Book Reviews

You’ve got to give it up to Titan Books, people. Not only did this UK publisher save the Hard Case Crime line, but they’re also bringing out a trio of Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins novels as we as reprinting some great pulp, including Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu books. I’m loving these folks.
　
THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU and THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU are the first two collections of Sax Rohmer tales featuring Burmese police commissioner Nayland Smith, his good friend Dr. Petrie (the narrator), and the insidious megalomania Dr. Fu-Manchu. Using a variety of exotic, and often poisonous insects, animals, and plants, agents of the so-called "devil doctor" murder anyone who might get in the way of his plans to take over the world. The most famous "yellow peril" creation featuring the inscrutable occidental, the stereotype has at least some its origins in the opium wars of the 1840s and Sino-Japanese war of the late nineteenth century. The pulp action/mystery tales of Rohmer are great melodramatic fun, especially when the beautiful slave girl Karamaneh foregoes her master and falls in love with Petrie. If you dig the melodramatic flare of classic pulp fiction (Rohmer never met an exclamation point he didn’t like) and you yearn for larger-than-life villains bent on world domination, then Fu-Manchu is your devil doctor. Novels such as DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU, THE WIFE OF FU-MANCHU, and EMPEROR FU-MANCHU to follow soon.
　
LADY, GO DIE! is the latest unfinished manuscript begun by Mickey Spillane decades ago and recently finished by his friend and protege Max Allan Collins. This one holds special interest for any Mike Hammer fan as LADY, GO DIE! was originally intended to be the second full-length Hammer novel following the mind-blowingly successful I, THE JURY. The time is shortly after WW II and the events of ITJ. Mike and his ever-trusty, beautiful sidekick Velda are vacationing on Long Island in the beach town of Sidon. There Mike immediately finds himself in the middle of a fracas as a bunch of dirty cops work over a mentally handicapped homeless artist named Poochie. The cops think Poochie knows something about the missing lady who runs the local gambling house.

As Mike is wont to do, he quickly dispatches the bad guys and helps Poochie to recover. Soon though he’s on the trail of a murderer who poses his naked female victims in highly staged, dramatic, public venues. Since the murders are spread out across several jurisdictions, the cops haven’t put the killings together, but Mike is on the case. As he deals with mobsters, gamblers, corrupt cops, and an insane murderer, he also finds time to tame a cunning dame from his past who uses sex to bring weak men low.

It’s a testament to how well Max Allan Collins knows his mentor’s writing that you won’t be able to see where Spillane’s original manuscript ends and Collins’s begins (or, more likely, which portion was written by which author). This is true of all their collaborations, but Collins now slips into Mike Hammer’s persona Spillane’s style so perfectly, and uses the motifs of the time so adeptly, that LADY, GO DIE! reads like the hardest of the hardboiled, firmly set in the origins of the Hammer universe.


In Ed Gorman’s latest Dev Conrad (STRANGLEHOLD, SLEEPING DOGS) mystery BLINDSIDE, freelance political consultant Dev Conrad decides to help out his old friend Tom Ward. Tom’s son, Jeff, is an arrogant, womanizing, liberal incumbent whose weakening campaign is running into troubled waters. Strategy information is being leaked to Ward’s wealthy right-wing challenger, Rusty Burkhart, and Dev is trying to find out who the traitor among Ward’s staff is. When speech writer Jim Waters is murdered and David Nolan, Ward’s chief of staff disappears, Dev digs even deeper to find that Ward is being blackmailed over a video involving a prostitute.

When liberal incumbent Jeff Ward’s father Tom persuades Dev to spend some time with his son’s flailing campaign, Jeff’s speech writer Jim Waters hasn’t yet been shot to death. And Tom can’t even identify the other problems. But it’s clear that trouble is afoot. Someone close to Ward is evidently leaking sensitive information to Rusty Burkhart, his millionaire right-wing challenger. David Nolan, the candidate’s lifelong friend and chief of staff, disappears almost the moment Dev first pokes his nose into the campaign tent. And Dev soon learns that Ward is being blackmailed over a steamy videotape starring him and a prostitute.

Also on hand is Sylvia Fordham, Burkhart’s conservative consultant who gloats as Ward’s poll numbers sink and Burkhart’s rise. Dev has plenty of suspects for all the troubles and wrongdoings, but only one bit of positive light to part the clouds; Jennifer Conners, a Goth teenager, is the only person surrounding Ward who actually seems to care about the nature of politics, the fall of her hero, and the outcome of the election as a new hope for America.

Ed Gorman has given us another inside look at the failing two-party political system. It’s sharply written, acerbic, gripping, and eye-opening look at the ruination of American politics. Gorman’s keen eye for detail adds some nice nuances and extra facets to the novel that puts an emphasis not only on who done it and why, but also on how such shenanigans cost the nation more than they’ll ever completely understand.

　
The most recent addition to Bill Pronzini’s long-running Nameless Detective series HELLBOX recalls to mind one of the most memorable earlier titles SHACKLES. In SHACKLES, Nameless spent three months locked away in an isolated cabin. In HELLBOX, Nameless, aka "Bill," and his wife Kerry are considering buying a vacation home in the rural community of Six Pines. While dining they happen to see the arrogant, ignorant Pete Balfour, being mocked by those townsfolk tired of his racist, sexist, dull-witted slurs. Balfour’s publicly referred to as the Mayor of Asshole Valley, a derisive nickname laid on him by neighbor Ned Verriker. Ned thinks that Balfour can shrug off a little joking, but he’s wrong. Balfour is more unstable than anyone can guess.

When Balfour sets in motion his vengeance against Verriker, Kerry just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Balfour scoops her up and holds her prisoner as at first Nameless searches for his beloved alone, and then calls in his cool, steely associate Jake Runyon to help with the hunt.

The narrative alternates between all the primary characters including Balfour’s belligerent perspective and Kerry’s terrified internal monologue. We watch as a driven Nameless is shaken by the irrepressible fear for his lost wife to Jake’s sharp, calm council and relentless drive towards the truth. HELLBOX is another fine entry in a long line of first-rate private eye novels featuring the iconic Nameless Detective from MWA Grandmaster Bill Pronzini. Pick it up asap, and if you haven’t already read all the previous books then buy any and all you can get your hands on.

Update

CLOWN IN THE MOONLIGHT is free on Kindle today but tomorrow it goes back to its original price of $2.99. In the last 48 hours we’ve had over 6,000 downloads and the book peaked at around #50 on the Kindle Free Bestseller list. I appreciate everyone who showed enough interest to read the piece and I hope you all like it enough to check out more of my work.

CLOWN is based in part on the true story of Ricky Kasso, the so-called Acid King, who murdered a friend in the Northport woods back in '84 claiming Satan told him to do it, then proceeded to bring high school classmates to view the mutilated body for days afterward. Occult, hardboiled, and noir matters enter the mix as a nameless drifter teaches Ricky and friends what the true nature of hell is really all about. Extras include the first chapter of my forthcoming Bantam hardcover THE LAST KIND WORDS (due out June 5), the first chapter of my digital-only dark fantasy novel NIGHTJACK, and the short horror story "Shadder" from my collection FUTILE EFFORTS.

Available today is issue #1 of the new crime e-zine THE BIG CLICK, featuring fiction by Ken Bruen, an interview I conducted with the fantastic Joe Lansdale, and my non-fic column "Fat Burglar Blues." Free content will be rolling out over the next month, or you can buy an e-copy for just $2.99.

And it’s T-minus three months until the release of THE LAST KIND WORDS. Currently Random House is putting together the audio edition, and just recently this generous blurb came in.

"MYSTIC RIVER set the bar on classic literary mystery and THE LAST KIND WORDS is a novel on the same superb playing field. Compassionate, fascinating, and with an adrenaline narrative that is as gripping as it is moving. Pure alchemy."--Ken Bruen, author of THE GUARDS and HEADSTONE　
　
Also, I’m nearly done with the follow-up novel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK, which you can look for summer of ‘13.

Every Shallow Cut nominated for a Spinetingler Award

Just received word that my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, published by Chizine Books, has been nominated for a Spinetingler award for best novella. I’m honored to be included with writers like Ray Banks, Nik Korpon, Fingers Murphy, Gerard Brennan, Nigel Bird, Chuck Wendig and other talented folks. Voting runs from now until the end of the month. Go have your say.

You can visit my Amazon page to pick up any of my Kindle releases. We've extended our sale on three of my titles. My collection FUTILE EFFORTS and my noirellas YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT and ALL YOU DESPISE are all just $.99 for the time being. For a couple of bucks more you can pick up NIGHTJACK, FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY, THE FEVER KILL, THRUST, THE NOBODY, THE LAST DEEP BREATH, LOSS, PENTACLE, A LOWER DEEP or any of my Bantam titles including THE COLD SPOT, SHADOW SEASON, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN.
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I also just received proofs of my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS, due out in hardcover from Bantam on June 5. You can check out the synopsis and blurbs on the Amazon page. You can also pre-order, "like" the book, and tag it, if you're so inclined. Thanks to everyone who's already shown such incredible support for the novel. I already have a feeling this is going to be the best selling book of my career. Grazie, all.

Library Journal ran a nice little preview of TLKW a week ago, along with other titles streeting this summer. Read the brief article here.
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Crime Factory #9 packs a hell of a lot of knockout content: pieces by Scott Phillips, Benjamin Whitmer, Daniel B. O'Shea, Ray Banks, Paul D Brazill, and a new short story by me. Features by Johnny Shaw, Cameron Ashley, Jimmy Callaway. Read, enjoy, quiver.

2 Recent Reads: Westlake & Lansdale

The Comedy is Finished by Donald Westlake
Hard Case Crime

This book breaks my heart for two reasons. One, it’s probably the last Donald Westlake novel we’ll ever see unless they find another last lost manuscript by the master, which I hope for daily. Westlake’s work is a joy whether it’s one of his standalone novels, a laugh-out-loud humorous Dortmunder scheme, or a Richard Stark/Parker tale hardboiled enough to peel the skin from your face.

To add to that overall sadness is the fact that Westlake never got to see the book published in his lifetime despite the fact that this first-rate novel was written some thirty years ago. Westlake thought that the subject matter too closely resembled Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, which hit the big screen shortly after Westlake completed The Comedy is Finished.

Set in the late 70s, the novel is an edgy suspense thriller about a kidnapping gone wildly wrong (do kidnappings ever go right?). When aging, acclaimed, right-winger comedian Koo Davis is snatched by members of a social revolution that’s grown passe, ideologies clash dangerously with Koo’s life on the line. Ironically imprisoned in a ritzy Hollywood home, Koo constantly cracks wise in order to keep his spirits up in the face of his often enraged, depressed, and possibly insane captors.

The novel is rife with unexpected scenes of great emotional power and poignancy. As the FBI’s chief investigator nicely sums up, the revolutionaries might’ve once been considered heroes, but the movement itself lost its way. The young captors try to hold onto their purity of vision even while they slowly come to realize how foolish their attempts at revolt have become. Foolish, deadly, and probably meaningless as their fight for a lost cause pushes them toward greater and greater extremes. As the story unfolds Koo learns that one member of the People’s Revolutionary Army may have a completely different grievance against him, one that might change Koo’s own outlook on life. You just don’t expect a razor-wire read like this to be so full of feeling.

To my mind, Westlake could have easily changed his protagonist from a comedian to any other entertainment personage and just given the guy an overdeveloped funny bone. The fact that he’s a comedian isn’t as important as that he’s a celebrity with some wit. But for someone like Westlake, who had hit series on his hands, screenwriting gigs, and an Oscar to win (for the screenplay of THE GRIFTERS), I suppose he just didn’t mind laying the manuscript on a closet shelf while keeping busy with so much else on his plate. In any event, THE COMEDY IS FINISHED is a perfect capper to a brilliant career.

Edge of Dark Water by Joe Lansdale
Mulholland Books

We all know Joe Lansdale can do it all. He’s written thrillers, westerns, young adult, and horror novels, as well as fusions containing elements of each. His latest, EDGE OF DARK WATER, is more or less one of these composites that gives a perfect arena to Lansdale’s strengths as a classic storyteller.

When teenaged May Lynn’s body is pulled from the Sabine River tied to an old sewing machine, her friends Sue Ellen, Jinx, and Terry take it upon themselves to give her a proper fond farewell. They decide to burn her remains and carry the ashes to Hollywood, a place where pretty May Lynn always believed she would someday become a movie star. The adventurous trio, along with Sue Ellen’s alcoholic mother, steal a raft and escape from town with some stolen loot, barely ahead of Sue Ellen’s abusive step-father and several other cretinous, criminal characters. As their trip unfolds they run across an odd array of broken and lamentable folks, including a preacher with a horrible guilty secret and an ancient crone with no reason to live except passing on her bitterness. They also learn that Skunk, a legendary beast of a man raised in the river bottoms who’ll commit any atrocity he’s hired to do, may be on their heels.

Despite the novel being set during the Depression, the story has a certain timeless nature. We get the feeling that this tale could almost have taken place at any period between the 1880s and the 1980s. East Texas remains as dark and romanticized as Hannibal, Missouri, full of wonder and possibility, thick with traps and villains.

This is a sharp, incisive, fun tale showing Lansdale’s fortitude at roping the reader into an impressive, alluring narrative. The flaws of our protagonists are what make them so sympathetic and relatable, their journey such an earnest and archetypal one. Even though this is only January, I’m certain EDGE OF DARK WATER will wind up on top ten of ‘12 lists come a year from now.

By the way, look for my interview with Joe in the first online issue of the new ezine The Big Click edited by Nick Mamatas, premiering in March.

Check it out: Thomas Perry's POISON FLOWER

POISON FLOWER is the seventh novel in Thomas Perry’s highly acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, about a Native American "guide" who helps "runners" to escape from their enemies. In the past Jane has helped women disappear from abusive husbands and helpless witnesses elude drug cartels. In POISON FLOWER Jane plans and executes a daring courtroom breakout for James Shelby, an innocent dupe unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder. Things go perfectly for Shelby, but not so great for Jane herself, who is immediately abducted by a group of men posing as cops, shot in the leg, and tortured for answers on the whereabouts of Shelby.

Drugged and in agony Jane summons all of her willpower to keep quiet in the face of her torment even while she dreams of ancient Seneca warriors and the ghost of Harry Kemple, her one past mistake, a poker player she originally spirited away into a new life and then accidentally betrayed to a clever killer.

Refusing to give up Shelby’s only infuriates her captors, who work for the wealthy man who actually killed Shelby’s wife. Eventually she’s given up to auction–where all of evil adversaries of her previous runners gather together to bid on the chance to personally enslave or kill her.

But as any fan of the series knows, Jane is no weak lily. Instead, she’s quite a poison flower herself, prepared to do battle to the very end.

With a Perry novel you get full-on, relentless suspense and pretty much non-stop action. But smart, intense action. It’s not just a wild flurry of blood and killing, but instead wisely parceled out doses that build naturally upon character and narrative. Even when things get very nasty, the bloodletting only progresses the plot. One of the most fascinating elements of the series is how Jane draws on the lessons and traditions of the Seneca tribe in order to survive her adventurous life and dispatch her foes. POISON FLOWER is classic Perry, a novel that hurtles down desert highways at triple digits and will leave you with blisters on your hands from flipping pages so fast.

Mysterious Press
March 2012
$24

Harlequins from Hell

For those of you paying attention, and even for those of you who haven't been, my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS hits in hardcover from Bantam in May. Just turned in the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK to my editor a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've been continuing on with a new short novel WHAT MAKES YOU DIE, due out from Apex next year. I'll also have a zombie novella--yes, you heard that right, chillun--entitled PALE PREACHERS out from Creeping Hemlock in a few months.
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The great writer/editor/reviewer/critic Thomas Roche recently did a hell of a thoughtful review of my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT. "If you're a washed-up fourth-rate writer with no hope for redemption -- or sometimes worry that you might be -- Tom Piccirilli's Every Shallow Cut is like ripping the scab off the place where Dr. Benway amputated your soul."
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Fresh on Kindle are three of my previously out-of-print books. My Stoker Award-winning suspense/horror/whatever novel THE NIGHT CLASS, the story of college student Cal Prentiss who returns to his university after the winter break only to learn a girl has been murdered in his room. Along the way he begins to suffer stigmata whenever someone on campus is killed, and his hands are bleeding a lot.

Also available now are PENTACLE, my short story collection following a modern-day warlock known only as the Necromancer and his demonic companion "Self" as they get into various occult adventures and battle a host of folks including the reincarnation of Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, a flooded town full of mutant demon fish-critters, and evil Navajo spirits.

A LOWER DEEP is my "Self" novel, originally published by Leisure Books, that continues the travails of the Necromancer and Self as they face down their former corrupted coven and try to stop them from bringing about Armageddon by resurrecting Christ before God Chooses to do so. The last half of the book takes place in Jerusalem, a city that lends itself to the themes of Biblical history, prophecy, witches, the mystical, and ancient pagan cultures.

Also, for the month of October, my collection FUTILE EFFORTS is selling for just $.99. Serious, for under a buck, you get 16 stories and novellas and something like 50 poems, plus introductions to each piece by likes of Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Simon Clark, Thomas F. Monteleone, Ray Garton, and bunches of other great generous folks.

And even though I'm pushing my e-books here, for the love of god, people, go to a real live bookstore today and buy a real live book. This is the one time when it's fine to be materialistic. I'm really hoping we learn to find a balance between e-technology and physical books. I just don't want to think about a world where there are no bookstores. Do you?

Some Recent Reads

Been meaning to post about a bunch of recent reads, but I was fighting to beat out a few deadlines. Now that I've finished up a couple of projects, let me tell you all about some first-rate books that have recently hit:

BAD MOON RISING by Ed Gorman. This is Ed's latest Sam McCain novel. Chronologically, about ten years has passed between the first McCain novel THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED and this one, which brings us up to the late 60s and the collision between Black River Falls, Iowa's middle class mores and the influx of the hippie movement. While a local hippie commune outside of town keeps some of the more staunch white bread citizens in an uproar, the larger number of townsfolk don't seem to mind the bohemians much. Not until the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in town is found murdered on commune property and an unstable Vietnam vet becomes the prime suspect. The always sympathetic attorney and PI Sam McCain takes the case that nobody else wants, and soon finds himself butting heads on all sides of the political and social issues exemplified by the curious circumstances.

As is his forte, Gorman knows how to vividly portray his characters as they become swept up into a hurricane of historical importance. Small town America is portrayed honestly, filled with just as much darkness, bitterness, and long-standing secrets as there is apple pie, quaintness, and civic charm. Gorman writes with an emphasis on poignancy and pathos. You feel for these people as they try to navigate their way through turbulent times, trying to protect loved ones, understand complex politics, and stay friendly with nearly unrecognizable neighbors.

THE SIEGE OF TRENCHER'S FARM (STRAW DOGS) by Gordon Williams. Rereleased by Titan Books (www.titanbooks.com) to coincide with the recent movie remake, Gordon Williams's original novel that inspired both versions of STRAW DOGS proves exactly why it's the perfect source material for powerhouse filmmaking. American professor George Magruder rents Trencher's Farm in his wife, Louise's, isolated hometown of rural Dando parish, Cornwall. Cornwall is one of those small villages where you're considered an outsider no matter how many decades you might live among the people. If you're not born in Dando, you're not one of them. George doesn't seem to mind much as tries to finish his definitive study on an unknown eighteenth-century diarist. The fact that he and Louise have been drifting farther apart hardly seems to break his focus. Nor does the general rudeness of the local men even as he clumsily tries to befriend them. As Louise grows more and more discontent, George withdraws further into his work and his mannered, bumbling persona.

But when George accidentally runs over a mentally handicapped convicted child killer, Henry Niles, and the vicious locals set out to lynch Niles, George finds it within himself to defend the man and his own home from trespassers. Here, on Trencher's Farm, all the Dando men are outsiders, and George is soon fighting not only for the life of a guilty man, and the safety of himself and his own family, but for some innate sense of blood debt.

Williams has not only written a gripping novel that manages to show all sides to an oddly complicated set-up in the black, white, and gray area of morality, but he does so by stressing realism. The confused reasoning of George, the perplexing nature of his and Louise's relationship, the curious nature of the brutal Dando men, all lends itself to thoughtful and profoundly affecting themes. We're really not sure who to root for, who might be considered sympathetic, who are the innocents, and who is the guilty or mad. It's provocative storytelling at its finest.

NOIR AT THE BAR edited by Jedidiah Ayres & Scott Phillips. A first-rate crime fiction charity anthology designed to help out the beloved St. Louis indie bookstore SUBTERRANEAN BOOKS (http://store.subbooks.com/). Very few anthologies manage to hit on all cylinders, but this is one of those rare ones where there's not a dud to be found. Tales by Sean Doolittle, Laura Benedict, Jonathan Woods, Derek Nikitis, Frank Bill, and Anthony Neil Smith all win over the reader. These are dark, brutal, inventive, sharply-wrought, grabbing stories that will hopefully invite audiences to seek out more work by everyone listed in the table of contents. I'm honestly ashamed that I wasn't already familiar with more of the authors within and that I hadn't read more short fiction by those I was. If I had to choose a couple of faves, I think I'd go with Dennis Tafoya's "Doe Run Road," a cleaved to the bone narrative about a gut-shot loser trying to make it home just so he can face his hated mother once again; and Pinckney Benedict's "Pig Helmet and the Wall of Life," about a powerhouse burnt-out cop who should've been born in the savage dark ages, who manages to discover an odd form of grace while watching a carny motorcycle act where the riders whip around the inside of a wooden cylinder. Both tales offer even-handed subtleties even while they offer up hard left hooks to your heart. Go, order now.

CHICAGO LIGHTNING by Max Allan Collins. The short stories featuring Collins's classic private eye Nathan Heller have finally been collected by Thomas & Mercer. This is an excellent companion piece to the recent Heller novel BYE BYE BABY, featuring Heller's involvement with solving the Marilyn Monroe case. The Heller tales offer up terrific historical PI fiction. Heller's career spans practically the entire history of American crime. In the short stories we meet up with the likes of Frank Nitti, Mickey Cohen, Eliot Ness, Thelma Todd, all involved with real cases of the 30s and 40s that Heller always winds up in the middle of.

Collins's does his homework. These pieces read like actual historical documentation, the eras and famous personages taking on a real and authentic sense. The pieces are vivid, have depth, and traverse the arena of mystery fiction from noir to hardboiled to police procedural. Heller also grows as a protagonist, his past shaping him as he goes along from one piece to the next.
I missed a lot of these tales on their first publication so I was thankful to finally get a chance to check out those I hadn't seen before, as well as the revamped "The Perfect Crime," a tale that was originally written for a Philip Marlowe compendium that was rewritten to become an even more entertaining Heller piece. My fave might be "The Blonde Tigress," a smart, fun, playful, twister of a mystery that's put together in such a way that you'll reread it immediately just to see how smoothly it was done.