Pulp Poem of the Week

This was his Sunday
choke.
It would have squirted
sap from a tree.

          Cornell Woolrich
          Strangler’s Serenade
          1951

Book Review: Lawrence Block, A Stab in the Dark (1981)

Spoilers follow: I feel like a broken record, or maybe a corrupted MP3 file, waiting for the great series that I know is coming but is not quite here yet. In A Stab in the Dark, the fourth Matthew Scudder novel, Scudder takes on a cold case involving a young woman stabbed with an ice pick. Scudder forms a semi-ludicrous theory as to who and why, and when Scudder confronts the who with this theory, he obligingly confesses. Case closed. Along the way, Lawrence Block engages in one of his favorite narrative perversions: He repeatedly dangles a compelling narrative possibility before his readers—in this case, Scudder interviewing a jailed serial killer—and when the event finally occurs, the narrative skips over it. (For a jaw-dropping example of this phenomenon, see Killing Castro.) At the end of A Stab in the Dark, Scudder goes to the door of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but he does not go inside. I have a guess as to the significance of the title of the sixth novel in this series (When the Sacred Ginmill Closes), but I don’t want to stick out my neck too far. Grade C+

Pulp Poem of the Week

So rarely
is the truth
the simplest
possible answer.

          Donald E. Westlake
          “Party Animal”
          1993

Book Review: Lawrence Block, In the Midst of Death (1976)

Three books into the Matthew Scudder series, I suspect that there may be some self-fulfilling prophecy at work in my reactions thus far: I have been told many times that the series begins relatively slowly before hitting its stride with book five (Eight Million Ways to Die). Is this what I am experiencing because it is what I am expecting, or is this what I am experiencing because it is true? I know that my semi-negative reaction to the first Scudder novel (The Sins of the Fathers) was sincere, as I have little patience for Freudian claptrap in any context. I liked the second novel (Time to Murder and Create) a bit better, if only for the absence of Dr. Freud, and now I like the third novel a bit better still: the plot of In the Midst of Death is less artificial than the earlier novels, and there is some significant development in Scudder’s character beyond his cycles of drinking and tithing. Nevertheless, I still feel as though I’m just killing time waiting for book five. Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

I hope I
break even today;
I could
use the cash.

          Donald E. Westlake
          “Horse Laugh”
          1986

Book Review: Lawrence Block, Time to Murder and Create (1976)

In Time to Murder and Create, the second Matthew Scudder novel, a dead man leaves Scudder payment to find his killer, and our hero pursues the case because he is compulsively honorable, even if he is not particularly ethical. Scudder’s plan is to tempt the killer into attempting to kill Scudder, thereby exposing the killer’s identity. By all rights, Scudder ought to die in this novel; he is, after all, a drunk who takes no particular measures to keep himself safe. Perhaps this is a half-assed suicide attempt on Scudder’s part, though when someone tries to kill him, his reflex is to fight for his own life. After Scudder fails to get himself killed, he does his best to identify the killer with his ratiocinative powers vacillating between anemic and otherworldly as the novel’s plot requires. Quick, entertaining, not entirely satisfying. Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

Life is a gamble,
at terrible odds—
if it was a bet
you wouldn’t take it.

          Tom Stoppard
          Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
          1966

Pulp Poem of the Week

You open a door

in New York,

you never know

what’s in there.

          Donald E. Westlake

          Get Real

          2009

Book Review: Don Tracy, Last Year's Snow (1937)

Last Year’s Snow is the third of four novels published by unsung noirboiled pioneer Don Tracy in the 1930s. This everyman noir complètement enneigé tells of a love quadrangle—femme fatale, current husband, ex-husband, new paramour—trapped together in a hunting camp. Not brilliant, but worth reading to see Tracy working out tropes of the genre. Notable as well for being the second American novel (and fifth overall) published in Gallimard’s Série Noire. Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

If it hadn’t been
what it was,
it would’ve been
beautiful.

          Megan Abbott
          Dare Me
          2012 

My apologies . . .

My apologies to anyone who has left a comment recently only to have me ignore it. I have just discovered that my comments notifications have been going to a defunct email address. Again, my apologies. The problem has been corrected.

Pulp Poem of the Week

Never break a law
you don’t intend to break.

          Donald E. Westlake
          “Ask a Silly Question”
          1981

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, The Mercenaries [a.k.a. The Smashers, a.k.a. The Cutie] (1960)

This mob whodunit would probably not have warranted a reprint by Hard Case Crime were it not Donald E. Westlake’s debut (or, more accurately, his debut under his own name). Narrated by George Clayton—known to his associates simply as Clay—The Mercenaries (reprinted by HCC as The Cutie, complete with cover art that has nothing whatsoever to do with the book) finds Westlake inching his way toward the world of Richard Stark and Parker with Clay’s recurring commentary about the necessity of good criminals behaving without emotion. In sum, a competent but not memorable novel of high academic interest to fans of Westlake/Stark. Grade: C

Pulp Poem of the Week

all life is
six to five
against

          Damon Runyon
          “A Nice Price”
          1937

Pulp Poem of the Week

no
bad
money

     Elliott Chaze
     Black Wings Has My Angel
     1953

Pulp Poem of the Week

one good cop
is about as useful as
one good paper towel
in a hurricane

          Donald E. Westlake
          introduction to Charles Willeford’s
               The Way We Die Now
          1996