Yellow Medicine

Anthony Neil Smith
Yellow Medicine

Self-publushed e-book, 2011
(originally published by Bleak House Books in 2008)

Bad cop Billy Lafitte after Hurricane Katrina was fired, but the brother of Billy’s ex-wife, the sheriff of Yellow Medicine County, arranges to hire Billy as his Deputy. At the new place Lafitte keeps doing bad things: solving problems by force, taking cuts from the drug operations and generally enforcing the law with unlawful methods. But Billy's got a good heart. When a bassist of a psychobilly band Drew, which Lafitte is fond of, asks Billy to help her boyfriend to solve the problems with the two meth dealers, Lafitte happily agrees, suggesting that the problem will be a breeze.

Lafitte could not guess that a breeze will turn out two corpses with their heads cut off and all the members of psychobilly band killed.

Anthony Neil Smith, whose imagination never failed him, would not be himself if he didn’t added into the plot lots of madness: in Minnesota, a terrorist group of Malaysians operates who are disguised as drug traffickers. First reaction: What the hell? But such was the reaction of Lafitte, when he found out about the terrorists from the FBI agent Rome. Next, the situation for Billy is getting worse and worse, given the fact that he is being chased by not only Islamists, but federal agents, suspecting that Lafitte helps this terrorist cell.

Bad-ass Billy Lafitte is truly a unique creation. More unique is that Smith manages to build a novel around the obvious anti-hero, but with brains and a heart. Billy arranges crusade against terrorists, but he does it not save the country, but to save his own sking and skins of his loved ones.

More tragic is that in Yellow Medicine we see a man who is stumbling once (more so if twice), and no one else will give you a hand and will not believe him.

In the novel, there is a second anti-hero, an FBI agent Rome. He incarnates here a soulless government machine that does not care about a single individual, but only about the entire nation. It is not clear which is worse, the terrorists who want to destroy your country, or your very own state.

Yellow Medicine is strikingly similar to Faculty of unnecessary things by Soviet writer Yuri Dombrowski, though they are made of different dough, and Dombrowski and Smith could not read each other. But both of them tell a story about a man who is in such trouble, of which seems to be no way out, and the only thing left is to be honest with himself and to act according to your conscience.

This is Smith's third novel, and it is bigger than the two previous ones, although the book doesn’t turn into a thriller (for the better). And yes, Smith is a master how to begin books (and and end them too).

Dog Eat Dog

Edward Bunker
Dog Eat Dog

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2011 (digital)
(Originally published in 1996, by St. Martin's)

Troy Cameron, son of the law-abiding citizens from Beverly Hills, is released after a second prolonged serving time. In prison, Troy read (including Joyce), thought about the nature of things, did push-ups and sit-downs to keep fit, and planned how to hit the jackpot with enough money till the end of life somewhere in the house on the beach. Shortly before the release, Troy receives an interesting offer from a friend. Troy with accomplices have to rob the pimps, drug dealers and other offenders who, in the case of a robbery, will not be able call the law. His friends whom he has known since the reform school are already waiting for him. One of them is a maniac and a cocaine user, nicknamed Mad Dog, the second, Diesel Carson, is a fixer who works for the local crime boss. Diesel and Mad Dog can’t tolerate each other not both love Troy, considering him a criminal genius.

Finding himself free, and rested a couple of days, Troy meets with his buddies, and together they drive to Los Angeles, the hometown of Troy, where they are to do a robbery (on a tip from a lawyer) of a black drug dealer. And if in this case everything goes smoothly, then for Troy and friends a series of mistakes and failures begins, and a lot of blood will be shed.

Bunker, who himself served prison time not one time, but plenty, knows what writes about, so those moments when the author describes prison life, are the most reliable and sometimes even touching. Troy itself is partly Bunker: they have in common a love of books, childhood, spent in the reform school, living in criminal circles, sharp mind. Troy, the son of a drunken doctor, began his path to lawlessness with his father, whom he nearly killed in an attempt to protect his mother. Troy is tired of prison and wants the freedom and all that it can offer. Troy would rather die from a bullet of another criminal, than the next - and last - time would be placed behind bars. The point is that each of the three friends already have two convictions, and the third, no matter how small it is, will give an offender life prison term. Therefore, the three friends must try to do everything, just not to fall into the hands of police.

The plot is a chain of "cases" that Troy and associates should work to raise such a sum, which would have sufficed almost till the end of life. And even though Troy seems to have a reliable team, everyone should keep an eye on everyone, especially on Mad Dog, who a few weeks before Troy’s release ruthlessly killed his girlfriend and her daughter. The action, however, slacks a little, and does not fly, because friends have rest between the cases.

And if the story mostly delivers the goods, Bunker’s style in some places are clumsy. In the action scenes there are not enough of a strain. Sentences are written properly, but there is no lubrication between them, and entire paragraphs crackle and creak. Yes, and dialogues in the second half of the novel are written with laziness, they do not have enough sharpness.

Bloody and desperate finale, in which you feels like in a cage which sucked all the air from, fairly concludes this novel about the brave people who chose the path of lawlessness.