From Ed Gorman's Desk: "Every Shallow Cut"

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli from Jan. 29, 2011   There’s a long tradition in American literature of writers using their mental and spiritual breakdowns as material for their work. Certainly Poe’s phantasmagoric moments allude to his sometimes tenuous grip on reality; Jack London traveled to Whitechapel to see if The Ripper was worth writing about and ended up in an asylum—drunk and temporarily insane; F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about how his personal crash coincided with the market crash of ’29 in both the infamous The Crack Up and in the wan sad opening lines of “Babylon Revisited;” and Fredrick Exley’s masterpiece A Fan’s Notes is nothing but a poetically and clinically detailed charting of alcoholism and dislocation and madness. Tom Piccirilli’s new novella Every Shallow Cut indirectly owes its title to a line on page 139. The novelist-narrator, wasted and wandering, possessor of both murderous thoughts as well as a hand gun, is told by a writer friend who suggests he might be better off in a mental hospital for a time: “I can feel every shallow cut you’ve ever suffered in it [the writer’s new manuscript], all of them still bleeding, tearing wider and becoming deeper. You can die from a paper cut if it becomes infected.” And that’s what Tom deals with in the novella. Infection. An infected narrator, an infected world. The narrator—an esteemed novelist with a trunk load of literary awards and an empty bank account. “A pore lonesome wife-left feller” as Nelson Algren said of one of his characters. Groping for some kind of understanding of all the things that torment him—being fat for so much of his life (though no longer), his resentful relationship with his older brother and the publishing world’s indifference to anything except commercial success. The world is even more infected than the narrator. There are many references to the market crash—jobs lost, houses and cars repossessed, millions of people, much like the narrator, wandering, seeking, as baffled and hurt as he is. He even sends up the publishing business by spoofing some of the books that are hot tickets. My favorite is the one where the archangel comes back to earth to manage a kids’ baseball team. I love the writing here. It is stripped down to a kind of Charles Willeford-Charles Williams simplicity that is all the more effective for its bluntness and accessibility. The dialogue is dead-on. The man’s relationship with his dog Churchill could have been the one false treacly note but Tom makes it work perfectly. No cutesy-poo. Tom Piccirilli has written many fine books and stories but at this point in his career, for me anyway, I would call Every Shallow Cut his masterpiece.   Click here to check out Every Shallow Cut at Amazon.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Jan. 29, 2011. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "John Brunner"

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

John Brunner from Dec. 16, 2006   One of the real pleasures of my teenage years was reading the space operas of John Brunner, which mostly appeared in Ace Double Book form, sometimes taking up both sides. Except for Leigh Brackett and some of Edmond Hamilton, I couldn’t handle most space opera after I reached about age fifteen. But Brunner was both a superb writer of swift colorful action stories and a true citizen of the world, this last lending his tales a real sense of history which he projected into the future. His characters were never standard pulp issue, either. They usually had problems unrelated to the plot some of which, realistically, were never resolved even as the curtain fell. He also had a somewhat baroque sense of humor. I recall one of his Ace novels opening with a parody of a very sophisticated party. I appreciated it even more when I saw the same thing a few years later in the then-shocking movie “Darling.” Brunner had tucked his swipe at pre-Euro-trash into space opera. He got an early start on his action tales, selling his first novel at 17 as by Gil Hunt. This was all in the Sixties. Came the Seventies and Brunner received the Hugo award, the British Science Fiction award and the French Prix Apollo. You don’t get those babies writing space opera. From the Daily Telegraph, UK: “The Squares of the City (1965) was a study in mathematical psychology in which two ruthless politicians manipulate people in a real-life chess match. Brunner’s more pessimistic stories included The Sheep Look Up (1972), a depressing look forward to the horrors of pollution; and The Shockwave Rider (1975), in which computers spread viruses and other evils. In this he was to prove wrong those experts who at the time dismissed the possibility of electronic viruses.” These are his acknowledged masterpieces. There were few science fiction writers as popular or influential as Brunner during the Seventies, especially after the appearance of The Shockwave Rider. He’d gone rather quickly from competent paperback man to bestselling genre master with a worldwide following. What happened next has never been clear to me. Though I’ve heard various explanations, the one given most often is that he put several years research and writing into a historical novel called The Great Steamboat Race and that it flopped badly, shaking the confidence of author and publisher alike. Something sure happened because when you look at the books he wrote in the Eighties, you see a writer essentially reverting to the work of his early days. Not outright space opera but definitely work far less ambitious than the novels that brought him awards and acclaim. His health got bad. His wife died. I’m told that at one convention he announced from the dais that he needed work and to please put him on their list. Any writer who pitches himself like that may get a contract but he sure isn’t going to get much money. He died at a convention, too. Heart attack. As much as some readers admire The Traveler in Black, I think the better seldom-mentioned Brunner book is The Whole Man. Brunner creates not only a bleak future society unlike any I’ve ever encountered in sf but he also gives us a mutant-freak as a protagonist, a bitter, angry confused man who defies all the conventions of the form. A number of writers tried something like this previously—notably A.E. Van Vogt with Slan—but nobody brought the passion or dystopic poetry Brunner did to the theme.     Six months or so before his death I wrote a long retro review of The Whole Man for a sf magazine and sent a copy to Bluejay editor Jim Frenkel who was then republishing a few Brunner titles. He sent it on to Brunner and told me that Brunner was greatly pleased with it. I’m glad he got to see it. He deserved a lot more praise than my little review could give him. Click here to check out John Brunner’s books on Amazon.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Dec. 16, 2006. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "Doubleday Crime Club"

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Doubleday Crime Club from Nov. 13, 2005   I’m glad Ellen Nehr lived long enough to see her enormous volume about the Doubleday Crime Club appear1. It detailed the contents of every single Club volume ever published. I doubt that people under the age of 35 have ever seen a Crime Club book. In the beginning, back in the late Twenties and well into the Thirties, the line was known for its covers as well as the fiction inside. Over the years they published writers as diverse as Dorothy B. Hughes, Sax Rohmer, Stuart Palmer, Leslie Charteris, Wm. DeAndrea, and Charlotte McLeod along with innumerable one-shot writers and writers whose books have vanished utterly. They published hundreds of good, readable mysteries by pulp pros who wanted the pleasure of seeing their material between boards. Fredrick C. Davis comes to mind. He had his flaws but of the forty or so of his books I’ve read over my lifetime, I can’t recall a dull one. And several of his novels were exceptional in every respect. Certainly I’d say the same about Dolores Hitchens, an even better writer who could turn cozies pretty damned dark. She had the ability to swing from her atmospheric cozies to outright brutal private eye stories. She even wrote a first-rate western. It was essentially a library line and that’s what made me think of it. The other day I looked through boxes that were the remnants of a recent library book sale and found several Club titles to take home. Of all the hardcover mystery lines of the past, the Club is the one I get most nostalgic about. By the end of its run, its packaging was a disappointment to anybody who remembered its glory days—cheap paper, abysmal binding, horrible covers. One thing never changed and that was the wonderful inky smell of the books that seemed to last for months after you’d first read them. For book junkies, that is the smell of heaven. Having lived in various small towns after the big war, I got used to book mobiles serving places that didn’t have libraries close by. And in those days book mobiles were packed with Doubleday westerns, science fiction, and Club titles. Libraries subscribed to the list and received the books once a month, like magazines. I suppose Five Star2 is not unlike a version of the old Club, a library line that fulfills the needs of virtually every kind of mystery reader. I hope we’re fulfilling the needs of mystery readers as well as the Club once did. There is more than a little remorse in this particular post. Two years before she died, Ellen and I got into an argument over something she was alleged to have said. Only a year later did I learn that Ellen was telling the truth and that this other person, a prominent editor, was lying because that was her wont—not just about Ellen but about everybody who crossed her threshold. She loves mischief. I apologized then and I apologize now. I sure miss you, Ellen. ____________ 1.      Ellen Nehr’s Doubleday Crime Club Compendium 1928-1991 was published by Offspring Press in 1992. As far as I can tell, it has been out of print for some time. 2.      Ed Gorman partnered with Tekno Books, which was owned by the prominent anthologist Martin H. Greenberg, to produce the now defunct Five Star mystery line.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, Gormania, on Nov. 13, 2005. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

 

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "Ross Macdonald"

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Ross Macdonald from Aug. 1, 2007   The first Ross Macdonald novel I ever read was The Way Some People Die. He was John Ross Macdonald then, still going back and forth I suppose with John D. MacDonald about the use of names so similar.      I was fifteen, steeped in Gold Medals and Lions and Ace Doubles. By then I’d read a good deal of Hammett and Chandler as well. None of it prepared me for Ross Macdonald.      I was too ignorant to pick up on stylistic differences. What I noticed were the characters. Few of them were new to me as types, most of them in fact were in most of the hardboiled novels I’d read, but Macdonald brought a depth and humanity to them that made me think not of other crime writers but of authors such as Fitzgerald and Hemingway and James T. Farrell and Graham Greene, my idols at the time. This was real no bullshit psychological writing.      Just as superheroes never outgrow their need for milk, I’ve never outgrown my need for the novels and stories of Ross Macdonald. I share his view of humanity, that amalgam of fascination, disappointment, anger, and sorrow that fill his work.      If you want to remind yourself of how good he was even early on, I’d recommend The Archer Files edited by Tom Nolan and published by Crippen & Landru. In addition to being a fine looking collection, it contains all the published Lew Archer short stories plus an intriguing section called “Notes.” Macdonald started stories that he planned to someday finish, a way of keeping thoughts alive. Most of these sure would have made superb tales.      Then there’s the long introduction by Tom Nolan in which he takes the reader into the work and life of Kenneth Millar; a/k/a Ross Macdonald. Nolan wrote the Edgar-nominated biography of Macdonald and this introduction is almost a synthesis of it in its information, insight and elegantly arranged presentation.      Oh, yes—the stories. There are an even dozen and while some are better than others all of them demonstrate why he became so important so quickly, even though his real fame took many years to achieve. My favorite is an imperfect piece called “Wild Goose Chase.” There’s a sort of gothic frenzy to it that kept me flipping those pages.      This is an essential acquisition for all libraries, home or public.  Click here to check out The Archer Files at Amazon.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Aug. 1, 2007. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

 

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "Erle Stanley Gardner"

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Erle Stanley Gardner from Dec. 25, 2006   I’ve never been able to figure out why Raymond Chandler felt he owed such a literary debt to Erle Stanley Gardner. He told Gardner that he’d once copied a Gardner story so closely that he couldn’t submit it for publication. I guess he felt it would look like plagiarism. But what did he learn from Gardner? Certainly not style. Certainly not dialogue. Certainly not structure. Writers learn from unlikely sources, true enough. But Chandler seemed to lavish so much praise on Gardner you have to wonder what inspired him exactly.      But Chandler was a snob and when you examine the nature of his praise, you get a sense he was being condescending. He said that only when you wrote at great speed (as Gardner did) could you make such unbelievable plot turns palatable to otherwise sensible readers. I’ve always wondered what Gardner made of that. He was no fool.      All this comes to mind because I had several doctor appointments in the past few weeks and I’m always careful to bring fast and uncomplicated reads along with me. For the last few doc visits I brought along Perry Mason novels. Early Perry Mason novels, I should note, when Mason was still a creature of Black Mask rather than The Saturday Evening Post. Throughout his career he was wise enough to recognize one of the great true American boogeymen, big business. His social conscience came from his days as a lawyer when he represented Native Americans, black Americans, and Latino Americans in towns that did not want them.      I still find the Masons good reads. True, Gardner worked with stereotypes—The Bad Wife, The Crooked Cop, The Loyal Servant—and he told his stories largely through (sometimes interminable) dialogue but while I’m reading them I’m almost always caught up in the puzzle he’s given us. Nobody is what they claim to be. Everybody has a secret, usually a nasty one, the exception being the tortured person Mason has agreed to take on as a client, usually while shunning much more lucrative work.      The early Masons were written before Gardner decided to make his work “timeless.” There is little place description in the later books. He didn’t want to “date” them. I like the history I get from the first dozen Masons, from all of the Doug Selbys and even from the A. A. Fairs written during the war years. I enjoy sitting in the tea rooms, bars, mansions, hotels, and trains of the Thirties and early-Forties. His work became far less interesting when it was shorn of any physical specificity.      The Masons owe much more to the Golden Age than most critics seem to have noticed. Their plot pieces are no less unlikely, the clues no less exotic and the conclusions no less bombastic. But I’m not complaining. Most Golden Age stuff except for John Dickson Carr is difficult for me to gak down. But somehow Perry, Della, and Paul make it all fun again.  Click here to check out Erle Stanly Gardner’s Perry Mason books at Amazon.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Dec. 25, 2006. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon. As of today, June 17, 2024, the Kindle editions of Breaking Up is Hard to Do and Fools Rush In—Sam McCain books 6 and 7—are on sale for $0.50 and $0.75, respectively.

From Ed Gorman's Desk: "Fredric Brown"

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Fredric Brown from Nov. 1, 2008   Yes, I had an epiphany last night. Honest. I was re-reading one of my favorite Fredric Brown novels, The Deep End, and I realized suddenly why I’ve always felt such a spiritual closeness to his crime fiction.      I had a paper route when I was twelve and thirteen. I delivered in the neighborhood where I lived, a working class quadrant of the small city packed with bars. The men and women in the bars always liked to treat to me a bottle of pop or a game of shuffleboard or pool. We were all Micks from the same parish.      I can’t say I got to know any but a few of them personally. But I did have an understanding of them as an aggregate, especially the men who were in their twenties, their fates already sealed by families, lack of college education and, in most cases, a compliance with the wishes of the gods (Lovecraft’s gods to my mind).      The bar was their escape. My favorite bar was part of a seedy hotel. The owner liked hillbilly music and he put all of Elvis’ Sun records on it as early as 1955 before Elvis was widely known. Same with Johnny Cash. A very cool place.      I overheard stories. Men fighting with their wives; men stepping out on their wives; men who couldn’t pay their bills and were heavy into loan companies already. Some of the men blue collar, some of the men lower-echelon white collar. There were fights sometimes; wives occasionally appeared and hauled their humiliated husbands out of the places. The great tragedy was the much-decorated Marine who’d fought in Korea. Popular high school basketball player, happy hard-working good-looking guy who was crazy about his wife and brought her in frequently, lovely frail Irish girl-woman. He got killed in a highway accident and his wife (true facts) set herself on fire in grief.      Lives significant only to them and their kind (my kind).      And while I was reading The Deep End last night (a novel so redolent of Fifties morality it could be used in a sociology text book, even though it takes enormous liberties with the sexual mores of the time, the love affair here is a knockout) I realized that I like Brown so much (I was already reading him back then) because he wrote about my neighborhood and my people. Most of his crime novels, I know now, are filled with the men and women in the bars on my old paper route.      I keep hearing about how Brown’s Coming Back. I sure hope that’s true. Click here to purchase the trade paperback.

This article originally appeared on Ed Gorman’s blog, New Improved Gorman, on Nov. 1, 2008. It is reprinted here by permission. Ed wrote dozens of novels in a variety of genres, but his most popular work (and my favorite of his work) was in the crime and western genres. His ten Sam McCain mysteries—set in the fictional Iowa town of Black River Falls during the 1950s, ’60, and ’70s—are suspenseful, mysterious, and often funny excursions into small town America. The New York Times called Sam McCain, “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart” and The Seattle Times called McCain “an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist…”      But Ed was also a tireless reader and promoter of other writers’ work. His blogs—there were three, none of them operating at the same time—are treasure troves for readers of crime, horror, and western fiction both old and new. Ed died Oct. 14, 2016.   Click here to check out Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain novels on Amazon.

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

 

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

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

From Ed Gorman's Desk: Richard Neely

from ED GORMAN’S Desk

Richard Neely
Nov. 10, 2005

 

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

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

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