Pulp Poem of the Week

Never listen
to a stock tip from
a terminal case.

     Donald E. Westlake
     Bank Shot
     1972

Pulp Poem of the Week

He liked every part of it:
the black look of it,
the short snout of it,
the front sight that could
cut a man’s face like
the tip of a beer-can opener,
the heavy trigger guard,
the curving and rigid grip
of the butt.

     James McKimmey
     Cornered
     1960

Pulp Poem of the Week

The guilt that separates
man from insects
is not wider than that which severs
the polluted from the chase
among women.

     Charles Brockden Brown
     Wieland; or The Transformation
     1798

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, Jimmy the Kid (1974)

As brilliant as it is self-indulgent, the third Dortmunder novel will delight Westlake fans in general and Parker fans in particular. If you already know anything about Jimmy the Kid, then you already know too much. Read it before you learn more. Grade: A

Pulp Poem of the Week

it was one thing
to fill four pages
of stupid questions
with on-the-spot lies,
and another thing
to remember
all those lies
ten minutes later

          Richard Stark
          Butcher’s Moon
          1974

Pulp Poem of the Week

We weren’t—

and then we were.

     Elliott Chaze

     Black Wings Has My Angel

     1953

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, Bank Shot (1972)

In the second Dortmunder novel, Dortmunder steals a bank, and the results are consistently entertaining. The only real flaw in the developing Dortmunder formula is that Westlake has difficulty resisting broad comedy, as when Dortmunder and his crew are closed in the back of a truck with an insidiously bad smell, and will they vomit or won’t they? I imagine that I will keep reading the Dortmunder series until I reach the first fart joke. After that, I may have to stop. Grade: B