Every Shallow Cut

Tom Piccirilli

Every Shallow Cut


Chizine Publications, 2011

The unnamed narrator, once quite a well-known writer in a narrow range, even received several literary awards, remains alone without a home (taken by the creditors), wife (ran to a lawyer), money (books are selling very bad), with only his faithful dog named Churchill. Gathering a few own things in the car, the writer wants to take them to the flea market, helping a little money. Three street robbers who want easy money attack the narrator on the street. The writer sees no reason to live, having lost everything, but something inside him snaps, and now he is fighting back the young scum, seriously beating them and taking money from one of them. Selling possessions and adding the money from the pocket of the beaten punk, the narrator buys a gun, and he does not yet know why: whether to self-defence, or to make a suicide. Alone, driving through the country, the writer goes to his brother living in New York, again without knowing why: whether to see him at last, or to start a new life.

Piccirilli, until this book having reputation of excellent plotter, this time dropped the plot altogether aside, writing an excellent jazzy prose. This is, in general, a poem in prose, stanzas about despair, anger and fall into the abyss. The hero has no name, face, desire and reason to live and flies into the abyss, yet less than a week ago he had almost everything you need for life. The unnamed narrator has no face, because instead of it is a mirror in which everyone will see one’s own reflection when will also fall into the abyss.

Something inside of the writer still does not allow him to say goodbye to this world, perhaps a desire to finish the last novel. One of the best scenes of the book, when the author visits his agent, wanting to know the situation with his unsold manuscripts, ends thus:

«I thought of pulling the piece and putting one in his thigh. The underworld heroes of my stories often shot each other in the thick meat of their thighs. It was a way of saying that they were bad but not too bad. That they could handle violence with ease but still kept life in some kind of high regard. I put my hand in the rucksack and got my fist around the revolver. I started to sweat. His laughter made me sick to my stomach. I glanced at the bookcase and wondered which of the names on the spines of the books he was in love with at this moment.
Toppling the bookcase across his office might make a bolder statement than shooting him in the leg, but the case was bolted to the wall.
I walked out past his girl and said goodbye. She wasn't doing anything. She wasn't reading or typing or texting or checking voice mail. She was just sitting there, lost inside herself. She didn't look up. I almost kissed her.»

This novella cuts like the sharpest knife.

You’d Better Watch Out

Tom Piccirilli
You’d Better Watch Out

Crossroad Press e-book, 2011


Father of 11-year old boy is a brutal Brooklyn cop who works for the local mob. When on Christmas the police officer suspects that his wife cheats on him, he bites her tongue. Woman dies, cop goes to jail, and the boy is sent to foster parents. There he falls in love with their daughter and then kills their psychopathic son. The boy starts to do little jobs for mobsters, gradually becoming the most brutal killer in Brooklyn. A young man prepares to avenge for his mother and for myself when his father is out of prison.

This novella is not exactly the best work by Piccirilli. Plot-wise the book intersects with other Piccirilli’s books. Here again there are a cruel cop, working on mob, a complex relationship between father and son, past mistakes again are in the center of the story. «You'd Better Watch Out» is a psychological novella about revenge, which is a dish which is served hot - damn hot. Aggressive and tight, author's style does not match the rickety plot. The middle of the book - all that part, which describes the transformation of the protagonist from a young boy to a tough killer - apparently slacks.

Fast, solid reading, but you’re expecting more from Piccirilli.

Gun

Ray Banks
Gun

Self-published e-book, 2011

Richie, after 18 months in jail, is back on streets. Not wanting to work like all law-abiding citizens, Ritchie in search of work appeals to Goose, the one-legged crime boss, for whom Richie received the time. Goose does not even remember who Richie is, but throws up job for him: to pick up a gun at the address and brought it to Goose. Richie agrees. The difficulties begin as soon as Richie gets a gun.

Ray Banks in the image of Richie presents us a loser of that breed, which attracts trouble like a huge magnet. The novella is written in the third person, but the author uses the method that the boundary between the first and third person is almost erased. Because of his bad luck Richie is so embittered at the world and himself, it seems that his curse is directed to a reader: «A lot of thoughts running through Richie's head, the same old story about a lost leg on Goose Green when everyone knew what really happened - stupid bastard mainlined an artery. But you never said that to Goose. He might've been a fucking cripple and nose-deep in his own product, but Goose had a rep that stretched back since before the riots. And that rep was what brought Richie over today».

On the example of Richie we can clearly see a contemporary life of the lower classes in England. They are too proud to work, not educated, often dumb, but Richie takes what he needs to take with his aggressiveness.

«Gun», that is also important to note, is a work not only speeding, but still very funny. And despite the fact that we are simpathizing with Richie in the course of reading, we also think, 'All of this is his own fault".

This "Gun" is a deadly thing.

The Language of Dying

Sarah Pinborough
The Language of Dying

PS Publishing, 2009

«There is a language to dying. It creeps like a shadow alongside the passing years and none of us can avoid oit taste in our mouths. Whether we are sick or healthy it finds us eventually. It is a secret hushed thing that lives in the whisper of the nurses' starched skirts as they rustle up and down our stairs. They've taught me to face the language a syllable at a time, slowly creating an unwilling meaning from it ». So begins this story about dying. In the family the father dies, and five his children gather in the home to be with his father the last few days before his death. The story is told by one of the daughters, who took care of his father, while everyone else went away and minded their own businesses. The story tells from the first person view, but with permanent patches of the second person, this is a kind of monologue, addressed to the dying. Coming father's death is not only the death of one individual, but also the death of the family, its disintegration. A few days before his death it’s the last chance for children to stay together, reunite, solve problems, to forgive one another, and then again to return to their lives, not particularly good ones (especially for the three brothers).

A reader of the novella is also supposed to become a member of the family as an equal surviving parent's death. Inside everything stops, you are a little shaking, throat dry. In such cases, the death of someone else always seems worse than your own.

Before his death, a person leaves all too much, and no one is between here and there. So reading this book, the reader is left alone with a book - with pain, fear and hope.

The White City

Elizabeth Bear
The White City

Subterranean Press, 2010

The immortal vampire detective Don Sebastien de Ulloa, together with his companions – court - Lady Abigail Irene and Phoebe Smith, at the beginning of the XX century is coming to Moscow to heal wounds, but almost immediately gets caught up in the new plot. De Ulloa seeks a meeting with the artist Irina Stephanova, which was close to de Ulloa’s friend Jack Priest before Priest’s death, but instead the detective finds in Irina’s apartment a murdered woman's body. Not having to leave the room, the vampire is caught in the flat by local police. Learning of famous detective’s arrival in Moscow, the police receives help from de Ulloa in the investigation. In addition to fresh crimes, the vampire has yet to unravel the six years old case, abandoned because of corruption among the capital's police. The detective will have to face the thing much older than himself.

Bear breaks the time fabric of this novella (short novel) into small pieces, alternating stories about Jack Priest and his acquaintance with Irina Stepanova and immortal vampire’s seeking the murderer. In the chapter about Jack, we meet with a small circle of Russian artists, painters and sculptors. Gradually the picture opens the relationship between Jack and de Ulloa and Irina. Moscow, which the author devotes much attention, has been described here with all the care and respect to detail. In addition, plot takes place in an alternate universe, which differs from ours not only in the presence of vampires, but in the geopolitical situation.

Mystery is masterfully built here, in the finale we meet with even greater mystery.
Bewilderment after reading the book is caused just by awkward dialogues. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Bear was trying to combine the style of the transfer of Russian and English speech. The dialogues sound unnaturally, sometimes entering into confusion.

I am glad that Russia has become the scene of this exciting novella.

Short Ride To Nowhere

Tom Piccirilli
Short Ride To Nowhere

Crossroad Press, 2010

When Jenks finally goes on the trail of his friend Hale, he was already dead - killed himself in a madhouse. Jinks and Hale were neighbors before their lifes were almost simultaneously crashed. Both were on the street, without a wife, children, home, work and money. Both earned a living that way they could afford. But Hale was suddenly found rugged with the blood all over him with the murdered girl. The police have no clues who and how could commit a crime. Detectives even suspect that the girl could have been killed by Hale. Police had no time to interrogate him: the man kills himself. When Jenks met with the police, he understands that he should not wait for some sort of investigation: lifes such as his and Hal’se are not worth anything, they will die and no one will notice. Jenks himself begins to find out what happened to his neighbor. The chain of questions leads Jenks to a homeless shelter.

Despite the fact that this novella (noirella, if we use the definition of the author) in length is only 60+ pages, you have the impression that you have read the novel, so fleshy Piccirilli prose is. «Short Ride To Nowhere» is a dark, very male thing. Human life can cost a few dollars, and the American dream turns to sand within several minutes. The voice of Jenks is often the voice of Piccirilli himself: people are mired in sins, basking in the luxury and spitting on other people's problems. Human qualities are no longer valued, survive as best as you can. Jenks for entire novel is on the verge of anger and despair, for themselves and the world, he almost kills those who did not harm him.

From the viewpoint of the mystery is all very well plotted. Piccirilli really gave a reader a short ride to nowhere. This trip is not a pleasant one, but I'd still ride.

(This is digital-only novella, never published in print form.)

Seven Cities of Gold

David Moles
Seven Cities of Gold

PS Publishing, 2010

About our time. Muslims have reached the New World and started bloody battle with Christians. Shed much blood, even weapon of mass destruction was featured. This world is cruel, violent, poorly developed. There is no hint that the level of technology of that world is getting to that level of our world. In 714 AD, the history went the other way: seven Catholic bishops had fled from Spain across the ocean to North America to build seven golden cities and found the Christian empire. Japan, homeland of the protagonist of this novella, Chie Nakada, the doctor, does not participate in wars between Muslims and Christians. When the Japanese government hear about terrible weapons and about obsessive Christian leader, hiding somewhere in the depths of the continent, they sent a peacemaker (though with purpose to kill) Nakada to travel up the river Acuamagna in search of the leader Clara Dos Orsos.

While Nakada and her aides are floating down the river, on both sides of it opens a terrible picture: mountains of human corpses, fires, armed men. Nakada can not help anybody; she has a goal that should be reached at any price, to find Dos Orsos.

It really is a journey into the heart of darkness, the world after 9/11 as if there were never this date, but every day is always September 11; world crumbling, the world, where everyone slides on deaths, as on the water. The author essentially gives no guidance (place names say nothing to the reader), about the history of this world we know not from the author but the publisher, thus Moles makes it clear that his novel should not be read as some particular journey but as a metaphor of the journey to one’s own death and the death of all living, read like a hallucinogenic trip, during which death and life are irrelevant, they disappear as a concept from consciousness – Nakada is an opium addict, forced, even by power beating her "medicine" from people. The alternatively-historical component plays almost no role in the book, it clearly is secondary, the primary is the journey of the soul.

Moles has very poetic style, he tells this fast-moving story slowly, without admiring violence. Nakada is a charming drug addict.

«Seven Cities of Gold» is a brilliant book, an example of good fiction, but just fiction, not an alternative historical fiction.

VARDOGER

STEPHEN VOLK
VARDOGER

Gray Friar Press, 2009

Young couple, Sean and Alison, comes to the Shewstone Hotel to spend the weekend in each other's arms. However, on arrival the first dislocations start: Booked room was paid for the previous weekend, as Sean and his wife were in the hotel last weekend. Solving the problem with room and with a credit card someone used without the knowledge of the owner, a husband and a wife finally overrun in the room. But the annoying things continue to hurt Sean: staff of the hotel and local guests treats to him as if they met him before and knew his habits. Sean gets angry and categorically stated that he had never been in this hotel. These little things could not spoil the rest, but the very next morning after his arrival Sean looks out of the window his wife goes by the handle with a certain man. The stranger turns around, and Sean sees that Alison goes with anyone else but with someone so similar to him that Sean understands that this is he.

Volk, not only a novelist, but also a screenwriter, makes good job with a plot, confusing it no worse than a cat playing about with a ball of yarn. Is the kidnapper of Sean`s wife his counterpart and who`ll gave a clue, we do not know until the last pages. The author managed to hold down the hero in the grip so feeling of madness climbs from the pages of novella. Sean, confused and mix-uped, can not trust anyone and he is one on one with himself. But is he alone? And who is he? He`d want to know, too.

The Norwegian word «vardoger» will not appear on the pages of the book. Sean probably does not even know such a word, but if he knew he would doubt: who of the two of them, he or his twin, are the vardoger?

Volk, succeeding in creating a nearly ideal atmospheric thriller, in the end cheats so much that in a card game for such deception he could get it in the neck. Artificial end like a patch on the new trousers slurs over the impression from the story. Nevertheless, the book asks an important question: are we who we are? And the writer answers: vardoger knows.