In 2015, Hard Case Crime author Ken Bruen wrote an article in Publisher’s Weekly called “10 Best Noir Novels” with the #1 slot occupied by a 1991 book and author unknown to me: Killing Suki Flood by Rob Lieninger. The reviews were also universally positive for this hardboiled crime stand-alone, so I decided to give it a shot.
Although the story takes place in 1989, the novel has the feel and plot structure of a Fawcett Gold Medal crime paperback from the 1950s. 54 year-old trucker Frank is driving to his New Mexico hideout with $77,000 in crime proceeds stashed in the camper he’s pulling when he comes upon a sexy 18 year old girl broken down on the side of the road. Because this is a quasi-throwback crime story in need of a femme fatale, Frank stops to help the comely Suki.
Frank is 5’8” tall, 225 pounds and built like a tank, and Suki is sex-on-fire in a hot little outfit. One thing leads to another, and Suki winds up in Frank’s truck without knowing that she’s joining him on a getaway from a profitable crime. Their patter between dim bulb Suki and wisecracking curmudgeon Frank is hilarious, and the evolution of their relationship is a joy to witness.
It turns out that Frank isn’t the only one of the pair on the run. Suki s being pursued by goons working for a wealthy and abusive ex-boyfriend allegedly for transgressions having to do with her ex’s car. All this over a Trans-Am? This seems a bit extreme to Frank. Could there be more to Suki’s story that she’s not sharing?
At 244 pages, this isn’t a long book by modern standards, but it still could have used some tightening up. The first third of the book, for example, is basically Frank and Suki getting to know each other in a hiding spot while goons methodically search the New Mexico desert for them. I wasn’t bored because the characters are all vividly written, but the pacing of the action was a bit off. “Killing Suki Flood” is basically one long cat-and-mouse game about an unlikely pair being hunted for their recent criminal actions.
Eventually, the hunted become the hunters and the action increases markedly in the novel’s second half. Once we understand the cast of characters, their secrets, and motivations, the second half of the book is a wild ride. Frank makes for an unlikely gallant hero, and the main villains are suitably reprehensible. The character of Suki’s crazy ex-boyfriend was prone to long monologues and theatrical torture - a bit much for my tastes, but the character was vividly evil enough to inspire loathing in any sane reader.
Even though this isn’t the greatest noir novel of all time (a high bar to set), it’s an inventive and well-written take on a classic pursuit thriller, and the final conflict between the adversaries remains one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever read. Lieninger is often compared to Elmore Leonard because both write quirky characters, but I actually preferred Lieninger’s writing because he keeps it hardboiled and never cartoonish. “Killing Suki Flood” is available today as a paperback, an eBook, and a freebie for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Recommended.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Frank Gruber (1904-1969) was a popular and highly respectable author of over 300 stories for more than 40 pulp magazines. Sometimes writing as Stephen Acre, John K. Vedder or Charles K. Boston, Gruber completed a massive outpouring of paperback titles. While known for his detective and crime stories, the author's most popular genre was the western, a genre he was claimed to have described as only able to deliver seven distinct story types. Despite what he felt were its shortcomings, Gruber wrote over 30 western novels including “This Gun is Still”, published by powerhouse Bantam Books in 1967.
The book begins with what could be the best opening pages of any western I've personally read. It's a bold statement – but absolutely true. A Wells Fargo stagecoach is racing across the hot White Sands as Apache warriors descend from the hills. In a rapid-fire delivery, we read that the stagecoach driver is killed and the carriage is tipped onto its side. With at least a dozen warriors outside, the two passengers, Jim Forester and Lily Bender, prepare for death. Forester, with only six bullets and a Navy Colt, begins firing from the window, hitting warriors within 10 feet of the coach. He makes five shots deadly, but debates the final shot – kill the girl so he alone can be tortured and ravaged by the Apaches or fire one more deadly shot at the braves and await the grizzly inevitable. Thankfully, a lone cowboy rides in with a Winchester rifle and kills enough warriors to make the war party scatter. Jim Forester meets Wes Morgan.
We learn that Forester works for a bank in Chicago called Davenport. He's come to the town of Stanton to collect on a default loan from one of two store owners. After the owner dismisses the delinquent $8K, Forester obtains a warrant to shut the store and owner down. The Justice of the Peace provides an interesting backstory on Stanton's rather odd situation. The town's wealth lies in two factions, Bender and Deever. Bender has a large and very profitable cattle ranch and is a passive man. Deever is a former Major who makes his living stealing from Bender and running his own cattle ranch off the theft. Bender has enough wealth and cattle and simply doesn't care. However, Deever, in a rather bold authority, hates Bender and only wants the town to support him. Deever asks that Forester and his company only conduct county business with him, starving and depleting the other businesses and ultimately “gifting” the town to Deever. Forester refuses and that's where the story thickens.
In a wild chain of events, Forester quits his job and takes over the store as its new owner – partly for a change of scenery but also because he refuses to see Deever win. Complicating things is Wes Morgan, a wanted outlaw who saved Forester but who may be working with Deever. Discombobulating it further is the lovely Lily, Bender's daughter and former Morgan lover. She may or may not be falling for Forester, who has a number of decisions to make once Deever and his hired guns start threatening violence. Tuck tail and run, align with the law or fight Morgan and Deever. It's a western, so you know which way it will eventually go...but it is a thrilling journey to get there.
Overall, Frank Gruber is fantastic here and expels just enough drama, romance and courtroom intrigue (yes, I said courtroom) to make this a really well-told western. If you are looking for something that isn't the traditional western fare, this one is a must-read. Recommended.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
A freed slave returns to his East Texas hometown as the town’s new lawman. Will the townsfolk be able to set aside their prejudices and allow the black constable to keep the peace? No, this is not a novelization of “Blazing Saddles” but rather the 1977 Fawcett Gold Medal paperback original, “Titus Gamble” by Peter Gentry, a pseudonym of collaborators Frank Schaefer and Kerry Newcomb.
Titus Gamble began his freedom as a teenage runaway slave fleeing the Shannon Plantation in Brennanburg, Texas after a sexual encounter with the master’s comely daughter. Hungry and exhausted, Titus stumbles upon a Union encampment with a small regiment of black soldiers among them. Titus figures this is the best way to create distance between himself and his pursuers and joins the Union Army to fight the rebs.
The action then cuts four years later, and we meet the Brennan family, owners of the Shannon Plantation. The Civil War is over and the plantation’s black servants are no longer regarded as slaves. Drium is the Brennan patriarch, and his two sons - Rury and Dub - have returned from the war where they fought for the Confederacy. Dub got the worst of it and returned from the war with one fewer arm than when he enlisted. Finally, we meet Fianna, the red-haired Irish-American daughter who has taken on the role of matriarch since her mother’s death.
Early in the paperback, the reader is given clues that the Brennan family is a dysfunctional bunch. For starters, Fiona seems to get her kicks by traipsing around the mansion wearing next to nothing and staging nipple slips to drive her one-armed brother crazy with incestuous lust. Then there’s Rury whose idea of a good time is to ride over to Shreveport and murder freed slaves in their sleep.
The black laborers on the Shannon Plantation continue to work despite their freedom in exchange for food, clothing, housing, and small wages. This dependency arrangement barely sustains life for the newly-freed and serves to keep them in their place as sure a whip did when they were another man’s property. Other blacks survive by subsistence farming on plots of land forcibly taken from plantation owners by Union soldiers and provided to freed slaves to give them a fresh start as homesteaders. You can imagine that the plantation owners whose lands were seized in this arrangement aren’t thrilled with their new neighbors.
Due to a Civil War casualty, the town of Brennanburg is in need of a lawman to keep the peace. The military governor of the State of Texas names black (actually mulatto, but same difference to the local whites) war hero Titus for the position. The town residents aren’t enthusiastic about this appointment, and this is where the book shifts into the familiar territory of a Western novel. Titus strives to wrangle lawless poor blacks in the shantytown by the river while avoiding a lynching by the town’s conniving whites loyal to the wicked Shannon Plantation.
“Titus Gamble” is a plantation drama in addition to a Western novel, and it treads on well-established ground for the slavery gothic paperbacks. The shame and secrets that arise from forbidden interracial sex is the fuel that drives much of the interpersonal conflicts. There is also a good bit of violence and intrigue among the characters. It’s clear that the authors studied the ‘Blackoaks’ and ‘Falconhurst’ novels of Harry Whittington (writing as Ashley Carter), and they do a great job of re-creating that story structure. Like Whittington’s books, the writing here is superb and the plotting is compelling and easy to follow.
The plantation gothic paperbacks provide modern readers a prurient glimpse into the ghastly culture of American slavery in a manner that never glorifies or belittles the horror inflicted on the victims. “Titus Gamble” uniquely shines a light on the difficulties that southerners - white and black - had while adjusting to the new normal in the early days of reconstruction after the Civil War settled the issue of slavery’s legality.
This was a good novel but not a perfect one. The authors’ habit of writing the black dialogue phonetically (“He got hisse’f a followin’ a’ rowdies an’ de lahk, campin’ down by de riber...) made for a cumbersome read at times. The authors also tended to use a lot of tortured metaphors in the perfectly graphic sex scenes (“The delicate umber forest of her womanhood...His tumescent shaft...,” etc.).
Meanwhile, the action scenes are vivid and brutal - filled with gunplay, knife-fighting, and bare-knuckle brawling. The novel really succeeds as a Western about a new constable working to civilize a lawless town against great adversity.
“Titus Gamble” is an entertaining page-turner by a highly-talented writing pair. I was never bored, and I learned quite a bit about the era. This isn’t a masterwork of historical fiction, but you won’t regret the time you spend reading about the adventures of this unlikely hero. Recommended.
Postscript:
“Titus Gamble” is available to buy on the Amazon Kindle or borrow via the Kindle Unlimited program under the authors’ real names. You lose the vivid 1977 cover art, but you’ll avoid the awkward glances from people around you. Your call.
Buy a copy of "Titus Gamble" HERE
Jonathan Craig was a pseudonym utilized by author Frank Smith. Known for his police procedural series '6th Precinct', which ran ten installments from 1955-1966, Smith was also a contributor to 'Alfred Hitchcock Magazine', submitting five total stories over the course of 1964 through 1970. His first, “This Day's Evil”, was featured in the March, 1964 issue and reprinted again numerous times in the popular paperback anthology formula.
The short-story begins where all good crime novels should – a planned robbery. In this case, it is the young Earl Munger, a small-town crony who's tired of blue-collar labor and slim paydays. After being humiliated by his date, who feels ashamed to ride in Earl's smelly farm truck, the young man decides to rob the wealthy Charlie Tate, a prominent businessman and property owner.
Right before Earl's planned burglary, the sheriff arrives for a mysterious encounter that leaves Earl torn – wait until the sheriff's departure, bag the old man and take the goods or conservatively plan for another night. After a quick meeting, the sheriff leaves and Earl goes through with the robbery. In turn, Tate is knocked unconscious with what looks to be a deadly blow and Earl makes off with about $20K in bundled bills. Where's the mystery and intrigue that only Alfred Hitchcock's people can deliver? The next day, Earl overhears the sheriff explaining to a local store owner that Charlie left a suicide note before killing himself with poison.
This quick read delivers the goods in an entertaining fashion. Earl must learn how Charlie died, and ultimately how to hide the cash and himself in what could be either a murder or suicide investigation. Everything isn't what it seems and the reader is left guessing until the very end. Frank Smith is a solid writer and this one is just a lot of fun. Looking for a breather between those 180-page action novels? Give it a free read at http://www.luminist.org/archives/PU/.
We discuss Jonathan Craig and his literary works on the third episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast.
The '87th Precinct' novels by Ed McBain are a blast to read - particularly the early ones. They are short, snappy, and clever books told by a disembodied third-person narrator who provides personality and commentary along the way without ever actually being an active character in the books - think Rod Serling in “The Twilight Zone.” Meanwhile, the ensemble cast of police detectives working the cases prevents the series from ever falling into a rut due to character burn-out. The rotating line-up of featured performers keeps the novels evergreen.
“The Con Man” from 1957 is the fourth book in the series, and finds the citizens of the 87th being victimized by a bunco artist using deception to cheat good people out of their money. Meanwhile, a bloated and water-logged woman’s body washes up on the city’s riverbank. Could this mysterious death somehow be connected to the con artist working the neighborhood?
The Lebron James of the 87th Precinct is Detective Steve Carella (Did you think I was going to say Meyer Meyer?), and he is assigned the case of the mysterious floater. The clues are sparse because the river has claimed the hair on her head (Pubic hair: blonde, he notes), and the body is a distended mess. The corpse’s only remaining clothing is a bra stretched to the breaking point by the bloating torso, but a tell-tale tattoo might provide a lead. Through Carella’s eyes, McBain goes into great detail about the medical examiner’s autopsy and the inherent challenges involved with identifying a floater. I can only assume that McBain did his homework because it’s fascinating stuff - but not for the squeamish.
About a third of the way through the book, our omniscient narrator opines that the 87th’s big problem was the floater, and the 87th’s little problem was the con man. McBain structures the narrative like the A story and the B story of a TV cop show, and an astute reader is not surprised when the story of the con man somehow merges with the story of the floater.
As usual, McBain’s writing is superb. His descriptions of the action are vivid and his knack for dialogue - even when it’s just cops bullshitting in the squad room - is spot-on. Like his contemporaries Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake, McBain’s writing is a national treasure. Recommended.
Buy a copy of "Con Man" HERE
John D. MacDonald’s 1960 paperback, The End of Night is often cited as one of his finest stand-alone novels. This is a bold claim as MacDonald produced so many excellent stories outside his acclaimed Travis McGee series. While picking a best JDM book is likely a fool’s errand, there is no doubt that this short novel is a crime fiction classic.
The story opens with a prison official marveling that his institution just sent four inmates - one being a female - to their deaths in the electric chair. But that’s really where this story ends as the majority of the novel is one long flashback explaining how and why this foursome were eventually put to death for their crimes. This is a fairly bold literary choice for MacDonald that effectively steals the “will they get away with it?” thunder from the crime fiction plot.
Never fear, the story leading to the death house has plenty of twists and turns along the way. The End of Night is essentially the inside story of four post-adolescents dubbed “The Wolf Pack” by the media who set out on a cross-country crime spree culminating in a murder.
By 1960, MacDonald was a good enough writer that he told the story of The Wolf Pack through a show-offy narrative trick. The narration is told through letters, memos, and memories of various side characters bearing witness to the juveniles’ spree and its aftermath. The death-row executioner, the defense attorney, the sheriff and others tell their portions of the story in a way that gives the readers the pieces of the crime story puzzle. While we all know by page 10 that the killer foursome (Kirby Stassen, Nanette Koslov, Robert Hernandez, Sander Golden) are caught, there's a heartfelt need to determine if the hopeful young Helen Wister survives the brutish quartet.
In a way, The End of the Night is staged as an amorphous display of unbridled youth. Despite social class (Stassen from wealth, Koslov from poverty, Sander is the bored middle class intellectual), the four collectively create a firestorm of frenzied rebellion that spills into murder. There are drugs - a consistent daily flow of drugs - but it's the condescending disposal of empathy that's MacDonald's bold expression. In fact, as Helen Wister pleads for her life, Stassen casually remarks, “We're expressing aggression and hostility, miss.”
For 1960, this is a gritty, powerful crime novel that prefaces a turbulent time in American culture. Shockingly, the culprits, while not affluent in any sort of transcendent religious rite, exhibit psychotic tendencies that re-appear just nine years later with the Manson Family murders. It's not a far-cry to see how the novel may have inspired horror writers like Stephen King, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon. King went as far as to declare the book one of the finest novels of the 20th Century. It's a well-deserved praise.
The End of the Night, while disturbingly fitting the mold of entertainment, is an obligatory read for anyone claiming to love the American Crime Novel. Get it HERE.
British author Desmond Bagley was a respected practitioner of the “high adventure” sub-genre of thriller fiction along with fellow British writers Alistair MacLean, Jack Higgins, and Duncan Kyle. To Bagley’s credit, it’s hard to get a straight answer when you ask knowledgeable readers which of his many books is his masterpiece, but his second novel, 1965’s “High Citadel,” is often recommended by those in-the-know.
“High Citadel” stars a heroic Irish pilot named Tim O’Hara, a Korean War veteran who has crawled into a bottle and lives a subsistence existence flying for a dodgy, cut-rate airlines near the Andes mountain range in South America. When a luxury 727 filled with international passengers makes an emergency landing at O’Hara’s home airfield, a business opportunity knocks for O’Hara’s boss who wants him to fly the respectable passengers over the range to their desired destination.
While flying the overloaded and non-pressurized aircraft over the mountains, one of the people on board hijacks the flight by gunpoint and forces O’Hara to make a dangerous landing on an abandoned airstrip high in the mountains near a defunct mining camp. Bagley provides some white-knuckle aviation writing as this scene unfolds. The crash landing is harrowing, and O’Hara’s role as hero becomes fully formed.
After the terrifying landing destroys the rickety plane, we get to meet the international cast of survivors that includes a sexy Latina babe and her enigmatic uncle, a loudmouth American drunk, a British professor of medieval history, an elderly spinster, and a brainy physicist. As the motive for the hijacking becomes clear, we learn that not all the passengers are who they claim to be. Despite their differences, it’s necessary to band together to survive as a team.
The man vs. nature story becomes a man vs. Army tale as the plane survivors encounter hostile forces in the mountain wilderness and are forced to fight for survival with improvised weaponry. Bagley sure knew how to keep the plot moving, and “High Citadel” is a fat-free story filled with action, intrigue, and heroism in a freezing mountain terrain.
Some of my favorite scenes of the book involved the “council of war” meetings in which the survivors must decide whether - and how - to combat the hostile attackers. This a challenging review to write since I’m going to great lengths to not spoil any of the plot developments that are foolishly disclosed on the various iterations of the book cover descriptions and art. If you can go into this one cold, you’re in for several treats.
Reading this 53 year-old paperback, I was constantly reminded of the 1984 film, “Red Dawn” in which a bunch of outgunned and outmanned American high school kids repel a Soviet invasion in their town. “High Citadel” plays with the same idea in a timeless story showing that heart, bravery and ingenuity can triumph against any enemy. You’ll love this one. Highly recommended.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
