s how it seems to her husband, Boston
cop Frank Belson. But then, Lisa is young and very pretty, and poor old Frank’s
getting on in years, so what can he expect?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Private Eye Spenser knows Frank and Lisa and isn't convinced by the poor old Frank school of thought, and when someone takes a
shot at Frank, Spenser becomes even more convinced that there’s some other
reason for Lisa’s disappearance. In fact the reader <i>knows </i>there is another reason; because we've witnessed her
abduction on page one, though we’re not sure who’s responsible or why, or
exactly what’s going on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spenser’s investigation into Lisa’s past, before her
marriage, takes him deep into a history of abuse, alcoholism and prostitution
and ultimately to a <i>barrio </i>fortress
in a <st1:state>Massachusetts</st1:state> mill town
which has become the hub of a power struggle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8136237824_90146fbe65_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8136237824_90146fbe65_m.jpg" width="193" /></a>In the
closing chapters, a battle taking place in the streets surrounding the fortress
moves into the crumbling walls of the stronghold itself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was my
first Robert B Parker novel, and damned if Parker didn't die in January 2010.
This keeps happening. I try to keep up with authors while they’re still around,
but I guess most of them had been working at their writing a lifetime
before they became well-known enough for any of us to find them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Parker’s
writing has been described as Chandleresque, sometimes to the point of
self-parody. It is Chandleresque; I didn’t notice any parody myself, but this
is the first Parker book I've read. Maybe you need to read a lot to notice it. I thought his writing had quite a light
touch; in this one he seemed to be marrying elements of detective thriller and
Western adventure, and I was quite happy to be along for the ride.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Detail:
Spenser is spelled with an s as in Edmond Spenser, the writer of <i>The Faerie Queen </i>(what?); and the
character has no known first name. Probably I will read another one of these. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-67648055269194691542012-10-28T13:55:00.000-07:002012-11-27T13:57:40.014-08:00Free Fall in Crimson by John D MacDonald (1981)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8132404626_bb55e83b7f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8132404626_bb55e83b7f.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Free Fall in Crimson, Collins 1981<br />
UK First Edition</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Travis McGee is approached by a young artist whose
millionaire father was beaten to death in a lay-by a couple of years before.
The old man had been dying of cancer, with only a couple of months left to him,
and there’s a suspicion that he might have stopped in the lay-by to buy illicit
drugs to help him through his last weeks. Travis is hired to find out the
truth.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His search
takes him into the world of motorcycle gangs, and to a film director who made a
couple of cheap cult biker movies years before and is now engaged on a
seemingly doomed project making a film about hot air balloons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8470/8132382723_0d61525c1d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8470/8132382723_0d61525c1d.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actually John had a beard in the<br />
photo on the back of this book<br />
but this looks cool anyway.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Travis
spends a lot of time weaving between bikers, druggies and a long-clawed <st1:place>Hollywood</st1:place>
sex-kitten; and a new lady comes into his life in the shape of the lovely Anne
Renzetti. We don’t see too much of Meyer after the opening chapters, but
there’s a lot going on here all the
same, and the final confrontation with the killer is truly frightening. I liked
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-47412445187767313372012-10-28T13:35:00.000-07:002012-11-05T13:34:28.438-08:00HE WHO HESITATES by Ed McBain (1965)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8323/8132297194_87603bf747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8323/8132297194_87603bf747.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He Who Hesitates by Ed McBain<br />
Pan UK edition 1979</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Roger Broome has come from </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">Carey, up in the sticks near Huddleston,</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"> to the
big city, a</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"> he does every Christmas, to sell
the </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">woodenware</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"> products he and his mother
and brother make.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 21.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">He's
a big guy, six feet </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">six, two hundred and ten
pounds, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">and perhaps he doesn't have much sense of humour. Some people
might even say he</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">'</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">s slow, in a way. But he’s
a polite sort of guy, and he has a knack of charming the ladies without really
having to work at it… even if he does usually get the ugly girls, like Molly.
But then he meets Amelia, and Amelia is really pretty, trouble is she’s also black.
His mother might not like that.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8047/8132319539_499c3d7bac_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8047/8132319539_499c3d7bac_m.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Hunter<br />
A.K.A. Ed McBain<br />
(Probably this photo shows<br />
him at about the time he wrote<br />
He Who Hesitates (1965))</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 21.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Roger wants to speak to a detective
about Molly.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Not a uniformed cop.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">At the moment the detect</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">i</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">ves are all busy looking for Agnes </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Dougherty’s refrigerator</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">, although why anyone
would want to steal it beats them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 21.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Head down aga</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">i</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">nst the snow,
Roger starts to follow Detective Steve Carella.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-top: 21.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">This one is superb.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">People talk pretty glibly about books that
you just can’t put down, but to actually </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">f</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">ind
one i</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">s </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">a rare event.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">This is such an event.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">The detectives of the 87</span><sup style="font-family: 'Courier New'; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">
Precinct only put in cam</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">e</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">o app</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">e</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">arances in this one.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Th</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">e story</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">
runs for 150 pages and ha</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">s</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> the precision and
economy of a short story.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">The dialogue is
brilliant</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;">Do yourself a favour. Read it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 21pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 2.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 21.0pt;">
<br /></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-71214107946301569462012-10-28T09:53:00.001-07:002012-10-29T13:54:58.140-07:00Eyes That Watch You by Cornell Woolrich (1939)<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8334/8131548543_d5c66a53c2_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8334/8131548543_d5c66a53c2_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Four Novellas of Fear by<br />
Cornell Woolrich, 2010<br />
A J Cornell Publications</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Mrs Janet Miller is a contented woman. She has everything
she needs. So long as she has the feel of the warm sun on her body, the blue
sky overhead, and the voice of her son Vern Miller in her ears, she is content.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact she
is entirely paralyzed and unable to speak or sign or do any thing at all
without Vera or Vern’s assistance, but as long as she has those few things,
she’ll ask for nothing more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8192/8131468949_67d30bd75d_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8192/8131468949_67d30bd75d_m.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woolrich with his own best<br />
girl, his mum.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then she
learns that her daughter-in-law Vera is planning, with her lover Jimmy Haggard,
to murder Vern. And there’s not a damn thing Janet can do to prevent it. She’s
so helpless that when Vera realises her plan has been overheard, she doesn’t
even worry about it. What can Janet do, anyway?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8052/8131492911_e802aa6b85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8052/8131492911_e802aa6b85.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As I can't find the exact cover, this one<br />
comes close, just four months before -<br />
check the bottom left corner.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The murder
is one of the most ghoulish that I've encountered in fiction, matching the
burying-alive of Marty in the Cohen brothers <b><i>Blood Simple</i></b>. Vera plans
to take advantage of a faulty bathroom water heater to gas Vern. She will
escape the effects of the gas by wearing a gas mask. And just so that people
won’t become suspicious at too many corpses turning up overnight, Jimmy Haggard
has brought two masks, so Janet will also be protected whether she wants it or
not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this
point our synopsis has progressed about as far as it can without becoming a
spoiler and the only additional detail that needs be mentioned is that our cast
list isn't quite complete. We still need to meet a wandering young man with the unlikely
name of Casement. And straight away you know this guy ain't what he appears to be…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This story was originally published in <b><i>Dime Detective </i></b>September
1939 as <b><i>The Case of the Talking Eyes</i></b>. I can’t find the relevant cover,
though this one at least advertises another of Woolrich’s stories (another
little research job to do, hm?) I actually read the story in the
collection <b><i>Four Novellas of Fear, </i></b>published 2010 by A J Cornell
Publications.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-3091269359206912612012-10-27T17:23:00.001-07:002012-11-05T13:38:28.236-08:00The White Road by John Connolly (2002)<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8189/8129259753_3a889503ae_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8189/8129259753_3a889503ae_m.jpg" /></a>Elliott Norton gets in touch with Charley Parker because he needs help defending a case in <st1:state>South Carolina. </st1:state> A young black man has been accused of the rape and murder of his
girlfriend, young, white and wealthy Marianne Larousse. Charley is having visions of a
car that he knows no longer exists, on a road out of Hell, driven by a man Parker knows is
dead. There is a pleasant ambiguity about Parker’s visions or dreams, nothing
you can put your finger on, but it definitely gives an added dimension to the writing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the
meantime, Charley's friends Angel and Louis are on a mission in the South,
helping some murderers to atone for their past – at the point of a gun. And
while these stories are unfolding, the fanatical preacher Faulkner (introduced
in <b><i>Every Dead Thing</i></b>) is in a prison cell, planning to take a twisted
revenge on Parker through the very men that Parker is hunting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8467/8129250579_0f740a290a_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8467/8129250579_0f740a290a_m.jpg" /></a>There is at
least one more character in this gallery of grotesques, but he’s so far down
the evolutionary scale that he keeps his larder hidden in deep mud. You’ll like Landron Mobley, honest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I made two
mistakes with this book: the first was to read it before <b><i>Every Dead Thing</i></b> (if I’d
checked, I’d have realised that I was starting with the second book of a
series…doh!). My second mistake was waiting so long (months!) before writing it up (I had to spend an hour scanning pages, remembering details and making brief notes before I
could attempt this ‘review’).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What the
hell, this was a great read.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For anyone
who doesn't know, Connolly’s an Irish writer and in 2000 <b><i>Every Dead Thing </i></b>copped
both a <b>Bram Stoker Award </b>for<b> Best First Novel</b>, then a <b>Shamus</b> for <b>Best First
Private Eye Novel</b>. Connolly is believed to be the first author from outside the
<st1:country -region="-region">USA</st1:country> to win the
award.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The jacket
illustration by <b>Mark Harrison</b> is after a detail from an engraving by Veneziano,
Allegory of Death and Fame, 1518. Just so's y'know. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-4202455762302916582012-10-26T14:36:00.000-07:002012-11-05T13:40:03.980-08:00Help I Am Being Held Prisoner (1974) by Donald E Westlake <br />
<o:p>The first thing Warden Gadmore said to me was, </o:p>“Basically, you're not a bad person, Kunt.”<br />
<br />
<br />
“Künt,” I said quickly, pronouncing it the right
way... “With an umlaut,” I explained.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<o:p>When a reader finds this exchange on the first page of a novel, he or she will probably get a good feeling about that novel, possibly accompanied by helpless giggles.</o:p><br />
<o:p><br /></o:p>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Donald_Westlake.jpg/200px-Donald_Westlake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Donald_Westlake.jpg/200px-Donald_Westlake.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Donald E Westlake<br />
(1933-2008)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Harry Künt, with an umlaut, an obsessive
practical joker, winds up in jail when one of his jokes goes wrong and injures
two Congressmen. (Actually he causes a seventeen car pile-up, but it's the Congressmen who count against him.)<br />
<br />
<br />
His only crime might have been a misfired practical joke, but now that he's in jail he's invited to join in with the robbery of two banks.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
In the prison he has stumbled on a strange and very private club:
seven prisoners who have their own tunnel leading from the prison into the
town. Escape is not on their minds; these are the world's first prison
commuters. But they have one extraordinary plan. In the town there are two
banks, just waiting to be robbed by seven men; men who have the best alibi of
all - they are already in jail.<br />
<br />
In the town, as well as a robbery waiting to happen, there's also a pretty girl who Harry just happens to have fallen in love with.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1330941703l/826786.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1330941703l/826786.jpg" width="198" /></a>As if this weren't enough, the prison has another mystery. Someone is sending out notes reading HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER. Warm
characterisation and ironic humour make this more than just another book.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3518824547571383635.post-67683539209778419942012-10-26T12:20:00.001-07:002012-10-29T13:59:04.036-07:00Death in the Air by Cornell Woolrich (1936)<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>Cornell Woolrich</b> is a familiar name to followers of horror and
hard-boiled detective thrillers alike. <b>Black Alibi </b>(1942) was
filmed by the team of Producer Val Lewton and Director Jacques
Tourneur as <b>The Leopard Man (1943)</b>, while his gruesome short story <b>Papa
Benjamin </b>was damn-near ruined when used for a segment of the portmanteau film <b>Dr
Terror’s House of Horrors </b>(the story featuring Roy Castle)<b>. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8048/8125724797_d84b3a2427_q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8048/8125724797_d84b3a2427_q.jpg" /></a><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Death
in the Air </span></b>utilizes<span style="font-size: small;"> the unusual setting of </span><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-size: 12pt;">New
York</span></st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-size: 12pt;">’s elevated railway
system - to great advantage. Inspector Stephen Lively – inevitably nicknamed ‘Step Lively’ – is on
his way home from work on the ‘El’, a journey that carries him down major city
streets, sixty feet in the air; then the track veers off into Greenwich Street,
where the surroundings change dramatically: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>“The
old mangy tenements closed in on both sides, narrowing into a bottleneck and
all but scraping the sides of the cars as they threaded through them. There
was, at the most, a distance of three yards between the outer rail of the
super-structure and their fourth-floor window-ledges, and where fire-escapes
protruded only half that much.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b> </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>“What
saved them from incessant burglarising in this way was simply that there was
nothing to burglarise. They were not worth going after. Four out of five were
tenantless, windows either boarded up or broken glass cavities yawning at the
night. Occasionally a dimly-lighted one floated by, so close it gave those on
the train startling impression of being right in the same room with those whose
privacy they were cutting across in this way.”<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It’s
during this part of the journey that the policeman notices two people engaged
in a strange dance in one of these apartments, then a little further on
realises that the man he’s sharing his compartment with is <b>dead</b>, killed by a
bullet coming from outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">‘Step
Lively’s’ nickname is an ironic one, as he’s possibly the most languid
policeman employed by the force. After pulling the communication cord, he
realises that the journey back to the lighted apartment from which he suspects the
bullet came, will involve a tedious journey, as he'll have to first descend to street level, then climb back
up again. In the event he decides simply to walk back along the elevated track. </span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The languid
detective’s journey back along the busy railway line, then risking his neck clambering
from the line to the open window – where he finds a woman’s corpse and needs to </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">‘</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">rescue</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> it from a blazing building while under the influence of a ‘crazy weed’ reefer that he’s unwittingly discovered in the room and started smoking, makes a riveting read.</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Vintage Woolrich, first published in Detective Fiction Weekly in 1936. I found the story reprinted in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b>Murder on the Railways edited by Peter
Haining</b>, Orion 1</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">996</span></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
Rog' Pilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11402808959116786683noreply@blogger.com0