Review: "Flamingo Road" by Sasscer Hill

 

Flamingo Road
by Sasscer Hill
Minotaur Books, 2017

 

Flamingo Road, Sasscer Hill’s first (of two) featuring former Baltimore PD officer Fia McKee, is a satisfying by-the-numbers detective thriller. Internal Affairs wants Fia’s shield for excessive force after she kills a man strangling a woman, Shyra Darnell, while on patrol. It was a righteous shooting, but when Shyra disappears without saying a word, Fia resigns—rather than fighting the investigation—to take a job with the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB) as an undercover agent. Fia is a perfect fit since she worked with her horse-trainer father until his murder five years earlier at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course.
     The TRPB sends Fia to Gulfstream Park, a race course just south of Hollywood in Hallandale Beach, Florida, where there has been a rash of winners with long odds (40-to-1 and higher) and suspiciously high betting patterns on those unlikely winners. A combination that gives Fia’s bosses the uneasy feeling someone is cheating by doping horses with an unknown performance enhancing drug. The assignment is perfect since it gives Fia the chance to spend time with her brother, Patrick, and her teenage niece, Jilly, and to investigate, during her personal time, a series of horse killings in their upscale neighborhood.
     Flamingo Road isn’t perfect. The opening is disjointed—with Fia traveling back-and-forth between Baltimore and Southern Florida—and a reliance on coincidence. But once Flamingo Road settles into itself, at about page 30, its varied positive attributes—a likable and strong heroine is only one—easily overcomes its imperfections. Fia’s narration is tough and smooth and reminded me of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. The horse racing backdrop is rich and believable and competes handily with the likes of Dick Francis. There is a splash of suspense, a handful of gripping action sequences, an eccentric cast of outlaws, and a blush of romance. In short, Flamingo Road creates a world the reader wants to inhabit for a couple of hours. Now, I need to find that second book and plan my next visit with Fia McKee. 

Click here for the Kindle edition at Amazon.

Introduction to Philip Jose Farmer's "Heretic: Stories"

Introduction to Heretic: Stories by Philip José Farmer   The critic Leslie Fiedler called Philip José Farmer “the greatest science fiction writer ever” and Isaac Asimov proclaimed him as “a far more skillful writer than I am.” Farmer is widely considered to have broken the genres’ taboo with sexuality. His first significant publication, the novella “The Lovers” (Startling Stories, Aug. 1961), used sexuality—specifically a sexual relationship between a human male and an extraterrestrial—as a central theme, which would have been a volatile topic in mid-century America. According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, “[‘The Lovers’] concerned xenobiology, parasitism and sex, an explosive mixture, certainly for the SF genre of that era.” Farmer’s fiction was consistently critical of religion, too, which is where the title of this collection, Heretic, is derived. As a boy Farmer attended religious training in the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), but by 14 he had become an agnostic and later in life he described himself as an atheist. Farmer’s criticisms of religion, particularly how it segregates people by creating false differences, can be seen in much of his fiction, including the stories in this collection. He is best known for his Riverworld series—which features such luminaries as Richard Francis Burton and Mark Twain in a world where every person who has ever lived is resurrected into a world dominated by river valleys—and his World of Tiers series about parallel universes and the origins of humanity. Farmer’s science fiction won three Hugo Awards—Best New SF Author or Artist, 1953; Best Novella, 1968, for “Riders of the Purple Wage”; and Best Novel, 1972, for To Your Scattered Bodies Go. He was awarded the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Farmer’s birth name was Philip Josie Farmer. “Josie” was meant as an honor to his paternal grandmother, Josephine, but it he disliked it because of its feminine sound. As an adult Farmer legally changed his middle name to José, which he thought livened his rather bland and alliterative name: Philip Farmer. He was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana, on January 26, 1918, to George and Lucile Theodora Farmer (née Jackson). The Farmers moved frequently, at least six times, during the 1920s; living in Indiana, Missouri, and Illinois. In 1936, Farmer graduated from Peoria Central High School (Illinois) and enrolled at the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he studied journalism. He left school in 1937 to take a job with Illinois Power and Light—reportedly to help his father payoff a debt—and returned to school, Bradley Polytechnical Institute, in 1939 to study English literature. In 1941, he transferred back to the University of Missouri where his future wife, Elizabeth Virginia Andre, attended as a music student. He graduated with a B.A. in 1949 from Bradley in Peoria. Philip and Elizabeth were married on May 10, 1941. The couple had two children, a son and daughter. Farmer volunteered to become a pilot with the Army Air Corps in 1941, but he was discharged and took a job with the Keystone Steel & Wire Co. where he worked until becoming a fulltime writer in the early-1950s. During much of the 1950s and 1960s Farmer worked as a technical writer for defense contractors, including General Electric, Motorola, and McDonnell-Douglas. He became a fulltime fiction writer in 1969. Philip José Farmer died on February 25, 2009, in Peoria, Illinois. The three stories included in Heretic—a novelette and two shorts—are excellent examples of Farmer’s best work: thoughtful, critical of authority and religion, and downright fun to read. “The Celestial Blueprint” (Fantastic Journey, July 1954) is an entertaining and ironic journey into religious zealotry, distrust, and revenge. The central theme of “How Deep the Grooves” (Amazing Stories, February 1963) is free will and absolute predestination; a thinking person’s dilemma written as highspeed entertainment. The final story is the novelette, “Tongues of the Moon” (Amazing Stories, September 1961), which is a space opera-like adventure—hasty pacing, space blasters, and explosions—with a serious look at nationalism and religion. The cover was designed by www.karadraws.com   Click here to purchase the Kindle edition and here to purchase the trade paperback.

Philip José Farmer’s Heretic: Stories is the first volume in Vintage Lists’ 3 PLAY series, which is a line of high-quality books featuring three stories—every so often a bonus tale appears to keep things interesting—from authors both old and new. Each entry features stories from a single author with an emphasis on story quality. The books are short, anywhere between 95 and 120 pages and each is designed for readers with a discerning eye and a love of genre fiction—crime, mystery, horror, and science fiction—at its very best. Plus, and this is a big thing, the books are designed for easy reading—paperbacks have an easy-to-read font size—and affordability in both paperback and electronic editions.

 

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "City That Never Sleeps"

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

City That Never Sleeps from Nov. 16, 2009  directed by JOHN H. AUER / written by STEVE FISHER / starring: GIG YOUNG, MALA POWERS, WILLIAM TALMAN, EDWARD ARNOLD, CHILL WILLS, and MARIE WINDSOR Last night we watched a fierce little B+ movie called City That Never Sleeps (1953). This was one of the films Herbert Yates hoped would convince Hollywood and distributors alike that Republic Pictures could produce more than programmers. The days when Gene Autry and Roy Rogers brought in millions were over. TV now gave away cowboys and old serials free.      After it was over I went to IMDb to see what some others thought of it. Thirty-one people posted opinions and nearly all of them mentioned two things—how “odd” the movie was and how wrong Chill Wills was for it.      Gig Young plays Johnny Kelly, a Chicago street cop who is cheating on his wife with Mala Powers. Their plan is to run away together. But Johnny’s father, a detective on the force, senses something wrong and pleads with him to talk about it. But Johnny won’t. Johnny needs money. He hates being broke all the time and he also hates the fact that his wife Paula makes more money than he does. He goes to a crooked lawyer, Biddell played by Edward Arnold. Arnold offers him five grand to interrupt a robbery that will take place later that night, a robbery done by one of his most trusted men, Stewart, the actor William Tallman. But there’s something about the set-up Johnny doesn’t like and he starts to walk. Then Biddell coyly mentions that Johnny’s young brother will be in on the heist, too. If Johnny wants to protect him, he’d better be there. Everything is now set in motion.      The screenplay is generally excellent but because it’s by Steve Fisher (a writer I like) it has to have a few mandatory moments of treacle and at least one weird narrative trick. The trick here is having Chill Wills (who in God’s name cast him?) do the voice over as the soul of the city or somesuch. We’re panning parts of old Chicago and Wills is intoning all the pulp cliches about cities (Tonight there will be death in the streets and birth in the hospitals, etc.) and then—Wills shows up as Johnny’s squad car partner for the night where he continues to pontificate, mostly about what swell guys cops are.      The direction by John H. Auer and the cinematography John L. Russell are excellent. This is a noir in the classical sense. Mala Powers is very good and William Tallman, a cunning and convincing actor who never got his due, makes an unsettling villain. When he goes crazy you buy every second of it.      As I watched it, I thought about Gig Young. Just about everything I’ve read about him noted that beneath the droll charm there was great anger and bitterness. He lived in the bottle. But in this role he got to drop all the bullshit. Here he is much closer to the Gig Young his biographers portrayed—bitter, self-pitying, confused, afraid.      By movie’s end I realized that even though he’d won the Academy Award (best supporting) for his too-flamboyant depiction of the dance marathon conductor [in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They], he’d been miscast. He should have played the lead. I’ve always thought that They Shoot Horses, Don’t They was a miserable film. Jane Fonda was too slick and showy, Michael Sarrazin dull and useless. Young could still have done it back then. He would have brought real neurotic depth to the drifter who takes up with Gloria. His performance in City That Never Sleeps show that.      A fine little movie. Not perfect but passionate and memorable.      And by the way, there was another piece of miscasting [in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They]. Instead of Bonnie Bedelia being fourth billed, she should have had Jane Fonda’s part. Bonnie Bedelia has been there. Click here to purchase the Blu-ray or here to purchase the DVD on Amazon. This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Nov. 29, 2009. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016. Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

Review: "Pretty Girl Gone" by David Housewright

 

Pretty Girl Gone
by David Housewright
Minotaur Books, 2006

 

 

Pretty Girl Gone, David Housewright’s entertaining third Rushmore McKenzie mystery, finds McKenzie doing a favor for his old high school friend, Lindsay Barrett. Lindsay’s husband, Jack, is the newly elected governor of Minnesota. Lindsay panics when she receives an unsigned email warning her that if Jack runs for the U.S. Senate, he will be exposed for murdering his high school sweetheart, Elizabeth Rogers.
     Jack was a basketball star—he led his tiny high school team, known as the Minnesota Seven, to a state championship during his senior year—and Elizabeth was the most beautiful girl in school. The night before the championship game, Elizabeth was found strangled to death and her murder was never solved. Lindsay asks McKenzie to find who sent the email. He quickly tracks the IP address, from where the email originated, to a copy and print store in Victoria, Minnesota. When McKenzie arrives in the small town, he is stonewalled by pretty much everyone, except for the sexy interim police chief, Danny Mallinger. Along the way McKenzie decides he needs to solve the decades old murder to fulfill his promise to Lindsay.
     Pretty Girl Gone is a captivating tale loaded with duplicity, doubt, cunning—not necessarily McKenzie’s—red-herrings, bad decisions—mostly McKenzie’s—and enough action and mystery to keep almost every reader satisfied. Housewright adeptly explores the issues of race and racism in the form of immigration discontent without losing sight of the primary mystery. The setting, as always in this series, is bright and central to the narrative; this time giving the reader an experience with a bleak winter in smalltown Minnesota. McKenzie is a smart-aleck, tough, often rash, and always fallible, which gives him just the right mix for reader likability. Pretty Girl Gone is a solid entry in the series, which begs for the reader to find the next McKenzie book.

Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback at Amazon.

Magnum P.I.'s Roger E. Mosley (June 5, 1983)

 

This nice profile of Roger E. Mosley (1938 – 2022) appeared in the June 5, 1983, issue of the Salt Lake Tribune. By every account I have read—and this piece continues that trend—Mosley was a terrific guy. I know I liked his portrayal of Theodore Calvin (T. C.) in the original Magnum, P.I. Click the image for a larger view.

Review: "The Summons" by Peter Lovesey

 

The Summons
by Peter Lovesey
Soho Crime, 2004

 

Peter Lovesey’s third Peter Diamond detective novel, The Summons—originally published in 1995 by Mysterious Press—is a first-rate, inventive, traditional mystery with a credible cast of suspects set in the lovely tourist town of Bath, England. Peter Diamond, formerly Superintendent Diamond of the Bath Constabulary, is living a humdrum life with his wife in a squalid basement apartment in London after quitting his job leading Bath’s murder squad. Diamond works part time recovering shopping carts from a grocery store parking lot and money is something he vaguely remembers from when he had a proper salary. Things are bad enough that he is considering a job baring his considerable girth as a nude model for extra dosh.
     Diamond’s mostly quiet desperation is unsettled when a pair of Bath police officers arrive at his door demanding he return to Bath with them. They give him little incentive since they don’t give him a whiff at the why except it concerns his nemesis, Assistant Chief Constable Tott. When he gets on site, he learns Tott’s daughter has been kidnapped by an escaped convict Diamond put away for murdering a Swedish journalist four years earlier. The convict proclaims his innocence and demands Diamond review the investigation again before he will return Tott’s daughter.
     The Summons is a marvelously entertaining murder mystery with enough action to keep the narrative lively, including some gunplay and real risk to Diamond’s health, and more than enough detection to satisfy even the snobbiest reader. And most unpretentiousness readers, too, including a dolt like me. Diamond is a rare treat: self-absorbed (but trying to be better), anti-technology, clever, and funny. The supporting cast are an eclectic bunch of oddballs—a crowd of hippies called “crusties” squatting around town—eccentrics, an obese photographer-turned-baker, stiff-upper-lip-types, millionaires (at least one), and braggarts. Diamond is a bloodhound as he questions his original investigation and then pursues the killer against what appears to be his own best interest. And the denouement is a blissful surprise, and even better, a surprise that makes perfect sense.

Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the audiobook at Amazon.

Reading Roundup: March 2024

Over the past few years I abandoned using notebooks to keep track of the books I read in favor of Goodreads. A practice that came about out of laziness more than anything else, but this year, I’m back with pen and paper. Along with the change, I decided to try—at least this month—sharing my reading list.
     I track the books—fiction and non-fiction—and individual short stories I finish. Those I don’t finish don’t get recorded. In March there were two novels I chose not to finish, which is more than normal for a single month. My DNF’s were Free Fall, by Robert Crais (1993)—I was simply bored with it at the halfway mark—and Night Detectives, by Jon Talton (2013), because I felt grouchy and it didn’t catch my interest in the first few dozen pages.
     The books I read—seven in total—were all fiction and six were squarely within the mystery genre. I read an astonishing three Rushmore McKenzie novels by David Housewright: Pretty Girl Gone (2006), Madman on a Drum (2008), and The Taking of Libbie, SD (2010). All three were terrific, my favorite being Madman on a Drum. You can expect to see reviews of these three in coming weeks. My favorite book was Rusty Barnes’s Half Crime (2024), which is an excellent collection of dark tales that I reviewed here, and my least favorite was The Bastard, by John Jakes (1974). A word about The Bastard. The first half, or about 300 pages was marvelous, but the narrative dulled in the second half. It would have been a better book if it had been strategically but aggressively cut.

As for short stories, I read two—“One Eye Open”, by Jeremiah Healy (EQMM, Jul. 1989), and “I Bring Fresh Flowers”, by Robert F. Young (Amazing Stories, Feb. 1964)—and enjoyed both; however, I was a tad disappointed with the Healy story because it didn’t have the grab and thoughtful conclusion I expected from a John Francis Cuddy tale. Not to mention, I purchased the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, where it appeared, for no other reason than it had a Healy story inside. Well, that cover image of Lawrence Block didn’t hurt, either.
     So, without further ado, here is my reading list, from first to last in chronological order in my own hand, for March 2024:

 

So, dear reader, what do you think? Is this worth doing each month? 

Review: "Half Crime" by Rusty Barnes

 

Half Crime
by Rusty Barnes
Redneck Press, 2024

  

Rusty Barnes’s Half Crime collects nine original stories about small crimes, human frailties, and sorrow. The tales lean into noir with their bleak rural Pennsylvania settings, harsh portrayals of poverty, and protagonists (often pushed by circumstance) making a last bad decision. In “Bad Old Boy,” Crate Lang is trying to support his family working a low-paying blue-collar job, but a batch of medical bills sends him looking for an extra payday. He approaches an old friend, Dexter Moore—a guy Lang used to run on the wrong side of the law with—looking for a one-time low-risk job. Dexter gives Lang a package to deliver in Syracuse, New York, but, of course, it goes wrong and Lang is on the hook with Dexter now, too.
     “Wish for Winter” tells the sorrowful story of Carl Stevenson. A milk truck driver living with an angry sister, and a girlfriend with a wandering eye. But everything gets worse for Carl after a hard night of drinking leads him into an accident while picking up a load of raw milk. “The Power of Positive Drinking” is about lost potential, fallible love, and drug addiction. It is parts sad, parts angering, and entirely thought-provoking. “Ampersand” is the sweetest tale in the collection with an ending somewhere damn close to happy. Jared’s wife left with their daughters, but things begin to change when he is set-up with Ellie. And it just keeps getting better and better, in that low-key realistic way it happens in our own live action world.
     The stories in Half Crime can be difficult to read—they are melancholy, realistic, and without an easy solution for the underlying cultural problems—but each is worthy of being read. This passage from “Bad Old Boy”—

“Opioid epidemic my ass, Crate thought. What it is is a pain epidemic, and no way for most people to deal with it.”

—aptly captures the essence of what Half Crime is about. A hopeless and decaying rural America self-medicating its ills with a slurry of addiction. Do yourself a favor and get Half Crime today. It is a collection with meaning. And yeah, it is literate and stylish, too.

Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback at Amazon.

Review: "Tin City" by David Housewright

 Tin City
by David Housewright
Minotaur Books, 2005

 

Tin City is David Housewright’s excellent second mystery featuring unlicensed private eye Rushmore McKenzie. When asked, McKenzie readily agrees to help his late-father’s best friend, the beekeeper Mr. Mosley, investigate what is killing his bees. It seems like a simple favor, but McKenzie quickly changes his mind when the doctoral student he hired to collect and analyze samples around Mosely’s property, looking for bee-killing toxins, is shot at by Mosely’s new neighbor, Frank Crosetti. And things turn uglier when an execution-style murder upends McKenzie’s simple favor.
     It seems obvious Crosetti is the villain, but before McKenzie can confront him, Crosetti disappears. In a hurry, McKenzie discovers Frank Crosetti is a man without a past. In fact, his name is borrowed from a former New York Yankees shortstop. A hovering FBI agent and, as McKenzie keeps investigating, a warrant for his, McKenzie’s, arrest makes it appear Crosetti is being protected by the feds. To keep out of jail and in the hunt, McKenzie goes into hiding and follows the clues to a quiet suburban trailer park where the investigation heats up.
     Publishers Weekly said David Housewright, in Tin City, “[channels] Raymond Chandler with tongue-in-cheek humor,” which is an apt comparison because McKenzie is a sharp and witty observer with a wicked, smart-alecky tongue. His observations, which are more numerous in Tin City than the other books I’ve read so far, are brief and fit nicely into the story. My favorite of the lot, probably because I agree with it so much, is about libraries:     

“I’ve always loved libraries, the very idea of them. They’re citadels of peace and quiet and intellectual freedom and civilization—commodities that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. They are, in a word, the most ‘democratic’ places on earth, although they’ve been finding it harder to remain that way.”

But Tin City isn’t a dry, preachy tome. There is plenty of action, fisticuffs and gunplay both. A solid mystery that is sensible and with enough surprises to keep it interesting. The Twin Cities, Minnesota, setting is a major player in the narrative and McKenzie makes certain it is known he is from St. Paul rather than Minneapolis. The plotting is concise and McKenzie, flaws, ego, and all, is a damn likable character. The sort of guy we—all of us juvenile-minded males—wish we could be.

Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback at Amazon.

Review: "In for the Kill" by John Lutz

 

In for the Kill

by John Lutz

Pinnacle, 2007

  

There was a time not so long ago when serial killer police procedurals were everywhere. From film to television to fiction. Perhaps it began with the success of the film, The Silence of the Lambs (1991), inspired by Thomas Harris’s novel, and continued with James Patterson’s early Alex Cross bestsellers—Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, etc. Whenever and whyever the serial killer craze began, one of its best practitioners was John Lutz.
     Lutz’s first serial killer romp, Final Seconds with David August, arrived in 1998 and over the following 17 years he wrote another 15 slash and burn procedurals about detectives chasing demented killers through labyrinthine urban landscapes. Lutz’s thrillers resemble Lawrence Sanders’s Deadly Sins books more than Thomas Harris’s Hanibal Lector and those titles I’ve read have made a standard plot new with a dash of nuance, sprinkle of humor, and a wheel-barrel full of tension.
     His 2007 novel, In for the Kill, the second (of ten) Frank Quinn outings, is a wonderful example of Lutz’s serial killer thrillers. Like all his others, it was published as a paperback original by Pinnacle. Quinn is a rough-edged, at times brutal and others charming, retired NYPD detective with a knack for catching killers. When a new killer dubbed “The Butcher” begins working New York City—he prefers attractive brunettes, downing them, draining their blood, and dismembering them before stacking them neatly in the pristine bathtub where they died—Quinn is brought in by his old boss, Deputy Chief Harley Renz, to find the killer.
     Quinn in turn gets his old pals Detective Fedderman and Officer Pearl Kasner, an attractive brunette Quinn had a relationship with and he is still harboring feelings for, onto his team and soon realizes The Butcher is playing games with him. The first letter of the first five victims’ last names spell: Q-U-I-N-N. What Quinn doesn’t know is his relationship with the killer will burn closer to home than he wants.
     In for the Kill is a brilliant guilty pleasure with non-stop pacing and a flash-bang climax. The interplay between serial killer and detective could be silly, but Lutz’s smooth style and his skill at ratcheting tension—without ever going splatterpunk gory—allows the reader little time (or desire) to question the story. The detectives’ relationships, including Harley Renz, provides low-key and much needed humor to an otherwise bleak tale. If you like this kind of fiction, In for the Kill is about as good as you will find.

Click here for the Kindle edition at Amazon.

From Ed Gorman's Desk: Richard Neely

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Richard Neely
Nov. 10, 2005

 

The first time I ever spoke to Richard Neely, suspense novelist extraordinaire, he kept trying to place my name. “It’s so damned familiar—wait a minute, you’re the guy who called me the de Sade of crime fiction.”
    Loose lips sink ships. So can old reviews. I figured that our business would sink if he ever remembered that long ago review. But he laughed. “I think I was just ahead of my time.”
     Actually, I’d meant that remark as a compliment because I was pointing out that Neely, despite the Irish name, took a very French approach to the psychological machinations of sex in his books. Two of his books became French movies. Somebody apparently agreed with me.
     Neely, a very sleek and successful advertising man, is gone now and so, undeservedly, are his books. The Walter Syndrome, his bestselling suspense novel, was almost ruined for me when I guessed the ending on page two, something I never do. But I pressed on and it was well worth it. This was a take on Psycho set in Thirties and the storytelling is spellbinding. The voice is worth of Fredric Brown at his best.
     I was thinking of Neely last night because I was finishing up his novel The Plastic Nightmare, which became an incomprehensible movie called Shattered. Neely loved tricks as much as Woolrich did and Plastic is a field of land mines. He even manages to spin some fresh variations on the amnesia theme. It’s as noir as noir can be but mysteriously, I’ve never seen Neely referred to on any noir list. My theory is that his books, for the most part, were presented in such tony packages, they were bypassed by mystery fans.
     The Damned Innocents became a fair French flick. What it missed was the sorrow. Neely always caught the sorrow of sexual betrayal with a kind of suicidal wisdom. While his books aren’t kinky by today’s measure, they’re dark in the way only sexual themes can be. Love kills, baby.
     Not that he didn’t have a sudsy side. He wrote a couple of big sexy workplace novels that I could never plow through but he also wrote The Ridgeway Women which was SUPPOSED to be a big sexy workplace book that was undermined in a good way by the riveting neuroses and desperation of all his best books.
     A Madness of the Heart suffers from a style Neely seemed to have invented from scratch for this particular novel. It’s another dazzler—a really convincing story about a rapist and the human debris he leaves in his wake—but the cadence of the prose gets in my way every once in awhile. It isn’t that it’s fancy-schmancy, it’s just that it gets in the way sometimes and seems to fall short of its purpose.
     I liked Neely, man and writer, and I liked his books, too. Somebody should bring him back. He’s my kind of noir writer—down and out in the dark underbelly of the success-driven American middle class, like non-Trav John D. MacDonald only doomed without hope of salvation. 

Stark House Press has recently released The Plastic Nightmare, in a collection with Neely’s While Love Lay Sleeping. Click here to see Stark House’s Richard Neely collection on Amazon, or click here to see it at Stark House’s website.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, Ed Gorman Rambles, Nov. 10, 2005. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…” But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

 

Review: "Top Secret Kill" by James P. Cody (The D.C. Man)

 

Top Secret Kill
by James P. Cody
Brash Books, 2024

 

Top Secret Kill—originally published as a paperback original by Berkley-Medallion in 1974—is the first of four titles in the short-lived series, The D.C. Man, by the pseudonymous James P. Cody. Brian Petersen is a Washington, D.C. lobbyist-turned-troubleshooter that describes himself as a “former college football bum, former Army intelligence type” that found contentment with a “domesticated” life. Petersen’s happiness is shattered when his young daughter and wife are killed in an automobile accident that sent him to the Florida Keys on a six-month bender. At the coaxing of his father-in-law, a former senator, Petersen sobered-up, returned to the District, and reopened his lobbying office.
     But, as Petersen explains, his work “started to drift into other, nastier and less public, services for clients, services you wouldn’t want anybody to know about.” Which is where Top Secret Kill begins. First with Petersen warning off a blackmailer for a congressman and then—the real meat of the narrative—his full-throttle investigation into the identity of the person leaking classified intel from a Senate committee developing cost estimates for specific types of military conflicts. It is a big job for a solo act like Brian Petersen, but a job befitting his unrestrained, sometimes violent, and always secretive style.
     Top Secret Kill is a cool thriller. It reads like a hybrid of men’s adventure and a private eye yarn; perhaps 75-percent of the former and 25-percent of the latter. There is a little mystery, including a calculated murder that sets Petersen on a vengeance trail, a bunch of Cold War paranoia, a touch of commentary about the D.C. of the 1970s, and a solid stream of action. With that said, the opening third of the book is slowed by Petersen’s backstory, but stick with it because it picks up in a hurry and by the midway mark the narrative sparks and slams home with a satisfying bang. Top Secret Kill will appeal more to readers of men’s adventure—think Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan—than general mystery readers, but it is a cut (or two or three) above the standard in that too often (and usually unfairly) maligned genre.

All four of The D.C. Man books are back in print from Brash Books. These new editions include an Introduction, written by Tom Simon, detailing his excellent work uncovering the identity of James P. Cody—a former Roman Catholic priest named, Peter Rohrbach.

 Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback at Amazon.

"I Was Meant to be Heavy" — Bill Conrad of Cannon, 1973

 

Did you say, Cannon? Yeah, I did, and this sweet write-up about William Conrad appeared in the December 16, 1973, issue of TV Week, included in the Salt Lake Tribune. While it’s not exactly an endorsement for the show, Cannon had its moments. Cannon aired for five seasons (1971 – 1976) on CBS. If you’ve never seen Conrad throw a clothes-line, you need to remedy it.   [Click the image for a larger view.]

Review: "The Sleeping City" by Marty Holland

 

The Sleeping City
by Marty Holland
Stark House, 2023

 

 

The Sleeping City is a hardboiled novella-length crime tale by Marty Holland originally published in the Fall 1952 issue of Thrilling Detective. Holland, born as the very feminine Mary Hauenstein, has a knack for capturing the post-World War 2 male tough guy persona; which is on steady display in this nicely executed undercover cop / heist story. Wade is a sergeant with the Gangster Squad in an unidentified, but likely LAPD, police force. When Jim Cox, an habitual criminal from Chicago, is nabbed by the police and admits he is in town to participate in a heist, Wade’s boss, Captain Roberts, assigns him to go undercover as Cox.
     All Cox knows about the job—since his partner Les Ties, who was murdered days earlier in Chicago, set it up—is how to contact the crew pulling the job. So Wade says goodbye to his fiancé, takes a deep breath, and heads to meet Cox’s contact at the White Lion Club. Wade finds is an over-the-hill gangster, Louie Thompson, and a handful of toughs planning a risky armored car heist worth a cool million. What Wade doesn’t count on is falling for Thompson’s beautiful and hard-as-nails girl, Madge.
     The Sleeping City has all the best elements of mid-century crime fiction: concise, tight plotting, bitter and desperate criminals, a hard-tongued and beautiful moll, and a hero with a dilemma. And what a dilemma! $200,000 and a gorgeous and poison dame or Wade’s settled and quiet life. A dilemma that could easily twist into noir, as is foreshadowed by an early passage where Wade is wondering about moths and flames: “…what screwy quirk of nature attracted them [moths] to light—to the point that it killed them.”
     The heist is revealed slowly, as slowly as Wade’s dilemma tightens around his guts, and those last dozen pages pop and sizzle with action. The Sleeping City is an above average pulp story featuring some fine writing. A couple passages that really crackled:

“But then I knew that we both realized that last night couldn’t be repeated. To go on meant hanging on to a straw in mid-ocean.”

“Everybody in the world should be a cop, I thought wildly! Everybody should know the elation of turning some poor weak bastard over to the law! Or a dame—a dame that somehow had crawled into your blood stream, a dame that was afraid of the dark.”

     If you enjoy these old crime stories, you will like The Sleeping City.
 

The Sleeping City is the second half of Stark House Press’ The Glass Heart / The Sleeping City, by Marty Holland (2023).

Click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback at Amazon.
Click here to purchase The Glass Heart / The Sleeping City and other titles by Marty Holland at Stark House’s website.

"Introducing the Author... Edmond Hamilton" — from Imagination

 

This autobiographical essay by science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton appeared in the April 1956 issue of Imagination alongside Hamilton’s novella, “The Legion of Lazarus”. It’s fun to think of Hamilton as a fanboy, which is exactly what he sounds like when describing the magazines, stories, and authors he read as a boy. His and Leigh Brackett’s Ohio home sounds enticing, too. Click the Image for a larger view.