The Pulp Jungle

Frank Gruber
The Pulp Jungle

Sherbourne Press, 1967

This book is like an accountant ledger. Is it boring? No, absolutely not. It is fascinating.

Gruber lists all his sales during his pulp years, tells how much money he’s made for each story, what rates magazines paid in those years, what markets were the most prestigious. In these dry facts and not less dry and matter-of-fact numbers we feel that era like we can feel the era smelling old pulps.

Gruber started with Sunday school papers, and then made his goal to become a writer after his first sales. Like Tarzan, he went to the pulp jungle – New York - where most of publishing companies were (and still are) – and made it into big time. But not right from the start. Before he conquered New York and dozens of pulp magazines (and subsequently Los Angeles, working later in Hollywood), he lived through years of struggle, barely selling a couple of stories a month and literally starving on the streets of NYC.

It’s a fascinating account of a professional who works and works non stop and who knows that hard work will pay off some time in the future. His story of success Gruber ornates with recallections of other pulpsters, who also made successful careers (some after that vanished somewhere).

While reading this book, one can easily see how many differencies there were between publishing businesses now and then – and how many similarities. Gruber wrote thousands of short stories and novelettes before he’d moved to writing novels (and screenplays). It was not easy, to just write a novel and sell it without establishing your name first.

The book, though, is roughly written and feels like a first draft. But damn, the masters of pulp always wrote only one draft – the first. They couldn’t afford to write many drafts and rewrite their stories. And we shouldn’t ask for more.

That’s the memoirs everyone interested in book history should read.

Shovel Ready

Adam Sternbergh
Shovel Ready

Crown, 2014

Near future New York. After two terrorists attacks where dirty bombs were employed several smaller attacks followed, which caused panick and climate changes. The Big Apple soon was abandoned by most, few remained, and class differencies divided remaining citizens into seperated ghettos. Poor started camping in not so long ago public spaces, and the rich retreated to the comfort of their homes, for the comfort you only needed a few bodyguards. Without any will to live in a dirty, dangerous city, the rich have chosen another reality, the limnosphere, Internet of the new type, where one can live a life he creates for himself. The more money you spend on virtual reality, the more real it will be. You don’t need to live in reality, your body in coffin-like bed will be taken care of by a hired nurse, and your home will be protected by bodyguards. If you thought of that.

If not, the your are an easy prey for a hired killer, who can crawl into your home and kill you in your sleep. This method is the favorite method of Spademan, the protagonist of this novel. He’s ex-garbage man, after one incident turned to murder-for-hire business. “I kill men. I kill women because I don’t discriminate. I don’t kill children because that’s a different kind of psycho.
I do it for money. Sometimes for other forms of payment. But always for the same reason. Because someone asked me to.” He doesn’r ask questions and he doesn’t need to hear clients’ stories. New client hires Spademan to track down young girl Grace Harrow, and kill her. The girl leaves a blood trail beside her, and when Spademan finally has caught up with her, he can’t kill her. Because she’s five month pregnant. He’s signed up to protect her from the client who hired him, he’s also girl’s father.

The novel is selling as a hired killer novel, which is misleading, because it isn’t. And that is the first step to disappointment. Spademan is only nominally a hired killer, soon after the start he turnes to the role of private eye in a cyberpunk world, honest knight on a white horse, who is ready to defend every girl. Sternbergh sould be on the same shelf, as such masters of hired killer novels like Thomas Perry, Max Allan Collins, Lawrence Block. “Shovel Ready” has only a few similarities with the works of this sub-genre, among them is powerful beginning where Spademan describes the rules of his work.

All in all, the book is one big cliché, mediocre cyberpunk thriller, with only one correction that it’s written almost in free verse and that Sternbergh doesn’t use quotation marks in dialogues. The main problem with this book, as I see it, is laziness of the wit and anbsense of enough real-life experience to write believably about fanastical world. For his world Sternbergh borrowed too familiar tropes and elements from old SF. His idea of virtual reality Maxtrix-style and retreat of the rich to virtual world while their bodies are taken care of is that old and was used so many times that rarely an author from SF community will use it. Half-abandoned, dirty New York is detailed with love and care, yet tis is more like an ode to the favorite city, writing with a nostalgic tone, than a proper world-building. Sternbergh lets too much nostalgie sink into his novel. Instead of creating new ideas Sternbergh utilizies a few old ones: the protagonist uses “old” Internet, reads newspapers, avoids the limnosphere, uses subway. The world-building of the city is so-so, it’s just dirtier and more corrupted version of NYC.

Employed for his own purposes old SF elements, plot-wise the author employs elements of thrillers and action novels. A hired killer, instead of killing his client, starts to protect a victim – We have seen a hundred times. A team of the protagonist’s helpers almost in it entirety came from a different sources. Pregnant runaway girl, crazy pastor, hired muscles, dead protagonist’s wife – Shovel Ready should be called novel-collage. Through these clichés Sternbergh tries to satirize class-divided world, only fails when his satire drowns in a large pool of blood, guts, and mindless action scenes tiring you out.

The plot is predictable from start to finish, and all what’s you are left with is to pay attention to the style. Sternbergh relies heavily on dialogues, and they are nothing outstanding, and experiments with the prise, writing short, abrupt sentences, similat to free verse. It works in some scenes (particularly in the beginning and when Spademan recalls his first victims), and fails in others. Dull thriller written in verse is still a dull thriller.

Spademan already became series character, yet after this debut you feel no need to pay attention to the series. Where is my shovel? I need to bury this book deep.

Rough Cut

Ed Gorman
Rough Cut

St. Martin’s Press, 1985

Michael Ketchum is a partner in a small advertising agency. Michael seems to be the only one who really works there, not only looking after the artistic side of the business, but also taking part in the creative process. The other advertisers, starting with Michael’s partner Denny Harris, are preoccupied by different activities: looking for mistresses on the side, stabbing each other in the back, scheming, drinking during working hours, at best, doing nothing.

Michael suspects that his partner Harris keeps the biggest client wife's named Clay Traynor as a mistress. If this secret will emerge, Traynor is likely to stop working with Michael’s firm, and the firm simply will go bankrupt. Michael hires a sleaze private detective to gather evidence on Harris. With photos from a private detective Michael goes to his partner to confront him and put pressure on him. In the Harris’ house the corpse of his partner greets Michael. Michael, scared, doesn’t report crime to the police, and soon someone kills another agency employee and another. Michael must find the killer before Michael will be the next.

After Rough Cut Gorman will write a few dozen books, but in 1985 this will be his debut. The circle of the novel's characters are only employees of an advertising agency, and the action rarely spreads beyond the office and apartment of the protagonist. This makes the mystery local, and the atmosphere stuffy. Everyone is a suspect, and the suspects die one by one. Could the killer be a secretary? The agency employs envious cowards and careerists that even secretaries are not to be excluded.

The intrigue expertly is stretched until the very end, and I can assure you, you will not guess who is a killer.

I also quite enjoyed the novel because of the presence of a bad private detective. If usually private detective is a knight on a white horse, a hard man, walking down the mean streets, and in these cases invariably P.I. is a main protagonist, in this book the private detective Stokes is an aahole, blackmailer and sissy, and not the main character either. I have not seen such disgusting private investigator in a long time.

Gorman’s prose is another pleasant surprise, not rough cut at all, the refined product.

«After my divorce, and before I felt much like falling in love again, I spent many evenings alone in my bachelor apartment feasting on Stouffer's frozen dinners and using self-pity the way other people used drugs. I also got into the habit of approximating a sensory-deprivation tank by sitting in the bathtub, throwing back several gins, and coming dangerously close to dozing off in the hot water.

Which is where I was three-and-a-half hours after somebody knocked me out at Denny Harris's house.»

This is conscious, adult, men's prose, surprisingly assured for the detective genre. Rough Cut is a pleasant debut.

Donnybrook

Frank Bill
Donnybrook

William Heinemann, 2013

«Donnybrook was a three-day bare-knuckles tournament, held once a year every August. Run by the sadistic and rich-as-fuck Bellmont McGill on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks. Twenty fighters entered a fence-wire ring. Fought till one man was left standing. Hordes of onlookers-men and women who used drugs and booze, wagered and grilled food-watched the fighting. Two fights Friday. Four Saturday. The six winners fought Sunday for one hundred grand.»

At this tournament on a remote farm, sooner or later the protagonists of the debut novel by Frank Bill will gather to settle things. Someone will come as a fighter, someone as an onlooker, and someone will come here for other reasons.

The main characters of the novel are the fighters, in the sense that they are ready to defend what is theirs and fight for what had been taken away from them. Coincidentally, four of these characters are also bare-knuckles fighters that can compete for the top prize. Jarhead robbed a gun shop to get money for the fee for the tournament, and only wants to feed his family with the money won («I's hungry, Dada») and to cure an ill back of his wife. Angus and his sister Liz before the tournament won’t divide rightfully cooked drugs and will scatter in different directions, Liz in the company of another fighter named Ned, they as a team will sell meth during the tournament. Deputy Sheriff Whalen rushes for Donnybrook to get revenge. A Chinese named Fu will look at the tournament for the people who owe money to his boss.

Each character has its own motivation, everyone arrives at Donnybrook as to some place where the dreames come true, and by the start of the tournament there will be several lives taken by each main character. Personality of these characters should represent the greatest interest to us, because the tournament itself is crumpled, fistfishts remain in the background, and - spoilers - because of general chaos the tournament will be disrupted, and all that remains of it will become a great slaughter.

Actually, the events preceding the tournament, which reveal the nature of the violent people of Southern Indiana, are the best part of the novel. The closer to the finale, the more boring the novel becomes, despite the seemingly appealing knuckle fights. The problem of the book is just that it becomes non-stop action, and that in itself becomes too much and makes too little sense. With each chapter the heroes’ teeth, heads, kidneys and thighs are kicked in, but they ignore all that, and they like zombies crawl to Donnybrook as if there human flesh awaits them. Instead of a play of characters we get a play of rifles and fists, and dialogues’s semantic sense decreases rapidly («Spit and hollered," Fucking-fuck-fuck-fucker! "»). When everyone is fighting with everyone - it's tiring.

In his short stories from his debut collection Frank Bill saw some big picture. Bill created the mythology of his native land. In those stories were mundane wisdom of a person for whom violence was a form of existence. In Donnybrook the author as if destroys his own mythology. No wisdom here but only a scuffle. All is solved by a gun, there is no difference who you are.

Bill makes no attempt to get to the causes of criminal life in Southern Indiana. One of the characters, Purcell, makes superficial conclusions:

«He was honing an edge. Thinking about what he'd read in the newspaper earlier in the day, about wage cuts and unemployment. How companies across the U.S. were in a slump. Some were sinking while others tried to do more with less. The American way had expired, been lost somewhere. Now it seemed to work in the US just meant you were a number trying to make big numbers for the men above you. And if you could not do it, there was another number that could.»

Ragged style suits the lifestyle of characters:

«A deafening blast erupted from the .30-30's barrel. Half the officer's face opened. He stutter-stepped backward, fell out the doorway. His body spread out like a puppy-soiled rug on the porch, wet and spotted.»

Only the style, too, becomes stale in the second half, turning into a parody of itself:

«Fu sat in the Jeep's passenger seat meditating on needles puncturing skin. Tethered bodies. Inhales and exhales of pleading. Breaking a man's will. Loyalty.»

The first half of the novel, one that recalls the best Bill stories claims the real depth, and the second one is smeared with action bordering on self-parody. Perhaps the best is to re-read Bill’s short story collection.

Witness to Myself

Seymour Shubin
Witness to Myself

Hard Case Crime, 2006

As a teenager Alan Benning once spends a holiday with his parents in a mobile home at the ocean. Alan runs along the beach, steps into the woods and about a mile away from where his parents left off meets a little girl. Her kite is stuck in a tree, and Alan helps remove the kite. Sexually excited, Alan attempts to touch the girl, she begs him not to hurt her, Alan panics and strangles her first, and then throws her on the ground.

Returning to his parents, Alan lays down with a fever, until the family is going away forever from the small town where the beach was located. From that moment fifteen years passes, Alan graduates from university, becomes a successful lawyer, gets a promising job in the charity-specialized company, dates a sweet and sympathetic nurse. But the episode at the beach, the outbreak of violence, does not make the hero rest. He should go back to this town and try to find out whether he had killed an innocent girl or not.

The novel with such dubious hero (an attack on a little girl does not honor him) is not told by Alan himself, but by someone close to him, his cousin Colin, working as a true-crime journalist. Colin writes articles for several tru-crime magazines, knows many detectives, watches popular TV shows about unsolved murders. And as the story is told by journalist, whom Alan have never talked about his only crime to, you can at the very beginning of the book conclude that Alan will pay for his act - and repent before his cousin.

Witness to Myself is a fine example of modern noir, quick, chilling, appealing for sympathy towards the main character, but which does not overdo it with the psychological stuff. Alan could easily come off the pages of an early novel written by Highsmith, only Shubin is not burdened with psychological layouts, trying to move faster with his story. Alan is of that category of noir heroes, whose near-perfect existence marred by a single shameful act from the past. And this act is sitting like cancer in his brain. Sooner or later, it will still kill its host. And it seems the more ideal he is for those who surround him, and in the course of the novel Alan really in everyone's eyes will be almost a saint, the harder he gets along with his past.

Shubin is a veteran writer and Witness to Myself indicates that the writer is still in excellent shape.

The Whole Lie

Steve Ulfelder
The Whole Lie

Minotaur, 2012

Conway Sax comes back, this time plunging right into political intrigue. Savannah Kane, Conway's former lover, also a member of Alcoholics Anonymous group who are calling themselves the Barnburners, asks him for help. Savannah has a relationship with a candidate of the upcoming elections for governor. Someone blackmails a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, and Savannah asks to find a blackmailer. Conway is not eager to help some rich politician, but can not refuse Savannah. The Barnburners are on the first place, helping each other, and then only everything and everyone else. Conway receives a check for a lump sum from the candidate, feels something’s wrong, but still takes the case - the money from the check can help Conway buy his business off his girlfiend Charlene. Then someone kills Savannah, staging her death as accident, and to reveal a chain of crimes for Conway becomes a matter of honor.

The first book about Sax offered a twisted plot and believable characters, but suffered from stylistic roughness. In The Whole Lie Steve Ulfelder polished the roughness without losing the suspence of plot and fullness of the characters. Conway Sax in this book has become even more sympathetic to the reader, thanks to the narrator’s talents in Ulfelder. Often crime fiction with an amateur sleuth (and Sax is somewhere in between an amateur and a professional sleuth for AA group) disappoints with its infantilism: the protagonist, having thrown all his usual routine, runs as a madcap, revealing a world conspiracy, putting his life at risk many times in the book as if forgetting the fear. Sax is also engaged in a dangerous game, nevertheless does not become irresponsible. He cares about his business, small problems of Charlene’s daughter, trying to find such middle ground, that his detective affairs doesn’t interfere in affairs of the heart. But it’s hard to carry through.

Ulfelder with this novel definitely will not bore you. The book not only entertains, and even gives practical advice, and it is always useful to read the book from which you learn something new:

«You wouldn't believe how hard it is to tail a guy. It's not like TV at all.

Barnburner duties had taught me the only way to follow a car was to stick your nose right up his back bumper, make sure you got through the same lights he did, and hope like hell he wasn't paying attention.»

Books about Conway Sax are the best there is in the genre today.

The Reckoning

Rennie Airth
The Reckoning

Mantle, 2014

Sussex, 1947. Someone shoots a retired banker Oswald Gibson in the neck, after putting the victim on his knees. A shepherd sees the killer from afar, but can not give a distinct description. It is only known that the killer was wearing baggy clothes and moved quickly, with youthful gait. Shepherd immediately called the constable, police began to surround the area near the river, but the killer seemed to dissolve in the air.

Investigate the murder in Sussex comes Scotland Yard Inspector Styles. Attention of Chief Detective Bureau of the country is attracted by the fact that in Scotland a week earlier in a similar manner an elderly doctor was killed in the operating room. Styles suspects that the murders may be linked. Gibson was a widower, lived modestly, had no enemies. Of relatives he had only a lawyer brother. However, coming servants recall that a few days before the murder, someone visited Gibson. After this visit, Gibson walked thinking about something and even began to write a letter to the Chief Constable of England, inquiring about a former inspector named Madden.

Styles does not know whether this unfinished letter is connected to the murder, but summons Madden, former Yard inspector. Madden, now retired, is mostly engaged in gardening and happy to help, but he doesn’t recognizes Gibson on the photographs.

There are a serial killer, killing seemingly unrelated people, an insightful inspector (in this case, former inspector), scattered through the novel clues, and even chapters, written from the victims’ point of view. Similar novels are published probably by dozens per week in England alone, and this one stands out with bright style and tight plotting.

Rennie Airth avoids hackneyed device when chapters from the murderer’s POV are written in italics. In the novel, there are a few scenes that are written almost from the killer’s point of view, but they do not cause the slightest irritation. The novel’s plot is linear, the story is told clearly, without trying to be "High Literature", which usually ends badly. Here the author’s ability to build the plot is obvious: there is the work of thought, there is footwork. Clues appear gradually, logical, and the investigation is conducted professionally. Each clue is checked out, which again emphasizes the author's skill.

By the middle of the novel it is clear where the investigation will turn that somewhat frustrating. Then the book departs from its course of the classical detective story, floating away in the direction of the country thriller. The killer becomes known, all that’s left is catch him. Airth quite believable handles the scenes of chases and surveillance.

The Reckoning is a nice mystery, not pretending to be something more. It’s a fun read for a couple of evenings.

Eyrie

Tim Winton
Eyrie

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014/ Picador UK, 2014

Perth, Australia, our days. Tom Keely lives alone in an apartment building in a poor neighborhood. He's almost 50, he is divorced, childless, he is out of work. Keely was once known environmental activist, he even appeared on TV screens, the newspapers and magazines wrote about him. But after a conflict with officials, he lost his job because he refused to cover the illegal actions of the authorities. Keely issued dirty linen in public, and now no private company wants to hire him, not to mention the state.

Keely lives on some savings and money from the sale of the house. All that he can afford is a small apartment in the seedy neighborhood. Keely worsens his problems with alcohol and regular antidepressants. Most of the novel we will be see Keely either drunk, or on pills, or hang-over.

Keely rarely comes from the apartment, speaks to no one, occasionally swims in the ocean. His mother Doris, a successful lawyer, and sister Faith, working in the financial sector, worries about Keely. He assures them that he's all right.

Everything changes in Keely’s life when he unexpectedly meets a woman, which resembles someone, in the building,. She is Gemma, a girl from the past. Now Gemma is in her forties, and she raises her grandson - a strange boy with no less strange name Kai. Keely is surprised by this meeting, he did not even know that Gemma lived in the same house with him just down the hall.

Despite its length, Eyrie reads in one breath. That’s not surprising considering that Winton has written 25 books already. The secret of success here is that the book equally attracts with its plot intrigue and an ability to write about everyday life.

Winton pushes his characters to an almost impossible situation, making the novel very dark and kind of depressing. Heroes fall into a trap, and all their actions and attempts are doomed. It is important not to lose the human face, not be on the same level with animals, those who prey on the main characters of the novel.

Despair largely even comes not from an external source, i.e. criminal elements, but from life itself. Keely after his fall from the top steps on the lowest rung of society, at his age left with nothing - except the conscience and moral attitudes. He largely looks up to his father, who was a priest and really saved people. Keely is also trying, but realizes that he lacks hardness. And his moral values are his own ruin. Because of them, he does not fit into society, can not keep in touch with other people.

Actually everyday life stifles Keely and Gemma and the like. They are honest, strong-willed people who simply can not cope with the system. Everything is against them. Toward the end of the novel Keely pawns his computer equipment to the shop to get a little cash. Clerk gives Keely a hundred dollars less than usual just because Keely looks, due to stress and alcohol, as if he were a junkie.
Crime story takes a turn in the second half of the book, and in the first Winton depicts Australian life of bottom. The novel is written in the third person, but such that it is similar to the first. And the voice of Keely is simultaneously resentful and angry at society (and himself), but also from bitter at his own impotence and unwillingness to change something. Such bitterness in his voice helps make the novel drive, when seemingly nothing happens, other than sitting in a stuffy room, swimming in the ocean, a short phone talk with the sister. Descriptions of hangover here are gorgeous, extremely realistic and somewhat painful. It is a rare thing.

“He peeled back the lids with a gospel gasp and levered himself upright and bipedal if not immediately ambulatory. Teetered a moment in the bad weather and shapeless mortification of something like waking consciousness. Which was heinous. Though in the scheme of things today’s discomfort was the least of his troubles. He should be glad of the distraction. This little malaise was only fleeting. Well, temporary. Just a bloody hangover. But for all that a pearler anyway, a real swine-choker. Even his feet hurt. And one leg was still intoxicated.”

In the novel there is no quotation marks at the dialogues, they are part of the main text, but the dialogues are actually Winton’s strong point. It’s difficult to write a believable dialogue between child and adult, and Winton makes it believable.

Eyrie’s action takes place in Australia, though the novel is rather a hybrid of literature of the three countries. From Australia there is destroying heat and large spaces, from English literature dialogues and britanisms and from the American prose the story itself.

Winton is a brilliant stylist, a good storyteller, and his novel is a great success.

My Criminal World

Henry Sutton
My Criminal World

Harvill Secker, 2013

David Slavitt is a middle-aged crime writer, the author of the thrillers of medium popularity, father of two children, obedient husband. In the morning he drives the kids to school, then writes, and in the evening serves to the university colleagues of his wife cooking for them one dish and then another. And not that David is depressed about his life, it seems like the wife loves him, his books have readers, even though he’s not recognized on the street, and yet the writer's life has lost some direction. The new novel is not written, though deadline is rapidly approaching, the agent presses and requests from David more violence in his books (as an example pointing to a young talent, for whose novel publishers fought at the auction), his wife Maggie distences away from him and spends more time at work.

Slavitt does begin writing his new novel, staying in trend, with a female cop as the main character, and squeezes out a scene ot two every day, while he begins to suspect his wife having an affair with a student.

World couldn’t bear another novel about a writer’s block if My Criminal World wasn’t a subtle satire on the publishing world and the lives of middle-class suburbia. And this satire is quite softie, as David himself.

David himself has no intention to scoff at someone or laugh at something. He is depressed from all sides, he isn’t resting, and he does not dare to argue with anyone. His editor avoids him as a hopeless author, his agent is coddling him and tries to lead to the right path (ie the path of the bestseller), his wife shrugs off and complaines about tiredness. And inner uncertainty pushes the protagonist to such actions, which at other times he would not have thought of. So, a stay-at-home dad turns into the character of moderately suspenseful domestic thriller.

The publishing world is extremely prudent in this novel, so it is relatively easy to make fun of it. Course for commercialization fiction has taken finds his way in My Criminal World. David himself, perhaps, is the last of all the characters who think about money, but everyone else is trying to milk the author of the books before throwing him away. Publicity team prepares a U.S. tour, the agent teaches the writer how to write, the editor meets only with those who bring in cash.

Simultaneously with the main events of the novel we read manuscripts and fragments of the new Slavitt book. His novel is a typical British police procedural, callous, clumsy, with the change of POV in each chapter. Surprisingly, Henry Sutton managed to stylize these fragments from an average thriller. Compared to this Sutton’s novel, Slavitt’s novel looks pathetic. Slavitt is a nice guy, but what a mediocre writer he is.

Henry Sutton returned the faith that the novels about writer’s block could still be exciting and well-written. I will read more from Sutton with a great pleasure, but I wouldn’t ever read Slavitt.

Little Girl Lost

Richard Aleas
Little Girl Lost

Hard Case Crime, 2004

John Blake, a private investigator in a small two man detective agency, accidentally learns about the death of a stripper Miranda Sugarman from the newspaper. Miranda died as a stripper, but when John saw her the last time 10 years ago, she was going to become a doctor studying in one of the colleges in the Midwest. Miranda was Blake’s first love, and he just can not leave her death to the police, which, in turn, unlikely to thoroughly investigate the murder of a stripper in a third-rate bar, given that there are zero clues.

Blake's most interested in how a future doctor could do such a striking way to the bottom of society. Blake begins to delve into the suspicious circumstances of the murder, gradually learning of the lives of the visitors and employees of seediest places in New York.

Aleas’s debut novel was written by the old paperbacks rules, adjusted for the fact that everything is taken serious. Every death is horrible and there is no feeling when you know well: the protagonist somehow will wriggle out of all his problems. A familiar background is here updated with modern technology: Blake uses the Internet and mobile phone.

The second and final novel about Blake a few years ago was rated by me so high that I named it one of the best recent mysteries in the field. Aleas knows how to stun the reader, and the novel’s final twist was so bold so for several days I wasn’t myself, turning the end in my head over and over. Little Girl Lost also offers a powerful finale, which strength is spoiled by some predictability.

The main Aleas’s achievement is the moral growth of his characters, which is very rare in serial books. Even Marlow, from novel to novel, remained unchanged. Blake by the finale is wiser and changes his way of life. And little gitl is lost forever.

The Gutter and The Grave

Ed McBain
The Gutter and The Grave

Hard Case Crime, 2005

Matt Cordell was a private investigator once. Now he drinks all day, panhandling and sleeping in flophouses. All because of a woman: Cordell found his beautiful wife in bed with his partner, beat his face to a pulp, almost ended up in prison, escaped a conviction with the loss of a private detective license.

An old acquaintance finds swollen and smelly Cordell in one of the parks of New York. Ex-P.I. has not seen his pal for more than five years. Friend, Johnny, asks for help with a small problem at work: in his tailor shop there were thefts from cash register for six months, and Johnny suspects a business partner, Dom Archese. After long persuading, Cordell agrees to help Johnny look into the thefts at the shop, where they find Archese shot to death, and written on the wall with chalk Johnny’s initials “J.B.”. Cordell offers Johnny to surrender to police and become a police chief suspect, and Cordell promises to find the killer and clear Johnny’s name.

I think this is the first novel by McBain, which I read, and I think it will not be the last. McBain, mostly familiar to readers as the author of police procedurals, keeps steadily on private detectives field. How often have you read detective stories where the detective would have been drunk and a bum? Cordell during the investigation partially stays on the wagon, and it is to his own advantage: the detective will find the murderer by the end.

McBain plays by the rules, gradually introducing all the suspects, throwing tips and clues and allowing the reader to figure out the killer. Even though the novel inhabits some cliches and banalities, The Gutter and The Grave reads with gusto. McBain here even parodies the famous trick when beaten detective escapes from the hospital to continue the investigation. It is not clear who every time then pays for the medical bills for these fugitives?

Cordell is a tragic figure himself, and the world of the novel is not particularly bright, nevertheless, McBain adds a few jokes in his novel. In 1958, jokes about Hitler had not yet gone out of fashion.

It’s a great novel from the master of the genre.

The Sudden Arrival of Violence

Malcolm Mackay
The Sudden Arrival of Violence

Mantle, 2014

The final part of The Glasgow Trilogy. Former freelance hitman Calum MacLean is now forced to leave his independence. He becomes the main gunman for the criminal organization headed by Peter Jamieson. Calum is not satisfied with the situation, but he can not just stand and get away from his employer. In the criminal business there are special rules and fot hitmen it sounds something like this - death in, death out. Calum can leave the organization only in the casket, though it will not exactly be true: the body of former hitman likely will never be found.

However, MacLean invents his plan of runaway from the organization. After the final hit and killing two persons, the driver for the organization boss and a crooked accountant for a rival gang boss, Calum lays low, knowing that within a week after the job he will not be looked. Calum in minimum time must collect his things, sell his car, and most importantly, buy a fake passport to flee abroad. But Calum’s plan fails.

The Sudden Arrival of Violence’s story has parallels with other hitman novel, The Butcher's Boy. Only Mackay’s gunman is trying to get away from the organization by his own will, Thomas Perry’s unnamed hitman is forced into hiding after the attacks on him by the mafia bosses. Mackay does not stands with one character for long, alternating points of view. Here the widow of the killed driver tries to solve her husband 's disappearance, and persistent detective is entangled in suspects and motives, and Calum’s brother worries for the successful realization of a plan of escape. The novel offers a considerable amount of twists, not letting you feel bored in nearly 400 pages.

This novel closes the trilogy, it is the longest of the three, here the storylines weave most. For all the complexity of the whole picture Mackay offers not so much action. The novel offers Calum’s story how he actually became a gun for sale. And I can not say that McKay gives us a compelling biography.

I can not avoid SPOILERS when discussing another plot turn, used by the author. Mackay seems to violate an unwritten rule, bringing together Calum and Detective Fisher. Calum in a private conversation with Detective confesses to all their murders and talks about the internal works of the criminal organization. It is no secret that the hitmen have cooperated with the police and will be cooperating exchanging their testimony to freedom. There is another type of criminals who flirted with investigators, but never directly admitted to their own crimes. Nevertheless Calum gives his confession, but remains at large. This episode of the meeting of Calum and Fisher rings false. Fisher would hardly leave Calum free. And all Calum’s confessions are not worth a damn.

Mackay in the finale gives his (anti)hero a chance at rehabilitation. Calum plans to live a life on this side of the law, quitinng the contract murders. But this kind of happy ending can be considered as pessimistic ending. Calum, a man without education and no skills, is unlikely to find himself in a free life. Where he will yield and what benefits he can bring to society? Become a seller in the supermarket? Become a sales manager of plastic windows or vacuum cleaners? I think a law-abiding life will be worst punishment for the former killer.

A particular problem of this novel - and in general of the whole trilogy - became the style chosen by the author. In its best moments it is a chopped-up prose, partly energetic, partly melodic. In their worst moments (which there are plenty) it is a set of truisms, half-baked sentences, uttering platitudes.

«Life moved on, but it left a scar. Takes real strength to shrug it off and move straight along.»

«Gumen, for example. For them it could be a matter of life or death. Capture or escape.»

«Tough, surly, but definetely honest. Everyone said so. Got a hard-on for gangland stuff. Just because people think he's honest, doesn't mean he is.»

Sometimes it seems that the author passed the rough drafts of novels to the publisher, not the novels themselves.

The whole trilogy is pretty good read, where the best of the three is perhaps the second novel. The Glasgow Trilogy is worth reading, but you wouldn’t kill for it.

The Dead Beat

Doug Johnstone
The Dead Beat

Faber, 2014

Martha Fluke begins to work in Edinburgh newspaper The Standard as intern, where, until recentl, her father Ian worked. Martha barely knew her dad and now no longer will get a chance to know him better: a few weeks before the events of the novel Ian committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. In the opening scene of the novel Martha visits her father's grave, and then hurry to the newspaper’s office. There she takes place of an obituaries writer, writing about old people mostly, and it is desirable to ask the relatives to write about their late loved ones.

Martha barely has time to meet with the paper team (among staff is Billy, the hero of one of the author's previous books Hit and Run), as answers the call where at the other end of the phone man reads his own obituary. In the phone, a shot rings out, and Martha, horrified, reportes to colleagues what had happened. The case is even more puzzling when it turns out that the caller is staff obituaries writer. Martha and her colleagues hurry to suicide victim’s home and even manage to save him, calling an ambulance, but not for long. Everyone agrees that Gordon who shot himself suffered from depression and the reason for his departure from life understandable. Only Martha is not so sure about the death of Gordon: where did Gordon get a gun? And what a noise she’s heard on the phone after the shot?

Doug Johnstone grows with each book as a writer. He is an accurate observer, a good stylist, he has the ear for dialogue. The first chapter of the novel is a showcase of the whole novel, and it shows what Johnstone is capable of as a stylist:

«She read the inscriptions as she went past, and worked out the age that each person had been when they died. Eighty-seven, sixty-two, thirty-nine. Dead person bingo. The old-timers, fine. Twenties and thrities, ah well. One teenager, that made her think. She was older than a corpse.»

Generally the first half of the novel is a strong literary novel about the life of young journalists in the world of surviving newspapers. Mysterious call and newspaper journalist’s suicide in the context of the first half of the novel look like side effects of the profession, and not as an element of domestic thriller. Johnstone is in his natural sphere, when he writes about the youth. His protagonists are in their 20s, they enter adulthood, but still have not lost enthusiasm and courage of the youth. Alcohol and drugs accompany the book's characters in almost every chapter.

Johnstone is interested in the topic of fathers and children, or even, parents and children. Martha learns about her father’s past through his music recorded on tape (she even walks the streets with the old "walkman" on) and vinyl, but also has a difficult relationship with her mother. Together with her brother Martha tries to call her mother by name, which greatly irritates the parent («You called me Mum by accident, isn't that sweet.»).

But if Johnstone’s book themes matured, the level of plotting remained on the same, not the highest, level. The author methodically builds world of the novel, making it as close as possible to the reality, and then suddenly pumping in there gallons of pulpish atmosphere. The plot tilts to the side as far away from the credibility, the characters begin to run erratically, logic disappears. Two author’s previous novels suffered from the same problems. Absurd plot in them completely subdued quite realistic drawn characters.

In order not to pervade this review with spoilers, I only say that the final third of the novel like is from not really good pulp story. When one character-villain is told that suicide victime didn’t die this villain replies:

«Fuck, that's annoying.»

That's really how the villain from the pulp could answer (except for the word «fuck»), but not in real life.

The Dead Beat seems to indicate that the author should either properly next time work on a plot, or even leave thrillers and write "serious" prose. This is what he does much better.

Fade to Blonde

Max Phillips
Fade to Blonde

Hard Case Crime, 2004

Ray Corson virtually works for free for a local building contractor, and it starts to bother him. Corson came to Hollywood as a screenwriter, but also tried himself in the ring, in front of the camera, and now doing odd jobs. When an attractive blonde finds him and asks to help her with one thing, Corson immediately quits his job, knocking out the payment from his boss.

A blonde named Rebecca LaFontaine (of course, a pseudonym) offers a small sum of money for Corson so he would help her get rid of a persistent suitor Lance Halliday, and for get rid of him the girl means to kill him. Corson is not ready to kill and offers simply to scare Halliday with more peaceful ways. Halliday owns a small film studio, engaged in the production of pornographic films, as well as on the side deals drugs. While Ray is looking for ways to approach Halliday, the dead bodies begin to pile up.

It is not difficult to guess that Phillips wrote an homage to paperback novels from the 50s. The detective hero himself came as if from noir novel (eventually Corson considers killing Halliday and solving all problems), but the novel’s plot here is purely mystery. Phillips plays by the rules, scattering hints and pieces throughout the text, but doing without trickery.

Charm of Fade to Blonde lays not only in the plot and style. The novel reads more like a book from 40s or 50s that has been forgot and only now was found. It is perfect to learn to distinguish the original from the copy. Connoisseurs of old PBO novels will find the whole scenes and the individual words that you can read here, but never could find in the paperbacks of the middle of the last century.

«"You can touch one for a dollar, "she said.

"What?"

"Give me a dollar," she said, drying her back.

After a moment, I took a dollar from my pocket and handed it to her. She folded it twice and tucked it under the right strap of her suit, then swung my towel around her shoulders like a shawl. Beneath it, she lowered her left strap. She took hold of my right hand, slipped it under the towel, and placed it on her breast. It was heavy and firm. The skin was still cold and goose-pimpled, but I could feel the heat inside.»

This scene gives a particularly good idea of the differences between the two eras. I find it difficult to imagine that such an episode would find a place somewhere in the book of a detective imprint (although we can not exclude softcore publishers).

Fade to Blonde is a clever homage and strong whodunit.

Slayground

Richard Stark
Slayground

Random House, 1971

A part of Friday Forgotten Books

Parker in the company of company Grofield and second-rate driver Laufman knock out armored car on a deserted road, but when they try to getaway Laufman rolls the car into the fence. Parker is the only one who does not lose consciousness, and he gets out of the car with a bag of money. Police are coming and there is absolutely nowhere to hide - except for Fun Island, an amusement park, closed for the winter. Parker climbs over the wall, hoping to get out later through another exit when a hype around the armored car slows down. Parker does not yet know that there is no way out of the park, and worse than that: Parker and a satchel of money were seen by two mobsters who met with two patrol cops to for the pay-off. And mobsters and cops will want to get this bag.

Those familiar with the previous books in the series about Parker without my recommendations know that you should read Stark, preferably starting with the first book of the series The Hunter. Slayground is rightly considered one of the best books by Stark, largely because Parker here is in an almost hopeless situation (though isn’t he always?). Never before Parker was not in the truest sense cornered where there is no exit. Moreover, by the middle of the novel Parker is left without his favorite weapon – a gun. But Parker, of course, is not one of those who surrender.

Slayground offers not only entertainment for a few hours, but makes fans of the series to ask several questions about the central character, Parker. I was curious, if Parker did not see any options to get out of the situation, would he choose to surrender to police, given that he is wanted for a couple of murders, or he would prefer death in a shootout?

Another issue worrying me in the course of reading can be formulated as follows: how this professional thief is always in a good shape, if he does not play any sports, doesn’t work out, does not go to the gym and spends his free time (or spent up to a certain time) on the beach sunbathing and sipping cocktails? It’s impossible to imagine Parker playing basketball with the company or in the gym lifting weights. The only exercise Parker makes when he comes to jobs, but it does not happen too often. Without the stunning physical form Parker just would not be able to do all that he did in the novel.

Night Train to Jamalpur

Andrew Martin
Night Train to Jamalpur

Faber, 2013

India, 1923. The protagonist of the previous eight books in the series Englishman Captain Jim Stringer with his wife and teenage daughter is on secondment to the East Indian Railway. The main purpose of trip is investigating possible cases of corruption among top management of the East Indian Railway.

At the beginning of the novel Stringer takes the Night Mail train from Calcutta to Jamalpur in first class carriage with five companions, among them Major Fisher, who was set as a partner to Stringer to investigate corruption cases. Stringer does not trust Fisher, considering his dark personality, he is able to do anything behind Stringer’s back. Fisher behaves surly and despises all Indians.
In the car, our narrator meets with Jim Young, an Anglo-Indian, who is also working on the railway. At night during one of the stops someone kills Young, escaping in the desert. Everyone in the car have heard the shots, but no one has caught the killers. The lock on the door of Stringer’s compartment was broken and Stringer concludes that perhaps someone wanted to kill him, not Young. Someone calls the police, and Detective Inspector Khudayar Khan of the C.I.D. is assigned to the case.

Stringer takes an interest into this matter investigating available suspectes in his spare time. The third case, which Stringer also takes unofficially, becomes "snake killings" in the first class carriages on the Railway. Someone throws poisonous snakes, including king cobras, in first-class compartments. Snakes have killed more than four people and continue to kill. People become afraid to go first class, although trains are carefully checked. Stringer wonder who can do this, because only the master can control the snake and put it in the car without hurting himself.

In the main corruption case Stringer has two primary suspects, William Askwith, top brass in the traffic department, and Douglas Poole, his deputy. Both are Englishman, as other brass on the Railway.

Perhaps those who read the previous books in the series will have even more fun, but even as a stand-alone book Night Train to Jamalpur is quite a smart mystery. Martin throws the bait immediately, starting the book with murder, and then slowly spins all three (even four, if we take into account the matter with Stringer’s daughter) plotlines. The novel continues without haste, that in general it is quite clear. The detective has the three investigations at the time, one officially and two semi-officially, and he can not solve them all immediately. However, it turns out that the main plotline, corruption case, remains in the shadows.

The novel is written in the first person, the narrator Stringer generously shares with the reader the obtained information, and the detective and the reader are on an equal footing, having the same evidence and conjecture. Martin fills the book with suspects in all three investigations. Especially tickles the nerves that someone wants to set Stringer up for murder. All three cases are resolved quite logical and using deduction, although you have to admit that in the books of this kind everything is possible.

In addition to the suspense of plot, Martin delivers on the atmospheric front. Indian background is colorful and bright, details are believable, excursion in history is such that you feel the era, but do not feel that as if you read glossy booklet about India. Martin knows rails and sleepers, as his own ten fingers.

What's confusing is the main work activity of Stringer. He spends little time on his main job, driving around idly to and fro. You can see corruption behind this.

It is a good genre novel.

How A Gunman Says Goodbye

Malcolm Mackay
How A Gunman Says Goodbye

Mantle, 2013

How A Gunman Says Goodbye begins where the previous novel of the trilogy ended. Young gunman Calum MacLean heals his wounds and is not in a hurry to return to work: hitmen have sick leaves, too. But back from such leave is another hitman, working for a local crime boss Jamieson - Frank MacLeod, recovered after hip replacement. MacLeod is a veteran of killing business, who started as a freelancer and later came under Jamieson’s wing, regularly making hits for the boss. MacLeod is already in his sixties, but he has no plans to retire. He longs to work, and he gets it. Jamison should remove a small dealer, a young lad with big plans. MacLeod expects an easy job, but falls into a trap. Jamieson goes against the unwritten rules and calls Calum to help Frank. And the unwritten rule is that if a hitman makes a mistake, then organization will not help him, he is now on his own.

The first novel of the trilogy, The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, was a solid story of the life of a hired killer, though somewhat predictable. This one is more interesting in terms of plot. Most often, we read about hitmen, who are healthy and working, their killings, but rarely we have a chance to see what happens when a gunman stumbles. How a gunman says goodbye - to the world. The set-up is really complex: the boss and gumnam employee are bound not only through business, but also long-term friendship.

Calum in this novel steps in the shade, while playing an important role. The young hitman has time to think, including what is it, to kill for money. Hired killers in books almost do not think about what they are, how they fit into today's society, what lies ahead of them. Most often, they don’t have time ti think, always something endanger their lives. In Mackay’s books hitmen realize their purpose, in a sense, even meditate on their profession.

Another interesting point, which can be seen in these books - Mackay almost don’t use words like hitman, gun for hire, hired killer, preferring them all gunman. This definition has seemingly neutral tone - a man with a gun, not a killer, just an armed man. Perhaps Mackay so moves away from cliches and tries to create his own mythology, one in which there are gunmen, but not hired killers.

Progress in comparison with the first book is obvious, there is reason to hope that the final novel will be even better.

Fur People

Vicki Hendricks
Fur People

Self-published, 2013

Sunny Lytle returns to the small town of DeLeon Springs, Florida, where she had once grown up. Sunny is broke, but she has a whole company of furry friends, from dogs to rabbits. Renting an apartment is not an option with so many animals, so Sunny settles in a converted school bus in a secluded spot in the park. Sunny knows all the places in the area and she chooses such a place for her camp so tourists and casual locals wouldn’t disturb her. Keeping animals inside the bus is prohibited, so Sunny should also hide from animal control service.

The novel protagonist for long can not find a job, almost starving, primarily caring for her furry family, but quickly acquires acquaintances. In animal shelter Rita, a veterinarian who has lost the license, sympathizes to the girl and her pets and in the supermarket local half bum, half-loonie Buck, fearing attacks of aliens – magnetoids, seeks Sunny’s friendship. Sunny will have to fight for her furry family.

Animals in literature have always been somewhere in the margin. People have always been on the first place, and if our smaller brothers became the protagonists of books, then mostly it was children books. Recently, the new trend started when dogs and cats in the mystery fiction began to restrict eccentric detectives and tough guys, but it was strictly genre fiction, not for a general audience.

Vicki Hendricks in her new novel gives animals the right to be on par with humans. The novel is written from the point of view of many characters, among them a dog. But the characters and the author herself avoid the word "animals", preferring fur people. In her stories Hendricks previously used animals (alligators, apes), but it was just plot elements, without a specific content. In Fur People dogs, cats, rabbits and ferrets make the plot already work for them.

Fur People has already been called animal lover noir, partly it’s accurate, there is an abundance of fallen and far from perfect people. But this novel at the same time is perhaps the calmest work from Hendricks (I’m judging other novels by synopsys, being familiar only with numerous short stories). Perhaps even the most humane, and this is despite the fact that the novel is not only about humans, but also about animals. And certainly Fur People is the most nonstandard author’s book. The novel is so distinctive that simply did not find a publisher.

Touching is the best definition for this book: fur people or animals, but the humans are responsible for them.

«"It's not fair to them-that's what you're saying, like people always say. You don't understand. They're family. You don't give up family when money gets short."»

Midnight

Kevin Egan
Midnight

Forge Books, 2013

At The New York County Courthouse Judge Canter dies in his chambers early in the morning on New Year's Eve. His death from natural causes would have passed as something ordinary, if not the date of of the death. Under the rules of the New York courts if the judge dies, his staff has the right keep the jobs until the end of the calendar year. Death of this judge for his secretary, Carol, and clerk Tom means that the next day they will be out of work. And finding a new job with current economy will be difficult («Hard enough as it was to stay with the court system today, it was harder to find a decent job in the private sector. And for someone who had been in the court system as long as he had been, leaving was near impossible, even in a good economy »), and both heroes also have serious financial problems. Carol alone raises her disabled son and helps her sick mother, and Tom because of gambling got into a debt, borrowed money from a loan shark and must now return part of the debt every month. Loan shark muscle regularly reminds Tom what will happen if he stops paying.

Tom comes up with the idea how to hide the death of the judge at least for a day. If it succeeds, he and Carol, which he begins to feel affection to, will keep their jobs for at least another year. Judge and the last ruling in his life, in addition to the staff, will be of interest to a trade union leader. The situation gets complicated and rapidly is out of control.

We have become so demanding to reliability of books we read that began to forget: literature is fiction, fantasy. If you remove an element of allowable from it, make it too close to ground , it will take all the pleasure ouf of literature. Constrained writer has nowhere to turn, his plots are believable, but predictable. That's what refreshing in Kevin Egan and his novel Midnight - it has space for plot maneuver. The plot can be called impossible, but it is incredible not so much, if the book is not transferred to shelf with fantasy and science fiction. Egan seems to inherit the writers of the thirties and forties, who did not hesitate to look for loopholes for catchy, even the wild plots. The author found an interesting loophole and generously took advantage of
it. Plotwise Midnight is a vigorous mixture of judicial thriller and neo-noir. Tom and Carol are typical noirish characters, cornered desperate people who think that there is no escape. Rather, there is an escape, but not one that can be called legitimate. Characters actually do not cross the law as it is. The problem is that where there are amateurs, there are professionals. And criminals professionals usually are more experienced than amateurs.

The couple of heroes first takes his fate into their own hands, but as we progress through the novel, we see how their fate falls out of their hands. Invaders become hostages, and it is impossible not to empathize with the main protagonists.

Midnight is a tense read, an excellent example of modern noir.

Gone Again

Doug Johnstone
Gone Again

Faber, 2013

Photographer of an Edinburgh newspaper Mark Douglas photographs whales on the beach in the coastal waters, when he gets a call from a teacher from his son Nathan’s school who says that Mark's wife, Lauren, hasn't turned up to collect their son. Mark takes his son home and tries ring his wife on her mobile phone. Her number is not available.

Mark has no idea where his wife could go, she had no friends, work is long over, the phone number is unavailable. Lauren also is pregnant. Mark rings to his friends, but no one has any idea where Lauren can be. Mark turns on his wife's laptop, checks her accounts in social networks, desktop - nothing.

Mark worries that Lauren may have a relapse. Six years ago, when Lauren after a difficult birth barely survived, she had disappeared for ten days. Mark was confused and did not know what to do. He was left alone to nurse the baby, wondering when his wife would return. Ten days later, she’d returned, but did not say where she was all this time, and Mark did not ask, fearing that it could adversely affect the wife.

After brilliant Smokeheads and disastrous Hit & Run we could expect anything from Doug Johnstone. Gone Again has turned out much better than Hit & Run, although not as good as Smokeheads.

Johnstone’s head is clogged with interesting ideas, but he did not always successfully implement them, not revealing his potential by 100 percent. Here, the first half of the book is brilliant. The author from the outset throws a hook, and it is impossible not to get caught at it. The book grabes you from the first pages, and gradually Johnstone begins to return to the past, giving the background on the characters, the history of the relationship between husband and wife, and that includes the secrets of the past. The book is written in the third person, and we can clearly hear Mark’s voice. He's a little short-tempered, but a caring family man, a loving husband, he seems to be a positive character, but by the middle of the novel Johnstone makes us to think otherwise. In the middle noir intonations start to sink through: there is a possibility that Mark is an unreliable narrator, and his mistakes play against him. And now Mark from the victim turns into a controversial character, even shady. Johnstone little by little raises tension.

In the second half the book loses its suspense, and the novel is slipping into a more or less linear thriller. There are coincidences like that Mark holds a gun at home (for what in Scotland you can get a real five-year prison term), and even when Lauren was depressed, he did not get rid of a gun. The transformation of Mark from a broken hearted photographer with emotional problems into an action hero, shooting with a gun at the villains and torturing people, look too unnatural. Yes, you can believe that Mark is short-tempered and sometimes loses control of himself, but I do not believe that he would use a few tricks from the arsenal of the professional thief Parker from Richard Stark’s novels. It is one thing to break a woman's nose, and another to breaking into homes, waving a gun, shooting people’s hands.

However, it's a quick read that can entertain and deliver a certain amount of pleasure. I just wish that the author worked on the characters better.