(Ed Gorman from the archives)
I've written before about Richard Neely. He wrote standalone crime novels that pretty much covered the entire range of dark suspense. I mentioned that in the best of them the weapon of choice is not poison, bullets or garrote. He always preferred sexual betrayal.
Plastic is a good example. Using amnesia as the central device, Dan Mariotte must reconstruct his life. Learning that the beautiful woman at his bedside all these months in the hospital--his wife--may have tried to kill him in a car accident is only the first of many surprises shared by Mariotte and the reader.
What gives the novel grit is Neely's take on the privileged class. He frequently wrote about very successful men (he was a very successful adverts man himself) and their women. The time was the Seventies. Private clubs, private planes, private lives. But for all the sparkle of their lives there was in Neely's people a despair that could only be assuaged (briefly) by sex. Preferably illicit sex. Betrayal sex. Men betrayed women and women betrayed men. It was Jackie Collins only for real.
Plastic is a snapshot of a certain period, the Seventies when the Fortune 500 dudes wore sideburns and faux hippie clothes and flashed the peace sign almost as often as they flashed their American Express Gold cards. Johny Carson hipsters. The counter culture co-opted by the pigs.
The end is a stunner, which is why I can say little about the plot. Neely knew what he was doing and I'm glad to see his book back in print. Watching Nerely work is always a treat.
7 comments:
Neely is one of those authors I keep meaning to read, but haven't (yet), Patti. I appreciate the reminder that his work is out there waiting for me...
THE PLASTIC NIGHTMARE might be Neely's best book.
I haven't read him either despite hearing about this book for many years.
I am going to look for it today. I need a good mystery.
The film version, SHATTERED, was disappointing, despite a good cast (Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins, Greta Scacchi, Joanne Whalley were the marquee names), adapted and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Neely wasn't always consistent...THE WALTER SYNDROME, probably his most widely-read novel, is good as I remember it, but THE JAPANESE MISTRESS is contrived beyond tolerance. One of the dangers of always going for a Big Twist Ending, particularly in a novel (or, to a lesser extent, a feature-length film, which is more akin to a novelet). I still need to read THE PLASTIC NIGHTMARE myself.
And the other problem with twist-ending novels is that if you're looking for a "fair-play" mystery...you're probably looking in the wrong place...
Yes, the big twist has grown very tiresome.
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