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One problem with contemporary noir is that the freedom to curse openly and describe sex explicitly can make writers lazy. In The Last Quarry, for example, there is nothing even remotely sexy about it when Quarry pauses to describe the nipple measurements of the book's two female characters, and the actual sex scenes read like stale Penthouse Forum. This book is far from the worst that Hard Case Crime has published (see Stephen King for that), but noir writers should at least aspire to be Raymond Chandler or Jim Thompson or [insert name of great noir writer of your choice here], even if they can't quite pull it off. The saying, I believe, is that your reach must exceed your grasp, etc., etc. Grade: D+
In Gil Brewer's fifth novel, he moves beyond the dated titillation that dominates much of his earlier work. A noir Everyman, his pregnant wife on the verge of labor, finds his fate accidentally entangled with that of a psychopath. The less you know about the plot, the better--this is a creepy classic. Read it, and the word "pal" will never sound the same to you again. Grade: A
Straight Cut is narrated by Tracy, a freelance film editor with a fondness for Kierkegaard. Intellectualism is not uncommon in noir fiction, and when it is done well, it can enhance a narrative with an added vein of dark poetry. In the case of Straight Cut, however, the narrator's philosophizing serves only to make a tedious narrative even more tedious. Tracy, who is at least not UN-likeable, is invovled in a love triangle (and other things) with his self-absorbed ex-wife Lauren and his creepy sometimes-best friend Kevin. As the narrative progresses--and it progresses SLOWLY--it is difficult to fathom why Tracy would ever have wanted anything to do with either one of them. Most interesting part of the book: the extended descriptions of the techincal aspects of film cutting and editing. Grade: F+
Million-selling debut novel from noir giant Charles Williams. This story of alcoholism and unbridled sexuality, which was scandalous to many in 1951, seems mighty tame today. More so than most Gold Medal paperbacks of the 1950s, this one is a period piece. Grade: C
The only redeeming feature of Stephen King's disastrous The Colorado Kid is its dedication page, which plugs Dan J. Marlowe's The Name of the Game Is Death, a noir classic featuring a sociopathic antihero of the Jim Thompson variety. The novel builds to a feverish ending which, to my mind, strains too much for effect--but this opinion may well find me in the minority. Grade: B+
Highly entertaining neo-noir from Hard Case Crime. Like a vintage Gold Medal PBO, but with curse words. Brisk and bleak with black humor. Grade: B+
A pro football player, forced into retirement by injury, tries blackmail as a new career, and noir ensues. Most of The Big Bite is top-tier Charles Williams, but the narrative is marred by its ending, which comes from a bit too far out in left field. Read A Touch of Death first--a similar Charles Williams novel executed with greater elegance, and easily available from Hard Case Crime. Grade: B
The latest country noir from Daniel Woodrell. Less the story of Ree Dolly than a portrait of her inbred Ozark community. This community is horribly memorable, but the novel's plot is ultimately too thin to sustain narrative tension. Grade: C
The first half of Witness to Myself is very good. The protagonist knows that, years ago, he assaulted a girl--but did he kill her? Seymour Shubin does a nice job of ratcheting up the narrative tension as we eventually learn the answer. The second half is substantially weaker, in part because the same sense of drama is never there. But the novel's most serious flaw is its bizarre POV: The story is narrated by the protagonist's cousin and childhood buddy, but he narrates as if he has access to the protagonist's every thought and sensory experience. In other words, it's as if the protagonist is narrating the novel--but he's not. As I was reading, I assumed that this arrangement would eventually have some kind of pay-off, but it never does. It's a weird choice by Shubin that serves only to distract. Grade: C-
Noirboiled by the numbers: A man has been shot by one of five friends, but he doesn't know which one, so he must track them down one at a time to find out whodunit. Throw in a good-looking woman, a plot twist or two, and there you go. The result, in this case, is noirboiled without any real sense of menace. Cornell Woolrich might have written Say It with Bullets if someone had given him a heavy dose of Prozac. Grade: C+
On rare, unpleasant occasions, I read a novel so bad that I feel angry while I am reading it, and this, unfortunately, was one of those occasions. This postmodern crime novel managed to sneak into the Hard Case Crime series because it was written by Stephen King, and anything with Stephen King's name on it will pay your bills. But this is postmodern-lite drivel at its worst--a novel whose point is the fact that it has no point because life sometimes has no discernible point (profound, right?)--and to top it off, the characters are precious and annoying. I certainly do not begrudge HCC paying its bills, but it concerns me that (for a long while, at least) The Colorado Kid had outsold all other HCC titles combined. I wonder, how many readers who might have gone on to read the HCC titles by Charles Williams, Gil Brewer, et al., were scared off by Stephen King? Grade: F-
