Review: Come Destroy Me

Come Destroy Me by Vin Packer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bookworm Charlie channels a Holden Caulfield level of teenage angst and self-pity while struggling against psychopathic tendencies in this corker of a short novel. Charlie's infatuation with a neurotic older woman is the main focus of the narrative, among plenty of other relationship entanglements that include his mousy mother, horny sister, and the decent guy that they both get involved with, and who Charlie deeply resents. The author does an amazing job of getting into Charlie's head, his self-esteem, paranoia, and lack of remorse. Flash forwards clue the reader into what's going to happen so that we can observe the signs of Charlie’s descent, which everyone else in the story fails to pick up on. The author’s insights into mental illness are fascinating and thought provoking. A book that’s impossible to put down. I give it five stars.

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Review: The Blonde on the Street Corner

The Blonde on the Street Corner by David Goodis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodis is well-known for his many crime noirs from the 1950s. This 1954 Lion paperback original set in 1936 Philadelphia is not one of those. Instead it is a portrait of depression-era ennui. Although a basically plot-less novel (the point) about four 30-ish men who live with their parents and spend most of their time standing around on street corners, it nonetheless crackles with energy in between long stretches of flat meaningless dialog. In response to shouts from his sister to get a job you lazy bum, Ralph instead descends into a three-page think that is a stunning repudiation of the American Dream, as if to say, if that's all you got, I'll stand around on a street corner and do nothing, thank you very much. Parsed in this way, we have an uneven novel, with brilliant flashes of literary realism. Goodis was well-read and well-educated and knew exactly what he was doing here and you wouldn't be far off making the connections with Kafka and Beckett or noticing the obvious homage to West's Miss Lonelyhearts. The real star of the novel is Lenore, the blonde on the street corner, who starts and ends this story by getting what she wants, "the kind of action that knocks me out, puts me on a roller coaster going haywire." Ralph gives it to her "like a beast" and that's where their dreams go to die.

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Review: One For The Road

One For The Road by Robert Dietrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first third of the book employs a familiar noir theme, an irresistible drifter scamming a beautiful rich widow, nothing too original although well written and interesting enough. The next third has a Las Vegas hooker falling for him while he blows his big score gambling. Seemed like pointless filler in the grand scheme – again well written and interesting. This sets the stage for the final third, again a familiar noir theme with with our charismatic drifter seducing a young heiress and plotting to kill her rich husband. This was the best part of the book, clever scheming and tension as plans go awry and need to be reconfigured, crackling dialog, steamy sex, and a nice twist at the end. Turned out to be a fine book, not too original but nicely written and well executed. I liked it enough to award it four stars.

Available in the Best Pulp Noir Super Pack from Cutting Edge Books

Review: A Swell-Looking Babe

A Swell-Looking Babe by Jim Thompson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a strange little novel. The first chapter really baits the hook and then the narrative wanders for 35 or so pages, where I was wondering ok what is the point of all this? - although it will all become important by the end of the book - and then blammo, we are headlong into a blackmail and hotel robbery scheme. So there are two main threads involving Dusty, our noir protagonist, who is a bellhop at a hotel. He is "taking care" of his father who is in ill health. As the novel progresses this thread goes from what appears to be filler material to the primary arc of the novel. And then there is the hotel robbery as Dusty gets involved with gangster Tug and Marcia, the "sweel-looking babe" of the title. The robbery thread has all kinds of twists and turns, appears to be the primary arc, but by the end is actually a side plot. The close third-person narrative gets all inside of Dusty's manic head and that is what gives the novel all of its forward energy. The robbery plot doesn't always make a whole lot of sense and at times it seemed like Thompson was making it up as he went along, as if he added in the robbery as filler for the story he really wanted to tell about Dusty's relationship with his father. The ending was a bit confusing, and even after reading it a dozen times I'm still not sure what happened.

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Review: Nothing More Than Murder

Nothing More Than Murder by Jim Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thompson's first noir novel and I really enjoyed the unfolding of the insurance scam and then the complete undoing of Joe Wilmot as his enemies start putting the pinch on him from every angle. Fantastic twist at the end, too. Thompson cleverly keeps the details of the scam from us readers early on, but does it in a way that creates a lot of tension: Joe and his wife Elizabeth talk about what they are doing in the quite realistic way that people do who know what the subject is and don't need to mention every detail. So we know they are up to something but not exactly what. Of course, it all comes out as the action unfolds. Really liked the snarky way the insurance investigator just keeps setting Wilmot up; those were good scenes. Not so good was the way Thompson drifted into Wilmot's back story throughout the last two thirds of the novel. It really didn't add anything to the story. There was also a lot of details about the movie house business, some of it was interesting, but that could have been trimmed down, too for a faster-paced story line.

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Review: One for Hell

One for Hell by Jada M. Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This 1952 Fawcett Gold Medal noir novel has been lauded by readers as a lost masterpiece and it was deservedly brought back into print by Stark House Press in 2012. Jada Davis was a talented writer who decided that life as a fiction writer was more work and less profitable than other careers and he only published one more novel in his lifetime. ONE FOR HELL tells the story of a corrupt oil boom town that employs a charismatic drifter as a strongarm only to lose control of him as his sociopathic tendencies are revealed. The strength of the novel is in the characterization of the drifter - detailing his lies, deceit, and manipulations that keep piling up into a fragile house of cards that force him to escalate the violence to keep it from falling down - and taking his corrupt town partners with it. The subplots detailing the personal affairs of the townsfolk seems superfluous and I was glad when the narrative returned back to the drifter. Plenty of terrific dialog and several interesting characters although the drifter really shines as one of the most fascinating noir characters that I’ve ever read. Lost masterpiece? Sure, I’m on board and give it a solid five stars.

Available in paperback or ebook from Stark House Press.

Review: The Name of the Game Is Death

The Name of the Game Is Death by Dan J. Marlowe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first started reading Gold Medal and other crime-noir paperbacks in junior high and back then this novel was one of my favorites. Marlowe pulls off the rare feat of creating a sociopath that you want to root for. The book begins in the middle of a bank heist in Arizona and our first person narrator is wounded and goes to ground. His robbery partner heads to Florida with the money. They have a plan to meet up. After a few weeks a telegram from his partner arrives and after reading it our protagonist realizes that his partner didn't send it and that someone else must have the loot. He begins driving cross country and in the course of this five-day journey from Arizona to Florida we see him not only in lethal action, but he also conveys incidents from his past that show how he became the criminal he is. Strangely enough, it humanizes the sociopath. In Florida he establishes himself as a tree surgeon in a small town, which is his cover story while he tries to find out what happened to his partner and the money. So we see him in normal human activity, but we also see the calculated way that he operates and know him for what he is: a cold blooded killer. Just a fascinating narrative perspective. As the novel progresses there are twists and turns, with an especially neat side-plot that has other criminals following our guy while he tracks down the ones who took out his partner. Marlowe delivers some neat cat and mouse scenes before the final explosive ending. One of the best in the genre and a must-read for fans of these Gold Medal paperbacks.

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Review: The Wounded and the Slain

The Wounded and the Slain by David Goodis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the more remarkable first chapters in the noir genre. The first paragraph begins with the as yet unnamed focal character considering suicide. As we flip from page one to page two we have this: “At the other end of the bar they were having a good time, talking pleasantly with some energetic laughter thrown in. He tried to hate them because they were enjoying themselves. He collected some hate, aimed it, tossed it, then knew right away it was just a boomerang. There was no one to hate but himself.” He is Bevan, drowning in self-pity and alcohol, and we learn him with a narrative point-of-view that alternates between close third and second person. This narrative approach becomes quite stunning as Goodis introduces Cora, Bevan’s wife, and treats us to the same alternating close third and second person treatment of her, which is juiced up by her seeming schizophrenic second person voice. As the first chapter winds down Bevan is falling down drunk in the bar trying to pick a fight with a guy who comes to help Cora get Bevan out of the bar. The second chapter is Bevan’s back story. He marries young Cora but it turns out she is not interested in sex so Bevan takes up with a hooker, gets found out and trades the hooker in for booze, and races towards alcoholism to the point where a change of scenery is suggested to him by a neurologist. Cue chapter three, the morning after in Kingston, Jamaica and the beginning of a descent that immediately brings to mind Malcom Lowry’s Under the Volcano, published in 1947 and a work Goodis surely would have known. Goodis’ prose is a bit ragged when describing action scenes like the bar fight, but he is at his mesmerizing best when narrating from within the soul-tortured heads of Bevan and Cora.

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Review: The Lady Kills

The Lady Kills by Bruno Fischer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm surprised that Bruno Fischer didn't receive any coverage in Haut's or O'Brien's books on crime noir. Even in Horsley's The Noir Thriller there is just one mention of Fischer, in the Fatal Women chapter, and it is for this book. And I have to say, Beth Antler, is a femme fatale character in all caps, pretty much a textbook example, you could teach a course on the topic using her as an archetype. The noir protagonist is Simon Field and he's an editor working for the newspaper published by Beth's father. The small town is run by gangsters who control the politicians and the newspaper's editorial page is at war with the corruption, which becomes a bigger focus in the second half of the novel. The first half is all about Simon falling under the spell of Beth, even to the point of covering up a murder for her. The plot complications expand out from there, including a nice twist up at the end. Strong characterization, good plot, and the usual noir trappings. The pace was a bit slower than a lot of the Gold Medal era books, but Fischer was a good writer so the less than break-neck paced sections are still interesting reading. Prologue has an eBook version so this is readily available.

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Review: The Moon in the Gutter

The Moon in the Gutter by David Goodis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is not so much a novel as a short sequence of events that goes nowhere. It has the kind of fatalism that noir is known for: the protagonist who is doomed. In this case he is trapped by his own limited sense of identity. He apparently hasn’t heard of the “American Dream,” where hard work can take you anywhere. He grew up on the mean streets and in his mind that’s the only place he can live. So when the upper class woman shows up in her sports car and wants to take him uptown? No can do. “Don’t you see the way it is? We don’t ride the same track. I can’t live your kind of life and you can’t live mine. It ain’t anyone’s fault. It’s just the way cards are stacked.” Spoiler alert, that is on the last page. And it is actually a fitting wrap up for this annoying protagonist who spends the novel, in between fist fights and drinking binges, in situations where he needs to say something but can’t get the words out, or needs to move but can’t. He is frozen in place and unable to act. The novel begins with him staring at the blood stains where his sister was murdered. At the end of the novel he knows the answer to who her murderer is. We do too even though the murderer is never identified.

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Review: Madball

Madball by Fredric Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A “madball” is carney lingo for a crystal ball, the kind that Dr. Magus the alcoholic fortune teller, uses to manipulate people. Equally adept at manipulation is Burt Evans, a greedy carny sociopath who has found $42,000 in stolen cash. This drives the two main narratives with Magus brilliantly deducing the location of the stolen fortune, and Evans killing without remorse to protect it. The book provides an insider look at carnival life of the era with several fascinating characters and a relentlessly paced plot - since all the machinations need to be completed by the end of the carnival season. At its heart it’s a story about greed and what people are willing to do to get what they want, which covers a lot of bases - stealing, prostitution, murder, etc. since the carneys are not a very lawful bunch. A slice of carnival life, compelling and repellant at the same time, combined with cracking good plotting and dialog place this book near the top of the carnival noir heap. An easy five stars.

Available from Stark House Press Black Gat Books.

Review: Tears Are For Angels

Tears Are For Angels by Paul Connolly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Noir masterpiece for sure. How did did this not get mentioned in the books on crime and pulp fiction by Horsley, Haut, O'Brien, and Ritt? How did this not get made into a movie in the 1950s?! Soon as I finished this I went back and read it again, hardly believing that it could be as good as it seemed the first time and found myself riveted once again. The beginning is a stone cold killer. Harry London, down as far as a man can go, out in his hermit cabin bingeing on white lightning and shooting at cans while trying to visualize the face of the man he wants to kill. And up drives Jean Cummings to throw down the challenge. After a sharp opening battle between them, the rest of the story comes churning out. How Harry got down so low, his wife's murder, the vengeance he seeks, and the devil's bargain he and Jean strike-up to bring about that vengeance, which she also seeks, to fruition. The build-up is twisty and tense and the unraveling ending sequence does not disappoint. This is a great one that needs to be rediscovered and appreciated by fans of crime/noir fiction.

Finally back in print from Stark House Black Gat Books.

Review: The Promoter

The Promoter by Orrie Hitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Intricately plotted noir that deserves to be rescued from the pulp remainders and see a wider readership. The protagonist, a freelance car magazine writer, makes a series of choices that enmesh him deep into the underground nude modeling/porn scene circa late 1950s. Hitt uses the plot technique of keep shoveling on trouble until the protagonist is buried and gasping for air and that keeps the pages turning.

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Review: So Young, So Wicked

So Young, So Wicked by Jonathan Craig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Screams along like a 57 Plymouth with some nice twists and interesting characters, as a piano playing assassin plots a tough hit in a small upstate New York town. Top notch 50s Pulp Crime fiction.

Highly recommended!        

Now back in print thanks to Stark House Press and Black Gat Books.

Review: A Touch of Death

A Touch of Death by Charles Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ex-jock narrator falls for a cute bikini woman’s scheme to help rob some stolen cash from an uninhabited house, but then he unexpectedly finds it occupied by a drunken hottie who turn out to be even more devious than the first. A great opening sets the stage for a taut rollercoaster of a noir that never fails to keep ramping up the tension as the narrator keeps digging himself into a deeper hole. Williams expertly unwinds the story of the stolen cash and the players involved in a way that doesn't make the complex plot feel that way. The puzzle pieces fall into place forcing the beleaguered narrator to keep continuously adjusting his plans. Terrific dialog, clever plotting, and some very interesting characters make this one a masterpiece of 1950s paperback noir. Highly recommended.

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Review: Savage Night

Savage Night by Jim Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Deranged existentialist noir filtered through an unreliable first-person narrator who is a schizophrenic hit man with tuberculosis. Is the novel flawed or genius? Hard to say, probably both. First time through I struggled a bit with the pacing because some of the scenes appear filler and move slow and the dialog is full of dashes and ellipses and stuttered words. By the end, wow. Immediately reread it and then again. Those filler scenes are packed full of clues and edginess that only become apparent later as the story winds down and the narrator unravels. A pulp noir with grotesque and carnivalesque styling. Thompson is in a class by himself when it comes to unreliable narrators.

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Review: Of Tender Sin

Of Tender Sin by David Goodis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not so much crime-noir as psycho-noir. It is the second Goodis book I've read that featured a protagonist with incestuous overtones towards his sister and also the second Goodis book that also channels Malcom Lowry's Under the Volcano, but these are not the same books, so that makes three, a menage a trois of incest and Lowry-esque out-of-the headness. Need to read more to confirm, but think Goodis had a fixation. The protagonist in this novel seems mental for most of the book and that is never resolved. The novel doesn't so really end (resolve), instead it just stops. The protag is basically in the same place as in the beginning. Yes, he may know something about the platinum blonde woman (women). Yes, he may know whom his wife has been calling. But we readers are really in no better place to make a decision on our protagonist's state of mind or fate than we were at the beginning of the novel. The psychological torment continues from beginning end. So, on that criteria, this is a superb psychological noir where the dilemma facing the protagonist never really gets solved. For a book written in 1952? A solid candidate for the existentialist canon. Oh, and there is an amazing scene involving a scalping with bare hands! Surely that is a one of a kind!

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Review: A Night for Screaming

A Night for Screaming by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holy habanero! Reached the point where I couldn't put this one down and had to sneak off somewhere for a couple of hours so I could finish it without being interrupted. Mitch Walker, our noir protagonist, is an ex-cop accused of murder. He can't prove his innocence and is afraid to be interrogated by his sadistic ex-partner who always gets the confession (scalding hot enemas is one of the proven torture techniques that has Mitch on the lam). We pick up the story with Mitch having hopped off a freight train in Kansas and he is quickly in hiding from the local police and his ex-partner. He "escapes" to Great Plains Empire Farm, which is staffed by prison labor and "employed" laborers who might as well be prisoners. Mitch almost immediately realizes he's made a mistake agreeing to take a job at the farm and begins plotting his escape. From that point on Whittington just keeps putting Mitch into more and more trouble and the plot surprises keep coming right up to the ending pages. Just a great fast-paced fun read and a noir thriller that completely delivers.

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Review: Cassidy's Girl

Cassidy's Girl by David Goodis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although the character types and the setting are completely different, the knock-down drag-out verbal (and physical) battles between the men and women characters in this David Goodis novel had me continuously visualizing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton from that great movie based on the Edward Albee play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. So that is a big part of this novel: the characters guzzle booze and fight. The other part of the novel is Cassidy's arc. He's a disgraced airline pilot who crashed a plane and is now driving a bus for a "living." After a boozy brawl with his buxom wife he dumps her for an alcoholic waif. Cassidy should be watching out for the woman scorned, but isn't. Fights with her lover instead and then foolishly lets the guy on his bus, in the seat behind his driver's seat, with a flask of booze. Can you see what is coming? On the run, helped by friends doing more harm than good, Cassidy can't stop thinking about saving the alcoholic waif and his wrong decisions keep stacking up. Enter stage left, his scorned and vengeful wife. And so it goes. The dialogue gets a bit repetitive at times but Goodis also portrays these self destructive lives with some beautiful prose.

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Review: Wild to Possess

Wild to Possess by Gil Brewer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another of Gil Brewer's relentlessly paced noirs, although it is not hard to keep it fast-paced when the main character is either running or racing around in cars for half the book. That's a key part of Brewer's technique, keep the characters always in motion. The plot requires some suspension of disbelief: Lew overhears a couple plotting a kidnap/murder/ransom and then spends the first part of the book trying to track them down so he can cut himself in on the action. One of the great scenes is when he breaks into the woman's house looking for information only to have them come home and he is forced to hide in the bedroom closet while they sex it up a couple of times. In between the sex they discuss the plan and Lew hears all he needs to. From that point on he's a man on a mission to get his hands on the $250,000 ransom money. Brewer's typically sharp plot twists make sure that things don't go smooth for Lew, but he does a lot of the damage himself by pounding bottles of gin. The climatic seen involving boats was chaotic and fun and is a scene that's been done in movies many times since. The final two pages are just wrap up, but who cares at that point because we already had all the pleasure of the read.

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