American Vampire Trailer

Reading

It has been shamefully quiet around here the past few months. The world--my world--has been a little tipsy-turvy, and not necessarily in a bad way. In fact it has been more good than bad, but I have been really busy. And reading is a form of relaxation that I constantly use as a source of calm. Unfortunately my time demands have made it difficult to write reviews recently, so here are a few titles that I have enjoyed over the past month or so without the benefit of a review.

I have been enjoying the work of the late-Robert Ludlum. I hadn't read any of his novels since the mid-1990s, but I picked up his first published novel The Scarlatti Inheritance and really enjoyed it. I also read, and liked, The Holcroft Covenant, although it would have benefited from a sharper pencil during the editing process. Ludlum's work is interesting because he has a very unique style, and while his writing can be verbose he keeps the story moving quickly with plots that are tricky without too man--what the hell!--twists.

I have also read several non-fiction titles, mostly history, both military and American history. A favorite was a little volume titled Inside the Green Berets. It takes a brief glimpse at the formation of Army Special Forces, the key personnel involved, and the major conflicts up through the early-1980s. The writer is Charles M. Simpson, III.

I also tend to listen to about one audiobook per week at work. My favorites have been full cast performances of David Morrell's spy thrillers The Brotherhood of the Rose and The Fraternity of the Stone. I have read both of these novels before, and the audio productions were very well done and captured my attention and imagination.

That's it for now, but I have a few reviews planned, and even an interview. Come back. I promise that I will.

Deja Vu

I was cruising Dorchester's website looking at the new batch of Westerns being released in March, and was hit with a powerful sense of deja vu--see below.













It is a great cover.

The Ed Gorman title--Shoot First--is a terrific novel. It is out of print, but shouldn't be hard to find. It is one of my favorite Gorman Westerns.

I haven't read any of Cameron Judd's work, but I might start with this one. The description at the Dorchester website reads:

Deputy Luke Cable’s job has gotten a whole lot harder lately. He’s been acting marshal since Marshal Ben Keely left on a trip east—and disappeared. It’s up to Luke to keep the peace, and that’s hard to do since the arrival of the Outlaw Train, a traveling collection of curiosities, including the remains of notorious outlaws. But not all the outlaws in town are dead. Scar Nolan is very much alive. He came to town right after the train pulled in. He’s killed before and unless Luke can stop him he’s aiming to do it again aboard the...OUTLAW TRAIN

Dead Lines

I stumbled across an interesting webzine a few days ago. It is called Dead Lines, and it features both fiction and non-fiction in the dark fantasy / suspense genres. It is new. The third issue is fresh on the ether, and it features stories by Jeff Strand, Tim Waggoner, Wrath James White, Gord Rollo, and W. D. Gagliani. A who's who of Leisure's latest lineup of horror authors.

There is also a rundown of the best horror novels of the decade: 2000 - 2009. It features 51 titles; I have read a whopping nine of them. Although the nine I have read I agree with. A few examples are, The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli, The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon, The Lost by Jack Ketchum, The Missing by Sarah Langan, three by Stephen King and two by Peter Straub. Its biggest weakness: It's just a list. Click Here to read it.

Dead Lines is worth a look. I haven't read all of the stories, but so far so good.

To visit click Here

Book Trailer: A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

THE MASTER SNIPER by Stephen Hunter

You may have noticed, or maybe not, that it has been overly quiet around here the past few weeks. It's been a busy first few weeks of the year, but everything seems to be calming down and we--my wife and I--are getting back into the natural rhythm of life so, with a little luck, I should be back to getting two or three posts up per week shortly. Until then, here is a review I wrote a few years ago for an older Stephen Hunter novel.
I’ve been in a thriller mood recently, but most of what the current crop of thriller writers puts out doesn’t do much for me. Their writing seems flat, uninteresting, and their plots are full of holes and so unbelievable that I usually can’t get through the first fifty pages. It doesn’t help that many of them are 500 pages long or more. That’s why I recently read an older novel written by a thriller writer who has never disappointed me. The novel: The Master Sniper. The writer: Stephen Hunter.

The Master Sniper is an early novel by Stephen Hunter; it was originally published in 1980. It is a thriller of the Second World War—a sub-genre I love—and it reminded me just a little of Jack Higgins’ bestselling The Eagle Has Landed.

Captain Leets is an officer with the Office of Strategic Services, a paper-pusher really, who specializes in Nazi firearms. He, as everyone else, is waiting out the war. It is January 1945, and the Nazis are against the ropes. They still have enough muscle to do some damage, but the end of the war is in sight, and no one wants to take too many chances, and Captain Leets is no different.

That all changes when a strange report crosses his desk: a small shipment of Stermgewehr-44s—an assault rifle that was produced and requisitioned in the thousands—was sent from the factory to a place called Anlage Elf. Leets isn’t sure why, but something bothers him about this shipment of rifles. It’s not just the number of rifles being shipped, but no one has heard of the requesting agency, and why would the Germans risk shipping such a small amount of rifles across the country when the war is lost?

This sets up a mystery that Captain Leets will struggle to solve throughout the rest of the novel. He will go against his superiors, participate in a parachute raid of an enemy camp, discover things about himself that he doesn't like, alienate friends, and slowly, ever so slowly discover what the Germans are up to.

The Master Sniper is a rewarding read. The prose is quick and spry, while the plot is rich enough to keep you guessing until shortly before the end. Mr. Hunter ratchets the tension and suspense perfectly, and the characters are enjoyable and likable—Mr. Hunter does an excellent job of creating a likable hero, while also creating a villain who doesn’t seem terribly bad until the novel begins to unwind, and then he is unmasked as a truly despicable and dangerous person.

"Duel"

Duel was an ABC movie of the week originally aired in November 1971. It was Steven Spielberg’s first crack at directing a movie, and he really delivered. It was filmed on location in thirteen days and the final product feels more like a feature film than a made-for-television movie. The camera work is impressive. There are several beautiful low-angle moving shots on the highway and an impressive freehand, documentary-style, scene shot in a truck stop.

The story is relatively simple—a salesman traveling a California highway passes a slow moving tanker truck. The driver of the tanker takes exception, and the rest of the story unfolds as the truck chases David Mann (the salesman) along the narrow two-lane highway. The driver of the truck is never revealed, which creates a sense of broad-based terror as the antagonist actually becomes the truck.

Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay, based on his novelette, and it is a taut and linear tale of a normal man trapped in a situation where only he can save himself. It is a little Alfred Hitchcock, and a whole lot Richard Matheson. The film is faithful to the novelette, but there are a few additional scenes and an extension of one—the truck stop scene was lengthened and improved over the story. Dennis Weaver—playing David Mann—creates an anxiety that is realistic; I saw a whole lot of myself in his reactions and behavior.

The original television version was released in a 90-minute time slot. The actual film clocked in at around 73-minutes, but it was lengthened to 90-minutes and released as a feature film in Europe. The current DVD is the 90-minute version, and my understanding is that Spielberg extended a couple scenes and added one. I haven’t seen the original version, but I really can’t imagine that it was any better than the longer theatrical version.

Duel is worth seeking out. The DVD is priced at around $10, and it is worth every penny. It also includes two lengthy interviews with Spielberg, and one with Richard Matheson. The original novelette should also be read. In fact, read it and then watch the film. It is available in two current editions: Duel: Terror Stories and Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 3.

The Move: Part 2

Warning: It is going to be quiet around here for a few days. We are moving back to Salt Lake City, from the beautiful and oh so rural college town of Cedar City. My office gave me a leave of absence to finish my masters degree, which is now complete, and I have to be back at the office on 4-Jan-10. We are moving on Monday December 28, and we should be in our new place December 29. The summer of fun is over....

See you next week.

Happy Holidays!

It’s been a wonderful year for my wife and I, and the holiday season has been no different. We are having a quiet Christmas this year—we watched the first two episodes of Rose Red last night (we’ll finish it tonight) and today we are going to spend the afternoon in Zion National Park.

I hope your holiday is as wonderful. Thanks for reading.

BARBED WIRE by Elmer Kelton

I have listened to few audio books. I never seem to have time; at work I tend to concentrate on work and lose the plot and action. In my car I tend to listen to, and curse at, traffic. But my wife gave me an MP3 a few days ago and it took me about two hours to download a book from the library, and I really enjoyed it.

The novel was a short western by Elmer Kelton. The title: Barbed Wire. It was originally published in 1957, and it has lost little of its impact over the fifty years since its first publication. It is a Texas range war story that is told, essentially, from the perspective of a fence builder—although it is told from several view points. The land is split between ranchers and dirt farmers; it is open range country, and the largest rancher—Captain Rinehart—wants it to stay that way.

The story unfolds as the Captain battles against the coming fences that will lock away the water, and cut the land into tiny rectangles of farms and ranches. It is the future; this separation of land that will allow herds to be bred exclusively, crops to be secured against the roaming cattle, and the protection and hoarding of water in a dry country. It is a future that terrifies the Captain enough that he is willing to let himself be mislead into action by his foreman.

Barbed Wire is an excellent western. It is only my second experience with the work of Elmer Kelton, the first was his novel Badger Boy, and I wasn’t disappointed. The plot is fairly generic, but its execution, characters and authenticity, mark it a few notches better than the norm. The prose is gritty and matches the western plot like a glove—

“It was a sorry way for a cowboy to make a living, Doug Monahan thought disgustedly. Bending his back over a rocky posthole, he plunged the heavy iron crowbar downward, hearing its angry ring and feeling the violent jar of it bruising the stubborn rock bottom. He rubbed sweat from his forehead into his sleeve and straightened his sore back, pausing to rest a moment and look around.”

The plot is executed with a tight linear momentum that takes the expected and makes it fresh and somehow new. The characters are tough and realistic, the action is paced with an equitable easiness—a pace that is far from melodramatic, but is exciting and seemingly authentic.

Ken Marks read Barbed Wire. His voice is mellow and southern, a perfect fit for the story. He is easy to understand and he brings the story vividly to life.

Short Film: The Ugly File

A few months ago I mentioned a short film based on Ed Gorman's short story "The Ugly File". It is now available to watch on the Internet. It was directed by Mark Steensland (Peekers) and the screenplay was written by veteran horror novelist Rick Hautala. It was produced by another familiar name, Richard Chizmar.

It is a faithful adaptation, and really pretty good. The streaming quality isn't top-notch, but it will do.

RIDERS OF THE SHADOWLANDS by H. A. DeRosso

I recently read another H. A. DeRosso collection—after Under the Burning Sun—edited by Bill Pronzini . Its title: Riders of the Shadowlands. It was published by Five Star in 1999, and it is similar to Under the Burning Sun in that it collects ten of DeRosso’s western-type stories—two were published by mystery magazines, although one is a strange kind of mystery. The tales are less eclectic than the first collection, but no less entertaining, existential, or downright terrific.

The stories in this collection are also lightly edited—James Reasoner in a comment to my post about Under the Burning Sun said, “I compared a couple of the stories in the collection to their original magazine appearances and found only a very few changes.” Mr. Pronzini also states that he only edited superfluous, and redundant words. I only mention the editing because of the recent Internet flare-up about the new Harlequin pulp editions that were edited for content—a situation that is far different than the editing in this volume.

My favorite stories included in the collection are both tales of the “shadowlands.” One is a short story and the other a novella. The novella is the title story, “Riders of the Shadowlands,” a fairly conventionally plotted rustler tale. Its ordinariness ends at the plot however. It is a violent story in a hellish setting with a hardboiled / noir attitude. It has more in common with the hardboiled crime written in the 1950s, but the western setting and attitudes are accurate and beautifully described in a hard-bitten, stark prose.

There is a terrific mystery titled “Dark Purpose,” which was originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine (April 1958) under the title “Kill the Killer.” It is a manhunt story set in the wilds of Northern Wisconsin. The wilderness, and landscape, are as central to the story as they are in DeRosso’s “shadowlands” tales. In fact it is as much a western as any of the stories included in the collection.

Riders of the Shadowlands does not include a dud; each is vibrant, entertaining, and dark. The stories were published between 1950 and 1962, and each is an example of how talented and original DeRosso was as a writer.

Top Five Reads of 2009

I’m not sure why I do a top of the year list; probably the same reason I do anything on this blog: to hear myself type. But damn if I don’t enjoy it. So here is the fourth annual Gravetapping Top Five Reads of the Year…enjoy…. And, a little refresher on the rules. The book must be new to me, but its publication date is unimportant.

This year’s list was more difficult to create than its predecessors because, simply, I read so many wonderfully entertaining novels. The year was a year of discovery. I discovered a dozen or so new authors, the bulk of them wrote during the paperback revolution in the 1950s and 60s and I also rediscovered a bevy of authors whom I had ignored for years. The most important from the latter group is Brian Garfield and Donald Hamilton, and from the former H. A. DeRosso, Merle Constiner and Robert Colby.

Here it is, in ascending order.

5. Line of Fire by Donald Hamilton. I read this title in March and I was awed by the power of both its linear storyline and tight, literate, prose. A perfect suspense novel.

4. Cage of Night by Ed Gorman. This is another early 2009 read; I read it in April. It is a story that doesn’t fit a category, exactly, but it lives somewhere between dark suspense, supernatural horror and crime. It is one of the finest horror novels I have ever read.

3. Under the Burning Sun by H. A. DeRosso. I read this one in December. This is a collection of stories written, for the most part, in the 1950s and 60s. The stories, particularly the “shadowlands” westerns are unforgettable. DeRosso was thirty or more years ahead of his time.

2. Fear in a Handful of Dust by Brian Garfield (originally published as by John Ives). I read this title in July. This modern western / suspense novel knocked me off my feet. It is literally perfect. A masterpiece of suspense.

1. Violent Saturday by W. L. Heath. I read it in May. There are only a few crime novels I would ever refer to as beautiful—defined as haunting, sharp, and meaningful—and this is one of them. It is a novel that everyone should read. Really, I mean everyone.

This list easily could have gone to ten of fifteen titles, but I sweated, worked, chaffed, and even cried a few times in my attempts to reduce it to the mandatory five. A few more titles that could have made the list but didn't are: Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs, North Star by Richard S. Wheeler, The Midnight Room and Ticket to Ride by Ed Gorman, Necessity by Brian Garfield, Binary by John Lange, and Slammer by Allan Guthrie.

All in all 2009 was a fine year for reading. I bet 2010 will be just as good.

TICKET TO RIDE by Ed Gorman

The eighth, and reportedly last, Sam McCain novel opens in 1965 at a Vietnam peace rally in Black River Falls, Iowa. The rally is held in the local Presbyterian Church and after 90 minutes of the same arguments—being spoken by different people—McCain is ready to leave the rally for the comforts of a double feature at the drive-in. But then as the newest local superstar, a pretty boy named Harrison Doran, is speaking a man takes the stage and asks to rebut the protestor’s arguments.

The man is not only the father of a casualty of war, his son died in Da Nang, but he is also a prominent and wealthy resident of Black River Falls. His name is Lou Bennett, and it doesn’t take long for boos to start and the scene to turn ugly. There is an altercation between Doran and Bennett, and then later that night Bennett is found dead. Harrison Doran is the likeliest suspect. McCain doesn’t like Doran, but he is enlisted to defend him, and it is a position that makes Sam less than popular amongst the mostly conservative population.

Ticket to Ride is a real treat. It features all of the regulars; the town’s pornographer, writer of sleaze, and McCain buddy Kenny Thibodeau, Judge Esme Anne Whitney, Jamie Newton—McCain’s guileless, but less than competent secretary—and the obnoxious and usually wrong police chief Clifford (Cliffie) Sykes, Jr. Mr Gorman perfectly captures the essence of small town America and he does it with a subtleness that never succumbs to cliché or stereotype. His characters are living, breathing people, who are never clearly good or bad—he shows their humanity in brief and poignant moments of vulnerability, weakness, and strength.

The plot is smooth and sharp; the prose is understated, readable and powerful—

“I wanted to say something smart, but his honesty surprised me. He was admitting that all the scorn hurt him. He had no right to tell me this, because, at least for the moment here, I had to feel bad about making fun of him all the time. Cliffie was supposed to be a cartoon. It pissed me off that he’d forced me to see him as a human being.”

The amazing achievement of Ticket to Ride is that it is written with a humor and innocent cynicism that allows the story a power of both place and time, and also a social commentary that is relevant for the story's Vietnam-era setting, as well as that of modern America. It is simple a brilliantly rendered private eye novel that is a wonderful addition to the series and the genre.

"Dance of the Dead"

I watched a decent little horror film a few days ago called "Dance of the Dead." It is marketed as part of the Ghost House Underground; whatever that is. It is a clever and humorous look at the zombie tale. The violence is silly, rather than realistic, and the plot is built less for suspense and more for sheer fun and comedy. It is a decent quality independent / low-budget film.

"Dance of the Dead" was written by Joe Ballarini, and directed by Gregg Bishop.

Warning: The trailer is rated R.



IMDb page.

UNDER THE BURNING SUN by H. A. DeRosso

I read an astonishingly good collection of stories by pulp writer H. A. DeRosso titled Under the Burning Sun. The collection includes twelve stories; two are novelettes. Ten are straight westerns, although generally far from traditional, and the other two are suspense with a western voice. It was compiled and edited by Bill Pronzini; in his Foreword he writes the stories, save one, were lightly edited “to eliminate superfluous and repetitive passages contained in the original magazine versions.”

This collection is my first experience with DeRosso’s work and I was stunned by the power of his writing. It tended toward the unusual and bleak, the mythical and surreal, but it also vitalized the characters with a hard-bitten sadness and self-awareness that is rarely found in genre fiction. A major theme in the stories is one of hope, but it is hope that is never fulfilled.  The characters—the protagonists—can see a better place and future, but can never quite get there.

The best story in the collection is a novelette titled “The Bounty Hunter”. It is what Bill Pronzini labels a “shadowlands” story—a surreal western that is related more to the bleak other worlds of The Twilight Zone than a traditional western. It reminded me of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger.  It is a relatively simple story, and follows the track of a bounty hunter called Spurr. Spurr kills an outlaw who, he is told later, may be his own son. It is a mythical story—from the beautifully surreal landscape to the internal demons that drive Spurr to search for the truth.

The other stories range from the more traditional “Hold-up”—the story of the father of a failing rancher who is forced to choose between his self-identified morality and both his, and his son’s, future—to the rich rendering of the final months of the Chiricahuas’ fight to stay off the reservation in “The Last Sleep”.

Under the Burning Sun is more than a collection of western stories. It is a sample of how good the genre story can be. The violence—and there is some—is realistic and vivid. It is examined with a neutrality that allows the reader to see its effects on the characters and story. The “shadowlands” tales—“The Bounty Hunter” and “Those Bloody Bells of Hell!”—are brilliant.  The prose is written in a surreal form that depicts the landscape as a hellish nightmare where only monsters exist. It is best related to a high quality comic book; something like Jonah Hex.

Under the Burning Sun is a wonderful collection. It reads like a train steaming through the vast deserts of the Southwest; desolate, beautiful, and deadly. Bill Pronzini relates DeRosso’s style to the Black Mask school of hardboiled in general, and Cornell Woolrich’s work particularly.

And the Winner is...

A winner was randomly chosen from the list of entrants to receive the ACE Double (G-638) The Action at Redstone Creek by Merle Constiner / A Time to Shoot It Out by Edwin Booth. Thanks to everyone who entered; there were enough that I may do another contest. Maybe. The winner is...Craig Clarke. Congratulations Craig. Also, you should check out Craig's terrific blog Somebody Dies where he reviews crime, western, and more.

Also related to the contest, I received several terrific recommendations for pulp western writers. Including:

Donald Hamilton, Marvin H. Albert (aka Al Conroy), Harry Whittington, H.A. DeRosso--I just started a story collection and so far I am blown away by the bleak power of his writing--T.T. Flynn, Peter Dawson, Luke Short, Clifton Adams, and Jack Slade.

Thanks to everyone!

"The View" by Brian Garfield

I found an older issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine over the holiday weekend—July 1983—that contained a Brian Garfield story. It cost a princely two dollars; it didn’t take long to both purchase it and devour the Garfield story. Not long enough at all since the short stories of Brian Garfield are more difficult to find than one would think.

The story is titled “The View” and it is a California story—land developers, Hollywood actors, and deep muscle massage professionals. There is also a murder, a touch of adultery, a terrific view, and a condominium builder who wants to take it—the view—away.

Christopher works as a massage therapist, but his true ambition is as a screenwriter. He has several clients on a mountaintop overlooking the Los Angeles basin, and as the story opens he is at the front door of former film star Tom X. Todhunter—an 84 year-old veteran of both silent films and talkies. The old man doesn’t answer and when Christopher tries the knob it opens and he finds Todhunter looking forlornly out the large picture window at the back of his house.

It seems that his neighbor, also a client of Christopher’s, has purchased the surrounding properties with the intention to build a large condominium complex that will completely block Tom’s view. And he is less than excited about the prospect. He tells Tom that they need to stop it from happening, but damn if he knows how….

“The View” is pure fun. It is less mystery and more suspense. It is expertly plotted and written, just as one would expect from Mr Garfield, but there is also a touch of humor and poetic justice. The prose is understated and the story moves with a quick and light pace—it is made for reading, and it reads with a pleasant and expert smoothness. The characters are surprisingly well defined in short space, and the story is perfect for a lazy bedtime read.

“The View” is a professional and competent story and it begs the question; Why isn’t there a Brian Garfield collection available on the market. He is one of the defining writers of both suspense and western fiction from his generation and both his short work, and for the most part, his novels are largely forgotten. If anyone is listening, I will be the first in line to buy a Brian Garfield collection when it is published.

New Authors: 2009

Last year I participated in a meme that asked for a list of all the writers I read for the first time. I really enjoyed it. This year there has been no such meme, but J. Kingston Pierce over at The Rap Sheet made a list and I thought I would follow his lead.

The list is in order of reading. I excluded all non-fiction. I have also included any additional titles I read by the author in 2009. I added ten new fiction writers to my personal “read” library—the exact number as I added in 2008. Five of the 10 are pulp writers and the other five are contemporary, although the novels were original published anywhere from the mid-1990’s to 2009.

Stephen J. Cannell
—On the Grind, February

Paul Harris
—The Secret Keeper, April

Jack Kilborn (aka J.A. Konrath)
—Afraid, May

W.L. Heath
—Violent Saturday, May

Stuart Kaminsky
—The Rockford Files: The Green Bottle, June
—The Rockford Files: Devils on My Doorstep, September

J.M. Flynn
—Deep Six, June

Robert Colby
—The Quaking Widow, July

Sid Jacobson
—Vlad the Impaler, October

Edmond Hamilton
—Fugitive of the Stars, October

Merle Constiner
—The Action at Redstone Creek, November
—Guns of Q Cross, November

Odds & Ends: Thanksgiving Style

1. My wife and I are going to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in style—in Las Vegas, Mojave, and maybe, just maybe Baker, California. It is where all the truly beautiful people go for holidays. So needless to say it’s going to be a little quiet around here for a few days.

2. If you are of the mind there is an interesting essay on the Dorchester website written by Ed Gorman about his recent Leisure release Death Ground. He gives an idea of its origin and even discusses a review that compared it to a Spaghetti Western. Click Here

3. I’ve been reading pulp writer Merle Constiner recently and he really had a knack for writing witty and downright funny dialogue. I finished his novel Guns at Q Cross yesterday and the following line has rattled through my head more than once:

"He'd be more at home with a green buffalo hide, behind a pile of manure."

And don’t forget that I am giving away a copy of Constiner’s The Action at Redstone Creek. The deadline is November 30, 2009. Click Here

4. This is probably old news to most of you, but I discovered a fantastic website that has .pdf files of hundreds of old pulp stories. The stories include the full text—very clean and easy to read—as well as any illustrations that ran with the story. The site is PulpGen.com. If you haven’t been there, you should take a look around. Click Here

5. Happy Thanksgiving!