Inside Straight

Ray Banks
Inside Straight

Blasted Heath, 2013

Graham Ellis for a certain offense is transferred from one Manchester’s casino to another one. It is filled with incompetent dealers and lousy managers. Ellis, one might say, is sent to rescue the wretched casino, because he is a responsible, experienced, focused, or at least he thinks so of himself. On day shifts Ellis nearly dies of boredom, until the night manager is attacked and badly beaten. Ellis then is transferred to work at night, where the activity is larger and responsibility too. But for Ellis the show isn’t over. Local crime boss, which is accountable for several casino robberies (though the police can not hang any of them on to him), speaks with Ellis, praising his skills, and then makes an offer he can not refuse.

Ray Banks himself once worked in a casino, so don’t doubt the authenticity of casino detail here. Was Banks the best pit boss at the time, now is not important, but much more important how the author controls his character. Ellis says several times – to himself and out aloud, that he is a professional and master of his craft:

«If I was best pit boss at the Palace - and I was, without question - then I was certainly the best pit boss at the Riverside.»

«I was a good pit boss. I was the best they had.»

«I'm the best pit boss they've got.»

But with the small details we make a true image of the narrator, who, perhaps, is the best in the casino, but as a person he is still an asshole. Banks is an asshole, too, because he forces the reader to root for the main character, despite - with each chapter more and more - the deformity of Ellis’ soul.

Inside Straight is a remarkably old-fashioned by today's standards thing. If the background is "updated" up to the present, then the rest - from the protagonist’s squeamishness to the ending – is vintage, but not covered in dust.

Those familiar with the works of Banks invariably will recognize the essence of the main character, which is almost the same in all the books of this writer. This is a short-tempered, somewhat naive, lad, faint-hearted, but good in the heart. Ellis of this novel in addition is a geek, recording TV shows on the VCR and collecting the figurines and posters.

Only in one scene Banks loses control of his character: a teetotal Ellis gets drunk and calls a colleague, and it is likely that Ellis would have felt that he was drunk, but Banks misses it.

Thrilling novel without a single superfluous word.

Grifter's Game

Lawrence Block
Grifter’s Game

Open Road Media e-book, 2010
(originally published as Mona in 1961)

Conman Joe Marlin at the beginning of the novel runs from a hotel in Philadelphia, leaving behind a 600-dollar bill. Marlin lives from scam to scam. He is single and looking for rich ladies whom he can "milk", and milk them to the limit he does, and then disappears. In Philadelphia, his scam has gone wrong: Marlin nearly has been fooled by a con lady, the same as he is.

With the remaining money Marlin comes to Atlantic City, where right on the train station he is stealing other people's bags from storage. Solid-looking, Marlin checks in the hotel by the beach, where he hopes to find a lonely and bored beauty that can be his free meal ticket. In his room Marlin checks stolen luggage and besides clothes finds a bag full of heroin. On the beach Marlin meets stunning Mona, vacationing here with her husband, an elderly businessman. And what a coincidence, that the stolen bag belongs to Mona’s husband Brassard. Quiet husband of Mona is a drug dealer, most likely related to the organization. Marlin has a plan to remove Brassard and pick up Mona and her husband’s money.

Grifter's Game is first Block’s novel, which was published under his own name. Block began writing this book as another softcore novel, but then turned towards crime. There are only a few spicy scenes in the book, and indeed, compared to Grifter's Game, any modern novel will seem hardcore porn. Style of the novel is similar to the style of the hundreds of other paperbacks of the time:

«I licked it another time. There was no mistaking the taste, not now, not after many years. When you work in a racket, even briefly, you learn what you can about the racket. You learn the product, first of all. No matter how small your connection with the racket or how little time you spend with it, this much you learn. I had played the game for two months, if that, in a very small capacity, but I knew what I had on my dresser.

I had approximately sixty cubic inches of raw heroin.»

Novel’s plot also does not offer any frills, but Block pays attention to detail and offers a few surprises along the reading. The largest of them is the unpredictable final, hard and somewhat shocking.

Block completes one chapter with a paragraph:

«It was a cheap evening. I didn't risk a penny. I'm not a gambler.»

With Lawrence Block there is no risk: you pick any of his books, and they are all good.

Help Yourself

We all started to buy and read ebooks. They're great. Part of us, writers, realized that ebooks is a great oppurtunity to bring back in electronic formats out-of-print novels, collections, novellas, to bring together stories from different anthologies and magazines. Now writer shouldn't wait when publisher will decide to finally publish short story collection of non-commercial author. Part of us, readers, now can buy cheap books and no longer track used bookstores trying to find expensive out-of-print copy of some book.

However writers not only bring back old titles, but publish new self-pubbed novels and collections as ebooks. That's great, too. A lot of experimental works can reach readers now. A lot of good books refused by traditional publishers now will get their readership. But it seems not all self-pubbed writers realize that they have to not only upload their books on Amazon, but have to bring information about their books to reader.

If you start to browse on Amazon among self-pubbed works, you can see that lots of books don't have proper information. You click on Amazon page of some title, and all you see is a couple of sentences on book. How a reader could decide should he buy your book or not, if you don't give him proper info what this book is about and who are you, a writer. Reader just clicks on another book with proper info and buys it. You sales remain the same.

Now I want to give some advises to writers who upload their works on Amazon/Smashwords. I hope they will help your sales.

1) Post on your book page proper info about plot. It's really important. Not a couple of words: a couple of paragraphs. Covers on Amazon are small, and they don't really matter. Proper info is far more important.

2) If your book had been published by traditional publisher on paper somewhere, say so. Maybe a reader after finishing your ebook will decide to hunt and find this out-pf-print title.

3) Get some blurbs from good writers. Maybe not so famous, but good. Writers you like. Blurbs are important too. You wrote a book and couldn't make a good writer read it? It's a shame. Blurbs make readers feel that you are good: writer X praises you!

4) Small bio would be good. Yes, maybe you don't have awards, you hadn't been published much, but you wrote a great thing. We read not bios, but short stories and novels.

5) If it's possible, include in description your website link.

Interesting but even books published by Amazon imprints don't have proper description.

If you want that your book haven't been lost among a thousand of different titles, spend an hour to write a decent description to your book. You spent 2 years on your masterpiece and can't spend an hour to write a description? Well, in that case no one will read your masterpiece.

The Fever Kill

Tom Piccirilli
The Fever Kill

Crossroad Press e-book, 2010

Crease, an undercover cop, so got used to a role that even his boss, drug lord Tucco, considers him his right hand and perhaps the best friend, returns to his hometown. Crease knocked up Tucco’s girlfriend, almost left his family with several adopted children, and now runs from its own present to a dark past. Crease’s father, a local sheriff, ten years earlier participated in the liberation of kidnapped a little girl but the girl was killed and a ransom was never found. Sheriff then drinks himself to death, and Crease, not endured humiliation from the townspeople, runs away to New York and becomes a cop, like his father. Returning to his hometown, Crease investigates kidnapping of that little girl, meets old friends and waits for arrival of Tucco thirsting for revenge.

Piccirilli is especially good at characters such as Crease. They are broken down, riven between past and present, they do not really know what they want from life, but not because they did not see life, but because they saw too much. Crease also can not really explain his visit to his hometown: «It wasn't to make amends to the old man. He could never do that and wouldn't bother trying. But he'd come back here for some reason and he figured this might be a part of it, and anyway, he had a day or two until Tucco showed up». Crease, without knowing why, begins to question relatives, neighbors of the killed girl, and let the mystery part there is not so sophisticated, «The Fever Kill» is an excellent mestery among other things.

«The Fever Kill» is also modern Western. Knowing the ability of Tucco’s using of knife, Crease also readies cold arms, realizing that the fight with the boss can not be avoided. Returning to his hometown is the last chance to atone for his sins (and the sins of the father) and, if you are lucky to stay alive, to decide where to go.

This short Piccirilli’s novel is a real pleasure.

99 cents books: cheap, but not that cheap

Often you can see on twitter or Facebook plugs and recomendations (sometimes it's self-promotion) of 99 cents books. Buy, it's cheap! - a recomendations call. And yes, it is really cheap - a book with under-dollar price. In Russia even with 600-800 month income you can afford 30-40 ebooks every month. And it's only for 30-40 dollars.
But here is one not so little problem. Amazon, most popular online ebook retailer, charges two extra bucks if you buy ebook from outside of US of A. Yeah, if you live in Europe, Africa or South America, you must pay for 99 cents book $2, 99, not 0,99.
Do the math. You have the same 30-40 bucks and with 2,99 price you can buy only 10-13 books. And if you wanna buy 30 ebooks, you have to pay 90 bucks. And in Russia it's not that cheap.
Now you have 3 options:
1) buy less books
2) try to cheat Amazon, but it's illegal and not too simple.
2) use other retailers, such as Smashwords, they don't charge extra money. But these retailers don't have such selection of books that has Amazon.

So if you a writer, place your ebook not only on Amazon, think about your foreign readers. And don't shout "It's cheap". It's cheap, but not for all.