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

Book Review: Lawrence Block, The Sins of the Fathers (1976)

Fans of the Matthew Scudder series all seem to agree on two things: (1) You must read the books in publication order, and (2) It takes four or five novels for the series to get really, really good. So I obediently begin with the first novel in the series, and, not expecting anything great, I am not too disappointed. The limited cast of characters combined with the title The Sins of the Fathers leave little doubt where this novel is headed, and that’s where it heads. I’m trusting that later novels in the series (i.e., the ones that are supposed to be really, really good) will feature more Scudder and less Freud. Grade: C-

Pulp Poem of the Week

don’t trust anybody
over thirty
or
under thirty
or
thirty

          Donald E. Westlake
          “The Hardboiled Dicks”
          1982

Pulp Poem of the Week

We all do the best we can, and
sometimes the best we can do is
make a mistake.

          Donald E. Westlake
          unfinished autobiography

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, Thieves' Dozen (2004)

When you are done with the Dortmunder novels, you still have the Dortmunder short stories to read. Will you enjoy them? Of course. Would you trade them for one more novel? Of course. Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

She despised men
she could dominate,
but began to think
there was no other kind.

          Thomas Berger
          Sneaky People
          1975

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, Walking Around Money (2005)

Almost lost in a nether region between the Dortmunder novels and the Dortmunder story collection is the Dortmunder novella, Walking Around Money, which Ed McBain solicited for the first Transgressions collection. As is the case with the Dortmunder short stories, Walking Around Money seems to exist outside the narrative of Dortmunder’s career as chronicled by the full-length novels. The novella, featuring Dortmunder and his sidekick Andy Kelp, emphasizes Dortmunder’s competence above his bad luck, which is always welcome given how Dortmunder’s cursedness often obscures the fact that he is actually quite good at his job. Grade: B

Pulp Poem of the Week

A hostage,

was a chance.

          Gil Brewer
          Memory of Passion
          1962 

Book Review: Donald E. Westlake, Get Real (2009)

The career of John Dortmunder came to an unexpected end with the sudden death of Donald E. Westlake on December 31, 2008. The final novel in the series, Get Real, was published the following year, and it hits a fitting final note. Get Real’s premise, which is both silly and inspired (always a delicate balance in Westlake’s world), finds Dortmunder and crew as stars of a fledgling reality TV show. The novel’s ending (no real spoilers here) has Dortmunder and Andy Kelp walking off into a New York City sunset. Admittedly, I may have imagined the sunset, but having come to the end of this wonderful series, can you blame me? Grade: A-

Pulp Poem of the Week

a figure
like
a bra

          James Hadley Chase
          No Orchids for Miss Blandish
          1939

Book Review: Lionel White, The Snatchers (1953)

Beware . . . spoilers of the ending ensue. Before I began Lionel White’s debut novel, I had two expectations: I expected a successful kidnapping, and I expected a gratuitous rape. I expected the rape because I once read an interview with Charles Ardai in which he explained that Hard Case Crime has not reprinted any Lionel White because his novels tend to feature rapes that (in Ardai’s estimation) are included to thrill male readers. Does such a rape occur in The Snatchers? Yes. But I was reading the novel for the story of the kidnapping. White is an important figure in the history of noirboiled as a pioneer of the criminal procedural; you can draw a direct line from White’s work to Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels—which brings us to why I was expecting a successful kidnapping. This comes from “True Lies, or True-to-Life?,” an article from the March 24, 1995, Baltimore Sun by Jean Marbella: “[Westlake] had been tickled by a case in which a 1953 mystery novel, The Snatchers by Lionel White, was used as a blueprint for a real-life kidnapping of a baby in France. The kidnapping went exactly as plotted, but the criminals did themselves in, running through the ransom money and blabbing too loudly about their escapade. ‘They ran out of book,’ Mr. Westlake said with a laugh. ‘I always thought they should have taken the money and hired Lionel White to write them a sequel.’” So the kidnappers in The Snatchers must have gotten away with the money too, right? Wrong! The kidnapping in White’s novel goes totally to hell, and the book ends with the criminal gang’s leader dying in a barrage of gunfire. So did Westlake not remember how The Snatchers actually ends? And why would real-life kidnappers use this as their blueprint? I would really love to know! Grade: C

Pulp Poem of the Week

The secret of great fortunes
without apparent cause
is a crime forgotten,
for it was properly done.

          Honoré de Balzac
          Le Père Goirot
          1835
          (translated by Ellen Marriage)

Book Review: James Hadley Chase, No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939)

First, a word to the wise about which edition of No Orchids for Miss Blandish to read: You want the original 1939 version of the book, not the rewritten, “updated” version of 1962. The quickest way to be certain that you have the 1939 text is to check the second paragraph and confirm that “Old Sam [is] asleep in the Packard.” (In 1962, the car becomes a Lincoln.) But in either version, No Orchids for Miss Blandishis perhaps more interesting than it is good. It is the first (and most popular) attempt by British writer James Hadley Chase (born René Lodge Brabazon Raymon) to write in the Amecian noirboiled vein. Published early enough that it interesting almost by definition to anyone interested in the history of genre, No Orchids for Miss Blandish has the additional historical significance of having plagiarized from William Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931) and of having drawn the attention of George Orwell in his 1944 essay “The Ethics of the Detective Story from Raffles to Miss Blandish” (a.k.a. “Raffles and Miss Blandish”). The novel is about as brutal as a novel could be in 1939, but also a wee bit comedic for the occasional false notes of a Brit trying to write hardboiled American dialogue. I cracked a smile every time one the gangsters let drop a “shall.” Grade: C+