Book Review: Ken Bruen, American Skin (2006)

I wanted to like American Skin much more than I did. Its (black) heart is in the right place, but it badly needs a good editor. The plot develops largely in flashbacks prompted by the free associations of its characters, and these sometimes redundant intrusions prevent the plot from ever gaining the momentum that it should. Perhaps more annoying, though, is the way that the book is slavered in pop-culture references for the sake of pop-culture references. For example, one of the book's major characters is so obsessed with Tammy Wynette that he will brutalize anyone who dares to insult her. We are told that he became a fan of "Tammy" (he thinks of her by her first name, just as another character is on a first-name basis with Bruce Springsteen) while in prison, but that is pretty much all we are told to help us understand the significance of his obsession with her. As well, we are given little help in understanding the resonance of the many Tammy Wynette songs whose names are mentioned in passing. Of course, the problem may be that my pop-culture IQ is too low to appreciate what Ken Bruen is up to--but I doubt it. Grade: D+

Pulp Poem of the Week

It was a woman's gun,

a little pearl-handled automatic,

not as big as his hand

as he let it rest in his lap,

but there's no difference between

being killed with one of them

and with a .45 unless

it's prestige you're after.

Charles Williams

Hell Hath No Fury

1953

Book Review: George Axelrod, Blackmailer (1952)

Blackmailer's pleasantly convoluted plot cannot fully compensate for its forgettable cast of characters, particularly its narrator, publisher Dick Sherman. The great noir writers can make you root for criminals, but George Axelrod did not make me care one bit what happened to Dick Sherman--who isn't even a criminal. Part of the problem is that Axelrod has a tendency to lapse into screenwriting when he is writing a novel. If you write pages of dialog for a movie character, that movie character can be likable simply because a likable actor is reading his lines. Novel writers do not have this luxury, a fact which Axelrod seems sometimes to forget. Grade: C+

Book Review: David Goodis, The Wounded and the Slain (1955)

Bad things happen after a Yale graduate marries a hopelessly frigid woman. Thus, depending on your point of view, The Wounded and the Slain is a cautionary tale about either premarital abstinence or Ivy League schools (or maybe both). Grade: C

Book Review: Russell Hill, Robbie's Wife (2007)

This is one of those books that I like more having finished it than I did while I was reading it. The first 150 pages are slow, and I am not sure that they adequately prepare for the book's third act. But the more that I think about the flaws in this book, the less I am certain that they are flaws. For example, the book's narrator, Jack Stone, is an over-the-hill Hollywood screenwriter who takes a working holiday in Britain to revitalize his career. Occasionally in the novel, we see mediocre snippets from his screenplay-in-progress, and we see one long section, which is utterly incompetent. This long section is largely expository in a way that a professional screenwriter would never be. In other words, it looks like a screenplay written by someone who has never seen a screenplay. And readers are supposed to believe that this guy is a professional screenwriter? But Jack Stone is also a character in crisis, and the more that I think about his writing in the book, which he repeatedly proclaims to be "good" despite much evidence to the contrary, the more I think that it is an appropriate reflection of his psychological state. I know several folks whose opinions I respect who think that this is a great one . . . so I'm going to keep thinking about it. . . . Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

Morning sun stripes cell.

Five fingers feel my hard heart.

It hurts, hurts, like hell.

Charles Willeford

Miami Blues

1984

Book Review: Marty Holland, Blonde Baggage [a.k.a. Fallen Angel] (1945)

The set-up is classic noir: Anti-hero wanders into small California town, hooks up with femme fatale, plots to swindle local old maid (who, of course, is not actually that old) out of her recently inherited $10,000. From there the plot drifts a bit toward whodunit territory, and the resolution is too dues ex machina not to be disappointing. On the whole, your time will be better spent watching the Otto Preminger film of this novel (bearing the novel's original title, Fallen Angel), which is much more tightly plotted and much more satisfying. Grade: C

Book Review: Charles Williams, Hell Hath No Fury [a.k.a. The Hot Spot] (1953)

With his fourth novel, Charles Williams hits his stride. In Hell Hath No Fury, an Average Joe moves to a small town to work at a used car lot, and he happens to notice how easy it would be to rob the local bank. Women and noir ensue. This is a classic novel of its type, in which a sympathetic protagonist does rather unsympathetic things, but we root for him all the same as events spiral out of his control. In order to enjoy books of this sort, readers must grant writers a bit of latitude in the realm of plausibility; nevertheless, I do wish that Williams had done a little bit more to convince me that this particular Average Joe would jump at the chance to rob a bank. But this is a minor quibble with a classic. Grade: A

Pulp Poem of the Week

Her hair was falling over

her shoulders in snaky

curls. Her eye was all black,

and her breasts weren't drawn

up and pointing at me,

but soft, and spread out

in two big pink splotches.

She looked like the great

grandmother of every

whore in the world.

The devil got his

money's worth that night.

James M. Cain

The Postman Always Rings Twice

1934

Book Review: Gil Brewer, The Squeeze (1955)

After writerly forays to Wyoming and France, with his ninth novel Gil Brewer gets back to his Florida roots. In The Squeeze, narrator Joe Maule is an average guy who racks up a gambling debt that he cannot pay. He owes to money to an underworld type named Victor Jarnigan, who gives him another way to get out of debt . . . or else. Top-tier Brewer, no frills. Grade: B+

Pulp Poem of the Week

Her voice faded off

into a sort of sad whisper,

like a mortician asking

for a down payment.

Raymond Chandler

The Little Sister

1949

Book Review: Jerry Handers and/or Rick Conte, Shame Run Wild (1964)

When I began reading this book, I was puzzled by the fact that its cover and title page list different authors. But now, having read it, I understand: No man could be brave enough to take singular credit for describing a woman as having "buxom thighs." Truly this phrase must stand as some kind of milestone in the literary history of America--if not the literary history of the world--and therefore I am awarding this novel one letter grade higher than it otherwise deserves. Grade: D

Book Review: Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister (1949)

The point of reading a Philip Marlowe novel is to spend time with Philip Marlowe, one of the great creations in all of American literature, not to spend time with a good mystery--truth be told, Raymond Chandler was not much of a mystery writer. In reading a Marlowe novel, then, the question, bizarrely, becomes this: How much does the mystery interfere with the novel? In the case of The Little Sister, the answer, happily, is not too much. The book is never in any real danger of sinking under the weight of inept overplotting, as is the case with other Marlowe novels such as Farewell, My Lovely and (worse) The Lady in the Lake. Grade: A-

Pulp Poem of the Week

He recognized the picture.

It was a snapshot,

blown up. A picture of

Patricia that summer in Maine

when she had worn the Bikini

for the first and last time,

wearing it that once

out there on the rocks,

while they swam. She had

large breasts. She had been

unable to control them.

Gil Brewer

77 Rue Paradis

1954

Book Review: Gil Brewer, 77 Rue Paradis (1954)

In 1951, Gil Brewer published his third and most successful novel, the million-selling 13 French Street. Then, three years later, in what seems a winking attempt to recapture his past success, Brewer published his eighth novel, 77 Rue Paradis, which, as its title implies, is set on an actual French street. The later novel concerns Frank Baron, a disgraced aeronautics man who has been searching the world to find the party responsible for sabotaging his factories. From here, the plot gets silly. In the end, 77 Rue Paradis is serviceable but forgettable. Grade: C-

Pulp Poem of the Week

The guy was dead

as hell.

Mickey Spillane

Vengeance Is Mine

1950

Book Review: Jim Thompson, Now and on Earth (1942)

Plodding, structurally inept debut novel by Jim Thompson. He gives expository flashbacks right up until the end of the narrative, as if sooner or later the plot will finally get going. But it never does. I suspect that part of Thompson's problem may have been the autobiographical nature of the work--he seems not to have enough distance from his material to figure out anything interesting to do with it. But he would solve this problem in later books. Grade: D

Pulp Poem of the Week

Take me in some place

where I can't see them.

In away from

the open sky.

Glaring--

a thousand eyes--

Cornell Woolrich

Night Has a Thousand Eyes

1945

Pulp Poem of the Week

Dramatics, buddy?

No, sir. No dramatics.

God or Fate or

some mysterious force

can put the finger

on you or on me

for no good reason at all.

Martin M. Goldsmith

Detour

1939

Book Review: Martin M. Goldsmith, Detour (1939)

Disclaimer: I have seen the movie version of Detour three times before now having read the book, so my reaction to the book is unavoidably colored by my familiarity with the movie (which I love).

Detour the novel alternates between two narrators: Alexander Roth, a jazz musician, and Sue Harvey, a jazz singer. Alex and Sue lived together in New York before Sue left for California to pursue her dreams of Hollywood. Sue's share of the narrative tells of her life in California without Alex. Alex's narrative tells what happens when he tries to hitchhike to California to rejoin Sue. Detour the movie (scripted by Martin M. Goldsmith, who also wrote the novel) tells only Alex's story. In the movie, Sue is already in California, and we never learn anything of what has become of her. In this way, the novel is richer than the movie. Not only do we learn of Sue's fate, but her story and Alex's story enrich each other--his story is made more complex and more powerful by our knowledge of her story, and vice versa.

Unfortunately, there has not been a decent reprint of Detour since the hardback first edition of 1939. Recent paperbacks by O'Bryan House and Blackmask.com are textual disasters. Both seem to have been produced by ten-year-olds who were given OCR software for Christmas. Readers beware! Grade: A

Book Review: Robert C. Du Soe, The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1938)

Perhaps the most superficial pulp-noir of any reputation that I have read. Much liquor is consumed, many sexual advances are made, and many lives are endangered, but never is there so much as a peek into anyone's soul. A quick, empty read. Grade: D-

Book Review: Gil Brewer, Some Must Die (1954)

Some Must Die is a quasi-western, a mishmash of 13 French Street, Hell's Our Destination, and Bret Harte. It's also the first Gil Brewer novel where his prose style fails him. Paragraphs are short and disjointed; sentences are overwritten and sometimes nearly incomprehensible. Consider this sentence/paragraph from page 133:

In the fogged-up, thudding silence of the bedroom, he sensed Horn falling back and saw him trying to ward off a series of steady blows to the body and head, aimed and quietly careful in the blind cold mist of the moment.

Oh, my. This book took me longer to read than any of Brewer's previous novels simply because I found myself reading sentences like this one over and over again. In the end, I came up with two possible explanations for what went wrong with this book: (1) Brewer is drinking too much and writing too fast. Some Must Die was the seventh Brewer novel published in a three-year span, appearing only three months after his masterpiece A Killer Is Loose. Brewer simply can't keep up the pace and the quality, too. (2) Brewer is working hard to vary his formula. Thus, rather than his usual settings in contemporary Florida, his gives us nineteenth-century Wyoming. And rather than his usual straight-forward prose style, he pushes himself stylistically. Unfortunately, he pushes too hard. Grade: D

Book Reivew: Gil Brewer, Hell's Our Destination (1953)

A swamp-noir version of Bleak House: Simon Lewt has had his life ruined by the dangling promise of riches. Six years ago, he helped a thief to hide a box of cash in the swamp--though Simon does not know exactly where the money is. Ever since, Simon has been waiting for the day that the man returns for the money. Ever since, Simon has been planning to kill that man and take the money. Ever since, Simon has been slowly losing his mind. . . . Grade: A-

Book Review: Charles Williams, River Girl (1951)

This is a top-notch Charles Williams novel puffed up (or down, depending on your point of view) into a so-so Charles Williams novel. I would be curious to know which came first: Williams' production of a manuscript 50% longer than his first two books or his assignment to produce a Gold Medal Giant. My suspicion is the latter. Unfortunately, given an extra 75-100 pages to work with, Williams does not find much to do with the additional space. His obvious choices would have been to build a more intricate plot (how about doing something with the narrator's wife, who wanders off stage at the beginning of the book and never reappears?) or to create more nuanced characters (how about fuller backstories for the major players so that their behavior is more believable?). Instead, the plot dawdles more, and the narrator is prone to long, earnest monologues. A squandered opportunity. Grade: C-

Book Review: Day Keene, This Is Murder, Mr. Herbert and Other Stories (1948)

Collects four stories: "This Is Murder, Mr. Herbert!" (1944); "With Blood in His Eye!" (1945); "Sweet Tooth of Murder" (1944); and "If a Body Met a Body" (1946).

In the evolution of noir, these stories fall somewhere between the silliness of Carroll John Daly's Race Williams stories and the glory days of Gold Medal paperbacks. The middle two stories feature homicide detective Harvey "The Great" Stone, so called because of his ability to pull murderers out of thin air. In his talent for intuiting absurdities, Stone is rather like a hard-boiled Sherlock Holmes, except that Stone is a bland and uninteresting character and Holmes, most readers agree, is not. Grade: D+

Book Review: Lawrence Block, Lucky at Cards (1964)

With reprints like this one, Hard Case Crime fulfills its mission in the universe. Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block was originally published in 1964 as The Sex Shuffle by Sheldon Lord. The original title was terrible, and the pseudonym was not even to specific to Block--it was a name used by several house writers at sleaze publisher Beacon Books. In sum, this book might easily have fallen forever out of print, which would have been a shame. Lucky at Cards mines familiar territory with a great deal of skill: The book's narrator is a cardsharp who plots a score that could allow him to retire, and Block does a fine job of humanizing a character who, in other hands, might have seemed despicable and nothing more. Park some of your Hard Case Crime dollars here. Grade: B

Book Review: Gil Brewer, Flight to Darkness (1952)

If Gil Brewer knew one thing, he knew this: Ordinary guys with perpetual erections should stay far, far away from sex-crazed she-devils. He illustrated this point in his debut novel, Satan Is a Woman, and then showed it again in his third novel, 13 French Street. While both novels are well executed, there is never much mystery where they are going. What makes Brewer's fourth novel, Flight to Darkness, more interesting is that his protagonist/narrator, Eric Garth, is not an ordinary guy. Rather, he is a veteran of the Korean War with a tenuous grip on his sanity. In fact, everyone in the novel seems at least a little bit crazy, which can mark it hard for readers to be sure that they ever really understand why anyone is doing anything. And in noir, that can be a good thing. Grade: B+

Book Review: Richard S. Prather, The Peddler (1952)

Unremarkable story of an up-and-comer in organized crime in San Francisco. Tony Romero is young, ambitious, and misogynistic. If you read this novel, you will learn nothing about him more interesting than this. Grade: C-

Book Review: Gil Brewer, 13 French Street (1951)

In his third novel, Gil Brewer revisits the thematic ground of his first novel, Satan Is a Woman. (There seems to be more than one woman with horns out there.) The narrator of 13 French Street, Alex Bland, goes to visit an old army buddy and his horny wife. Bland is named Bland to emphasize that he is just an ordinary guy--though he turns out to be more than an ordinary guy. Allegedly, he is about the most honest, decent, ordinary guy that you could that you could ever want to meet . . . which explains why Satan might be particularly interested . . . Grade: C

Book Review: John Lange [Michael Crichton], Grave Descend (1970)

Midway through this book, I thought I would give it at least a B. The first act is top-notch. A professional diver named McGregor is hired to investigate a recently sunken ship, the Grave Descend, but the more McGregor learns, the clearer it becomes that he is being manipulated in some kind of convoluted scam.

As I finished the book, my rating was down to a C. As crime novels often do, this book demonstrates that it is easier to tie a knot than to untie one; indeed, in the final analysis, author Michael Crichton (a.k.a. John Lange) does not even attempt to make sense of all the plot's twists and turns. It seems that so many perplexing things happen in the first 150 pages simply because perplexing things can be entertaining.

And now, as I write this review, I am down to a D, because I have been thinking about the fact that the characters in this novel are unusually vapid, even for a lightweight read like this one. McGregor, the book's hero, is about as memorable as a stick of margarine.

Ask me tomorrow, and I may be down to an F. . . . Grade: D

Book Review: Gil Brewer, So Rich, So Dead (1951)

In his second novel, Gil Brewer shows that he has a knack for starting a story quickly and keeping it moving. The entire narrative takes place across one day, beginning when the narrator, a PI named Bill Maddern, is summoned home by his brother. Problem is, when Bill gets home, he discovers that his brother, who is also a PI, has been murdered. From here, the plot proceeds at about the pace of the television show 24. Problem is, in the end the plot makes about as much sense as a season of 24, which is ironic given that the ending is not too difficult to see coming. Quick and enjoyable, but not much more than that. Grade: C

Book Review: David Dodge, The Last Match (1973)

The Last Match manages to be both entertaining and tedious. The novel is narrated by Curly, a bunco artist whose exploits we follow around the globe. Curly's narrative is episodic to a fault--one unrelated story is piled on top of another, and while the individual stories can be fun to read, it soon becomes clear that the novel is not going anywhere interesting, inasmuch as it going anywhere at all. In the end, this one was a real chore to finish. Grade: C-

Footnote of no real importance: In the pulp tradition, Hard Case Crime books are not particularly well proofread, and The Last Match contains my favorite typo that I have seen: On page 191, around is spelled arou.nd. That's right. There's a period stuck randomly in the middle of the word.

Book Review: Gil Brewer, Satan Is a Woman (1951)

Gil Brewer chose a great noir title for his debut novel, but the title perhaps tips his hand too much. Needless to say, readers will not be surprised to discover that the novel's female lead is not a very nice person--just as the novel's first-person narrator should also not have been surprised. As her evil unfolds around him, yet he continues to love her, he protests that you cannot understand his behavior unless you have walked in his shoes, etc., etc., but his protestations are not especially convincing. On the whole, not a bad example of the noir genre, but not an especially memorable one, either. Grade: C

Book Review: Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake (1943)

The Lady in the Lake . . . in which we learn that . . . Raymond Chandler has bills to pay. This book features the inept over-plotting of Farewell, My Lovely but without that (superior) novel's weight of hard-bitten gravitas. The weakest of the first four Philip Marlowe novels. Grade: C

Book Review: Pete Hamill, The Guns of Heaven (1983)

There is not much to recommend this book. A partial list of problems: It muddles around extensively in Irish history and politics without saying much of interest. Its plot is first pedestrian and then worse when ***SPOILER ALERT*** it succumbs to the Hollywood cliché of the bad guys kidnapping our hero's daughter. The dialogue is third-rate Raymond Chandler ("If you could major in trouble, you'd have a Ph.D.!"). And, for a novel published in 1983, the female characters are remarkably two-dimensional, even for this genre. Park your Hard Case Crime dollars elsewhere. Grade: F

Book Review: Paul S. Meskil, Sin Pit (1954)

This highly collectible paperback from 1954 (a decent copy runs $300+) was given a primitive reissue by Gryphon Books in 2004. In the reissue, Gary Lovisi hails Sin Pit as a forgotten noir masterpiece, and he's more or less right. My only gripe is that the novel is so lean that sometimes it reads more like an outline for the book than the actual thing. But one could just as easily count this is a virture: Hardly a word is wasted in Sin Pit, and it hits all the right noir notes along the way--even if it doesn't hold some of them for very long. This was the only novel written by Paul S. Meskil, who wrote a brief afterword for the 2004 reprint. In it, he writes, "My original title was 'Blood Lust' and they changed that title without my knowledge. I also originally wrote the book in the first person." In fact, Blood Lust is a much better title for the book. Hard Case Crime would do well to give this book a proper reissue with its original title restored. As for narrative point of view, Meskil's novel was published in first person, so his comment on this point simply leaves me puzzled. Perhaps he originally wrote the book in third person? Grade: A-