Monday, August 24, 2020
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 58
Friday, August 21, 2020
The Crooked Circle (Too Many Murderers)
Our narrator is a 40 year-old, rather unsuccessful ex-cop turned private eye named Steve Paget in fictional Steel City, USA (think Cleveland or Pittsburgh). Against all odds, Steve lands a new client, an eccentric rich guy named Jeff Torrance, who wants to pay Steve good money to have sex with Torrance’s pretty and long-legged wife. I won’t spoil the reason behind this indecent proposal, but after some in initial resistance, Steve agrees to the undercover seduction for a $100,000 fee. Business is business after all, and Mrs. Torrance is a tasty little dish.
Along the way, Steve gets beaten with a wrench and must contend with a dead body that could derail his future plans. Most of the action in the novel’s second half takes place on a remote estate where Steve is pretending to be a guest of the Torrance family looking for an opportunity to seduce the lady of the house and complete his mission. There are long stretches in the paperback where not much happens, and Steve fails to have enough charisma to fully carry the story devoid of any action.
Things pick up quite a bit as we near the climax and the double-crossing gamesmanship among the cast escalates. A murder plot is hatched that becomes a somewhat brilliant and cinematic set piece worth the wait. The Crooked Circle was a decent novel but nothing special until the satisfying ending. It’s interesting to read Stokes’ work before he became a go-to series-novel hired hand. If you can stand some uneven pacing at the paperback’s midsection, the reward at the end is pretty great.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Devil May Care
The hero of Devil May Care is Biggo Venn, a fortysomething soldier of fortune working the speaking circuit for $50 per gig telling globetrotting adventure stories to meeting hall audiences. After a speech in Cleveland, Biggo reconnects with his old friend with a business proposition for the aging mercenary.
The feds deported a Sicilian mobster named Tom Jaccalone who is now living comfortably in Mexico. Biggo is hired to deliver a letter to the mobster that will exonerate him and allow Jaccalone to return to the U.S. legally and resume his racketeering. The letter is a signed confession from someone else admitting to the crime that caused Jaccalone to be deported from the U.S. The gangster is willing to pay $20,000 to get his hands on the letter, and Biggo just needs to deliver the confession to Mexico and earn some easy cash. Of course, Biggo accepts the gig.
The action shifts to Mexico, and the mission turns out to be more complicated than originally represented. Biggo’s point-of-contact for the exchange is murdered. It seems the mobster who took over Jaccalone’s U.S. rackets following his deportation isn’t excited about the prospect of a possible exoneration and repatriation resulting from Biggo’s delivery. This leaves Biggo in Mexico caught in the crossfire between two rival gangsters - both of whom want the letter Biggo is carrying. One has $20,000 for Biggo, and the other has a bullet with his name on it.
In Mexico, Biggo falls in with an impossibly sexy bar hostess named Jinny. There’s also a local Mexican torch-singer that Biggo wants who seems to run the town. Whether these women are friends or foes is a twisty question as the plot develops. Meanwhile, a rival mercenary from Biggo’s past also surfaces in the same Mexican town on the Baja Peninsula to repeatedly throw a monkey wrench in Biggo’s plans.
Overall, Devil May Care is a fine novel. Some of the treatment of the fictional women in the paperback would never fly today, so consider yourself warned if that type of thing bothers you. It’s also a bit padded and slow in the middle section as Biggo hangs around Mexico becoming involved in relationships while waiting to make contact with his buyer.
But once the climactic ending begins, things get great very quickly with lots of cool plot twists and turns. Overall, I’m sure you’re going to like Devil May Care quite a bit, and I completely understand why many say it’s the strongest Wade Miller release. Recommended.
Fun Fact:
Devil May Care was the 9th novel published by the legendary Fawcett Gold Medal paperback imprint. The book never had a second life after multiple Gold Medal printings throughout the 1950s, so the Stark House reprint is a big deal. Buy a copy HERE.
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Valley of the Assassins
The novel introduces a boater named Eric Larson. While being a part-time adventurer, Larson spends most of his life around the Persian Gulf escorting tourists, gun-runners and exiles into and out of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. In the opening pages, Larson discovers three bodies lying on a series of rocks in the islands known as the Arabian Nights. After learning that two of the men are dead, Larson nurses the remaining man back to health and delivers him to authorities in Iraq. Unbeknownst to Larson, the man hides a treasure map on Larson's boat.
Later, Larson is attacked on board his boat by two dagger-wielding assassins. After disposing of the killers, Larson discovers the map and goes down a rabbit hole following the treasure and a secret cult of assassins that can be traced back to 1072 AD. Larson teams with a Kurdish woman named Darra, the daughter of a famous freedom fighter. He also reluctantly agrees to an alliance with an Iranian cop and together the group embarks on a mission to locate the treasure.
Albert's intentions with this book are solid. The makings of any good desert adventure story would surely include a Middle Eastern treasure hunt involving Kurdish rebels and a secret order of assassins. However, the narrative crawls slowly and incorporates way too-many history lessons of the region. Of the novel's 190-pages, only 30-pages really have any action or movement. The author simply regurgitates what he likely learned from National Geographic for much of the book.
I never felt invested in the main character’s success or well-being and found the academic nature of the prose boring. This is a very different book from the high-adventure, high-octane action of Skylark Mission. I still have two more of these Marvin Albert/Ian MacAlister novels to read, but now I'm in no hurry.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Sin for Me
By 1962's Memory of Passion, Brewer had found himself nearing rock bottom, and the author experienced his first major gap between titles as fans waited four years for 1966's The Hungry One. A new publishing imprint, Banner Books, secured original titles from Harry Whittington, David Goodis and Gil Brewer in hopes of building a successful brand. In Brewer's case, that arrangement led to only two books, The Tease and Sin for Me, both published in 1967. Those two novels proved to be the end of Brewer's successful literary career. He would continue writing a few more years under house names doing series work and television tie-in novels, but Sin for Me was essentially Brewer's last crime-noir paperback. Both of Brewer's Banner novels, The Tease and Sin for Me, have been reprinted by Stark House Press as a double with an introduction by scholar David Rachels
Whether intentional or not, Sin for Me reads like a fast-paced western tale. It's a wild manhunt story through the forests and mountain ranges of Colorado. But unlike a dusty, violent cowboy saga, Sin for Me is classic Brewer – a femme fatale story involving greed, sexual desire and bad people. Really bad people.
The book's main character is real-estate agent Jess Sunderland. He's recovering from a bitter divorce from Germaine, a sexy, mountain-bred seductress. To rebound, Sunderland now works for an old colleague named Brownie. In the opening pages, Sunderland receives a call from a beautiful woman named Caroline Jones. After having Sunderland show her numerous houses for sale throughout Denver, she finally confesses the true nature of her business. She was involved in a Florida bank heist with Germaine's new husband. After the heist, Jones was abandoned and finds herself estranged from the money she helped steal. Now she wants Sunderland to assist her in locating the stolen money at Germaine's residence. Like many of Brewer's flawed and doomed protagonists, Sunderland agrees.
Brewer thrusts readers into a chase for stolen loot through Denver and the rural outlying areas. The characters are introduced quickly and often I had to re-read pages to determine which character belonged to which portion of the story. There's a fraud investigator from Jacksonville, Florida, Germaine's backwoods family members, and the various criminals who have tasted the money along the road to misfortune. The finale comes in the form of a western scene – rifle fire from mountain passes between burly men vying for the riches.
As a finale to Brewer's successful crime-noir career, Sin for Me is rather disappointing. The plot moves briskly and introduces too many characters whose cameo appearances clutter the story's elementary dynamics. There was a bank heist. The robbers turned on each other. Sunderland wants the money. It's a simple approach that could have remained rudimentary even given Sunderland's desire to have Germaine back in his arms. However, the book's rushed pace and shallow characters left something to be desired. Like any Brewer novel, it's a fun reading experience but one that could have been better. Packaged with the far superior The Tease, Stark House Press has balanced the great and the average together at an affordable price. It's definitely worth the money, but buy the reprint for The Tease.
Buy a copy of this book HERE
Monday, August 17, 2020
Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 57
Friday, August 14, 2020
Mona (aka Grifter's Game)
Ten-time Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s with his Evan Tanner and Matthew Scudder novels. It’s noteworthy that, like Donald Westlake, Block’s early literary work was soft-core porn titles published under pseudonyms like Sheldon Lord, Lesley Evans and Jill Emerson. The first book published under his own name was Grifter's Game. The book was originally titled The Girl on the Beach (Block explained that it had a Brewer/Williams/Rabe feel), but Fawcett Gold Medal changed the title to Mona when they published it in 1961. In 2004, Charles Ardai's Hard Case Crime imprint republished the book as Grifter's Game, as the imprint’s very first release.
The paperback introduces an adept conman named Joe Martin. As we meet Martin, he's arrogantly embracing the receipt of a hotel bill while secretly telling readers that he doesn't have the funds to cover it. After skipping out on the bill, Martin heads to Atlantic City where he steals a suitcase, and identity, from a man called Leonard K. Blake. After settling into a two-week stint at a posh seaside hotel, Martin's silver lining begins to tarnish – he discovers Blake had a lucrative amount of heroin tucked into the suitcase. Martin's hopes of running another successful con becomes even more convoluted when he meets the young, beautiful Mona Brassard.
Lawrence Block's writing - even at this early stage - is so tight and effective. The book doesn't possess an ounce of filler or padding. Instead, the compelling plot speeds along as Mona and Martin's heated passion intensifies. The convincing narrative offers an unusual balance beam for readers to walk – cheer on Martin's criminal behavior or hope that all of the characters face a downfall. With no distinct heroes, I was still invested in the characters’ slow, spiraling descent through robbery, murder and adultery. Block's ending gave me chills, a monumental feat considering it was originally published 60-years ago.
Mona is a masterful crime-noir that proved Lawrence Block was something truly special even 60-years ago. Today, his writing is just as good. Do yourself a favor and read this author. Become familiar with his work. Tell others about it. The affordable Grifter's Game version by Hard Case Crime is a must-have and a great starting point to embrace this author's bold and impressive crime-fiction.
Buy a copy HERE
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)