Review: "The Wolf in the Clouds" by Ron Faust

 

The Wolf in the Clouds by Ron Faust Popular Library, 1978   The Wolf in the Clouds is Ron Faust’s second novel. Originally published in 1977 as a hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill’s Black Bat Mystery imprint, it has been reprinted by Popular Library (1978)—which is the edition I read—and more recently as a trade paperback and ebook by Turner Publishing. Like much of Faust’s early work, The Wolf in the Clouds is a relatively simple adventure yarn with a poetic lilt that makes it a little more.    A small town in rural Colorado is under siege by a slow-moving blizzard and a rampage killer. A killer who shot several people at a nearby ski resort and is now hiding in the rugged Wolf Mountain Wilderness Area. The storm trapped three college students skiing in the shadow of the Wolf—a high, unforgiving mountain peak—and two forest rangers brave the freezing temperatures to mount a rescue. The rangers, Jack and Frank, find the skiers safely holed up in a small cabin, but they also find the killer; a man named Ralph Brace whom Jack once considered a friend, but quickly realizes he never knew Ralph at all. The Wolf in the Clouds is an entertaining and smoothly written adventure novel. It is written in first person from Jack’s perspective and the narrative includes ideas larger than the story. The complexity of public land use is only one and it is as relevant today, perhaps even more so, than it was fifty years ago. The prose is both complex and simple; easy to read, but with a texture of beauty about it: “Roof timbers creaked, the last light faded from the windows, the stone walls exhaled a new, acid cold. The long winter night was here; we had fourteen or fifteen hours until dawn.” The story lacks the complexity of Faust’s later novels and the protagonist, Jack, is shaded by a cold veneer. He is aloof, even in an early scene with his wife, and something of an outsider with both the Forest Service and the townsfolk, which is forgivable since everything works so well—setting, plotting, character. The Wolf in the Clouds isn’t in the top-tier of Ron Faust’s body of work, which is reserved for his final six or seven novels, but it is still damn good. *                 *                 * This is a slightly updated version of a review published on May 19, 2016.

Check out The Wolf in the Clouds on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.

Review: "Flint Kill Creek" by Joyce Carol Oates

 

Flint Kill Creek Stories of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates Mysterious Press, 2024     Joyce Carol Oates’ latest collection, Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense, is a masterpiece of the macabre. Its twelve tales, which the publisher tells us have been “reformulated”—perhaps meaning they have been revised from their original publications—deal with meaty issues: loneliness, envy, and fear are the most prevalent. “The Phlebotomist,” about a confused and timid woman drawn into an uncomfortable conversation with the male phlebotomist that helped draw her blood, is as troubling and dark as any tale I’ve read. An ambiguous ending acts only to amplify its foreboding. “Weekday” follows a distracted father driving to work; worrying about the list of errands his wife assigned to him that morning and all but forgetting about his toddler daughter in the backseat. There is no doubt where it will end, but the journey is a harrowing (and worthwhile) ride into the frenzied shadows of modern parenting. “Friend of My Heart,” about a dissatisfied adjunct professor meeting a far more successful former classmate, is a bitter pill of loneliness, betrayal, and envy. And that ending—well, read it and you’ll know. “Bone Marrow Donor” is a macabre tale about fear and medical hope. It reads with the abstract delirium of a drug-induced high. “The Nice Girl” is about a young high school graduate—the type of girl that always does the right thing—overshadowed by her mentally ill and addicted older sister. The tale’s jagged edges cut the reader a thousand times before its images settle into memory. “Happy Christmas” is a razor-sharp story about family, love, and loneliness. The dark secrets it reveals make the story linger in the reader’s mind long past the final word. “Late Love,” which is my favorite story in the collection, is a marvelous play on love and sanity. The narrator is unreliable and every word is precise and perfect. Flint Kill Creek is a brilliant collection. It should appeal to fans of Joyce Carol Oates and anyone else with a humanist bent and an eye for the phantasm of gothic hallucinatory realism.

Check out Flint Kill Creek on Amazon: Kindle edition here and hardcover here.

Review: "The Poker Club" by Ed Gorman

 

The Poker Club
by Ed Gorman
Leisure Books, 2000

 

The Poker Club, 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.
     The Poker Club 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. 
     The Poker Club 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, Stir of Echoes. The Poker Club was translated into a tolerable low-budget film directed by Tim McCann and starring Johnathon Schaech.

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

THE WOLF IN THE CLOUDS by Ron Faust

The Wolf in the Clouds is Ron Faust’s second published novel. It was originally published as a hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill’s Black Bat Mystery imprint, then as a paperback by Popular Library, and recently as a trade paperback and ebook. It is, like much of Mr. Faust’s early work, a relatively simple adventure yarn with a poetic lilt that makes it a little more.

A small town in rural Colorado is under siege from a slow moving blizzard and a rampage killer. A killer who shot several people at a nearby ski resort and is now hiding in the rugged Wolf Mountain Wilderness Area. The storm trapped three college students skiing in the shadow of the Wolf—a high, unforgiving mountain peak—and two forest rangers brave the freezing temperatures to mount a rescue. The rangers, Jack and Frank, find the skiers safely holed up in a small cabin, but they also find the killer; a man named Ralph Brace whom Jack once considered a friend, but now realizes he never knew at all.

The Wolf in the Clouds is an entertaining, smoothly written adventure novel. It is written in first person from Jack’s perspective and the narrative includes ideas larger than the story. The complexity of public land use is only one and it is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. The prose is both complex and simple; easy to read, but with a texture and feel of something almost beautiful—

“Roof timbers creaked, the last light faded from the windows, the stone walls exhaled a new, acid cold. The long winter night was here; we had fourteen or fifteen hours until dawn.”

The story lacks the complexity of Mr. Faust’s later novels and the protagonist, Jack, is shaded nearly cold. He is aloof, even in an early scene with his wife, and something of an outsider with both the Forest Service and the townsfolk, which is forgivable since everything works so well—setting, plotting, character. The Wolf in the Clouds isn’t in the top-tier of Mr. Faust’s body of work, which is reserved for his final six or seven novels, but it is still pretty damn go

THE POKER CLUB by Ed Gorman

The Poker Club, 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 class.

The Poker Club 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 pretty well.

The Poker Club is dedicated, in part, to Richard Matheson and it’s a good fit. The depiction of suburban middle-class America as a comfortable and safe place before it transforms into something less friendly, almost nefarious, is similar to Matheson’s brilliant novel, Stir of Echoes. The Poker Club was translated into a tolerable low-budget film directed by Tim McCann and starring Johnathon Schaech.

A TALENT FOR KILLING by Ralph Dennis (Coming Soon)

This is good news. Brash Books is bringing out a brand new Ralph Dennis novel with an intriguing history. A Talent for Killing is two novels combined into a single narrative. The first novel, Deadman’s Game, features Kane, a retired and memory impaired Agency assassin:

But the expert killer in Kane rose up again, and now he was working the private side of the street—killer for hire.

Deadman’s Game was published as a standalone novel by Berkley Medallion in 1976, but it was intended as a series by Ralph Dennis and his editor at Berkley. As explained in A Talent for Killing, “the editor who championed the book left [Berkley], leaving Deadman’s Game without a champion in-house and without the editorial support for a robust marketing campaign.” And Berkley’s new editor rejected Dennis’ second Kane novel outright.

Brash Books’ release of A Talent for Killing combines Deadman’s Game with Dennis’ never before published sequel, Kane #2, into a single, wonderful thriller. This new book, along with Brash’s recent releases of Dennis’ Hardman novels and The War Heist (originally published as MacTaggart’s War), is a welcome addition to Ralph Dennis’ canon, and—far too late—corrects the error of New York publishing’s shutout of Dennis in the late-1970s.

The only bad thing? The value of my copy of Deadman’s Game is going to plummet. And, A Talent for Killing, isn’t scheduled for release until September. Although, you can pre-order it now.

MIA HUNTER: L.A. GANG WAR by Stephen Mertz

A three-man strike force accustomed to rescuing prisoners of war in the jungles of Vietnam is stateside on a rogue mission in Los Angeles. Mark Stone, known as the MIA Hunter, is asked by an old war buddy, now a deputy chief with LAPD, to help rescue Rick Chavez from a Colombian drug cartel. Chavez is a Pulitzer award winning journalist who has been writing a series of hard and insightful articles about the drug trade in L. A. The articles have enough detail that the LAPD and the drug gangs—Crips, Bloods and their Colombian suppliers—want to know where his information is coming from.

When Stone and his team arrive on scene, Chavez is being held prisoner in a palatial home in San Clemente; a few doors down from Richard Nixon's house. It takes the team only a few minutes, several hundred rounds of 9mm lead slung by MAC 10s, some smart one liners, and a close call or three, to pull Chavez out of the house. But this is the beginning for the MIA team because as the team is exfiltrating from the firefight, Stone sees a familiar face. A face that belongs to a man who tried to kill Mark Stone in Vietnam.

MIA Hunter: L. A. Gang War—the thirteenth entry in the series—is an entertaining example of the men’s adventure mania of the 1980s. Originally published in 1990 (an honorary member of the 1980s), it is a time capsule of the era, capturing society’s anxiety with an escalating war on drugs, violent street gangs spreading the poison and in the process claiming entire neighborhoods, all in the shadow of America's defeat in Vietnam. It is non-stop action, accented with betrayal, revenge, and the MIA team’s seeming endless supply of bravado and super hero combat skills. There is also a touch of humor, if you look closely, and even a big idea or two. L. A. Gang War is a top-notch example of both the series and the genre.

THE MOSES DECEPTION by Stephen Mertz

The Moses Deception, the latest from Stephen Mertz, is a high energy, entertaining chase novel with a unique premise. An eleventh commandment—from a fragment of the original tablets shattered by Moses when he descended Mount Sinai—is discovered on the war-torn border between Turkey and Syria. The discovery threatens the status quo and more than a few powerful individuals and groups are willing to kill to keep the discovery hidden since the new commandment has broad implications for the three major world religions; Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 

Adam Chase and Lara Newton are leading an archaeological dig on the arid desert site of what they believe is “an ancient proto-Israelite settlement” from “the second millennium BCE,” which could offer evidence that the Biblical story of the Israelite exodus from Egypt is historically accurate. When the Turkish military security detail attached to the dig is ordered away, the archaeologists are forced to abandon the site. As the rest of the dig team decamps, Adam and Lara are enticed to a cave where an ancient box is hidden. Inside the box are stone fragments containing God’s eleventh commandment and the discovery sets in motion a violent and harrowing journey for the two archaeologists.

The Moses Deception is an absorbing, action-oriented thriller. Its prose is cinematic: crisp and clear without distortion. The storyline, especially its impetus, is unique and the action moves across Europe—from Turkey to the Vatican to Berlin to the Swiss Alps—with a well-paced shimmer. The characters are heroic and evil with enough in the middle to keep things interesting. A billionaire, Buckeye Calhoun, who is bankrolling the expedition, is exactly what I imagine Ross Perot to be. Eccentric as hell, but likable in a good ole’ boy manner. A few big ideas are discussed without stalling the story and a nicely executed climax left this reader smiling and wishing for more.

CHASE by Dean Koontz

I am a longtime fan of Dean Koontz’s writing.  I enjoy all of Mr Koontz’s work, but I have a particular fondness for the work he produced in the 1970s and 80s.  I love his big genre mixing thrillers like Lightning, Cold Fire, and Twilight Eyes and more recently I have gained an appreciation for his earlier straight suspense novels like Shattered, After the Last Race, and Dragonfly.

I recently reread a short suspense novel written as by K. R. Dwyer titled Chase.  Benjamin Chase is a used up Vietnam veteran who received the Medal of Honor for an act he wants to forget.  He lives alone in an attic apartment.  He drinks to drown out the voices of the dead, and he wants to be left alone to grieve and regret.  His world tumbles into chaos when he saves a young woman from murder, and the would-be killer—a man who calls himself “Judge”—begins calling Ben on the telephone.      

Chase is a dark and disturbing novel.  It was written in the Vietnam-era and is infused with hard cynicism.  Chase is simple.  He is alone, guilty, and ashamed.  His isolation is perpetuated by the near hero worship, and simple minded patriotism, of the townsfolk.  He has judged himself as less than, but as Judge pursues his verdict against Chase, he is forced to face both himself and his demons.

Chase is all story, which is to say plot with a snatch of something close to meaning.  It is short and sleek.  It takes only a few pages to move from the opening scene banquet to the action.  That is not to say it is plotted from action scene to action scene because it isn’t; there is a legitimate mystery, and the psychology of the protagonist is interesting in itself, and the slow escalation of isolation between Chase and the police, and Chase and society creates a tension all its own.  The prose is crisp and with a touch of melancholy—

“Maybe it was better to be without a woman than to die and leave behind one who grieved so briefly as this.”      

It opens as a straight forward suspense novel—how will Chase save himself from Judge—to something approaching a vigilante novel.  The climax is both surprising and horrifying; even disturbing.  Its suddenness and violence surprised as much on my second reading as it did the first.  Chase isn’t one of Dean Koontz’s big novels, and it may not appeal to most of his current readership, but it a fine example of high velocity classic suspense.  But that ending is a killer.    

Chase was originally published by Random House in hardcover in 1972.  It was reissued in Mr Koontz’s collection Strange Highways in 1995.  The reissued version was touched up before its release, but what was changed, other than the addition of a brief opening chapter setting the time and place of the story, I’m not sure.

This review originally went live December 16, 2013.

JIMI AFTER DARK by Stephen Mertz

Jimi After Dark is the second novel in what I think of as Stephen Mertz’s musical mystery series, which isn’t an accurate moniker since the books are as much about the time and place of the tales’ setting as they are about the music and musicians. The first, Hank & Muddy (2011), was set in the 1950s and featured Hank Williams and Muddy Waters. Jimi After Dark is a 1960s novel set in 1970 London, near the end of Jimi Hendrix’s too-short life. Its genesis, as Mr. Mertz explains in his Afterword, is Jimi’s mostly disbelieved kidnapping claim by armed thugs and his ultimate rescue by other armed men.

From the start, Jimi is in trouble, legal trouble with his former manager Mike Jeffrey and another, more violent, trouble with more than one unknown source that may, or may not be related to the Kray Brothers—the East End crime syndicate brothers in prison when the story begins—and the Central Intelligence Agency. Jimi calls on his old Army buddy, unnamed in the story and simply called Soldier, for help. Soldier is fresh from his second tour in Vietnam with a tendency towards violence and a strong sense of duty and loyalty, which acts as an effective literary foil for Jimi’s hippie and gangster filled world.  

Jimi After Dark is an action crime novel with nicely executed action scenes, a few twists, and big ideas: friendship, loyalty, betrayal—the unexpected betrayal of friends and lovers and the more expected betrayal from governments—duty, honor, and the relationship between music and culture. The 1960’s culture war is dissected, Jimi on one side and Soldier on the other, wrapped inside a well-told, exciting story with the cleanest, strongest prose in the business. Jimi After Dark is Stephen Mertz’s best novel, and it should be on everyone’s reading list.

BEATING THE BUSHES by Christine Matthews

Vincent Lloyd is broken. His six-year old daughter disappeared a few years earlier, and he was the prime suspect. He was suspected by the police and hounded by the media. When a teenage boy named Steven Kracher disappears from the small town of Kimmswick, Missouri, Vincent sees his participation in the search as an atonement for his inability to protect his daughter.

The search is fruitless, and the media, recognizing Vincent, takes a few punches before turning its attention to Steven’s father, Baylor. Vincent and Baylor bond and as the years pass help each other heal, but Baylor, against all reason, is convinced his son is alive. A conviction that turns to hope, but leads to dark conspiracy.

Beating the Bushes is smoothly told with multiple perspectives—some in first and others in third—in an unrushed style. Its storyline is provocative in its depiction of the relationship between the media, ratings based television news sensationalism, and those left behind after the disappearance of a child. The initial sympathy turning quickly to insinuation and ultimately accusation. The characters are complicated and believable, and the relationship between Vincent and Baylor has a subtle depth.

The plot develops unexpectedly. It twists away from the expected in interesting and satisfying ways. It is less mystery and more thriller with a stylish grittiness—

“Rain, heat and claustrophobic humidity. While my feet swell, my boots shrink, and as much as I want to put on the dark glasses in my pocket when the migraines come, I don’t for fear of missing something. Something important.”

It viscerally depicts the sadness if losing a child, and preys on the fear of a parent. The possibility. The horror. Beating the Bushes is my first experience with the work of Christine Matthews, but it will definitely not be the last.

This review originally went live at Ed Gorman’s blog on November 8, 2015.

THE BIG NEEDLE by Ken Follett (Symon Myles)

The Big Needle is Ken Follett’s first published novel – as by “Symon Myles” in 1974 – and what it lacks in complexity and subtlety is readily overcome with its streamlined, almost men’s adventure-like, plotting and enthusiasm.   

Apples Carstairs is a wealthy London real estate investor. He is divorced with a seldom seen teenage daughter, Jane, and two live-in lovers he enjoys as something more than wanton distraction. Apples’ world shudders when his ex-wife arrives at his doorstep with dark news: “Jane is in hospital in a coma.” Jane’s coma is the result of a heroin overdose. Apples is stunned with guilt for ignoring his daughter for so many years and then anger toward the heroin pushers. In an instant, Apples decides to destroy the man responsible for importing heroin into London. Not the street pusher, or distributor, but rather the top-level executive of the enterprise. A man he calls, “Mr. H”. His mission leads him from the underworld of London to the streets of Marseilles and back.

The Big Needle is more action than crime novel. It is plotted from car chase to shoot out to sex scene, of which there are many, and back again. The criminal element – identifying and destroying London’s heroin syndicate – is less mystery and more obstacle to both Apples and the reader. And Apples uses a methodical, if unbelievable, approach to accomplishing his mission. Unbelievable, because of Apples’ easy access to the crime syndicate in England and its French supplier, which is forgivable because of the novel’s quick, linear plot and lean prose. It doesn’t hurt that there is a subtle tongue-in-cheek feel to the whole enterprise.

BRANDED by Ed Gorman

“He wanted to build himself a cigarette, but his hands were covered with the woman’s blood. There was something vile about cigarette paper soaked with blood.”

Rough Edges Press continues its revival of Ed Gorman’s classic western novels with its ebook release of Branded. Branded was originally published as a paperback original in 2004 by Berkley and didn’t get the play it deserved, but, thanks to this reissue it has and opportunity of reaching a larger audience.

Andy Malloy is nineteen and preoccupied by the daydreams of youth. Andy, Sir Andrew as he is known in the realm, imagines himself a knight of King Arthur’s Court where he is brave, just, and admired. But his reality is much different. He works as a store clerk, his father is a drunk, and his stepmother, Eileen, is petty and unfaithful. Arriving home from work Andy discovers Eileen lying dead on the couch, a gunshot wound to her forehead. His father, Tom, is the obvious suspect and Andy hides the body until Tom convinces Andy he isn’t the killer. The only problem is the Sheriff, a hard man with a reputation for beating and killing suspects, doesn’t believe any of it.

Branded is a superior western novel. It is a heady mixture of character, plot and action. Populated by real people who act and behave, at different times, both rationally and irrationally. A town gossip whose only joy is causing trouble, a violent lawman with a suspicious background, a town drunk whose personal frailty and desire for respect is painful, an isolated woman with a burned face. And townspeople who do their best to ignore it. The plot is closer to crime, shadows of serial killings no less, than a traditional western and there is a satisfying, and surprising, climactic twist. But it is also appealing as a traditional western and readers of both genres will find much to like here.              

Jack Higgins' Paul Chavasse: A Cold War Spy

This is the first two parts of a three part series about Harry Patterson’s Paul Chavasse novels, published in the 1960s by Abelard-Schuman and John Long.  The first two parts are an introduction to the character, and the third part is an analysis of the six titles to feature Paul Chavasse.  This essay was originally posted July 2, 2012.

Paul Chavasse:  An Introduction to the Cold War Spy Story

I.       Introduction

The 1960s were a decade of espionage—both in cold war machinations of super power maneuvering and popular fiction.  The popular front of the adventure spy story started when it was made public President John F. Kennedy enjoyed Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.  According to the JFK Presidential Library and Museum website, Allen Dulles, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, stated:

“‘Jacqueline Kennedy gave her husband his first James Bond book (probably From Russia, with Love).’  Dulles then began to buy other books, and sent them to John F. Kennedy.”

Ian Fleming’s work became a sensation, hitting the major bestseller lists and, in the decades since, becoming a pop culture icon; spawning a myriad of films and, after Fleming’s death, attracting authors great and small to continue the Bond series.  While the James Bond series is the most well known of the adventure spy genre, it is far from the best.  The most striking of its contemporaries was Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels—a series first appearing in 1960 with Death of a Citizen, and totaling 27 titles in its three decade run.  

In industry, and publishing is no different, when a commercial strike is made—in this case the rise of Fleming from midlist writer to bestselling phenomenon—a host of copycat products are rushed to market.  One of the many spy novels published in the wake of Fleming’s success was a slim volume published by Abelard-Schuman, a British publisher, in 1962 titled The Testament of Caspar Schultz (Testament).  The name on the copy was Martin Fallon, which was a pseudonym for a young Harry Patterson. 

The name Martin Fallon and Harry Patterson have a long and successful history.  Martin Fallon was used for the protagonist of two separate novels—the first was an early title, Cry of the Hunter, which was published in 1962 under Patterson’s own name, and the second was A Prayer for the Dying published in 1973 as by Jack Higgins.  Mr. Patterson has a tendency to repeat himself, and he did something very similar to the two incarnations of Martin Fallon: He killed both.  The novels are both very good, but A Prayer for the Dying is one of Patterson’s best.

II.    Chavasse

Testament featured a stark and hard protagonist named Paul Chavasse.  Chavasse was a former academic who caught the eye of Mallory, the boss of a British espionage agency answerable to the Prime Minister called “The Bureau,” when he helped a friend escape from Communist Czechoslovakia.  Mallory, known as “The Chief,” offered Chavasse a job while he was in hospital recovering from his wounds.  The Bureau is headquartered in an old house in St. John’s Wood—on a polished brass plate next to its main door is inscribed “Brown & Company – Importer’s & Exporter’s”.

Paul Chavasse is a recognizable character to readers of Harry Patterson; educated, exotic—he was derived from a Breton father and British mother—cynical in a romantic sort of way, and tired of the game he can’t, or really doesn’t want, to leave.  Chavasse’s personal life is not really explored in the novels; however, a paragraph from Testament summarizes his early life, in order to explain his French name—

“My father was a lawyer in Paris, but my mother was English.  He was an officer in the reserve—killed at Arras when the Panzers broke through in 1940.  I was only eleven at the time.  My mother and I came out through Dunkirk.”

The novels are serious adventure stories, but there is some humor.  Enough that it seems Patterson likely had a great time writing the Paul Chavasse novels.  An early scene in Testament finds The Chief explaining why Chavasse can’t have some much needed time off.  When Chavasse asks about two specific agents—Wilson and LaCosta—Mallory responds that Wilson is presumed dead in Ankara, and LaCosta—

“…cracked up after the affair in Cuba.  I’ve put him into the home for six months….I’m afraid we shan’t be able to use LaCosta again.”

Another example is a line from the 2001 edition of The Keys of Hell, where two characters are speaking of Chavasse’s excessive skill as a linguist, “He speaks more languages than you’ve had hot dinners.”

The Bureau is set up similarly to that of Fleming’s MI6.  The Chief is over the top and larger than life, and very, very British, and his private secretary, Jean Frazer, is all curves and someone Chavasse quite enjoys looking at—

“She was wearing a plain white blouse and tweed skirt of deceptively simple cut that moulded her round hips.  His eyes followed her approvingly as she walked across the room to her desk and sat down.” 

While his eyes are appreciative, Chavasse is anything but a womanizer, and his relationship with Jean Frazer is that of a friend.  Chavasse, like most of Patterson’s protagonists, has a romanticized view of women, which is often both a strength and weakness, but it always lends itself to the character’s loneliness—he is an outsider, isolated from a society that depends on his work to survive, and often a gentleman people look upon as fallen far below his stature. 

Chavasse always gets the job done and he does it with a complex mixture of larger than life exploit and human frailty; a mixture and style only Harry Patterson can routinely employ successfully.  It is atmosphere, dialogue and action.  When in top form Patterson can tell a character’s story with the singularity of the way he smokes a cigarette, stirs his drink, or looks at a woman.  The six novels to feature Paul Chavasse are a step below Patterson’s best work, but only just.

Part III.  Novels

1.  The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962)
2.  Year of the Tiger (1963)
3.  The Keys of Hell (1965)
4.  Midnight Never Comes (1966)
5.  Dark Side of the Street (1967)

To be continued...

THE WOLF IN THE CLOUDS by Ron Faust

The Wolf in the Clouds is Ron Faust’s second published novel. It was originally published as a hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill’s Black Bat Mystery imprint, then as a paperback by Popular Library, and recently as a trade paperback and ebook. It is, like much of Mr. Faust’s early work, a relatively simple adventure yarn with a poetic lilt that makes it a little more.   

A small town in rural Colorado is under siege from a slow moving blizzard and a rampage killer. A killer who shot several people at a nearby ski resort and is now hiding in the rugged Wolf Mountain Wilderness Area. The storm trapped three college students skiing in the shadow of the Wolf—a high, unforgiving mountain peak—and two forest rangers brave the freezing temperatures to mount a rescue. The rangers, Jack and Frank, find the skiers safely holed up in a small cabin, but they also find the killer; a man named Ralph Brace whom Jack once considered a friend, but now realizes he never knew at all.

The Wolf in the Clouds is an entertaining, smoothly written adventure novel. It is written in first person from Jack’s perspective and the narrative includes ideas larger than the story. The complexity of public land use is only one and it is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. The prose is both complex and simple; easy to read, but with a texture and feel of something almost beautiful—

“Roof timbers creaked, the last light faded from the windows, the stone walls exhaled a new, acid cold. The long winter night was here; we had fourteen or fifteen hours until dawn.”

The story lacks the complexity of Mr. Faust’s later novels and the protagonist, Jack, is shaded nearly cold. He is aloof, even in an early scene with his wife, and something of an outsider with both the Forest Service and the townsfolk, which is forgivable since everything works so well—setting, plotting, character. The Wolf in the Clouds isn’t in the top-tier of Mr. Faust’s body of work, which is reserved for his final six or seven novels, but it is still pretty damn good.

SHADOW GAMES by Ed Gorman

I have a particular fondness for Shadow Games. It is not only a terrific novel, but it was my introduction to the work of Ed Gorman. The year was 2000. I made a habit of studying and writing in a library not far from where I worked as a pizza delivery driver; a job I won’t recommend, but a job that treated me well just the same. My usual table was tucked at the back of the fiction stacks. I sat, my back to the wall, facing a bookshelf packed with the latest genre titles making study nearly impossible since the stories beckoned me.

There was one title that, day after day, caught my attention. It was a mass market paperback, black background with orange-red print and the large white Leisure Books logo—a publisher I miss badly—at the top of its spine. Its title, Shadow Games. When I finally relented and read Shadow Games, sitting right there in the library, its tale of Hollywood ambition, perversion, and lost potential, all told in a darkly humorous tone, made me a lifetime fan of Ed Gorman’s work.

It is the story of Cobey Daniels, a child television star, musician and, as the novel opens, the playwright and star of his own one man show. The play is autobiographical and humorously recalls Cobey’s life as a fallen Hollywood superstar. A life that has had more than a few public scandals. The most serious involved a sixteen-year-old girl in a Miami, Florida mall causing Cobey’s three-year stay in a Missouri mental hospital. But Cobey is better now, the addictions and mood swings are behind him. Or so Cobey thinks until he awakens in a Chicago apartment, difficulty remembering his name, a headless woman lying in a pool of her own blood on the kitchen floor.

Shadow Games is a dark ride across American pop culture—hero worship, sex, vanity, dizzying unreality, hypocrisy, cynicism and downright craziness. It is a crime novel at its center, but its view of Hollywood and its fandom illuminates modern culture in a manner both convincing and familiar. It is dark, possibly one of the three or four darkest tales I’ve read, but its humor—

“‘I know a lot of people think I’m a goody-goody because of my role on the show. Well, what’s wrong with being a clean-cut, all-American teenager?’

“Cobey Daniels, interviewed in Teen Scene, August, 1984”

“(Reporter)   The police are saying that you pulled a knife on the waitress because she wouldn’t serve you liquor. Any comments?

“(Cobey)   Yeah, just one. Why don’t you go f*ck off, you asshole?

“Cobey Daniels responding to KABC-TV reporter, May, 1985”

—lifts it from what, in lesser hands, could have been a deeply depressing story to a very readable and damn good novel.

Shadow Games, as it should be, is back in print with a high quality trade paperback from Short, Scary Tales. It has been, from what I can tell, lightly edited by the author and is titled Shadow Games and Other Sinister Stories of Show Business. It includes four of Ed Gorman’s finest short stories, “Scream Queen,” “Riff,” “Such a Good Girl,” and “Pards.” Do yourself a favor and buy it right now.