Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, May 8, 2009

Harry and an unnamed girl reading.



1. LAST FRIDAY IN MAY (29TH), VACATION TIME.
2. FIRST FRIDAY IN JUNE-NONFICTION FORGOTTEN BOOKS.

Jason Duke is a Sergeant in the U.S. Army and finished serving 15 months in Iraq as part of OIF 07-09. Before joining the Army he went to Arizona State University and earned a BA in Public Relations. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thuglit, Plots With Guns, 3am Magazine, Suspect Thoughts, Shred of Evidence, Outsider Ink, The Hiss Quarterly, Dungeon Magazine, The Murder Hole, and A Cruel World. He can be reached at dm_jasonduke@hotmail.com.
YELLOW MEDICINE by Anthony Neil Smith.

Most of you should know this guy or Plots With Guns which is the e-zine he edits. If you never heard of him, you’re probably new to the whole crime-noir scene, and I suggest you look him up and read his book YELLOW MEDICINE, then follow it up with HOGDOGGIN'.

I know Neil from back in the day when he first started up PWG. He closed up shop for a while, went on to write a few novels, one of them being Yellow Medicine, then started PWG back up.

So, I’m in Iraq last year and I’m surfing the internet one day during a short lull between mortar and rocket attacks, when I look up PWG for shits and giggles and lo and behold, I find the zine back up and running and Neil’s back to publishing edgy, hard-hitting, in-your-face crime fiction – the kind that kicks you in the nuts/punches you in the tit when you’re not looking and fucks your shit up bad.

I also notice Neil’s written YELLOW MEDICINE.

So I hit ‘em up with an email and say: ‘Anthony, You're back! How have you been? Glad to see you've resurrected the mag. What made you change your mind? In any case, glad you're back, you made the right decision.’ and he says: ‘Yes sir. Good to hear from you. It was really seeing MURDALAND that got me wishing I was still in the game. And I'd learned how to keep it small. The problem last time was that with me trying to pay, and dealing with too many people helping, it was getting too big. So this time, it's a streamlined operation, fewer issues per year. Hope you'll have start trying some stories with us.’

Well, of course I take his advice and send in some stories to him, and I also buy a copy of Yellow Medicine from Amazon.com. The guy has always supported my writing since the beginning of PWG, and I’m all about supporting other writers and returning the favor, so it’s the least I can do.

So I’m in Iraq, the place is a shithole, I got buddies getting blown up and shot, but I got this copy of Yellow Medicine, and whenever I sit down to read it, it helps take my mind off things, not to mention the fact that all the crazy shit that goes on in the book makes Iraq look like a walk in the park, no fucking joke.

You got the main character, Billy Lafitte – a crooked cop that taxes meth labs and diddles young college and high school girls – who is this totally despicable, unlikeable character; yet you can't bring yourself to fully dislike Lafitte because he's not completely unredeemable.

Lafitte does everything he can to protect the love interest of the story, Drew, has a devotion to his kids/family, refuses to join the terrorists that make his life hell as a consequence.

He’s like Dirty Harry, Chev Chelios, and Vic Mackey from The Shield, all tied into one.

And that edgy, hard-hitting, in-your-face style that kicks you in the nuts/punches you in the tit when you’re not looking, times that by ten and that’s Neil’s style and voice.

I didn’t like the ending, however, so I sent Neil another email: ‘Finished the rest of Yellow Medicine. Like I said before, great read. My only gripe is I felt it dragged on at the end, and I didn't like how the ending was left unresolved. I'm guessing you'll fill in the holes in Hogdoggin. I think leaving stuff unresolved works for short stories but not as well in novels. As a stand alone book this was kind of a let down for me; as the first in a series, not so much a let down perhaps, though I suppose the verdict's still out until I've read Hogdoggin.’ and he emailed back: ‘Thanks again for kind words on YM. Now, see, I was happy with the ending turning out like that. I think it felt exactly right for the character. It won't be a typical series. But I do plan on trying several books with these characters.’

And there you have it, Yellow Medicine.

If you don’t know him, Neil is definitely a writer worth checking out, and if you know him, then you know you won’t be disappointed with Yellow Medicine, or his follow up Hogdoggin which is next on my list of reads. Not only does he write some great crime fiction, but he’s also a very approachable guy as you can see. Don’t take my word for it, ask the dozens of writers who have had the privilege of making it into PWG, or hit Neil up on his website Crimedog One.


Ed Gorman is the author of many novels including the recently re-released FOOLS RUSH IN. You can find him blogging right here.

Night Walker, Donald Hamilton

Who was he, really, under the bandages?

When Navy Lieutenant David Young came to in a hospital bed, his face was covered with bandages and the nurses were calling him by a stranger’s name. But David’s nightmare was only beginning. Because the man they believed him to be was suspected of treason—and had driven his wife to murder.

Now David’s got to make his way through a shadow world of suspicion and deception, of dirty deals and brutal crimes, and he needs to stay one step ahead of enemies whose identity he doesn’t even know—since if he can’t, his impersonation of a dead man is about to become a lot more realistic...

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The storyline of the Night Walker was common in crime fiction from roughly the 1920s to the 1960s. What Hamilton brought to it was a new energy, a skill with standing a few of the tropes of their heads, and a surrealistic sense of nighttime much like the film version of Kiss Me Deadly. Even when it's daylight in this book it's midnight.

The other thing Hamilton did well was define, in a compelling way, the ethics or lack thereof, of the Cold War. Despite being an honorable military man, the hero is a victim of that war. Hamilton is careful to show that elements of the Cold War (from the U.S. point of view) were necessary. But being a good cynical citizen he also saw the excesses and gets them down here in dramatic fashion.

This is an exemplary chase novel, with a good deal of violence and some oddly sweet romance for leavening. Few writers were able to get the spy mentality down as believably as Hamilton and it pays off for him here in this moody page turner of a relentless Cold War noir.

The Matt Helm books were years away when Night Walker was published but Hamilton was already an old pro at depicting brutality and the dark side of governments.


Patti Abbott-PAST CARING, Robert Goddard

PAST CARING was the first of several Goddard books I've read over the years. It was nominated for a Booker Award and is reminiscent of Josephine Tey's DAUGHTER OF TIME.

All of Goddards books are mysteries, in the old-fashioned sense of the term, but each has something else going on as as well. Clearly the John Fowles influence is at play, too. There is a fantastical element at work.

Martin Radford, alienated and unemployed, travels to Madeira at the invitation of an old friend, now working on a newspaper. Luck continues to run for Radford when he is offered a job researching the inexplicable resignation of cabinet minister, Edwin Strafford. His sleuthing initiates a strange string of events which entangles him and those who believed they had eluded discovery.

Goddard is always fun to read. He's been writing for the last twenty years and has quite a few other similar novels if you can't track down this one.

More Forgotten Books

Martin Edwards
James Reasoner
Bill Crider
Kerrie Smith
The Rap Sheet
Richard Prosch

George Kelley
Ray Foster
Charles Gramlich
Col Bury
Todd Mason
Cullen Gallagher
Scott Parker
Jeremiah Ayres

PS-I didn't post links to any blog that didn't have a post up at nine o'clock. I off to the zoo. I'll check again on my return.