Shameless Self-Promotion: A New Short Story in Honor of Bill Crider

   

    The Bill Crider tribute anthology, Bullets and Other Hurting Things, edited by Rick Ollerman (Down & Out Books), hit the street a few days ago. It features 20 original stories written in honor of the late Bill Crider. I’m honored that my story, “Asia Divine”, somehow made the cut since there are a bunch of great contributing authors. Joe R. Lansdale, Charlaine Harris, William Kent Krueger, Bill Pronzini, James Sallis, James Reasoner, are only a few. 

“Asia Divine” is set is Utah’s West Desert, from the Great Salt Lake’s Stansbury Island to somewhere near the Bonneville Salt Flats. 

Here are the first few lines of “Asia Divine”:

 

Detective Mike Giles gagged on the stink as the Maglite’s glare bobbed across the dim and ragged interior of the bus. He leaned against the pock-marked pole next to the torn-out driver’s seat, a hand cupped over his mouth and nose.

From the back of the bus a disembodied voice said, “It gets worse.”

A bright white light exploded and retreated, fireworks popped in Giles’ eyes.

The simulated whir and click of a digital camera saturated the confined area, and the dull ache in his head blossomed into a roar.

As his vision recovered, another flash bounced. The camera clicked.

“Jesus, Danny.” Giles stroked his throbbing head. “Hold off on the photos until I have a look, huh?”

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DOUBLE FEATURE by Donald E. Westlake

Double Feature, a 2020 release from Hard Case Crime and originally published as Enough in 1977, includes a short novel and a novella. The novel, A Travesty, is a slanted whodunit, which is more of a can-he-get-away-with-it since the protagonist – a film critic – is the murderer doing anything he needs to do to stay out of prison. A humorous story that begins with the genre’s usual, but grows into something quite original. The unexpected, but perfectly ironic ending, gives it a smile-inducing appeal.

The novella, Ordo, is more hardboiled than its pairing, and my favorite of the two because of its working class narrative. A career navy man, Ordo, discovers his short-time wife of fifteen years earlier has become a Hollywood sex symbol. She is unrecognizable as the girl he knew, and Ordo wants to figure out how his ex-wife became someone else. What he discovers is painful and melancholy, but has a purely American vibe of creating your personal mythology; similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, but much less sinister.

Double Feature is a great pairing of tales, told in different styles and with contrasting themes, that showcase Westlake’s brilliance as a storyteller.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "Hollywood Nocturnes"

Hollywood Nocturnes, by James Ellroy, was published in hardcover by Otto Penzler Books in 1994. The edition that caught my eye is Dell’s paperback reprint published in 1995. The bright and rich colors of the 1990s – orange and pink and that rich and deep purple – are exciting and enticing. And, there’s that accordion player to add a bit of “hmmh?” The artist: Unknown (to me at least)

The first sentence of the story, “Out of the Past”:
 

“A man gyrating with an accordion – pumping his ‘Stomach Steinway’ for all it’s worth.” 

Hollywood Nocturnes is a collection of seven of James Ellroy’s crime stories.

THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead

This is review is for a book different from the usual fare at Gravetapping, but it is a marvelous and important novel that satisfies on every level of good literature. It entertains, it educates, it illuminates.

Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys is as brilliant as it is uncomfortable. Elwood Curtis, a black teenager living in 1960s Tallahassee, is sent to a segregated reform school, The Nickel Academy, after the police catch him in a stolen car. Elwood was hitchhiking for the first day of his early-entry college class in the next town, when the car thief picked him up. His pleas of innocence go nowhere with the police or the judge.

Nickel’s staff trade the boys’ state allotted food to local businesses for kickbacks. They beat and whip any of the “students” perceived as trouble-makers. A few of the boys disappear into unmarked graves after severe beatings, the staff claiming they ran away. The boys are offered to local bigwigs as free labor. The pedophiles on staff have unlimited access to the boys.

The school’s degrading atmosphere is more than Elwood can stand. He wants to fight, in a similar way that his hero Martin Luther King Jr. confronts segregation and racism, but the more he struggles against Nickel, the harder his life becomes. The Jim Crow South setting is vividly drawn, uncomfortable, and for this naïve reader, startling. Elwood's journey from a hopeful boy, listening to King’s sermons in his grandmother’s house, to his descent into Nickel is both tragic and disturbing.

The Nickel Boys is fiction, but it was inspired by the very real Dozier School for Boys, which operated in Marianna, Florida, between 1900 and 2011. The beatings, killings, and everything else actually happened at Dozier, but the story and the characters are the invention of Whitehead.

Books in Film: "Dark Passage"

 When books appear as set background in film and television, I spend more time identifying the books than paying attention to the story. When a book gets actual screen time, it makes me happier than something so insignificant should.

This happened with David Goodis’ Dark Passage in the 1991 film, Past Midnight. A film I haven’t watched enough of to decide if a connection exists between novel and film, but man do I dig that featured Dell edition and, even more, its prominence the scene.

Past Midnight was directed by Jan Eliasberg, written by Frank Norwood (it is rumored Quentin Tarantino heavily revised the script), and stars Rutger Hauer, and Natasha Richardson.

Thrift Shop Book Covers: "Condominium"

Condominium, by John D. MacDonald, was published in hardcover by J.P. Lippincott in 1977, but the edition that caught my eye is Fawcett Crest’s paperback reprint published in 1978. Broken sunglasses, a tipping skyscraper, water surging across open sand, and the gold foil title always makes me look twice. The artist: Unknown (to me at least)

The first paragraph:

Howard Elbright finally found Julian Higbee, the condominium manager, lounging against a concrete column, staring toward the pool area where two young women were taking turns diving from the low board.

Tidbits: The Haunted, by Robert Curran (the movie, too)

In 1988 a blandly designed hardcover—black type on a white background with a thumbnail image of a creepy house at the center—was published by St. Martin’s Press. Its title, The Haunted, by Robert Curran, Jack & Janet Smurl, Ed & Loraine Warren. The name “Robert Curran” was a disguise for crime writer Ed Gorman (his job was as a ghost writer). Like much of the Warrens’ work it was labeled nonfiction, but there are those who doubt the veracity of the Warrens’ paranormal stories.

The Haunted is about a malignant haunting of Jack and Janet Smurl:

“Jack and Janet Smurl and their family have been victims of abuse - both mental and physical - by inhuman entities that threaten their sanity, and even their lives. Over several years, the Smurls together with numerous other people - neighbors, police, priests, researchers - have witnessed scores of supernatural events at the family house: the ripping out of ceiling fixtures, the levitation and beating of the family dog, Janet’s strangling by unseen hands, the repeated appearance of a black hooded figure - and more. And they can’t escape - the demon even follows them when they leave their house.” (from the dust jacket)

According to Ed, in the months before he died in October 2016, the book “was ridiculous, but it made a good TV movie.” The movie was aired on Fox in the Spring of 1991 (in my memory), and Ed’s analysis of the film is pretty much right. The movie is creepy, scary, and entertaining as heck. The starring roles are filled by Sally Kirkland and Jeffrey DeMunn.

To quote Ed, “Don't waste your time on the book.” But the movie is worth its ninety minute run time. Here’s a link to a fairly low quality print of the movie at YouTube:

https://youtu.be/9BaF-YgmBNk