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-

Book Review: Charles Williams, Big City Girl (1951)

Big City Girl is not a particularly accurate title for this book, and the cover illustration and tag ("Joy didn't belong in the hill country . . . but there she was") are rather misleading, too. Yes, Joy used to live in Houston and now she lives in the Texas sticks, but she does not spend the novel sexually tormenting the yokels, as the book's cover would have you believe. No doubt all of this was an effort to capitalize on the million-selling success of Charles Williams' debut novel, Hill Girl. In any case, Big City Girl, his second novel, is a clear step forward artistically from its predecessor. Though both novels mine the literary landscape of Erskine Caldwell, Hill Girl is concerned primarily with Caldwellian sexual titillation while Big City Girl moves closer to the world of criminal noir. Well executed and well worth seeking out. Grade: B

Book Review: Raymond Chandler, The High Window (1941)

The underbelly of Los Angeles never comes alive in this novel as it does in Farewell, My Lovely, but the plot is less frenetic and more comprehensible. The real attraction, Philip Marlowe as world-weary, wisecracking knight errant, is in equally fine form in both books. Grade: A-

Book Review: David Goodis, The Moon in the Gutter (1953)

David Goodis is commonly ranked in the top tier of noir novelists, and The Moon in the Gutter is commonly ranked among his best work. One recent example: in The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction (2007), Barry Forshaw cites The Moon in the Gutter as his representative Goodis text in arguing that, of all the noir novelists, "Goodis comes the closest to the existential angst of Camus and Sartre." I wish I could see it, but I can't. The main thing I see in The Moon in the Gutter is bad writing. The lesser problem is that Goodis' prose is often painful to read--he strings together limp, cliché-ridden sentences as if he does not remember what his previous sentence was or have any idea what his next sentence will be. The greater problem is that his characters seem to behave as they do because they are in a noir novel and not for other discernible reasons. To Goodis' credit, he does take a valiant stab at noir profundity in the novel's last chapter, but the rest of the book is not there to back it up. In sum, a major disappointment. Grade: D+

Book Note: The Best American Crime Reporting 2007, edited by Linda Fairstein

A note to noir enthusiasts: Fans of Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? should not miss Pamela Colloff's essay "A Kiss Before Dying," which has everything to do with McCoy's novel even though it has nothing to do with a marathon dance contest.

Book Review: Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940)

Farewell, My Lovely reminded me of Cornell Woolrich in that Raymond Chandler's plot is at least as ridiculous as the plot of any (famously ridiculous) Woolrich novel. What is remarkable is how differently Chandler and Woolrich deal with their own absurdities. The Woolrich strategy is to build a novel whose narrative drive is so intense that readers (hopefully) never notice the plot's defects. The Chandler strategy is just the opposite: His characters spend much of the novel sitting around and trying to puzzle out a plot that ultimately makes no sense. As far as plots go, then, Woolrich may be a more satisfying reading experience, but this is not say that Woolrich's novels are necessarily better than Chandler's. For Chandler, plot is secondary to the careful craft of his prose style and the development of Philip Marlowe's character--both of which make for rewarding reading. Grade: B

Book Review: Max Allan Collins, The Last Quarry (2006)

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+

Book Review: Gil Brewer, A Killer Is Loose (1954)

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

Book Review: Madison Smartt Bell, Straight Cut (1986)

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+

Book Review: Charles Williams, Hill Girl (1951)

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

Book Review: Dan J. Marlowe, The Name of the Game Is Death (1962)

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+

Book Review: Ken Bruen & Jason Starr, Bust (2006)

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+

Book Review: Charles Williams, The Big Bite (1956)

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

Book Review: Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone (2006)

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

Book Review: Seymour Shubin, Witness to Myself (2006)

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-

Book Review: Richard Powell, Say It with Bullets (1953)

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+

Book Review: Stephen King, The Colorado Kid (2005)

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-