tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-280859992024-03-18T18:01:13.765-06:00GravetappingA book review site with an emphasis towards mysteries, thrillers, horror, science fiction, and anything else that catches my fancy.Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.comBlogger916125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-8441891015701953162024-03-18T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-18T06:00:00.143-06:00From Ed Gorman's Desk: Richard Neely<div align="center">
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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: background1;">from </span></i><span style="color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: background1;">ED GORMAN’S<i> Desk</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 115%; margin: 12pt 0in 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNRNtOFyTtI0XsHxGXNZSAD08SjX-J6H88F4qeiGmfwrvaC3lff3HAD0YNrqrMKZfiPD5VL57NhJMnRoSkIOHdMVEUMF6DvnGaR_MamOHQB-CLMOkhV5IIAY8CtvAxnAP195xyDmyMUeEJIgOKIayHa0Hijxnhio_drxfsgqvN2JyzrX1goyRMGntdGo/s1500/The%20Plastic%20Nightmare%20-%20While%20Love%20Lay%20Sleeping%20-%20Richard%20Neely.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNRNtOFyTtI0XsHxGXNZSAD08SjX-J6H88F4qeiGmfwrvaC3lff3HAD0YNrqrMKZfiPD5VL57NhJMnRoSkIOHdMVEUMF6DvnGaR_MamOHQB-CLMOkhV5IIAY8CtvAxnAP195xyDmyMUeEJIgOKIayHa0Hijxnhio_drxfsgqvN2JyzrX1goyRMGntdGo/w259-h400/The%20Plastic%20Nightmare%20-%20While%20Love%20Lay%20Sleeping%20-%20Richard%20Neely.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b style="font-size: 18pt;">Richard
Neely</b><br />Nov. 10, 2005</span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">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.”<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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.”</span><br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Neely,
a very sleek and successful advertising man, is gone now and so, undeservedly,
are his books. <i>The Walter Syndrome</i>, 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 <i>Psycho</i>
set in Thirties and the storytelling is spellbinding. The voice is worth of
Fredric Brown at his best.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> I
was thinking of Neely last night because I was finishing up his novel <i>The
Plastic Nightmare</i>, which became an incomprehensible movie called <i>Shattered</i>.
Neely loved tricks as much as Woolrich did and <i>Plastic</i> 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.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
Damned Innocents</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">
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.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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 <i>The Ridgeway Women</i>
which was </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">SUPPOSED</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> A
Madness of the Heart</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">
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.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stark House Press has recently released <i>The
Plastic Nightmare</i>, in a collection with Neely’s <i>While Love Lay Sleeping</i>.
Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3x6RacQ">here</a></b> to see Stark House’s Richard Neely collection on Amazon, or click
<b><a href="https://starkhousepress.com/neely.php">here</a> </b>to see it at Stark House’s website.<br /><br /></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">This article
originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, <i>Ed Gorman Rambles</i>, 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. <i>The
New York Times</i> called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could
take to its heart” and <i>The Seattle Times</i> called McCain “an intriguing
mix of knight errant and realist…”</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 13.35pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">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.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 13.35pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/4cjejsP">here</a></b> to
check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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</div><p> </p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-227308216505488352024-03-13T06:00:00.004-06:002024-03-13T06:03:11.724-06:00Review: "Top Secret Kill" by James P. Cody (The D.C. Man)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkflMv7lSUl8whpEUxgCW04FpaDsYMU4fVfBmJ0jiPOM9kJCG6mR0vO20vIlWOGwHTftAEDQ4glJ2nGWT-6XFQ5V9sSperB7t7ke4GLQjvS61BAp5EZXhEyCBPNPffbuVADDzNKUBt_KJFP8sBHyrcbhz8WfX1cnnylTlXHXNaSBup8Zq97bw-Q0uxWt4/s1500/The%20DC%20Man%20-%20Top%20Secret%20Kill%20-%20James%20P%20Cody.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkflMv7lSUl8whpEUxgCW04FpaDsYMU4fVfBmJ0jiPOM9kJCG6mR0vO20vIlWOGwHTftAEDQ4glJ2nGWT-6XFQ5V9sSperB7t7ke4GLQjvS61BAp5EZXhEyCBPNPffbuVADDzNKUBt_KJFP8sBHyrcbhz8WfX1cnnylTlXHXNaSBup8Zq97bw-Q0uxWt4/w259-h400/The%20DC%20Man%20-%20Top%20Secret%20Kill%20-%20James%20P%20Cody.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>Top Secret Kill</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by James P. Cody</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Brash Books, 2024</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Top Secret Kill</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">—originally
published as a paperback original by Berkley-Medallion in 1974—is the first of
four titles in the short-lived series, <i>The D.C. Man</i>, 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.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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 <i>Top Secret Kill </i>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.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Top
Secret Kill</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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. <i>Top Secret Kill </i>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.<br /><br /></span></span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">All four of <i>The
D.C. Man </i>books are back in print from <i>Brash Books</i>. 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.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Click
</span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3wRXYLy">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the Kindle edition and </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/4cc0xbk">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the paperback at Amazon.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-28164671995196967362024-03-11T06:00:00.006-06:002024-03-11T06:53:03.177-06:00"I Was Meant to be Heavy" — Bill Conrad of Cannon, 1973<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWbaHT8imz6Mxpn70M469suWdmwLb_vNwjP0HKVZhL3iNYECOziogW2fC-GJHfgSuKtK-TT34ZtJsmq5bxychAXYlxMi6rahgA0BcWqiABYcn2t5sk3uNlU2KydEt93dSS5UmUJix1YqF6vCUEl8AsT20XXfKB5loV7rXT_9QTt96D0jnK95VWBt7UHU/s1002/tv%20week%20-%20Cannon%20-%2012-16-73.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="1002" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWbaHT8imz6Mxpn70M469suWdmwLb_vNwjP0HKVZhL3iNYECOziogW2fC-GJHfgSuKtK-TT34ZtJsmq5bxychAXYlxMi6rahgA0BcWqiABYcn2t5sk3uNlU2KydEt93dSS5UmUJix1YqF6vCUEl8AsT20XXfKB5loV7rXT_9QTt96D0jnK95VWBt7UHU/w530-h418/tv%20week%20-%20Cannon%20-%2012-16-73.jpg" width="530" /></a></div><p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Did you say, Cannon? Yeah, I did, and this
sweet write-up about William Conrad appeared in the December 16, 1973, issue
of <i>TV Week</i>, included in the <i>Salt Lake Tribune</i>. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">While it</span><span style="text-align: left;">’s</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> not exactly an endorsement for the show, Cannon had it</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">s moments. </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Cannon aired for
five seasons (1971 – 1976) on CBS. If you’ve never seen Conrad throw a
clothes-line, you need to remedy it.</span></p>
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</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-16063690885510610662024-03-06T06:00:00.009-07:002024-03-07T14:35:25.290-07:00Review: "The Sleeping City" by Marty Holland<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSMnUbJADPM50wXe6uIjs5UD0ds8n9fLCxoe9obRJypNe7onC8_W-2YTAhf9hTwKbYjuzyMtUJzRkBfoFrwWqIjNDYgLgEWft3ChTdDcH8v2CY8kmRoXU34vphgnbX-2tqrTxlN6Mphw0bcwTsYeJMNMBz9Y48dO5bp4lT7j34FTjXQL93_pY1MguXh9E/s1500/The%20Glass%20Heart%20-%20The%20Sleeping%20City%20-%20Holland,%20Marty%20-%20Stark%20House..jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSMnUbJADPM50wXe6uIjs5UD0ds8n9fLCxoe9obRJypNe7onC8_W-2YTAhf9hTwKbYjuzyMtUJzRkBfoFrwWqIjNDYgLgEWft3ChTdDcH8v2CY8kmRoXU34vphgnbX-2tqrTxlN6Mphw0bcwTsYeJMNMBz9Y48dO5bp4lT7j34FTjXQL93_pY1MguXh9E/w259-h400/The%20Glass%20Heart%20-%20The%20Sleeping%20City%20-%20Holland,%20Marty%20-%20Stark%20House..jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>The Sleeping City</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Marty Holland</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Stark House, 2023</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The Sleeping City </span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">is a hardboiled
novella-length crime tale by Marty Holland originally published in the Fall
1952 issue of <i>Thrilling Detective</i>. 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.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> 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.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
Sleeping City</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">
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<i>
</i>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.”<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">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. </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">The Sleeping City </i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">is an above average pulp story
featuring some fine writing. A couple passages that really crackled:<br /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in 8pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in 8pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“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.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> If
you enjoy these old crime stories, you will like <i>The Sleeping City.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> </span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmPWh-NqoZxaaRvdED03uyKG5Pb-3UHUiL9K8uz9YHbTOpVPJV_lDOQ6TRnAjSqrwia12AGByScHckfzX8fymi2hinI4T3ccSKyLSz67zY5Ff_Nle4qr9NT9ZcMRlioDUGlOpIdlByEYJrNuq0M0d4cmD2Zy0qgH38Zxm0aYa7huCzCY_ziOLPn9u6NWY/s1255/Sleeping%20City%20-%20Thrilling%20Detective.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1255" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmPWh-NqoZxaaRvdED03uyKG5Pb-3UHUiL9K8uz9YHbTOpVPJV_lDOQ6TRnAjSqrwia12AGByScHckfzX8fymi2hinI4T3ccSKyLSz67zY5Ff_Nle4qr9NT9ZcMRlioDUGlOpIdlByEYJrNuq0M0d4cmD2Zy0qgH38Zxm0aYa7huCzCY_ziOLPn9u6NWY/w562-h378/Sleeping%20City%20-%20Thrilling%20Detective.jpg" width="562" /></a></div><p></p>
<div align="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1pt solid windowtext; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The
Sleeping City </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">is the
second half of Stark House Press’ <i>The Glass Heart / The Sleeping City</i>,
by Marty Holland (2023).</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in 0in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />Click </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3P9Jv3U">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the Kindle edition and
</span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/4c1khyi">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the paperback at Amazon.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Click </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://starkhousepress.com/holland.php">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> to purchase </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The Glass
Heart / The Sleeping City</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> and other titles by Marty Holland at Stark House’s website.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-80033873444386188382024-03-04T06:00:00.014-07:002024-03-04T06:00:00.131-07:00"Introducing the Author... Edmond Hamilton" — from Imagination<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 647.5pt;" valign="top" width="863">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5F__5xgHkiB5A2H_hsTDBeopF_-zxVqvi0XM_0ZOfkT8D7R85vvXFVomOYsMwLgzK-WtP8wzX8_T2LWKsmtZ826dF75nfRQn-CNLGZFgl_gUrLXotRsULNT6kZVJIVIk88ePRCmpbBMs8SYKkgVI3YScdJ-azlKVszLvO0RPGcIzyOzphmrtXJfv5vhc/s1517/Edmond%20Hamilton%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination%20-%20Apr%201956.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1517" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5F__5xgHkiB5A2H_hsTDBeopF_-zxVqvi0XM_0ZOfkT8D7R85vvXFVomOYsMwLgzK-WtP8wzX8_T2LWKsmtZ826dF75nfRQn-CNLGZFgl_gUrLXotRsULNT6kZVJIVIk88ePRCmpbBMs8SYKkgVI3YScdJ-azlKVszLvO0RPGcIzyOzphmrtXJfv5vhc/w540-h245/Edmond%20Hamilton%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination%20-%20Apr%201956.jpg" width="540" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 647.5pt;" valign="top" width="863">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13.8pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">This autobiographical
essay by science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton appeared in the April 1956
issue of <i>Imagination</i> 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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13.8pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Click the Image for a
larger view.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-67690072186686083922024-02-28T06:00:00.003-07:002024-02-28T06:00:00.130-07:00Review: "Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?" by Robert Bloch<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivSd6JiVaH6_JAi_run0aeKfPvisv0boo0GRzn0yUtLPR8WUmnIlAACrmLD-N_ZKd8za4Z1A4hqyjXUhVvfuV7i1QFzngpzLW2rTygFsOBnpE7UN3szojMxp5TetLcmv6EQGZ8x8wm9SQ6R0ifAGgSfcQE3nvbcA9Y0bisoEyek7OtW4EQ07IqvUjC-M/s740/Suspicious%20Characters.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="453" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjivSd6JiVaH6_JAi_run0aeKfPvisv0boo0GRzn0yUtLPR8WUmnIlAACrmLD-N_ZKd8za4Z1A4hqyjXUhVvfuV7i1QFzngpzLW2rTygFsOBnpE7UN3szojMxp5TetLcmv6EQGZ8x8wm9SQ6R0ifAGgSfcQE3nvbcA9Y0bisoEyek7OtW4EQ07IqvUjC-M/w245-h400/Suspicious%20Characters.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>“Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?”</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Robert Bloch</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Ivy Books, 1987</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple things I like: 1) stories written by
Robert Bloch; and 2) stories about Hollywood. So it was inevitable I’d love
Bloch’s “Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?”—which was originally published in the April
1958 issue of <i>Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine</i>—since it satisfies both criteria
nicely. Steve is a struggling Hollywood writer with a handful of production credits,
but without a steady gig or paycheck. His life is tough, but as the third-person
narrator says:<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“Then
he met Jimmy Powers, and things got worse.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Jimmy, at 23 years-old,
is just a kid but he drives a late-model Buick, wears silk suits, and has a
regular job as a studio public relations hack pulling down two bills a week. The
death of an aging starlet in a boating accident, the titular Betsey Blake, puts
a major Hollywood studio in a bind. Betsey’s next picture is set for a November
release, but without the starlet around to push the film, they’re afraid it
will flop. This potential disaster for the studio provides Steve—through his
new pal and neighbor Jimmy—a big opportunity to save the film with some slight-of-hand
and outright dishonest P.R. stunts like creating a sensation about Blake’s private
life and even questioning whether she is dead. Well, it plays out as one would
expect, until it doesn’t…<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> “Is
Betsey Blake Still Alive?” is a sharp tale with a nice twist. The narrative is
crisp with Bloch’s shiny prose and the characters, both Jimmy and Steve, are expertly
sketched into what I think of as post-WW2 sunshine boys—bright and ambitious in
a world ripe for harvest—with a grimy corruption about them. “Is Betsey Blake
Still Alive?” is a solid piece of mid-century crime that, almost seventy years
after it was written, had the audacity to surprise this 21<sup>st</sup> century
reader.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVsZ-WtERElmVbvhjaeJz-OxQt52i1Wm6pyUw9h2cdMOjL1teswMDvEnz5P2dWnhONweUNYDMF2E3cpkyQ7kI8L0guq-zbFv9SOVjKdWoHkKBQgSUMx6DTZnXpqICWYHjhF4HyPyUD6-EVF1VfO6AXAvZyrQy-Igz0QcX59XzMHFh98H_6i923HqPv-Kc/s2235/EQMM_1958_04_L.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2235" data-original-width="1571" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVsZ-WtERElmVbvhjaeJz-OxQt52i1Wm6pyUw9h2cdMOjL1teswMDvEnz5P2dWnhONweUNYDMF2E3cpkyQ7kI8L0guq-zbFv9SOVjKdWoHkKBQgSUMx6DTZnXpqICWYHjhF4HyPyUD6-EVF1VfO6AXAvZyrQy-Igz0QcX59XzMHFh98H_6i923HqPv-Kc/s320/EQMM_1958_04_L.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br /><br />“Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?” appeared in
the excellent 1987 anthology, </span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Suspicious Characters</i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">, edited by Bill
Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg, along with 12 other crime stories written by
the likes of John D. MacDonald, Sara Paretsky, Ed McBain, John Lutz, and Brian
Garfield.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> According
to the <a href="https://www.robertbloch.net/">official Robert Bloch website</a>, “Is Betsey Blake Still Alive,” has also
been published with the title, “Betsy Blake Will Live Forever” in volume two of
the <i>Selected Stories of Robert Bloch</i>.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-70109551007265226672024-02-26T06:00:00.010-07:002024-02-26T14:41:37.709-07:00Review: "A Night at the Shore" by Tony Knighton<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPQCReISUk6UkIb_Cf06W8e5MRfksb_MwAOP5Xj8IsYkXwwW4CB0cmmhVDpjaxBDjZdVoPl-65wjDAsuxm2XrqcdxpTBuvODb-HBDnF5tremJlxob7AdJgLUGM0wt1jikQltmp_ag4J91w6qXv2H7Jdy5zZWlJ4dvxyg4G3R2KXKkUkeXdKiOXDC4y4E/s1500/A%20Night%20at%20the%20Shore.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="962" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPQCReISUk6UkIb_Cf06W8e5MRfksb_MwAOP5Xj8IsYkXwwW4CB0cmmhVDpjaxBDjZdVoPl-65wjDAsuxm2XrqcdxpTBuvODb-HBDnF5tremJlxob7AdJgLUGM0wt1jikQltmp_ag4J91w6qXv2H7Jdy5zZWlJ4dvxyg4G3R2KXKkUkeXdKiOXDC4y4E/w256-h400/A%20Night%20at%20the%20Shore.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>A Night at the Shore</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Tony Knighton</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Brash Books, 2024</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Tony Knighton’s third Nameless Thief crime
novel, <i>A Night at the Shore</i>, is a fast-driving, exciting, and downright
cool heist tale where everything goes wrong in a hurry. Nameless—or the man of
many names and none of them his own—takes what he thinks is a low-risk burglary
job in the Jersey shore town of Margate; a stone’s throw from Atlantic City. Buddy,
a hardnosed poker dealer at an A.C. casino, a fence, and a planner, throws the
job to Nameless without many details.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
target is a degenerate gambler named Charlie. Buddy doesn’t know his last name,
but he, Buddy, is convinced Charlie’s gambling stake—maybe as much as
$10,000—will be an easy snatch from his home. But for it to work, the job requires
a quick turnaround to be timed with a big Atlantic storm forecasted in two
days, on a Friday night. Nameless, distracted by his girlfriend’s sudden
announcement that she is going away for an extended period (and maybe forever),
neglects to research Charlie on his own. A big mistake since Nameless, after
being interrupted searching Charlie’s house for valuables, spends the entire
night running for his life—from a wicked storm and a cadre of extremely angry
and homicidal cops—while trying to figure out why a simple burglary has made
him so hot.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> A
Night at the Shore </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">is
pure adrenaline; from its laconic, muscular prose, to it is compact and tight
plotting, and to its lightning-fast pacing. Nameless is an anti-hero in every
sense—he is violent, emotionless, and pitiless—but, much like Richard Stark’s
Parker, his actions are governed by what is necessary for the situation. He only
hurts those who threaten him and his violence never exceeds what is required,
which gives the reader permission to root for the villain. Even better,
Nameless takes his own lumps along with everyone else. <i>A Night at the Shore</i>
is my first experience with Nameless and Tony Knighton’s writing in general,
but it certainly won’t be my last.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3IaiU2G">here</a></b> for the Kindle edition and
<b><a href="https://amzn.to/3uLcNPg">here</a></b> for the paperback at Amazon.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-60844619881731663472024-02-21T06:00:00.002-07:002024-02-21T06:00:00.135-07:00Review: "The Devil May Care" by David Housewright<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8mqHnFRqceEagLg4PLrH2_JZtutgmqzZvtLX71CArZezu7ImgNhiI1gsWZT0y1mYVNGACy33FF_Iakk7m82BWC7sYoQ45S3NCaO1uaSwWF5_eHeJT-d4dCpIZkM92330lXzL7hHcagGC4recfrH6UhF7B7UYmieu7T926ni0bpgePfIefwsbTc1q7jU/s500/The%20Devil%20May%20Care%20-%20David%20Housewright.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="330" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8mqHnFRqceEagLg4PLrH2_JZtutgmqzZvtLX71CArZezu7ImgNhiI1gsWZT0y1mYVNGACy33FF_Iakk7m82BWC7sYoQ45S3NCaO1uaSwWF5_eHeJT-d4dCpIZkM92330lXzL7hHcagGC4recfrH6UhF7B7UYmieu7T926ni0bpgePfIefwsbTc1q7jU/w264-h400/The%20Devil%20May%20Care%20-%20David%20Housewright.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: 16pt;">The Devil May Care</b></div><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by David Housewright</span></div></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Minotaur Books, 2014</span></div></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">David Housewright’s eleventh Rushmore
McKenzie mystery, <i>The Devil May Care</i>, is a thinking man’s thriller with
a bit of humor—in the form of McKenzie’s first-person commentary and snappy rapport
with everyone in the story—and a complex, but nicely compact plot.
McKenzie resigned from the St. Paul, Minnesota, police department to collect a
multi-million-dollar reward in a fraud investigation and now he does whatever
he wants, including doing favors for friends as an unlicensed P.I.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> When
McKenzie is approached by twenty-something Riley Brodin, the granddaughter of one
of Minnesota’s wealthiest men, Walter Muehlenhaus, wanting his help to find her
missing fiancé, Juan Carlos Navarre, McKenzie’s instinct is to walk away. He
and Muehlenhaus butted heads during another investigation, and the aggravation
of working for the family isn’t appealing to McKenzie. But Riley shows real
concern for Navarre and ultimately charms McKenzie by sharing her grandfather</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">’s</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> nickname for him: “f**king McKenzie”; but truthfully, the moniker losses its
luster the more McKenzie hears it. The missing persons case gets on his nerves,
too, since Navarre doesn’t seem to exist. And when a defunct street gang begins
following McKenzie around and people start dying violently, all he can do is
follow the clues where they take him. And hope no one he likes gets hurt.<br /></span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> Publishers Weekly </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;">called <i>The
Devil May Care</i> “exceptional” and gave it a starred review. A sentiment I
share because everything in this detective thriller works. The characters have enough
realism to make them relatable. The plot, which is wonderfully twisty and surprising,
has an easy-going attitude and every inch of it gets McKenzie in deeper
trouble. St. Paul and environs is drawn to perfection, from the people to
the landscape (including all those fabulous lakes). But it is McKenzie that makes
everything sizzle with his ironic first-person commentary, his low-wattage
Knight-errant syndrome, and his ability to mix and mash with anyone from poverty
row to country clubs. <i>The Devil May Care </i>is my first experience with
Housewright’s writing, but there will be many more since finishing that last
page made me a little sad.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Click
</span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3I2m2gS">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the Kindle edition and </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/49jnNm5">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the paperback at Amazon.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-70759065084570511822024-02-19T06:00:00.007-07:002024-02-19T06:00:00.129-07:00Women Wrote the Future, Vol. 1: Tales from Galaxy<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; margin-left: 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Women Wrote the Future, Vol. 1: Tales from Galaxy</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> is an extravaganza of great science fiction written by
women and published in <i>Galaxy</i> in the 1950s. It is available
now at Amazon. Story notes, which include a little about the story’s author,
accompany each tale. Keep reading for the book’s Introduction, written by the
enigmatic <i>J. LaRue</i>. With a little luck a second volume will
appear soon.</span><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9I55dLP1eeXgFHfWO4aOI73h3VryOdnWKb-M_eQVEzYFUoYALz6g7QI0qKamc29hIuRjrtZoG9yfgJvrNH-m494TmgMbAkWzIk8huJBpLHV-rKJLeLXBM0k4kzjj8noMqD70TIMtD3gNalNAtwHZfmECxLjkhui9Rpy2sNnPEgSr8UPjO6PIquw/s2400/WomenWroteTheFuture_Ebook_Cover_060723%20copy%20(1).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1575" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9I55dLP1eeXgFHfWO4aOI73h3VryOdnWKb-M_eQVEzYFUoYALz6g7QI0qKamc29hIuRjrtZoG9yfgJvrNH-m494TmgMbAkWzIk8huJBpLHV-rKJLeLXBM0k4kzjj8noMqD70TIMtD3gNalNAtwHZfmECxLjkhui9Rpy2sNnPEgSr8UPjO6PIquw/w263-h400/WomenWroteTheFuture_Ebook_Cover_060723%20copy%20(1).jpg" width="263" /></a></b></div><b><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></b><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;">Women Wrote the Future, Vol. 1: Tales from
Galaxy</span></b></div></b><p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;">Edited by J. LaRue<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;">Vintage Lists, 2023<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-text-raise: -1.0pt; position: relative; top: 1pt;">A </span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">mythology
in science fiction circles—academia and readership alike—claims women were
excluded from the genre until the late-1960s and early-1970s, when writers
like Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler jumped the sexism
barrier that had kept women out. While these writers are culturally important,
both inside and outside the genre, it is nonsense to imagine they appeared on
the science fiction scene without precedence. The first woman to publish a
story in a science fiction magazine was Clare Winger Harris when her tale,
“The Fate of Poseidonia” was published in the June 1927 issue of <i>Amazing
Stories</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">It was that same pulp, <i>Amazing Stories</i>,
that created the entire modern science fiction genre when its first issue hit
newsstands in April 1926. And those first few years, between 1926 and 1929,
were a dark period for women and science fiction because only 17 stories by six
known female authors were published. The next ten years (1930 – 1939) weren’t
much better with 62 stories by 25 women published, but the 1940s saw a
significant gain with 209 stories by 47 female writers, and in the 1950s women
exploded on the scene with 634 tales, by 154 writers. While these numbers
represent a slim ratio of the total number of science fiction stories
published during this period, it was a beginning that ultimately led to the celebration
of women as some of the best writers in the genre.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">*</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">This anthology, which is intended as a tribute
and to bring attention to these early female writers, is a survey of the
fiction published by the most respected science fiction magazine of the
1950s: <i>Galaxy</i>. <i>Galaxy’s</i> first issue reached newsstands in
October 1950. The list of contributors for that issue included many of the
genres’ brightest stars: Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, Fritz Leiber,
and Isaac Asimov. It also started a trend of publishing women writers by publishing
Katherine MacLean’s brilliant novelette, “Contagion” (which, unfortunately,
isn’t included in this collection). Although three other marvelous stories by
MacLean—“Pictures Don’t Lie” (Aug. 1951), “The Snowball Effect” (Sep. 1952),
and “Games” (Mar. 1953)—are scattered across its pages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Over the rest of the 1950s, <i>Galaxy </i>published
30 stories written by thirteen women. The tales ranged from imaginative
adventures—Rosel George Brown’s “From an Unseen Censor” (Sep. 1958)—to
cultural critique, “One Way” by Miriam Allen deFord (Mar. 1955), to homegrown
silliness, with a feminist bent, like Ruth Laura Wainwright’s “Green Grew the
Lasses” (July 1953). These stories, along with thirteen others written by
women and published by <i>Galaxy </i>in the 1950s, are reprinted in <i>Women
Wrote the Future, Vol. 1: Tales from Galaxy</i>. And frankly, they are some of
the best tales to appear in <i>Galaxy </i>during its 30-year run.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Included are gems by genre stars like
Katherine MacLean, as mentioned above, and Betsy Curtis, and rising stars
like Rosel George Brown. Each story and its author are briefly introduced and
while some of the writers are little-known with only a few publishing credits,
others had impressive careers both in and out of science fiction. Miriam
Allen deFord—“One Way” (Mar. 1955) and “The Eel” (Apr. 1958)—was a
suffragette, wrote for <i>Nation</i>, and won an Edgar Award for Best Crime
Fact Book. Phyllis Sterling Smith—“What is POSAT” (Sep. 1951)—attended
Stanford and Tufts, she worked for the Psychological Testing Corporation, and
she was an energy consultant for the Environmental Protection Agency. Ann
Warren Griffith—“Zeritsky’s Law” (Nov. 1951)—attended Barnard College,
piloted as a WASP in WW2, and wrote for <i>The New Yorker</i> and <i>The
Atlantic</i>. And those are only three of the 12 writers inside this
anthology.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">__________<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">*publishing statistics come from
<i>Partner in Wonder</i>, by Eric Leif Davin [Lexington Books, 2006]<br /><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3wkhTCA">here</a></b> for the
Kindle edition and <b><a href="https://amzn.to/42EW5gU">here</a></b> for the paperback at Amazon.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
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<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 462.1pt;" valign="top" width="616">
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 8.0pt; margin: 8pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: center;"><u><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><b>Table of Contents</b></span></u><u><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">“Games” – <b>Katherine
MacLean</b> / “The Pilot and the Bushman” – <b>Sylvia Jacobs</b> / “One Way”
– <b>Miriam Allen deFord</b> / “Rough Translation” – <b>Jean M. Janis</b> / “Pictures
Don’t Lie” – <b>Katherine MacLean</b> / “The Vilbar Party” – <b>Evelyn E.
Smith</b> / “What is POSAT?” – <b>Phyllis Sterling Smith</b> / “Green Grew
the Lasses” – <b>Ruth Laura Wainwright</b> / “The Trap” – <b>Betsy Curtis</b>
/ “Know Thy Neighbor” – <b>Elisabeth R. Lewis</b> / “Tea Tray in the Sky” – <b>Evelyn
E. Smith</b> / “Homesick” – <b>Lyn Venable</b> / “The Snowball Effect” – <b>Katherine
MacLean</b> / “Zeritsky’s Law” – <b>Ann Griffith</b> / “From an Unseen
Censor” – <b>Rosel George Brown</b> / “The Eel” – <b>Miriam Allen deFord<br /><br /></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3wkhTCA">here</a></b> for
the Kindle edition and <b><a href="https://amzn.to/42EW5gU">here</a></b> for the paperback at Amazon.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 462.1pt;" valign="top" width="616">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXrp3EYbK-dP9o0dYqioYBTHk_th-C-z4izJxXletaNKBP-E3f4KFnBUZYDyVvwR6tXTo4yTnQjisNAsrwlANx-W9z6NOaULCKWO3-sZNjD1f2Th_zWVoNgPX7h1BaRjPB2lZXp_nSlCzZ44SSrYHNOCAoUT-ovLd_07B6UtPu42U0wUFjBwn0Q/s1225/Galaxy%20trio.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="1225" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXrp3EYbK-dP9o0dYqioYBTHk_th-C-z4izJxXletaNKBP-E3f4KFnBUZYDyVvwR6tXTo4yTnQjisNAsrwlANx-W9z6NOaULCKWO3-sZNjD1f2Th_zWVoNgPX7h1BaRjPB2lZXp_nSlCzZ44SSrYHNOCAoUT-ovLd_07B6UtPu42U0wUFjBwn0Q/w495-h231/Galaxy%20trio.jpg" width="495" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
</td>
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</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-43402162328295981742024-02-14T06:00:00.006-07:002024-02-17T09:27:18.958-07:00Review: "Turnabout" by Jeremiah Healy<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOj3CjTY_4xs1dF6NXPSE_3jggM5XhaxIXUISWC3JdYJZG9uNNUjszn2auz1JfSNtGa3vZcWeTy-mlGGh-0rmiJJ9eese_PZKoI7gmmo0gk5oEJHdovzMPf_x8v2-h58iHYoA9d7Hdo8jOkXJOQB4odByldCOZvvVlpMRlNZJcw0YAhPqARdr26zeQA1Y/s500/Turnabout%20-%20Jeremiah%20Healy%20-%20Leisure%20Books.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOj3CjTY_4xs1dF6NXPSE_3jggM5XhaxIXUISWC3JdYJZG9uNNUjszn2auz1JfSNtGa3vZcWeTy-mlGGh-0rmiJJ9eese_PZKoI7gmmo0gk5oEJHdovzMPf_x8v2-h58iHYoA9d7Hdo8jOkXJOQB4odByldCOZvvVlpMRlNZJcw0YAhPqARdr26zeQA1Y/w248-h400/Turnabout%20-%20Jeremiah%20Healy%20-%20Leisure%20Books.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>Turnabout</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Jeremiah Healy</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Leisure Books, 2005</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Turnabout</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">—which was originally
published by Five Star in 2001—is an appealing, slow-paced, and surprising
crime novel by the author of the John Francis Cuddy mystery series. Matthew
Langway, a former FBI agent turned Boston private detective, is in a bind. His
partner has been siphoning money out of their partnership and, worse, he has
been stealing from their clients. So, with a desperate need for cash, Langway
reluctantly agrees to investigate the kidnapping of the mentally-handicapped Kenny,
the great-grandson of a wealthy former U.S. Army general, Alexander Van Horne. Langway’s
reluctance comes from Van Horne’s insistent that the authorities be kept out, but
the promise of a $10,000 payday convinces Langway to take the job anyway.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> The
estate’s security is top-notch—cameras, guards, alarms, fences, and gates—which
leads Langway to think the kidnappers had inside help. A notion supported by the
rapacious Van Horne family; every one of them residents of the estate where
Kenny lived and with something to gain from the boy’s death.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Turnabout</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is
fascinating and literate, but its unhurried pacing and dark nature may put some readers off. The thematic focus on the
past, particularly old secrets, is reminiscent, while not quite as satisfying, as
Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer books. A similarity that kept me turning the pages
until the narrative picked up about a third of the way in. Along the way it
becomes clear nothing in Langway’s world is simple and obvious. Everything is
suspect. Then the climactic scene—with the surprise of a swinging axe—twists into
a marvelous, almost breathtaking, surprise.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Turnabout</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is
set in the late-1980s and—keep in mind this is all speculation on my part—it
was likely written about that same time. Healy (perhaps) was unable to find a
publisher, or he simply put the manuscript away and went on to other projects. But
then Five Star—known for publishing “trunk novels” by established mystery
writers for the library market in the early-2000s—brought <i>Turnabout </i>out
in 2001 and a few years later Leisure Books issued a mass market reprint. But
no matter <i>Turnabout’s </i>history, I’m glad it had a public life because the
characters, the story, and the complex ideas about morality and ethics, or the
lack of any, keep dancing long after the final pages are done.</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/49c9akd">here</a></b> for the paperback at Amazon.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-16132751321547364092024-02-12T06:00:00.005-07:002024-02-12T06:02:21.169-07:00Repairing Jeff Clinton's Wanted: Wildcat O'Shea<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td colspan="2" style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In the late hours I
tell myself I’m a reader, not a collector, which is (mostly) true and so I’ve
never had a problem repairing books for the purpose of making them readable. I’ll
use glue, tape, and pretty much anything else I can think of to keep the
pages intact, the spine solid, and the cover attached.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16.95pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">In
a recent purchase of a lot of five Wildcat O’Shea westerns, by Jeff Clinton
(Jack M. Bickham), <i>Wanted: Wildcat O’Shea</i> came with a split spine, a
few pages falling out, and the cover completely detached. So, in my amateurish
ways I made it readable again with glue, clamps, and patience. Will it
stand the test of time? Maybe not, but I’m certain I’ll be able to read it before
it falls apart.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 16.95pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The
photographs below tell the story much better than I can… Unfortunately, I
failed to photograph the spine before repairing the damaged spots.</span></p>
</td>
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<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 98.75pt;" valign="top" width="132">
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Day 1: Gluing the spine… waiting and gluing
again.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 368.75pt;" valign="top" width="492">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEHRnKbByh6hx33aH5PxmVmFPLbz-YSe2k7QX5R9cYIBOzmBX-RjobwIWtXWWzbcxlJAFB-ruOKOoOaY_LiqrF6TAe1Nz-900ncDBDDGOYxh9m0t_BmDvAk0C0gF7pgn_Wr2NvzRaIlOz0ZQ6aVO3mP7XHYZwBMm3uE6Q-qtkwNA7FgZD7Qx7M9DZgN1Q/s1810/IMG_20240208_160539.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="1810" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEHRnKbByh6hx33aH5PxmVmFPLbz-YSe2k7QX5R9cYIBOzmBX-RjobwIWtXWWzbcxlJAFB-ruOKOoOaY_LiqrF6TAe1Nz-900ncDBDDGOYxh9m0t_BmDvAk0C0gF7pgn_Wr2NvzRaIlOz0ZQ6aVO3mP7XHYZwBMm3uE6Q-qtkwNA7FgZD7Qx7M9DZgN1Q/w416-h358/IMG_20240208_160539.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 98.75pt;" valign="top" width="132">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Day 2: The spine
</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">is solid and flexible, awaiting the cover to be reattached.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 368.75pt;" valign="top" width="492">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjurAn50UZ9IykzCB5g9iqWDFlsbxrkD5aWJFbtwnIG4DENRLyVmkt09dfH_AHN-AwTwtPS0GKzw8OrYj5AS2Yv1a7uURu5WRVhi9I5ufBWtytiOITguT45FlalmZv5qcZ5MHcvvM0Sr6yZBl6CoVn3r_0eXoU15dly-rJqZ_0hZs23Hwt7zwr_sQOWyTw/s2454/IMG_20240209_100320.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1867" data-original-width="2454" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjurAn50UZ9IykzCB5g9iqWDFlsbxrkD5aWJFbtwnIG4DENRLyVmkt09dfH_AHN-AwTwtPS0GKzw8OrYj5AS2Yv1a7uURu5WRVhi9I5ufBWtytiOITguT45FlalmZv5qcZ5MHcvvM0Sr6yZBl6CoVn3r_0eXoU15dly-rJqZ_0hZs23Hwt7zwr_sQOWyTw/w418-h318/IMG_20240209_100320.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
</td>
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<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 98.75pt;" valign="top" width="132">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Day 3: A done
deal…</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<td style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 368.75pt;" valign="top" width="492">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_lCWmQBZGiwfkzm6dP1EDlaiaLxLuIXcI2rB0pFE7DhgHd5sB6qN7rthdj9c-zC1jNg7rCLHN0BzQwwyLEbgsNLl1lMakfuBttNPtVrIGjc3lQu3HcQTpI_7BaqJrAiX-zI66BAGGKrZYHUqNoIoW1A5oYvqr19zxXkeV74wU-HP3429UIqAz7MXstVU/s2213/IMG_20240209_163122.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2213" data-original-width="1581" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_lCWmQBZGiwfkzm6dP1EDlaiaLxLuIXcI2rB0pFE7DhgHd5sB6qN7rthdj9c-zC1jNg7rCLHN0BzQwwyLEbgsNLl1lMakfuBttNPtVrIGjc3lQu3HcQTpI_7BaqJrAiX-zI66BAGGKrZYHUqNoIoW1A5oYvqr19zxXkeV74wU-HP3429UIqAz7MXstVU/w261-h365/IMG_20240209_163122.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-49879209025359383652024-02-07T06:00:00.001-07:002024-02-07T06:00:00.256-07:00"Janssen Tries Again": Harry O's Second Pilot<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZE-evX-L915AMFqQxtvxHXJhWMrCGql23XtsbtlPQBDDK5C2oO3GKQ9Sj9as9qavV_f6uACKFxJQvpriufbbKXAnnaqfz20KWqKfkPh3MhfYT70D_ZLJnwpWAnReqEQEVzbq7LBqcygBoxIcu5qYGlzx_ab-FPh6bgiUCWkHccTgT-jTRzh4YRLVXeU/s919/Janssen%20Tries%20Again%20-%20TV%20Week%201-20-74.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="919" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZE-evX-L915AMFqQxtvxHXJhWMrCGql23XtsbtlPQBDDK5C2oO3GKQ9Sj9as9qavV_f6uACKFxJQvpriufbbKXAnnaqfz20KWqKfkPh3MhfYT70D_ZLJnwpWAnReqEQEVzbq7LBqcygBoxIcu5qYGlzx_ab-FPh6bgiUCWkHccTgT-jTRzh4YRLVXeU/w544-h430/Janssen%20Tries%20Again%20-%20TV%20Week%201-20-74.jpg" width="544" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">This morning I realized I needed some <i>Harry O </i>love. I found this marvelous little article
published in the January 20, 1974, issue of TV Week, included in the Salt Lake
Tribune. While <i>Harry O </i>was—and still is—a critically acclaimed private
eye series it made it a scant two seasons. It was broadcast on ABC.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">[Click the image for a larger view]<i></i></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
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</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-78143917473147621072024-02-05T06:00:00.003-07:002024-02-05T06:00:00.144-07:00Review: "In at the Kill" by Emmett McDowell<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCJ90gpHzOL7PELGjQ8xPaawELv1WDlkFXyVbJTpfIV1mip7f74czTsMO0RQWCqZTr2Moq8Pmyi_TI_LMKr89YSiM6Q2d77ebs0h1OgddEvBzeYR_6a4sEG9Mwkv_r-DpnLcyr1XSgOZtY_cCMWPdSp2hZjT8Xvo2gCz5d9e_i1ZMGKVT076SQMAJrxo/s1500/Three%20Aces%20-%20Stark%20House.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCJ90gpHzOL7PELGjQ8xPaawELv1WDlkFXyVbJTpfIV1mip7f74czTsMO0RQWCqZTr2Moq8Pmyi_TI_LMKr89YSiM6Q2d77ebs0h1OgddEvBzeYR_6a4sEG9Mwkv_r-DpnLcyr1XSgOZtY_cCMWPdSp2hZjT8Xvo2gCz5d9e_i1ZMGKVT076SQMAJrxo/w259-h400/Three%20Aces%20-%20Stark%20House.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>In at the Kill</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Emmett McDowell</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Stark House Press, 2023*</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">In at the Kill</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">—which began
life as one-half of an Ace Double in 1960 (paired with McDowell’s own <i>Bloodline
to Murder</i>)—is a medium-boiled mystery with a touch of humor, an
unscrupulous amateur sleuth, and a rip-roaring plot. Jonathan Knox is the proprietor
of the Green Barn. A Louisville, Kentucky, auction house “that flourished like
the proverbial green bay tree.” While checking the day’s mail and suffering the
results of a late-night Halloween party, Jonathan is interrupted by his pal, Lieutenant
Ben Harden Helm.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Ben
tells Knox a whacky story about a construction crew tearing up the sidewalk in
front of city hall, digging a hole underneath, removing ten bundles of wastepaper,
and then repairing everything good as new. When the construction company bills
the city for the work, no one in public works knows anything about the job. But
Knox, who has a photographic memory, recalls a tale about a batch of rare
stamps being buried under city hall’s sidewalk at the turn of the twentieth century.
With haste, Knox purchases the salvage rights to the wastepaper, which was taken
away from the site by a phony city inspector, and he drops everything to track down
the stamps. What starts out as a simple fraud, or so Knox believes, quickly
turns into blackmail and murder with Knox stuck in the middle of the whole ugly
affair.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> In
at the Kill </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">is
a sharp, funny, and entertaining post-World War 2 crime novel. Knox is marvelously
shady. He floats bits and pieces of truths, half-truths, and outright lies to every
character in the book, and when he gets so deep in the mud that it begins
sticking to him, he is willing to do almost anything to escape; except be labeled
as a blackmailer. There are red herrings and a twisty plot that never feels
overly busy. <i>In at the Kill </i>is a riot, in a very good way.<br /></span></span></span><i style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; text-indent: 24px;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 24px;"> </span></p><p></p>
<div align="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr>
<td style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">*<i>In at the Kill</i>
is the second book (of three) in Stark House Press’ <i>Three Aces</i>. The
other titles are: <i>The Gilded Hideaway</i>, by Peter Twist<i> </i>(1955),
and <i>Heat Lightning</i> by Wilene Shaw (1954).</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Click </span><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3SKZLdM">here</a></span></b><span style="background: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> for the Kindle
edition and </span><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3SLnnz5">here</a></span></b><span style="background: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> for
the paperback at Amazon.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Click </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://starkhousepress.com/ace.php">here</a></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">
to purchase <i>Three Aces </i>at Stark House’s website.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-8961929965022988872024-01-31T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-31T06:00:00.264-07:00Review: "Hero" by Thomas Perry<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1dZr2vufiGsqrsWlYv-i3Kt0e3iuVot9JB4uSgpYefOc3dTOxYxw_DjlYYlzlA_Eq2Bi8U2HbVBr_7FgmZN-IwdzusKAoHmojiY5FG91qcCNPRfgXvRriamOm35WIeYLIItifL4UtBX6siN-Wfqu0Ts5pO1QaOA7SIiTFhoc_wE7mlNJ5iPYTATUm0x8/s1200/Hero%20-%20Thomas%20Perry%202024.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1dZr2vufiGsqrsWlYv-i3Kt0e3iuVot9JB4uSgpYefOc3dTOxYxw_DjlYYlzlA_Eq2Bi8U2HbVBr_7FgmZN-IwdzusKAoHmojiY5FG91qcCNPRfgXvRriamOm35WIeYLIItifL4UtBX6siN-Wfqu0Ts5pO1QaOA7SIiTFhoc_wE7mlNJ5iPYTATUm0x8/w266-h400/Hero%20-%20Thomas%20Perry%202024.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>Hero</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">by Thomas Perry</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Mysterious Press, 2024</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Hero</span></i>,<span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> Thomas Perry’s latest thriller,
is a shotgun blast from the first page to the last. Justine Poole is a security
agent for Los Angeles’ most prestigious security firm, Spengler-Nash. The agency
specializes in security for celebrities and wealthy businesspeople. When Justine
stops a criminal gang from kidnapping a geriatric Hollywood producer and his
wife, she gets the full media treatment. She is hailed as a hero for a couple
news-cycles, but then she is vilified as a vigilante. Worse, Justine gets on
the wrong side of the crime boss, Mr. Conger, that ordered the kidnapping. Conger
wants Justine dead as a show of power to both his friends and enemies.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> With
a high-dollar hitman, Leo Sealy, on her trail, her friends out-of-reach, and the
police looking for her, Justine finds herself alone. So she does the only thing
she can do—run and hide. She finds help from an unwitting investigative
journalist, Joe Alston, but this is little comfort since Justine can’t shake Sealy
and it will take more than luck to escape with her life.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Thomas
Perry is (from my house anyway) the preeminent thriller writer working today.
His chase scenes, which are a large part of all his novels, are believable,
exciting, and breathless without ever feeling rushed or underdeveloped. And <i>Hero
</i>is no exception. The race begins when Justine pulls the trigger on the
kidnappers and doesn’t end until the last page. The details of the high-end security
industry are intriguing—identifying targets, creating escape routes, etc. The
character development is skimpier than Perry’s usual, including that of Justine
Poole, but <i>Hero </i>is a marvelous piece of escapist fiction anyway.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">
<span style="background: white; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Click </span><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://amzn.to/42oq6S3">here</a></span></b><span style="background: white; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> for the Kindle edition and </span><b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3HCAmwH">here</a></span></b><span style="background: white; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> for the paperback at Amazon.</span><br /></span></span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-69983962838507875152024-01-25T06:00:00.003-07:002024-01-25T06:00:00.140-07:00Review: "On Texas Street" by Ernest Haycox<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-VX37LD3XVgXpIBNX_YhrJJf3WxyAsJy4QOI96-3RJbWqWD6Ksf-86eXX9PGOs3OjuFxTZHTw5LryqIadGuhoYMUMbl63bjwgxtiK4osK4s0QYtyOGiql4Fx301lQIcFP_Qwrr8A_AGNSuAL2XHDe7KuWRBRI5Y0K76xzEgLuAWH5pE-PI4ozXHtLgk/s650/Murder%20On%20The%20Frontier%20-%20Ernest%20Haycox.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="440" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-VX37LD3XVgXpIBNX_YhrJJf3WxyAsJy4QOI96-3RJbWqWD6Ksf-86eXX9PGOs3OjuFxTZHTw5LryqIadGuhoYMUMbl63bjwgxtiK4osK4s0QYtyOGiql4Fx301lQIcFP_Qwrr8A_AGNSuAL2XHDe7KuWRBRI5Y0K76xzEgLuAWH5pE-PI4ozXHtLgk/w271-h400/Murder%20On%20The%20Frontier%20-%20Ernest%20Haycox.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><b>“On Texas Street”</b></span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">by Ernest Haycox<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Little,
Brown & Co., 1942</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Originally appearing in the Dec. 1932 issue
of <i>Collier’s</i>, “On Texas Street” is an appealing literary Western about
Lee Bowie. Bowie is a cow-puncher with Texas’ Star Cross Ranch. After delivering
1,800 cattle to Abilene, Kansas, Bowie is stumbling his way to a decision about
the man he is, a trail drover, and what he may want to be: a driftless family
man.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Haycox
stirs a little action into the narrative, even a shooting—although it is
off-page—along with the real-life Abilene lawman, Tom Smith. What makes “On
Texas Street” shine are its emotional sense, its real-world low-key drama, and
its small but colorful cast of characters.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Which is to say, “</span>On
Texas Street” is far from a traditional shoot-’em-up Western, but it is a fine story with enough plot to keep most readers hooked.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“On Texas Street” appeared in the story collection,
<i>Murder on the Frontier</i>, along with eight more of Haycox’s tales published
by <i>Collier’s </i>in the 1930s and early-1940s. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-2974600760124298072024-01-22T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-22T06:00:00.145-07:00"Introducing the Author... Frank M. Robinson" — from Imagination<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 557.75pt;" valign="top" width="744">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBx_8gdKkECGaRwssJumx8Q22gamtlaBWVxCrpk3Uk_s_tt8w0NZVeJkCVh36lmn2T0HMHhqF9V3g5dqSsphGO9u6PwmybfHlcX_uBC1CyNP7qKPCc84orN-CZgg4ONj44qsxArMOXEdaG_sSE5XMyV6c6RQaWFZLlK7cRRBwujDhU6SwgcxKbnnu6te8/s1506/Frank%20M%20Robinson%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination%20-%20June%201955.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1506" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBx_8gdKkECGaRwssJumx8Q22gamtlaBWVxCrpk3Uk_s_tt8w0NZVeJkCVh36lmn2T0HMHhqF9V3g5dqSsphGO9u6PwmybfHlcX_uBC1CyNP7qKPCc84orN-CZgg4ONj44qsxArMOXEdaG_sSE5XMyV6c6RQaWFZLlK7cRRBwujDhU6SwgcxKbnnu6te8/w543-h242/Frank%20M%20Robinson%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination%20-%20June%201955.jpg" width="543" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 557.75pt;" valign="top" width="744">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">This autobiographical
essay by science fiction writer Frank M. Robinson appeared in the June 1955
issue of <i>Imagination</i> alongside Robinson’s novelette, “Wanted: One Sane
Man”. For me, the best part is where Robinson is defending J. Robert
Oppenheimer. With the runner-up being his name dropping of Imaginations
editors, the husband and wife team of William L. Hambling and Frances
Hambling. </span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Click the Image for a
larger view.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-32637294908422401352024-01-17T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-17T06:00:00.131-07:00Review: "Cause of Death" by Patricia Cornwell<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36N1kwu6rriI2oVAc8NT0GqdgxCQxK_aQmQmyjBiZ136gIjsU3zwBKXtFVenXvARTRh-M7og-TpgVrT5v3j4HroZO-1kwlne0E9iN9JhBaHWQruGvGShkrbKmTHcmRdRkjQlaUM2dSkC76_iUtx0tkstQGBbOfsbzIblcl2HPHPn2R9sIIz-bNbrkW54/s528/Cause%20of%20Death%20-%20Patricia%20Cornwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="349" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36N1kwu6rriI2oVAc8NT0GqdgxCQxK_aQmQmyjBiZ136gIjsU3zwBKXtFVenXvARTRh-M7og-TpgVrT5v3j4HroZO-1kwlne0E9iN9JhBaHWQruGvGShkrbKmTHcmRdRkjQlaUM2dSkC76_iUtx0tkstQGBbOfsbzIblcl2HPHPn2R9sIIz-bNbrkW54/w265-h400/Cause%20of%20Death%20-%20Patricia%20Cornwell.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>Cause of Death</b></span><span style="font-size: 24px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by Patricia Cornwell</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Berkley, 1997</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Patricia Cornwell’s seventh Dr. Kay
Scarpetta novel, originally published by G. P. Putnam in 1996, is a blander
production than her earlier work—<i>Postmortem </i>(1990), <i>Body of Evidence</i>
(1992)—but there are enough plot twists, character banter, paranoia, and
mysterious deaths to keep it entertaining. While Scarpetta, the Virginia State
Medical Examiner, is covering for her Tidewater pathologist while he attends
his mother’s funeral in England, a journalist Kay knows dies while diving in
the restricted waters of the Inactive Naval Shipyard.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> When
Scarpetta arrives on scene, a Navy investigator tries to intimidate her away,
but Scarpetta, being Scarpetta, digs in and demands access. What she finds
under the waves is an AP reporter named Ted Eddings. The Navy, and pretty much
everyone else, likes the story that Ted was diving for Civil War relics and had
an accident. A theory Kay doesn’t share since Ted had no obvious wounds or symptoms
of drowning. When she won’t drop the case, Scarpetta begins receiving, at first
subtle and later obvious, threats from an unknown source.<br /></span></span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Cause of Death </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;">begins
as a straightforward forensic detective thriller—a mysterious death begets an
investigation that uncovers further questions until a solution is found—but in
the last 50 or so pages the narrative, a bit jarringly, swerves into something else
entirely. <i>Entertainment Weekly </i>said in its review, “<i>Cause of Death</i>
is less like a crime novel than a screen treatment for a David Koresh-meets-Tom
Clancy TV movie-of-the-week.” A good comparison since those final chapters crashed
into international thriller territory with terrorists, Libyan ambitions, and a
thunderous visit from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. A nasty cult is involved,
too. Cornwell went big with the story, but a better play would have been to
keep it small and criminal and believable. But even with that major flaw, <i>Cause
of Death </i>kept me turning the pages with a rush all the way to the end and I’m
sure I’ll read another Cornwell book sometime.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Click </span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3SjOgK4">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the Kindle edition and
</span><b style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3TXQfVB">here</a></b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> for the paperback at Amazon.</span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-85507783691268018362024-01-15T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-15T06:00:00.144-07:00S. S. Van Dine Sets Down Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1pt solid windowtext; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><br /></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><i>S. S. Van Dine Sets Down Twenty Rules
for Writing Detective Stories</i></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The American Magazine, Sep. 1928</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 8pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">_________</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #4472c4; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1;">“There simply must be a corpse in a
detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better….”</span></i><span style="color: #4472c4; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">*</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #4472c4; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1;">“Servants—such as butlers, footmen,
valets, game-keepers, cooks, and the like—must not be chosen by the author as
the culprit….”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</td>
<td style="border: none; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 233.75pt;" valign="top" width="312">
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tg33NOwC3DjQwXK5BERs_CCd8k15Aqu-dPVNtgQDTfjn9xPpzJONAl_vVLb7T9RFotNRuIUKbyv2yQL_vgizglMwbLujlZ7-Tbl2pehKlHF3wrXkpKtpQu3Eey6tAAbeiVbAJHSId42e_hh9CUffpVKS8plnzbkNFNdAdK5Za4eJO8DgbimHfV-ditU/s1145/The%20American%20Sep%201928.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="803" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tg33NOwC3DjQwXK5BERs_CCd8k15Aqu-dPVNtgQDTfjn9xPpzJONAl_vVLb7T9RFotNRuIUKbyv2yQL_vgizglMwbLujlZ7-Tbl2pehKlHF3wrXkpKtpQu3Eey6tAAbeiVbAJHSId42e_hh9CUffpVKS8plnzbkNFNdAdK5Za4eJO8DgbimHfV-ditU/w277-h396/The%20American%20Sep%201928.jpg" width="277" /></a></b></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td colspan="2" style="padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The detective story is a game. It is more—it is a sporting
event. And the author must play fair with the reader. He can no more resort
to trickeries and deceptions and still retain his honesty than if he cheated
in a bridge game. He must outwit the reader, and hold the reader’s interest,
through sheer ingenuity. For the writing of detective stories there are very
definite laws—unwritten, perhaps, but none the less binding: and every
respectable and self-respecting concocter of literary mysteries lives up to
them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 8pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 13.5pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Herewith, then, is a sort of
Credo, based partly on the practice of all the great writers of stories, and
partly on the promptings of the honest author’s inner conscience. To wit:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 8pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the
mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">No willful
tricks or deceptions may be played on the reader other than those played
legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">There
must be no love interest in the story. To introduce amour is to clutter up a
purely intellectual experience with irrelevant sentiment. The business in
hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn
couple to the hymeneal altar.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn
out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one
a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It’s false pretenses.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
culprit must be determined by logical deductions—not by accident or
coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this
latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase,
and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his
search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a
practical joker.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a
detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will
eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter;
and if the detective does not reach his conclusions through an analysis of
those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets
his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">There
simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the
better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far
too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader’s
trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded. Americans are essentially
humane, and therefore a tiptop murder arouses their sense of vengeance and
horror. They wish to bring the perpetrator to justice; and when “murder most
foul, as in the best it is,” has been committed, the chase is on with all the
righteous enthusiasm of which the thrice gentle reader is capable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
problem of the crime must be solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such
methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading,
spiritualistic séances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has
a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he
must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth
dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated <i>ab initio</i> [from the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>beginning].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">There
must be but one detective—that is, but one protagonist of deduction—one <i>deus
ex machine </i>[god from the machine]. To bring the minds of three or four,
or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem is not only to
disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an
unfair advantage of the reader, who, at the outset, pits his mind against
that of the detective and proceeds to do mental battle. If there is more than
one detective the reader doesn’t know who his co-deductor is. It’s like
making the reader run a race with a relay team.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent
part in the story—that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in
whom he takes an interest. For a writer to fasten the crime, in the final
chapter, on a stranger or person who has played a wholly unimportant part in
the tale, is to confess to his inability to match wits with the reader.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Servants—such
as butlers, footmen, valets, game-keepers, cooks, and the like—must not be
chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is
a too easy solution. It is unsatisfactory, and makes the reader feel that his
time has been wasted. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person—one
that wouldn’t ordinarily come under suspicion; for if the crime was the
sordid work of a menial, the author would have had no business to embalm it
in book-form.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">There
must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The
culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire
onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader
must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">13.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Secret
societies, <i>camorras</i>, <i>mafias</i>, et al., have no place in a
detective story. Here the author gets into adventure fiction and
secret-service romance. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is
irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the
murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance, but it is
going too far to grant him a secret society (with its ubiquitous havens, mass
protection, etc.) to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer
would want such odds in his jousting-bout with the police.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">14.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
method of murder, and the means of detecting it, must be rational and
scientific. That is to say, pseudo-science and purely imaginative and
speculative devices are not to be tolerated in the <i>roman policier</i>. For
instance, the murder of a victim by a newly found element—a super-radium, let
us say—is not a legitimate problem. Nor may a rare and unknown drug, which
has its existence only in the author’s imagination, be administered. A
detective-story writer must limit himself, toxicologically speaking, to the
pharmacopoeia. Once an author soars into the realm of fantasy, in the Jules
Verne manner, he is outside the bounds of detective fiction, cavorting in the
uncharted reaches of adventure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">15.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
truth of the problem must at all times be apparent—provided the reader is
shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning
the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the
solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face—that all the clues
really pointed to the culprit—and that, if he had been as clever as the
detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the
final chapter. That the clever reader does often thus solve the problem goes
without saying. And one of my basic theories of detective fiction is that, if
a detective story is fairly and legitimately constructed, it is impossible to
keep the solution from all readers. There will inevitably be a certain number
of them just as shrewd as the author; and if the author has shown the proper
sportsmanship and honesty in his statement and projection of the crime and
its clues, these perspicacious readers will be able, by analysis, elimination
and logic, to put their finger on the culprit as soon as the detective does.
And herein lies the zest of the game. Herein we have an explanation for the
fact that readers who would spurn the ordinary “popular” novel will read
detective stories unblushingly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">16.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">A
detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary
dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no “atmospheric”
preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and
deduction. They hold up the action, and introduce issues irrelevant to the
main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a
successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness
and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude; but when an
author of a detective story has reached that literary point where he has
created a gripping sense of reality and enlisted the reader’s interest and
sympathy in the characters and the problem, he has gone as far in the purely “literary”
technique as is legitimate and compatible with the needs of a
criminal-problem document. A detective story is a grim business, and the
reader goes to it, not for literary furbelows and style and beautiful
descriptions and the projection of moods, but for mental stimulation and
intellectual activity—just as he goes to a ball game or to a cross-word
puzzle. Lectures between innings at the Polo Grounds on the beauties of
nature would scarcely enhance the interest in the struggle between two
contesting baseball nines; and dissertations on etymology and orthography
interspersed in the definitions of a cross-word puzzle would tend only to
irritate the solver bent on making the words interlock correctly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">17.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">A
professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a
detective story. Crimes by house-breakers and bandits are the province of the
police department—not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. Such
crimes belong to the routine work of the Homicide Bureaus. A really
fascinating crime is one committed by a pillar of a church, or a spinster
noted for her charities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">18.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">A
crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a
suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to play
an unpardonable trick on the reader. If a book-buyer should demand his two
dollars back on the ground that the crime was a fake, any court with a sense
of justice would decide in his favor and add a stinging reprimand to the
author who thus hoodwinked a trusting and kind-hearted reader.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">19.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International
plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction—in
secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept <i>gemütlich</i>,
so to speak. It must reflect the reader’s everyday experiences, and give him
a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.3in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">20.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">And
(to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the
devices which no self-respecting detective-story writer will now avail
himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true
lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author’s
ineptitude and lack of originality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(a)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Determining
the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the
scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(b)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
bogus spiritualistic séance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(c)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Forged
finger-prints.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(d)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
dummy-figure alibi.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(e)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is
familiar.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(f)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like
the suspected, but innocent, person.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(g)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(h)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually
broken in.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(i)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
word-association test for guilt.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .55in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 6pt 0.55in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(j)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The
cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unravelled by the sleuth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td colspan="2" style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">S.S. Van Dine (1889 –
1939)—saddled with the ostentatious name William Huntington Wright—wrote the golden
age detective novels featuring amateur sleuth Philo Vance. Van Dine, much
like his detective, was—as Otto Penzler wrote in <i>The Detectionary</i>—“a
poseur and a dilettante, dabbling in art, music and criticism.” The twenty rules
Van Dine recorded are interesting, and even helpful for writers and readers
alike, but many exist for no other reason than to be broken by better writers.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 13.5pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">“S.
S. Van Dine Sets Down Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” originally
appeared in the Sep. 1928 issue of <i>The American Magazine</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-62237482966934284172024-01-10T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-10T06:00:00.139-07:00Review: "The Poker Club" by Ed Gorman<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghNGeo8HcGgSvNPXTYZJk7yUhFXdC7AekmJc7j-jlvdV8-W_NtOZnazEK_eeWv7atheVaui4wR58K_hZbPwydyQSBtzMW64rXnTGXa8XdqKZKRtRrbPwKrotpAsQAhprXZ_-BCpRrPtu0fvFWJe4QCAXOYXyhjzuj7aa5Hs4t8H31AVClJkoTVknfP1bk/s475/The%20Poker%20Club%20-%20Ed%20Gorman%20-%20Leisure%20Books.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghNGeo8HcGgSvNPXTYZJk7yUhFXdC7AekmJc7j-jlvdV8-W_NtOZnazEK_eeWv7atheVaui4wR58K_hZbPwydyQSBtzMW64rXnTGXa8XdqKZKRtRrbPwKrotpAsQAhprXZ_-BCpRrPtu0fvFWJe4QCAXOYXyhjzuj7aa5Hs4t8H31AVClJkoTVknfP1bk/w256-h400/The%20Poker%20Club%20-%20Ed%20Gorman%20-%20Leisure%20Books.gif" width="256" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The Poker Club<br /></span></b><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by Ed Gorman</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Leisure Books, 2000</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The Poker Club</span></i><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">, by Ed Gorman,
originally published as a limited and signed edition hardcover by Cemetery
Dance in 1999, is an expansion of Gorman’s sleek novella, “Out There in the
Darkness” published in 1995. It is the story of four poker buddies whose lives
go sideways when a burglar interrupts their weekly game. The men’s fear and
anger, heightened by a rash of burglaries and property crimes in their
middle-class neighborhood, boils over and the burglar finishes the night dead.
Instead of calling the police, the four friends dump the burglar’s body in a
river and try to move on, but then the late-night calls start, and the men find
themselves knocking on the doors of the criminal classes.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> The Poker Club</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is a suspense novel propelled by the amplifying
effect of the primary characters’ fear-based decisions. These decisions—we’ll
call the police after we’ve scared the burglar, no one will ever know he was
here—isolate the men, in quick succession, from their families, their
neighborhood, and ultimately, from each other. The plotting is straight-forward
and without any real surprises, which is okay because the novel’s power is
emotion. The men are pushed into decisions (and actions) most middle-class men
never see. They face the prospect of losing their reputations, their
professions—and with this, the loss of their lifestyles—their families, and,
perhaps, their lives. It is more psychological and character-driven than action
and it works well. <br /></span></span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> The Poker Club</span></i><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;"> is dedicated, in
part, to Richard Matheson and it is a good fit. The way suburban middle-class
America is transformed from a comfortable and safe place to something less
friendly, almost nefarious, is similar to Matheson’s brilliant novel, <i>Stir
of Echoes</i>. <i>The Poker Club</i> was translated into a tolerable
low-budget film directed by Tim McCann and starring Johnathon Schaech.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Click <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3tEj1A7">here</a></b> for
the Kindle edition and <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3Sm9IhP">here</a></b> for the paperback at Amazon.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-19737246123893058462024-01-08T06:00:00.001-07:002024-01-08T06:00:00.141-07:00"Introducing the Author... Robert A. Heinlein" — from Imagination<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 485.75pt;" valign="top" width="648">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.05in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuhrfhzvRaXJJTkyp6iMruGYW5dnZDnJJEoZTPf-v_sd9QViLlVrsdK7pYPn8SE9kl4D3cj0mXifhwUqQkmqpQ7_bh0qKjsRuEQddJRKWKechSqR9D_t71N-bTF3Bm93yJqY3Vca0VprWnmEUgj6GZlvIHCN4YEmqXSquaEpB2ZlSX1ROlyyuOPRP9iU/s1504/Heinlein%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1504" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuhrfhzvRaXJJTkyp6iMruGYW5dnZDnJJEoZTPf-v_sd9QViLlVrsdK7pYPn8SE9kl4D3cj0mXifhwUqQkmqpQ7_bh0qKjsRuEQddJRKWKechSqR9D_t71N-bTF3Bm93yJqY3Vca0VprWnmEUgj6GZlvIHCN4YEmqXSquaEpB2ZlSX1ROlyyuOPRP9iU/w544-h245/Heinlein%20-%20Bio%20-%20Imagination.jpg" width="544" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 485.75pt;" valign="top" width="648">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">This
autobiographical essay by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein appeared in
the Nov. 1953 issue of <i>Imagination</i> alongside Heinlein’s short story, “Sky
Lift”. A light-hearted, almost silly (and dare I say, conceited?), but
interesting take on Heinlein’s world view. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Click the image for a larger view.</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-3025481125403137142024-01-03T06:30:00.001-07:002024-01-03T06:30:00.139-07:00Review: "Dust Devils" by James Reasoner<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9YtK8APl7kedxd97AKc4fH8B8g00TCJPYN-WyeRpo35DwGEHKS6sXKj76DykhLuynu8scEG-YWZl_ITZa7BaiK7Ii4k1Lzse_tn-2SWxEfTMb26Aiwhed9I3IVlGjZQl1-OVw3qMWRtqTI8w0vPRJKcO5AQAYUrQFnXCxJBPcykHRj9UQ6MvbQkRYos/s1500/Dust%20Devils%20-%20James%20Reasoner.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9YtK8APl7kedxd97AKc4fH8B8g00TCJPYN-WyeRpo35DwGEHKS6sXKj76DykhLuynu8scEG-YWZl_ITZa7BaiK7Ii4k1Lzse_tn-2SWxEfTMb26Aiwhed9I3IVlGjZQl1-OVw3qMWRtqTI8w0vPRJKcO5AQAYUrQFnXCxJBPcykHRj9UQ6MvbQkRYos/w266-h400/Dust%20Devils%20-%20James%20Reasoner.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>Dust Devils</b></span><span style="font-size: 24px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by James Reasoner</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The Book Place, 2011</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">James Reasoner’s marvelous crime thriller, <i>Dust
Devils</i>—published by Point Blank Press in 2007—received a starred review
from <i>Publishers</i> <i>Weekly</i>, and the writer and critic, Ed Gorman,
wrote: “<i>Dust Devils </i>is an exemplary modern hardboiled novel with all the
merits of the post-Tarantino era but none of the flaws.” Not only does <i>Dust Devils</i>
live up to the accolades it received upon its original publication, but it reads
as well today, some sixteen years later, as it must have then.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Toby
McCoy is a young drifter looking for work in the dusty, windblown Texas panhandle.
On a chance, Toby knocks on the door of a lonesome farmhouse. A woman nearly
twice his age, Grace Halligan, opens the door with some suspicion, but agrees
to give Toby a job. No more than two weeks later, Grace and Toby, driven by
mutual loneliness, make their relationship more personal and physical. But when
a pair of gunmen arrive at the farm, Grace and Toby’s secrets are dragged out from
the shadows.<br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Dust
Devils </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">is
close to a perfect hardboiled thriller with twist after surprising twist built
into the plot. And each twist hits the reader harder than the last until that
final, shocking hammer blow. The characters—particularly Grace and Toby—are developed
with a realistic flair. Both are likable and curiously mysterious at once. The
Texas landscape is painted with a realist’s brush and it is obvious Reasoner
not only knows the country where the book takes place, but loves it, too. While
<i>Dust Devils </i>isn’t exactly noir, there is an appealing melancholy to the
narrative that is as much about the sunbaked landscape as it is about the story.<br /></span></span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dust Devils </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;">needs only a larger readership to claim its deserved place as
a genuine hardboiled classic.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Go <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3S6LKqI">here</a></b>
for the Kindle version and <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3S2W6HW">here</a></b> for the paperback edition at Amazon.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></p>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-35257760230643201842023-12-20T06:00:00.002-07:002023-12-20T06:00:00.134-07:00Review: "O Little Town of Donuts" by Ron Peer with Mitzi Lynton<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bH_p2_hwlZqoLpETfNfqL6S3OAaXzxjEdgoU97KhNECaOfOQ6hWTvYQ1sR5UwkyFzazhgABpGTy8LhQMGhfDd3kQsylJoEgkSITHadP56tjhK5AsC9l676DQkVbU1j-WfjK3epJmcwKOFzaed33LMK2F8W-1QomBHol4zimi3Z9bDRFtMCinolWRnnk/s1500/O%20Little%20Town%20of%20Donuts%20-%20Ron%20Peer.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="940" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bH_p2_hwlZqoLpETfNfqL6S3OAaXzxjEdgoU97KhNECaOfOQ6hWTvYQ1sR5UwkyFzazhgABpGTy8LhQMGhfDd3kQsylJoEgkSITHadP56tjhK5AsC9l676DQkVbU1j-WfjK3epJmcwKOFzaed33LMK2F8W-1QomBHol4zimi3Z9bDRFtMCinolWRnnk/w251-h400/O%20Little%20Town%20of%20Donuts%20-%20Ron%20Peer.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>O Little
Town of Donuts</b></span><span style="font-size: 24px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 16pt;">by Ron
Peer with Mitzi Lynton<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: DengXian; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">2022</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">O Little Town of Donuts</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">, by
screenwriter Ron Peer with Mitzi Lynton,<i> </i>is a sweet-hearted
story about good feelings, love, and Christmas cheer. Retiree Jerry DeShazo is
driving to Chicago for Christmas when a car accident strands him in the
charming small town of Suttonville, Texas. After getting the news he’ll be in
town for a few days waiting for his car to be repaired, Jerry’s first stop is <i>Libby’s
Donuts</i> with his new friends Emily, the girl he swerved to miss and hit a
tractor parked too close to the road instead, and her mother, Maria. In the
shop he meets the lively Libby, running in a special mayoral election against a
descendent of the town’s founder, George Sutton.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> At
first Jerry is seen as a harmless eccentric. He gives cards to everyone he
meets with <i>The Gift of Love </i>printed on one side and a poem on the other.
His talent for garnering friends quickly makes him Suttonville’s most popular
guest. But Sutton—whose tractor George hit—sees Jerry as a threat to his
mayoral aspirations. All the while Jerry is sharing his secret to life around
town; send love to everyone, even yourself, and everything will work out for the
best.<br /><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> O
Little Town of Donuts</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> gets
to the heart of what Christmas should be: a celebration of our neighbors, our
communities, and even ourselves. A kind of love letter to humanity, person by
person. It is loaded with eccentric characters—an angry newspaperman, a
kind-hearted Sheriff, a bitter businessman, a donut shop owner with a past. But
its heart is Jerry. A guy who loves everyone, kind of a Santa Claus figure,
with the joyful mission of bringing love and happiness to anyone who will accept it. <i>O
Little Town of Donuts</i> is a perfect holiday read that will brighten even the
darkest day.<br /></span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Go <b><a href="https://amzn.to/485StGD">here</a></b>
for the Kindle edition at Amazon.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></span></p><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=darkcityunde-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0BMNSW1BG&asins=B0BMNSW1BG&linkId=4a74fa852657035de2e770e008b1f074&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-54687338809653164042023-12-13T07:45:00.000-07:002023-12-13T07:45:00.138-07:00Review: "Texas Wind" by James Reasoner<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVdZhemtz1E2raUqX_N1C9FfVVl_6MlSWppJUCHtepd9UYNISNaG9yPgjtJXD1GHNy6rnPQoL5BFzKWuW4Ar03F8xg5M0cMTDhE_QeXiNYtZjqCO00qBBwuJ0YT7RRUjbf0EBboVxiUZD6UsqisWi-y1Pwlc122JdqelYIkHgWkqyCsNLAB2zZb-EErd0/s694/Texas%20Wind.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="461" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVdZhemtz1E2raUqX_N1C9FfVVl_6MlSWppJUCHtepd9UYNISNaG9yPgjtJXD1GHNy6rnPQoL5BFzKWuW4Ar03F8xg5M0cMTDhE_QeXiNYtZjqCO00qBBwuJ0YT7RRUjbf0EBboVxiUZD6UsqisWi-y1Pwlc122JdqelYIkHgWkqyCsNLAB2zZb-EErd0/w266-h400/Texas%20Wind.jpg" width="266" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>Texas Wind</b></span><span style="font-size: 24px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by James Reasoner</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The
Book Place, 2010</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">James Reasoner’s first novel, <i>Texas Wind</i>,
is a great hardboiled private eye tale set in Fort Worth, Texas in the
late-1970s. It was originally published by the stingy and unethical Manor Books
in 1980; “stingy and unethical” because most writers had to threaten the editor’s
life or hire a lawyer to get paid. The writer and critic, Ed Gorman, called <i>Texas
Wind</i>, “one of the finest private eye novels I’ve ever read…” and its narrative
simplicity, its powerful and laconic and apt social commentary, and the vividly
realized North Texas setting give his statement credibility.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Cody
is an everyman. The kind of guy you see in the grocery store, at the bar,
washing his car on the weekend. When the wealthy Gloria Traft approaches Cody
to find her missing college age step-daughter, Mandy, Cody reluctantly agrees to
take the job. His hesitance is simple: most adult runaways want to disappear,
or they reappear within a few days no worse off than when they left. The clues
quickly lead Cody to think Mandy fell in love and ran off with a boy, but
Gloria talks him into locating Mandy to ensure she is safe. But things turn sideways
when another interested player shows himself.<br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Texas
Wind</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> is
a marvelous slice of what life must have been like in the Texas of the 1970s.
Reasoner’s simple and powerful descriptive passages breathe life into the city—Fort
Camp Bowie Blvd, Trinity Park, the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art all make
appearances—and Cody’s careful observations about the people inhabiting this
world, which is a proxy for our own, are add flavor and a little meaning. The
story is slam-bang from the first page to the last, too. My regret for this
book—and it is a significant regret—is that I waited so long to read it.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Go <a href="https://amzn.to/47ZqsAQ"><b>here</b></a> for the Kindle version and <a href="https://amzn.to/3NkHfWD"><b>here</b></a> for
the paperback edition at Amazon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></p><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=darkcityunde-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0043EX2PO&asins=B0043EX2PO&linkId=79f8fabe19a2ff3c03b1462b40b71dbd&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=darkcityunde-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1930997515&asins=1930997515&linkId=3e37d7bcfad668b1a1c2f153057b41a4&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-33714872483685448652023-12-11T06:00:00.001-07:002023-12-11T06:00:00.140-07:00Sometimes I Need to Know... NBC Line-Up, 1974<p> </p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-insideh: none; mso-border-insidev: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody><tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwaUvL_zVSsnpkh4DH25xVKtuBokSix41y90YsEwZ7kT-g4jTnnobcIdGgzdfzFpoL59XLCgqGSDjMudoB8y0XIHKxAEmihtbrhj79P6oWR9XYvvNXfFrVPkNWZUCm8-8qbD_3yYyZCZ5p8pDEUYHeJsQVTNX_0nKjVYszrODu6UrHVa5-Xcxsz4nE820/s1285/TV%20Week%20-%20Logan%20Herald%20Jounral%20-%201974.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="825" height="807" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwaUvL_zVSsnpkh4DH25xVKtuBokSix41y90YsEwZ7kT-g4jTnnobcIdGgzdfzFpoL59XLCgqGSDjMudoB8y0XIHKxAEmihtbrhj79P6oWR9XYvvNXfFrVPkNWZUCm8-8qbD_3yYyZCZ5p8pDEUYHeJsQVTNX_0nKjVYszrODu6UrHVa5-Xcxsz4nE820/w518-h807/TV%20Week%20-%20Logan%20Herald%20Jounral%20-%201974.jpg" width="518" /></a></div><p></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="background: rgb(242, 242, 242); mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 467.5pt;" valign="top" width="623">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .05in; margin-right: .05in; margin-top: 6.0pt; margin: 6pt 0.05in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Sometimes
I need to know what was on television during the week of September 9, 1974. This
is from the <i>Logan Herald Journal</i>, (Utah) Sep. 9, 1974. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">KUTV</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> Channel 2 was—at least in 1974—the Salt
Lake City affiliate of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">NBC</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28085999.post-81406420065714557942023-12-06T06:00:00.001-07:002023-12-06T06:00:00.135-07:00Review: "The Tithing Herd" by J. R. Lindermuth<p style="text-align: left;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqseEpzhD8iU0nyx4oG1E0WVd2hG_IN4JzimXDVLNITER-HVCTERej03d5ZE8SRvBMNFGqxgfPN9mM0Xf0wZk2hk0910oNR3rHDl34JoLh8CwqS_qVy_wz32HLDPZAFc8BcktAKwYSEVg_dljntAPlpa3K9ahcQNblpk-7_fII2lO0dUJvrecKQavQDo0/s1500/The%20Tithing%20Herd.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqseEpzhD8iU0nyx4oG1E0WVd2hG_IN4JzimXDVLNITER-HVCTERej03d5ZE8SRvBMNFGqxgfPN9mM0Xf0wZk2hk0910oNR3rHDl34JoLh8CwqS_qVy_wz32HLDPZAFc8BcktAKwYSEVg_dljntAPlpa3K9ahcQNblpk-7_fII2lO0dUJvrecKQavQDo0/w266-h400/The%20Tithing%20Herd.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>The Tithing Herd</b></span><span style="font-size: 24px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by J. R. Lindermuth</span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Sundown Press, 2017</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />The Tithing Herd</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">, by J.
R. Lindermuth, is a traditional Western with a bevy of action, solid
characterization, and a literate and vivid style. Lute Donnelly is a former
lawman tracking a vicious outlaw called Spanish across New Mexico’s high
desert. Lute is seeking vengeance on Spanish for murdering his brother. He seems
closer than ever when Lute cuts a boy, Tom Baskin, down from a tree—where he
was “hanging by his heels from the limb of a cottonwood”—and Lute is told Tom
had been riding with two members of Spanish’s gang.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"> Lute
wants to track the boy’s partners, hoping they will lead him to Spanish, but instead
Lute reluctantly agrees to accompany a cattle herd set aside by local Mormon
ranchers as their tithe to the church. The cattle trail leads Donnelly back to a
Mormon town where the woman he loves, the widow Serene McCollough, is rumored
to be marrying an elder of the church. But that’s not Lute’s only trouble
because Spanish’s gang is set on rustling the tithing herd and it will do anything—including
kidnapping and murder—to get what it wants.<br /><span style="font-size: 13pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The Tithing Herd </span></i><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.25in;">is an
entertaining Western tale. Lindermuth paints his settings with a fine brush:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 9pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 9pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">“Far off to the northwest he saw the hazy
escarpment of the Mogollon Rim and before it, rumpled cedar-crested ridges,
diminishing in height as they fell forward to meet a rolling valley swathed in
buffalo grass and traversed by a broad stream which sparkled in the sunlight
purpling the hills.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The characters,
especially Lute, is rich with contradictions and, at times moral ambiguity. Lute’s
aim at vengeance is understandable but inconsistent with his worldview and
internal morality. The villains are dark-hearted and sociopathic, which allows
the reader to wantonly root for their demise. The narrative builds slowly until
rattling into gunplay and violence. The Mormon element is interesting.
Lindermuth develops his Mormons with sympathy and realism: they are good and
bad both. But ultimately, <i>The Tithing Herd </i>is Lute Donnelly’s story, and
it is darn good for those readers with hankering for the Old West.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;">Go <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3R78PI4">here</a></b>
for the paperback version and <b><a href="https://amzn.to/4a8dvGk">here</a></b> for the Kindle version at Amazon.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></p><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=darkcityunde-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B073YKH1DG&asins=B073YKH1DG&linkId=94ae03b34cb9927c9bf0b604ec57fec6&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" sandbox="allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=darkcityunde-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1973702819&asins=1973702819&linkId=41197b1a091e8141461f9c075c6469b1&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>Ben Bouldenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16024782701164448300noreply@blogger.com0