Friday's Forgotten Books, December 17, 2010

See you again for forgotten book reviews on Friday, January 7 and then the 14th. After that these kind folks will pick up the baton while we sabbaticalize. Send them a forgotten book review or a link.

Schedule:

January 21: Evan Lewis
January 28: Kerrie Smith
February 4: Todd Mason
February 11: George Kelley

Patrick Downey is the author of Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld 1900-1935 and Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers and Chaos in New York City 1920-1940. He is currently preparing to self-publish a book on the gangster Jack Legs Diamond. You can visit him at his blog http://deadgangster.blogspot.com

Varney, the Vampire, James Malcolm Ryner

I was a monster movie geek as a kid and I’ve always remembered an illustration from one of the books I had on the subject. It was from an old penny dreadful called Varney the Vampire or, The Feast of Blood and it showed a skeletal bloodsucker about to bite into a sleeping woman. For some reason the name always stuck with me and, if I remember correctly, the author of said monster movie book stated that the Varney story was long gone.

Fast forward about thirty years and there I am surfing around the internet and just for funnsies I type in Varney the Vampire and low and behold I’m taken to Amazon.com. Turns out Varney has been dusted off, semi-edited, and is available once again for consumption. I had to buy it.

Varney was the first popular vampire story preceding Bram Stoker’s Dracula by about fifty years. It is interesting to see what effects and doesn’t effect a vampire from 150 years ago as opposed to what Hollywood has taught us. If you can enjoy a good yarn for what it is and have fun with a melodramatic, occasionally boring, perhaps a bit clichéd (a sailor that actually says “Shiver me timbers”) story originally meant for the masses and not the literati then you may enjoy this book.

As a penny dreadful it was cranked out a few chapters every week and sold to, well, people like me. Varney’s author, James Malcolm Rymer was paid by the word when this was being published so sometimes what could be said in five words may take fifteen. Also there are times when the author pads the word count with detours. For example during a conversation one of the characters may say, “That reminds me of story.” And then he takes the next two pages to tell the story. The good news is if you aren’t interested in the side stories you can skip them as they have absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

When it was originally released as a serial Varney’s popularity was so great that it ran for about two years, hence the hefty page count. I enjoyed the book but also went in with an open mind. As I said it can be melodramatic and wordy but it is also fun. It’s a penny dreadful and I think that in itself pretty much tells you what to expect. You got your aristocratic vampire who, unlike Stoker’s vampire, is a sympathetic villain, a rich family on the skids, angry towns people and at the heart of it a mystery. I was struck by how human nature hasn’t really changed over the years. Characteristics such as greed, fear, mob mentality, lying, gossiping are all in there. I think that’s one of the reasons the story is readable, though it takes place in an English town in the early Nineteenth Century, the recognizable traits could easily place the story in a New England town in the early Twenty-first Century (that is if people in the New England town said things like, “Hilloa!”, “Ay” and “Indeed!” and maybe they do. I haven’t spent much time there.)

Part of the fun for me when reading was imagining the Londoners of 1845, when it was first printed, gathering around their lamps or candles getting their weekly dose. That’s a good way to read it. A few chapters every week like it was originally meant to be consumed. That way, if you need a break, you can take a few nights off then come back without losing anything.

The book is from Zittaw Press and is edited by Curt Herr, a professor of Gothic literature, who also wrote the introduction and notes. With Varney you really get a lot of book for your buck. In addition to The Feast of Blood, which runs about 750 pages (oversized book with small print) you also get back matter consisting of four appendixes:

1- Penny Bloods and Penny Dreadfuls, (four more short stories.)

2- Nineteenth Century Essays on the Perils of Penny Dreadfuls

3- Contemporary Scholarship on Penny Dreadfuls and Varney the Vampire

4- Woodcuts from the original printing of Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood.

A penny dreadful about a vampire, it’s pretty much worth the cover price just to say you own it.

Ed Gorman is the author of Stranglehold, Ticket to Ride and numerous short stories, westerns, and crime fiction tales. You can find him here.

A TOUCH OF DEATH by Charles Williams

I spent a good share of last night reading Hard Case Crime's snappy edition of A Touch of Death by Charles Williams and I'll say what I've said before about this book. It likely has more plot turns than early James M. Cain, a writer whose influence on Williams is clear. But I have to point out quickly that he made this particular set of tropes his own. His men are not those of Postman or even Double Indemnity. His men are smarter--but to no avail.

One of Charles Williams' amoral failed men narrate. He was briefly a football star. Now he's a busted real estate agent. No wonder he gets interested, after initial reluctance, in stealing one hundred twenty thousand dollars that a bank president took from his own bank. The woman who convinces him to help her makes it sound simple. It's probably in this mansion. All you have to do is get in there and find it. The bank president's wife won't be home for two days. You'll have plenty of time.

Right. Well, we know better than that, don't we? Yes, he gets in but he finds he's not alone. The woman is there, beautiful beyond description, and drunk beyond belief. But so is a killer. After saving her life, failed star takes her to a cabin in the woods where he plans to persuade her to tell him where the money is.

That's the beginning. Everybody in this book is a professional liar as Andre Gide said of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. And the bank president's wife is the most fatale of femmes. She lies on virtually every page and occasionally almost gets them killed. That she knows where the money is is obvious. That she killed her husband is also obvious. But who is trying to kill her and why?

There is a sadness, a sorrow, in Williams that informs much of his work. It's not the usual noir feeling that the world is rotten. These men know that they themselves are rotten. And are not so smart after all. If David Goodis wrote suicide notes and Jim Thompson (in The Killer Inside Me) pleaded for understanding, Charles Williams frequently took us on guided tours of lust and greed and men who almost consciously destroyed themselves. Maybe it's what they really wanted all along.

Kent Morgan lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba where in retirement he co-writes two sports columns, plays hockey twice a week, and tries to figure what to do with all the books in his house and garage. He admits that he didn't need that box of 15 books that arrived this week from Bookcloseouts.com.

In A True Light – John Harvey – Carroll & Graf 2002

In 1998, John Harvey won the first-ever Sherlock Award for the best detective, Charlie Resnick, created by a British author. When he decided to stop writing the Resnick series, he opted to write a standalone where he could use his interest in both art and music in the storyline. The result is this book which received well-deserved raves from book reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic. Sloane is a 60-year-old painter who is just out of prison after serving time for duplicating fine art for a dealer. He takes the rap and doesn’t squeal on the dealer who promised him 20,000 pounds on his release. After he collects the money, he is contacted by a woman in Italy who tells him a prominent artist with whom he had a fling in New York when he was 18 is dying and wants to see him. She claims that Sloane is the father of her estranged daughter, who is a jazz singer in the States, and asks him to find her. This takes him back to New York where he discovers the younger woman is involved with a man who beats her and has ties to organized crime. Sloane isn’t convinced that the woman is his daughter and despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to want him in her life and any help with her problems that includes drugs, he can’t stop himself from getting involved. The story moves back and forth from New York to London and Pisa and Harvey’s characters jump off the page as Sloane attempts to resolve his issues as well as the woman’s problems. This is one of the few books I have read in recent years that I didn’t want to put dow

Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Cullen Gallagher
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Marv Lachman
Brian Lindenmuth
Todd Mason
David Rachels (Also check out David's blog for a comprehensive list of all Gil Brewer's short stories.
James Reasoner
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith

How I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Charles Allen Gramlich

How I Came to Write This Book:

Swords of Talera

When I first started writing, I honestly never gave any thought to publishing or making money from my writing. I grew up loving to read, and my favorite type of book was adventure fiction written by authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alan Burt Akers (Ken Bulmer), and Robert E. Howard. I could never get enough, and when I wasn’t reading I was often imagining my own stories, set on my own versions of the planets of Barsoom, Kregen and Almuric. Eventually, my fantasy world came to be called Talera.

I hear my author friends talking sometimes about writing “the book of their heart.” Often, these are published authors who are waiting for the right time to write the book that is closest to them emotionally. Swords of Talera I was the book of my heart. I wrote it because I couldn’t get the characters and setting out of my mind. I wrote the first draft as fast as my pen could move across the paper. I was in graduate school at the time, and though I had a lot to do I stayed up late every night to write. I wrote anytime I had a moment’s break from work; I wrote the whole time I was home for Thanksgiving break. I loved every minute of it. I guess you could say I wrote it because of how much fun it was. Swords of Talera was truly a labor of love.

Charles Gramlich is a professor of psychology. Aside from the Talera series, he has written several other novels, poetry, a chapbook, and a book on writing, Write with Fire. You can find him here.

Start the Movie Rolling

I have good friends who will go to virtually any movie with Johnny Depp. Other friends who wouldn't miss a movie directed by Scorsese. One or two who never miss a romantic comedy. And there's those (a lot of them!) who like movies about causes, injustices, third world suffering.

With me, it's the critical word. If a movie gets good reviews, I will see it regardless of the subject, director, stars. I can never be convinced that if a movie scores over 80% on rotten tomatoes, I still might not like it.

What's your Achilles' Heel? What takes you into a theater or onto netflix most of the time?

Little Lion Man-for Liam Wilkinson

A Great Recipe

First off, John Kenyon has a new fiction writing contest on his blog.

He wants writers to update a fairy tale as a crime fiction story. Check it out. And check out his cool blog while you're at it.


And Now For Something Completely Different.


This was one of the best chicken dishes I've ever had. Phil made it, of course, but I found it. That counts a little, right?


Use the best chicken you can get-organic and free range if possible.


Sauteed Chicken with Roasted Grapes (from the NYT)

3/4 pounds black or red seedless grapes (no stems, of course)
3/4 pound green seedless grapes
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
4-6 large, skinned, boneless chicken breast halves
Kosher salt and black pepper
1/4 cup minced fresh chives

Oven at 375. Line a rimmed cooking sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick mat. Put half the grapes in the pan and roast 1 hour, turning once after 20 minutes. They will wrinkle and turn golden.

In a blender, puree the remaining grapes until smooth. Strain through a sieve, pressing to release all juice from skins. Discard skins

In a large, nonstick skillet, melt half the butter over high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper and cook until golden brown on both sides, reducing heat to prevent scorching-about 4 minutes per side. Add strained grape puree and simmer until chicken is cooked and juice is syrupy about five minute. Transfer chicken to serving platter and keep warm.

Whisk remaining butter into sauce and cook over high heat for about 1 minutes. Add roasted grapes and heat through. Pour sauce and grapes over chicken. Add chives.

La Ronde-Finale

Although I was originally going to end this challenge myself next week when Dan sent me his chapter, it seemed like the perfect ending. My piece would be redundant at best.

Thanks to all the contributors. I was amazed each week at the stories I read. You are quite a group of writers and I am thrilled I get to hang out with you.

Dan Fleming finishes up LA RONDE with Part 11 right here.

Part 10 "It's Raining Down in Texas" right here. (Graham Powell)

Part 9 "Knocked-Out Loaded" at Kassandra Kelly's blog, right here.

Part 8 at Nigel Bird's blog right here.

Part 7 "Mirror Image" on Eric Beetner's blog.

Part 6 "The Lesser Evil" on Evan Lewis' blog.

Part 5 "It's a Dog's Life" on Rob Kitchin's blog can be found here.

Part 4 "Enter the Fat Lady" can be found on Sandra Seamans blog. Right here.

Part 3 "Provocateur" was on KA. Laity's blog.

Part 2 "Blinded by the Brilliance of His Own Reflection" was on Dana King's blog.

And here's "The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon" the original story

Richard Thompson-Dad's Gonna Kill Me

Do You Like to Be Read to?

Last week, I listened to a feature on the BBC about a new book on reading aloud. The book included some especially good pieces for doing this. Too much dialogue makes it difficult, for instance.

We have friends that read aloud to each other--mostly classics like Sherlock Holmes and similar fare.

From the moment I could read myself, I never let anyone read to me again. But I used to read to my kids while they did the dishes and they tolerated it--even after the age when they could read.

Do you like to read aloud to someone else or be read to? I guess I am talking about a more intimate experience than an audio book. I am talking about two people or so in a room sharing a book. Perhaps this enhances the experience although I doubt I could convince my husband.

Same Old

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/12/genre-versus-literary-fiction-edward-docx?CMP=twt_iph

In the article linked above from the Guardian newspaper, the author, finding everyone on a train reading the Larsson books, has a hissy fit and says that no genre books can stand up to a good literary novel because genre novels have a blueprint in hand. In other words, the genre novel does not start from square one like a literary novelist does. (He says other things too but this was my area of interest).

Now I am not a big fan of the Dragon novels myself. But they have one great strength-an enormously appealing, yet not treacly, heroine. Beyond that there is too much chasing about and torture for my taste. Yes, I know that was his point. That men hate women and will pretty much do anything to them.

1) what other strengths did you find in the novels 2) is Dock right-is having a blueprint most of the struggle? Does the genre novelist get to skip over the difficult parts of writing a "literary" novel.

Saturday Night Music-THE POGUES

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

This is born of sleeping too much in the daytime today. Here I am thinking of such things instead of dreaming of them.

This is strictly hypothetical.

Your neighbor, a recent widower of 62 with grown children in a distant state, confides that he has been diagnosed with an illness that will eventually kill him. But with proper treatment he can have 3-5 years of a relatively a painless life. You commiserate, uneasy that he has told you, a relative stranger, such intimate details.

You wake up at two a.m. a few weeks later and remember that you forgot to turn the sprinkler off. Outside, once you have turned off the water, you hear the faint but unmistakable sound of a car running in your neighbor's garage.

What would you do?

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, December 10, 2010

December 10, 2010

Patricia Abbott, November, Georges Simenon
Paul Bishop, Atlanta Deathwatch, Ralph Dennis
Paul Brazill, The Man with the Iron Badge, Lee Goldberg
Bill Crider, As Tough as They Come, Will Oursler, editor
Scott Cupp, Body Politic, Paul Johnston
Martin Edwards, Big Business Murder, G.D. H. and M. Cole
Ed Gorman, Darker Than You Think, Jack Williamson
Gar Anthony Harwood, Fault Lines, Teri White
Jerry House, A Grave Matter, Lionell Purnell Davis
Randy Johnson, Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X, Victor Appleton
George Kelley, Dangerous Liaisons, Choderlos de Laclos
Rob Kitchin. We are Alone, David Howorth, The Mask of Dimitrios, Eric Ambler
K.A. Laity, Kleinzeit, Russell Hoban (and other works)
B.V. Lawson, The Dancing Man, P.M. Jubbard
Evan Lewis, Brass Knuckles, Frank Gruber
Steve Lewis, Someone Walker Over My Grave, J.B. O'Sullivan
Todd Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories Not for the Nervous, Robert Arthur editor; Trophies and Dead Things, Marcia Muller
Nik Morton, The Phoenix Tree, Jon Cleary
Richard Pangborn, Money, Money, Money, Ed McBain
David Rachels, The Long Rider, James McKimmey
James Reasoner, Passage to Samoa, Day Keene
Gerard Saylor, Blood Safari, Deon Meyer
Ron Scheer, Troublemakers, John McNally
Kerrie Smith, The Kimberley Killing, Peter Corris
Kevin Tipple, Map of Murder, Sudan Budavair, Suzanne Flaig

Friday's Forgotten Books, December 10, 2010

For a real treat if you haven't been there, check out Cullen's reviews of classic westerns right here.

Gar Anthony Haywood is the award winning author of the Aaron Gunner series, two thrillers written as Ray Shannon, and most recently CEMETERY ROAD.

FAULT LINES by Teri White

One of the greatest compliments a book reviewer ever paid to something I'd written was "the best Elmore Leonard rip-off since Elmore Leonard." Publisher's Weekly was referring to my 2003 standalone MAN EATER, but the reviewer could have easily said the same thing fifteen years earlier about Teri White's terrific crime novel, FAULT LINES (Mysterious Press, 1988). I have yet to come across another book that nails the quirky, deceptively scary flavor of a Dutch Leonard novel quite so flawlessly.

True to the often-imitated but rarely duplicated Leonard formula, White populated FAULT LINES with a cast of off-beat, complex characters and then spun a tale in which their separate misadventures would ultimately collide.

Bryan Murphy is an ex-New York City cop who, forced into early retirement by a near-fatal heart attack, now makes his home in Los Angeles, where's he's bored to tears. So bored that he strikes up an uneasy friendship with an ex-con named Tray Detaglio, who's only recently gotten out of the joint. Detaglio's trying to find his ex-girlfriend Kathryn Daily, a cold-hearted hustler and pole dancer who claimed to be pregnant with his child when he last heard from her, but his clumsy attempts to track her down only land him in jail. When Murphy bails him out, being the only person Detaglio could think of to call for help, the two strike a deal: Murphy will look for Kathryn if Detaglio will take over some home repair work Murphy's weak heart prevents him from tackling himself.

Meanwhile, Kathryn---having aborted Detaglio's child years ago---is shacking up elsewhere in L.A. with two more ex-cons, former cellmates Dwight St. John and Chris Moore. Psychotic career criminals who make Detaglio look like an altar boy, Dwight and Chris seem resigned to pulling one stupid, meaningless liquor store robbery after another, until Kathryn offers them a chance at something much better: the Big, once-in-a-lifetime heist they've always dreamed of pulling. One of Kathryn's many ex-boyfriends, post-Tray Detaglio, was mobbed-up drug dealer Michael Stanzione, and before she left him, she learned all there was to know about where Stanzione likes to keep a cool half-million in his palatial Beverly Hills mansion. . .

Get it? It's a terrific set-up, and White works it all to perfection. Tight plotting, solid dialogue---it's all here. But Kathryn---hot, sexy and oh, so wicked---is the poisoned straw that stirs this drink. Bedding and playing all three men at once---Dwight, Chris and Tray---as if they were suckers in a shell game, she leads the reader on a hardcore thrill ride reminiscent of. . .

Well, yeah: a great Elmore Leonard novel.

Patti Abbott, November by Georges Simenon

This is one of Simenon’s standalones, which I generally prefer to the more formulaic Maigrets. A French family lives comfortably, if claustrophobically, outside of town. The first person narrator is twenty-one and works at the local hospital as a research assistant. She’s having a rather prosaic affair with her employer, an older scientist. Her younger brother is taking classes at the local college, majoring in chemistry.

The two siblings live with their parents in a state of constant tension. The mother is an alcoholic, and goes on binges that the rest of the family calls ‘novenas’. Her behavior seems to date from the beginning of her marriage and has almost a formal structure to it. The tension of her behavior is palpable throughout the story.

A newly hired maid, a sexually obliging sort of girl, Manuela from Spain, brings some needed air into this hothouse. Both father and son begin sleeping with her. Neither is satisfied with this arrangement.

When Manuela disappears. it is unclear what has happened and the ambiguity will either intrigue or annoy you. The ending is surprising, yet fitting. This was not my favorite Simenon and yet it succeeded in keeping my interest. Short novels stand a better chance of doing that.

Ed Gorman is the author of Ticket to Ride, Stranglehold, and stories in DISCOUNT NOIR, Beat to a Pulp: Second Round and DAMN NEAR DEAD 2. You can find him here.

Forgotten Books: Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson

Let's begin with a tale of woe. Mine.

Years ago I was asked to contribute a forty thousand word novella to a YA series about shapeshifters. You know, beings humans and otherwise who can transform themselves into other kinds of creatures. I immediately thought of Jack Williamson's The Wolves of Darkness, a grand old pulp novella set in the snowy American West and featuring enough creepy
violence and tangled romance to make it memorable. It even has its moments of sweeping poetry.

Reading Williamson's piece showed me how to write my own. A few days after the young editor received it he called to rave. And I do mean rave. The best of the entire series. Eerie and poetic. Yadda yadda yadda. For the next forty-eight hours I was intolerable to be around. It
was during this time our five cats learned to give me the finger. My swollen head was pricked soon enough. The young editor's older boss hated it. He gave my editor a list of reasons he hated it. I was to rewrite it. I wouldn't do it. I said I'd just write another one, which I did. Old editor seemed to like this one all right but he still wasn't keen on how my "characterizations" occasionally stopped the action. Backstory--verboten.

Shortly after this werewolves began to be popular. I spoke to a small reading group one night and told them about Wolves of Darkness and then about Williamson's novel Darker Than You Think. Everything I love about pulp fantasy is in this book. The werewolf angle quickly becomes just part of a massive struggle for the soul of humanity. As British reviewer
Tom Matic points out:

"According to its backstory, homo sapiens emerged as the dominant species after a long and bitter struggle with another species, homo lycanthropus, whose ability to manipulate probability gave it the power to change its shape and practise magic. These concepts, fascinating as
they are, might make for dry reading were they not mediated via a gripping thriller riddled with startling plot twists, that blends scientific romance with images of stark bloodcurdling horror, such as the kitten throttled with a ribbon and impaled with a pin to induce Mondrick's asthma attack and heart failure, and the pathetic yet fearsome figure of his blind widow, her eyes clawed out by were-leopards. With its scenes of demonic mayhem in an academic setting and the sexual and moral sparring between the two main characters, it almost feels like a prototype of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer in a film noir setting."

Williamson couching his shapeshifters in terms of science fiction lends the story a realistic edge fantasies rarely achieve. The brooding psychology of the characters also have, as Matic points out, a noirish feel. And as always Williams manages to make the natural environment a
strong element in the story. He's as good with city folk as rural. And he's especially good with his version of the femme fatale, though here she turns out to be as complicated and tortured as the protagonist.

This is one whomping great tale. If you're tired of today's werewolves, try this classic and you'll be hooked not only by this book but by Jack Williamson' work in general..

Paul Bishop
Paul Brazill
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Mike Dennis
Martin Edwards
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
Rob Kitchin
Rob Kitchin 2
K.A. Laity
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/J.B. O'Sullivan
Todd Mason
Nik Morton
Richard Pangborn
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple

Stephen D. Rogers "In and Out"

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Libby Fischer Hellmann

"How I Came to Write the Book"
Libby Fischer Hellmann

True Confession

I do remember the Sixties.

Especially 1968. That was the turning point in my political “coming of age.” I was in college in Philadelphia on April 4th when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I watched as riots consumed the inner cities. I was saddened and disappointed -- as a teenager growing up in Washington DC, I’d gone to plenty of concerts at the Howard theater where blacks and whites grooved to Motown artists together. I actually thought we were moving towards a color-blind
society -- I was young and idealistic then). So the frustration and rage expressed through the riots was – in a way– confusing.

Two months later I understood. My college boyfriend had been tapped to head up the national “Youth for Bobby Kennedy” program. I was really excited; I planned on dropping out for a semester to work with him. For some reason I couldn’t sleep the night of June 5th and turned on my radio. Bobby had been shot just after winning the California Democratic primary. He died the next day. So much for the Youth for Kennedy campaign.

Sadness soon gave way to bitterness. The country was falling apart. Over the years some of our brightest lights had been snuffed out. Internationally our government seemed to be supporting the “bad guys.” And underlying it all was an unwinnable war that – perversely -- was escalating and risking the lives of my peers. I began to question why I should work through the system, especially when the system wasn’t working for us.

I wasn’t alone. Plenty of others yearned for change. Fundamental change that would rebuild our society and culture. The next few years were tumultuous and volatile, but in the final analysis, we failed. Maybe the task was impossible -- how many Utopias exist? Sure, there were cultural shifts. But political change, in the sense of what to expect from our leaders and our government? Not so much. The era left me with unresolved feelings. What should we have done differently? Are all progressive movements doomed to fail?

At this point you’re probably wondering what this has to do with writing a thriller. And you’d be right. It’s never been my intention to write a political screed. I am a storyteller whose stories, hopefully, you can’t put down. I realized that if I was going to write about the Sixties, I needed a premise that would hook readers in the present, regardless of how much they know or remembered about the Sixties.

I found that premise in a film. Do you remember SIGNS, starring Mel Gibson? It came out in 2002, and I thought the first half was the most riveting film I’d ever seen. Gibson’s family is being stalked, but they don’t know who and they don’t know why. The second half of the film, when we discover it’s just your garden variety aliens, was an enormous let down. Putting a face, an identity, on fear reduces its power. But NOT knowing who’s targeting you -- or why -- is the most frightening thing I can imagine.

So that’s what happens to Lila Hilliard, a thirty-something professional who’s come home to Chicago for the holidays. Someone has killed her family, and now they’re after her. She has no idea who or why. As she desperately tries to figure it out, she finds wisps of clues that lead back to her parents’ activities forty years ago. In the process she discovers that her parents were not the people she thought.

The relationship between the past and present, the consequences of events that occurred years ago fascinate me. I also love stories that plunge characters into danger and make them draw on resources they didn’t know they had. SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE was the way to combine all those themes. Writing the book was an exorcism of sorts, a way to make peace with the past. And while I enjoyed reliving the past, I loved putting it behind me even more. I’m finally
ready to move on.

I hope you enjoy the read.

Libby Fischer Hellman is the author of a series of books about Georgia Davis (Doubleback, Easy Innocence, etc), the editor of CHICAGO BLUE and the author of many short stories. SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE is her first standalone novel.

John Lennon

It is hard to think of a more senseless and tragic murder.

He just wanted to write songs, for God's sake.

WHAT BOOKS WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO RECEIVE OVER THE HOLIDAYS?

I'm kind of interested in Stacy Schiff's CLEOPATRA after hearing her on NPR. Also Patti Smith's book JUST KIDS. What about you? What two books do you look forward to?

La Ronde, Part Ten: Graham Powell

Part 10 "It's Raining Down in Texas" right here.

Part 9 "Knocked-Out Loaded" at Kassandra Kelly's blog, right here.

Part 8 at Nigel Bird's blog right here.

Part 7 "Mirror Image" on Eric Beetner's blog.

Part 6 "The Lesser Evil" on Evan Lewis' blog.

Part 5 "It's a Dog's Life" on Rob Kitchin's blog can be found here.

Part 4 "Enter the Fat Lady" can be found on Sandra Seamans blog. Right here.

Part 3 "Provocateur" was on KA. Laity's blog.

Part 2 "Blinded by the Brilliance of His Own Reflection" was on Dana King's blog.

And here's "The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon" the original story

My Kindle Doesn't Call to Me

MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH MY KINDLE IS I HAVE LOST IT. REPLACE A BOOK-$25; replace a KINDLE-$200.

Okay, now which of these two graphics has the seductive power to lure you from across the room.

Which book seems distinctive, special, something you want to hold in your hand.

Kindle doesn't cut it for me. It fades into the woodwork whereas a novel, with its inviting cover, calls my name.

I have yet to finish a novel on Kindle. Matter of fact, I have gone to the library and picked up the hard copy once or twice.

I will probably eventually learn to read from a Kindle, but think about this. What kid will ever become a reader based on the experience of hearing a story read on a Kindle? It's like having sex in the machine in the Woody Allen movie SLEEPER for me. The end result may be the same but getting there is less fun and oddly similar.

TOP SUSPENSE'S ROUND ROBIN

Make sure you check out this round robin, starting today. http://topsuspense.blogspot.com/2010/12/top-suspense-round-robin-short-story.html

A Little Reminder

That Damn Near Dead 2, edited by Bill Crider, is available for purchase. Remember David Thompson, editor of Busted Flush Press and all around great guy, by buying a copy.

It truly has a great group of contributors.

Christmas Commercials

What Can't I Live Without?

An interesting recent issue of the NYT Magazine examined the 21st century house. And a sensible eco-friendly version would weigh in at around 1700 feet.

"Horrible," many people exclaimed. "I need more space than that. I need 3.5 bathrooms, a hot-tub, a kitchen big enough for granite islands, two fridges, and a breakfast area. I want, I want, I want." We'd better learn to stop wanting so much soon!

What are the things in a house you can't live without? Of course, should you have six kids, your needs would be different. But what is one essential feature other than the prosaic? I chose a fireplace. Can't imagine not having one to light up the winter here. In California or Louisiana or Texas, maybe not.

Saturday Night at the Movies

Watch it without crying if you can.

The Summing Up, Friday, December 3, 2010

I am lucky enough to have a story up at Dark Valentine where the accompanying artwork by Eleni Trigatzi brings me great joy. What a gorgeous illustration among many others and what a fantastic job Katherine does with this zine. Thanks so much.






The Summing Up, Friday, December 3, 2010

Paul Bishop, Meet Morocco Jones, Jack Baynes (Bertram B. Fowler)
Bill Crider, Double Bang, Heywood Gould
Scott Cupp, Thunder Jim Wade, Henry Kuttner
Martin Edwards, The Boat House Riddle, J.J. Connington
Ed Gorman, The Innocent Mrs. Duff, Elizabeth Sanxay Holding
Jerry House, Three to Conquer, Eric Frank Russell
Randy Johnson, Outlaw, Frank Gruber
George Kelley, Terror in the House, Henry Kuttner
B.V. Lawson, Tangle Meg Elizabeth Atkins
Evan Lewis, Family Honor, Robert B. Parker
Steve Lewis/William F. Deeck, They Hunted a Fox, Alice Campbell
Michael Lipkin, Street of the Lost, David Goodis
R. Narvaez, Am Thinking of My Darling, Vincent McHugh
Todd Mason, The Best of Margaret St. Clair, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Thirteen O'Clock, C.M. Kornbluth, The Green Flash, Joan Aiken
Richard Prosch, A Time for Hanging, Bill Crider
David Rachels, Five Million in Cash, Tiffany Thayer
James Reasoner, Rescued in the Clouds or Ted Scott, Hero of the Air, Franklin Dixon )Frank Duffield
Ron Scheer, Solo Faces, James Salter
Kerrie Smith, The Man Who Played Spoons, Gary Disher
Kevin Tipple, Techno Noir, ed. Eva Batonne and Jeffrey Marks

Friday's Forgotten Books, Dec. 3, 2010

I am tied up today so this may be a bit scattered. Also I'll be taking off December 24th and December 31st for the holidays.

Ed Gorman, who write terrific westerns such as those found on Pulp Serenade's roundup (Wolf Moon for one) can be found right here.

THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF, Elizabeth Sanxay Holding


For some reason, much as I've pushed her, I'd never read THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. It is remarkable in many ways, not least because the protagonist, Jacob Duff is drunk for virtually the entire novel. And we see 95% of the book through his eyes. Functionally drunk for most of it but also falling-down drunk in places. Holding's genius was to sustain a sense of
dread that I don't think even Ruth Rendell has equaled. There are times in her novels when I have to put the book down for a few minutes. Theyare that claustrophobic in mood and action.
That's the first remarkable aspect of the book. The second remarkable aspect is that we see the book through the eyes of one of the most arrogant, self-involved, cold and self-deluded men I've ever encountered in fiction of any kind. I hated the bastard so
much--I'm not enamored of the upper-classes, alas, and Duff embodies everything I loathe about them--I almost gave up after chapter three. I wasn't sure I wanted to learn anything more about this jerk,

But Holding has the voodoo, at least for me. She makes me turn pages faster than any best-seller because what you're rushing to discover is the secrets of her people not just plot turns. All the good folks in
this one are women, especially Duff's younger, beautiful and very decent wife. He constantly compares her unfavorably to his first wife, though we soon learn that he didn't care much for his first wife, either. At
age forty he's still looking for his dream woman. God have mercy on her soul if he ever finds her.

As always with Holding, as with much of Poe, what we have is not so much a plot (though she's as good as Christie) as a phantasmagoria of despair, distrust and suspicion that consumes the protagonist. Is his
wife cheating on him? Is she setting up his death so she'll inherit his estate? Is she turning his young son against him? Has his wealthy aunt, his life-long mentor and mother confessor, taken the side of his young
wife? Has his drinking disgraced him in his small town and are all those smirks aimed at him? And finally, is he a murderer? And why does he have to sneak around these days to drink?

If you're curious about Holding, this is a good place to start. Anthony Boucher always said that she was the mother of all psychological suspense novelists. What's interesting is how few, fifty-some years after her death, have come close to equaling her enormous powers. Not for nothing did Raymond Chandler call her the best suspense novelist of his generation







R. Narvaez was born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His work has been published in A Thousand Faces, Indian Country Noir, Murdaland, Plots with Guns, and Spinetingler. He is co-editor of The Lineup crime poetry chapbook series

Am Thinking of My Darling, Vincent McHugh

A virus. The City. Civic chaos. Government collapse. The stuff of zombie flicks and terrorist scenarios in 2010. But back in the ’40s, such a plot could still be light-hearted. In Vincent McHugh’s 1943 novel I Am Thinking of My Darling, a virus infects New York City—but it's a happy virus! The infected follow their bliss, feverishly losing their inhibitions (for you Trekkies, think "The Naked Time" episode). The problem is that no one wants to work. Honestly, who would?

Acting planning commissioner Jim Rowan returns home from a trip to DC to find cheerful chaos quickly spreading across town—and his actress wife Niobe missing. She’s infected and on the lam, looking to live out a succession of character roles in a kind of Method fervor. Meanwhile, in an emergency management meeting (consider what that term evokes today), the mayor announces he has the virus—and would rather play with model trains than lead the City. To avoid panic, Rowan is secretly made acting mayor.

The plots riffs genially from there, with Rowan hot on the trail of his slippery wife, cabbing from City Hall to Harlem across a Cityscape in Mardi Gras mode—all the while consulting with civil services to keep things running and with scientists to find a cure. (The fact that the virus apparently originated in the tropics, implying that people there are inhibition-less, may be another artifact of the past.) A polymath (when being a polymath was simpler), Rowan narrates in sensual, informed detail about now-bygone architectural wonders, regional accents, lab science, and jazz music.

This book, with its glad-rag view of a long-lost era, has been a favorite of mine since it was recommended to me decades ago. (I still have my first copy, bought in the now-bygone Tower Books in the Village). McHugh, a poet and a staff writer for The New Yorker in the ’30s, employs a prose style that winks slyly at Chandler and pulp. (Once Rowan is inevitably infected, he’s like Marlowe on E.) Darling also features a nice amount of sexual frankness that may surprise modern readers who forget that people in the ’40s had sex. The novel was made into the very '60s movie What's So Bad About Feeling Good?, but by then the times had already been a-changed enough that the conceit no longer had the right kind of jazz.


Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis.William F. Deeck
Michael Lipkin
Todd Mason
Richard Prosch
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple

My Favorite Theme

And the movie ranks right up there too.

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK-Anne Frasier

"How I Came to Write This Book" Anne Frasier: THE ORCHARD


May, 2010 For years I dreamed about writing The Orchard, but I knew switching from genre writing, my only means of support, to memoir would be a financial risk. I constantly talked about the project as something that would happen in the future, while worrying that the opportunity to write it might come too late, or might never come at all. When my publisher of eight years turned down my option material, I made one of those big life decisions. For the first time in twenty-four years I had no deadline and no contract to fulfill. If I sold my home in St. Paul and purchased a tiny cabin in the northwoods, I might be able to live on the proceeds from my home sale for two or three years. It was a huge gamble, but it would give me the solitude and freedom to write The Orchard. I sold the house and began looking for a secluded place to write. In an odd twist, my real estate agent had a listing he thought I should see, but it was located nowhere near my search area.

Another negative—it was located in farm country, a landscape and culture I’d avoided since moving from the farm. How could I possibly live in a farming area again? Ignorant of my history, the agent talked me into looking. Just looking. The property was a prairie-style church built in the late 1800s in a now non-existent village called Perley Station. Perley Station was the brainchild of a lumber baron, philanthropist, and horticulturalist named John Perley.

In 1905 the village burned to the ground, and the only thing left in the middle of fields, woodland, and prairie, was a church. And that church was selling for the price of a cabin in the northwoods. I still questioned whether I could immerse myself mentally and physically in a setting that brought back so many painful memories, but in the end I bought the church and moved to a remote and beautiful building in a town that no longer existed. The church house is surrounded by Perley Lilacs, courtesy of Mr. Perley’s horticultural skill. In the backyard is an apple tree.

As I write this, the tree is loaded with blooms, and I’m anticipating the apple pies I will bake this fall. I like to imagine that the tree was planted by John Perley. I don’t know if this is truth, but I can say the tree is very old, and it doesn’t have many years left. In this setting, surrounded by history and farm fields, an apple tree just beyond my window, I wrote The Orchard. The writing of the book, the farm fields that I walk past daily, noting what has been planted and how well the crops are doing, have led to a reclaiming of a life I left behind.

The Orchard ended up selling to Grand Central Publishing in a pre-empt, and is scheduled for a September 2011 release.

Anne Frasier is a pen name for Theresa Weir, a bestselling author of nineteen novels spanning the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, and paranormal. Weir’s debut title was the cult phenomenon AMAZON LILY, initially published by Pocket Books and later reissued by Bantam Books. Writing as Theresa Weir she won a RITA for romantic suspense (COOL SHADE), and a year later the Daphne du Maurier for paranormal romance (BAD KARMA). In her more recent Anne Frasier career, her thriller and suspense titles hit the USA Today list (HUSH, SLEEP TIGHT, PLAY DEAD) and were featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. HUSH was both a RITA and Daphne du Maurier finalist.

If you have a book coming out you would like to write a piece about, feel free to email me.

1980

In a coffee shop the other day, a group of five or six African-American businessmen at the next table caught my interest. First of all, they were talking about substantive things-not just sports or their jobs. They were really talking. I rarely hear men do this.

One man, a guy about my age or younger, said, "There is nothing I would miss if I suddenly found myself in 1980 again." The other men chuckled their semi-agreement.

"I'd get out my slide rule and soldier on,"he went on to say.

"Your what?" a younger guy asked, more than half-serious.

What about you? What would you miss if you were back in 1980 tomorrow? And please don't say you weren't born yet. Use your imagination.

My guilty pleasure movie is at Crimespree Cinema--and it is a real guilty pleasure.
Please forgive me for not stopping by much this week. Hopefully next week will return to normal. These posts were up before the roof fell in.

First Wednesdays Book Review Club

Set the Night on Fire by Libby Fischer Hellmann is one of the few books I’ve read in recent years that uses sixties’ radicalism in a crime fiction plot. And uses it to good avail. Hellmann tells an interesting story with just the right amount of attention to the climate of the sixties to anchor it. Her characters are fleshed out well, and we come to care about them in the past and in the present.

Dar Gartner is newly released from jail after serving a long prison sentence for an act of radicalism. In trying to put a new life together in Chicago, he also touches base with some members of his old group of friends. Friends who begin to die after his re-entry into their lives. His life seems in jeopardy as well.

One of the friends who dies is the father of Lila Hilliard. Hilliard, along with Lila's brother, perish in a house fire seemingly caused by faulty Christmas tree lights. Except Lila remembers unplugging the lights before she went out. As she investigates her father’s business affairs and the fire, her own life is threatened and she realizes there were things about her father and his tale of her long-dead mother that never quite added up.

So Lila and Dar begin circling each other, Lila wary at first, until in desperation they collectively put the puzzle together. Both are at risk and neither knows precisely where the threat is coming from, but both eventually conclude it's coming from past activities of the group of friends.

The reader travels back to the late sixties and watches the group of women and men living together, making the decisions that will effect the rest of their life. Through their circle, we're treated to insight into the types of young people drawn to radicalism and what price they were willing to pay to reform society. And also, what lengths they were willing to go to to cover their trail and how that history impacts the present.

The race of Lila and Dar to piece together the plot against them and act swiftly enough to save their lives makes this a thrilling read.

This was a very fine and compelling story.

Highly recommended.

Check out more reviews today at Barrie's place.