Monday, Monday

The 18th would have been Phil's 80th birthday. I think this photo was taken was not long before he died, probably on Cape Cod. He was such a great husband, father, friend. We never had a single fight. Probably more him than me.

Saw THE OUTRUN with Saoirse Ronan. Beautifully filmed and she was terrific but boy the story is too familiar by now. Also saw ARMY OF SHADOWS at the Detroit Film Theater. Made in 1969 by Jean Pierre Melville, a French Resistance story. Dark in every way. We went out to dinner after that and we were the oldest people in the room by 35 years. This was a super expensive place-the salads were $17-20 and entrees were $50--75. How did these kids get so much money? And to me, all the women looked like sex workers. I am getting too old. Happy to see the diversity though.

Reading BRIAN by Jeremy Cooper. So very British. Also lots of haiku books.

Watching MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, DISCLAIMER, ABBOTT'S ELEMENTARY, HOMICIDE. 

Lots more great weather. What a autumn this has been.

What about you? 

 

FFB: ROSS MACDONALD'S THE INWARD JOURNEY, Ralph B Slipper, ed

 reviewed by Bill Crider

FFB: Ross Macdonald's Inward Journey -- Ralph B. Sipper, Editor

Ross Macdonald isn't much read or discussed these days, and when I do see references to him by younger readers, they don't seem to be much impressed with his work.  That's quite a change from past decades, including the 1980s when Ross Macdonald's Inward Journey was published.  The book includes two previously unpublished essays by Macdonald himself and a short but quite poignant one by his wife, Margaret Millar; however in the main it's a tribute to Macdonald's life and work by other writers.  Those who don't think that Macdonald was one of the greats might want to consider what these writers have to say.  I'll give a few examples.

Robert B. Parker:  "It's not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live."

Thomas Berger:  "Ross Macdonald's work has consistently nourished me, at home and abroad.  I have turned to it often to hear what I should like to call the justice of its voice and to be enlightened by its imagination, and, not incidentally, superbly entertained."

Collin Wilcox: "I own Ken Millar more than I can ever repay."

Paul Nelson:  "I remember thinking we come to his novels for comfort in the disaster of our lives, knowing that he and Archer have seen us -- and worse than us -- and will dispense mercy and kindness or, if they turn us over, at least understand."

And so on.  Some of the writers were even inspired to write poems instead of essays.  I've been a fan of Macdonald's work since the first time I picked up one of his books, more than 50 years ago.  Reading Ross Macdonald's Inward Journey reminded me again of why I liked his work so much.  It might do the same for you.  And if you've never read his books, don't read this book first.  Read one of Macdonald's novels first.  The sooner, the better

Short Story Wednesday, CHALLENGE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL PROBLEMS OF DR. SAM HAWTHORNE, Edward D. Hoch

 

reviewed by Jeff Meyerson

Edward D. Hoch, Challenge the Impossible: The Final Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (Crippen & Landru 2018).

When I thought of which book to choose for the first of these short story collections to review, the choice was fairly easy.  Why not go with possibly the most prolific short story writer ever, a man who published over 950 stories, including one or more in every issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for 35 years?  Ed Hoch created a dozen or more series characters of varying types, but my favorite remains the impossible crime specialist, small town Connecticut doctor Sam Hawthorne, who had some 72 recorded cases, published between 1974 and 2008, of a remarkably high quality.  Hoch did something interesting here, besides the ingenuity of the stories themselves, by setting them in a specific time and place, a smallish town in Connecticut between the doctor's arrival in 1922 and his final story, in 1944.  You always get a feel for what was going on in the world then, from the Depression to the Second World War.  Crippen & Landru has done fans a favor by publishing all 72 stories in five volumes (of which this is, clearly, the last), all with "Impossible" in the title.  From the first story, "The Problem of the Covered Bridge," in which a man drives into a covered bridge and seems to vanish off the face of the Earth, Hoch was a master at coming up with truly impossible-seeming crimes and then providing mostly brilliant solutions.  I'd recommend starting at the beginning and reading all five volumes, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

 

George Kelley 

TracyK

Casual Debris

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

 

Sorry to see the end of SLOW HORSES and PACHINKO. But am still enjoying MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, THE ENGLISH TEACHER, and the new Cate Blanchett series, DISCLAIMER. 

Saw BASQUIAT at the Detroit Film Theater (from 1996). Jeffrey Wright did a great job of playing Basquiat although the film was so loaded with famous actors it was disconcerting trying to remember them. I don't remember seeing this one at the time. Then I was able to watch JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT: A RADIANT CHILD on Kanopy, which gave a lot of context and criticism to his work.

Sunday I saw a play in Ann Arbor at Theater Nova. IN SEARCH OF THE MOTHMAN. Two fine actresses did their best with a muddled script. This seemed like a good first draft.

Finished THE SHRED SISTERS by Betsy Lerner and about to start BRIAN, Jeremy Cooper.

We finally got some rain and boy, did it smell good. What makes some rain smell and others not. 

What are you up to?

FFB BRIARPATCH, Ross Thomas

 (from the archives)

from: Libby Fischer Hellmann

Briarpatch, by Ross Thomas

My favorite “forgotten” novel is Briarpatch by Ross Thomas. I’d already published three novels when I stumbled onto it, but when I did, I instantly knew why I write the books I do. Its structure, style, and substance are an indispensable template, and its dog-eared pages will stay in my library forever.

Briarpatch is a structural chameleon. Technically, it’s an amateur sleuth novel. Ben Dill, a Senate staffer in Washington DC journeys to an unnamed Southern city to bury his sister, a homicide detective killed in a bomb explosion. While there, he intends to find out why she died. In short order, though, characters are introduced, complications mount, and by page thirty I wasn’t sure whether I was reading a police procedural, a PI novel, or a thriller, complete with ambitious politicians, intelligence operatives, and arms-dealing mercenaries. In the hands of a lesser talent, this complexity might be disastrous, but Thomas weaves the threads into a seamless, satisfying story.

The prose in Briarpatch -- spare, lucid, silky -- is just this side of Chandler. It has rhythm. And pace. And while it’s easy to read, it’s never dull. Sometimes Thomas breaks the rules, having fun with alliteration, for example, or planting his tongue firmly in his cheek. But the writing is never offensive, and a too clever sentence is redeemed in the next with a thoughtful observation. I come away from Briarpatch thinking Thomas says what he means and yet it means so much more.

I grew up in Washington D.C., and when my family gossiped about the neighbors, we were essentially talking politics. As a result, stories that touch on national or global issues draw me like a moth to the light. Fold in murder, suspense, and small town corruption that stretches to the nation’s capital, and I’m a goner. (I learned after I read Briarpatch that Thomas lived in DC as well). Half way through, I realized we never know the Southern city where Briarpatch takes place, but we don’t need to. It could be any town in which a police chief hungers for higher office, a cop may be on the take, a formerly dirt-poor pal is now a millionaire, and a shady businessman tries to set up his partner.

But perhaps the novel’s most attractive – and durable -- quality is that it’s a story lightly told. Briarpatch never screams or calls attention to itself. Its complexity sneaks up on you-- until you realize you’re in the hands of a master and you’ve been reading a classic. It deserves to be “rediscovered.”

Short Story Wednesday "Hi, Daddy," Matthew Klam, THE NEW YORKER

Our narrator is taking his eighteen year old daughter to the airport where she is flying to Spain to join her boyfriend for a pre-college trip. He is also caring for his aging parents. This would be the circumstance my son finds himself in and I read the story with him in mind. Our narrator is suffering physical symptoms brought on by this double whammy. He has a wife, but she is doing important work so a lot of the everyday stuff falls on him. Also she is more at ease with life moving on than he is. A good story. I will look for more from Matthew Klam. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/hi-daddy-fiction-matthew-klam

George Kelley

TracyK

Monday, Monday

 LEE turned out to be a pretty ordinary biopic. Winslett was very good but the script didn't pursue her more interesting qualities enough. Still it did make me want to find out more about her and her photographs.

Reading THE SHRED SISTERS by Betsy Lerner. A first novel for a woman who has been in publishing for 30 years. 

Going to see MOULIN ROUGE (the show not the movie) at the Detroit Opera House today. 

Still watching SLOW HORSES, PACHINKO, HOMICIDE. Finished NOBODY WANTS THIS which I enjoyed. I am anxious to see what they do with it next. Gave up (again) on ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. Is it written by AI? Trying WHERE IS WANDA?

Can you imagine our last President having a clue how to handle the world we now live in. I am not really thinking of his domestic horrors but what he would do about the Middle East, Ukraine, etc.  Biden is struggling with it too. It might be an unsolvable crisis. 

What's new in your hood?

Haibun

Articulating Space
Patricia Abbott
Birmingham, Michigan, USA

That winter she made a series of small quilts patterned on Paul Klee paintings there were
difficulties since the library books she used as sources varied in the precise tint of all those
little squares and it was difficult to match them up in fabric since the rectangles lost their
plumb perfection matched end to end though at other times they seemed rigidly square like
a kindergarten teacher’s idea of art and sitting on the floor amongst the pieces she grew
frantic she would ever get it right with the sizes and colors and piecing all dependent on
what appeared to be but wasn’t random choices then once finished the quilts had a
undulating look quite different from her image of the Klees and if she hung them unframed
they seemed bulky and primitive on the white, white walls and if she framed them they
floated crooked like fragile fiber sailboats on a chintz black sea.

beneath my breastbone
you stayed too long
to leave nothing behind

************

This haibun appeared in DRIFTING SANDS HAIBUN JOURNAL, July 2024

FFB: THE DEEP RANGE, Arthur C. Clarke

 (reviewed by Rick Robinson in 2012)

The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke © 1957, Signet 1964 mass market paperback (second printing), – science fiction – cover painting by Paul Lehr

According to the note inside, I read this one in September 1964. I didn’t put a grade down for it, as I sometimes did, but that means nothing. Honestly I didn’t remember a darn thing about the book, though it’s easy to tell from the cover art by Paul Lehr that it takes place in the sea.

Walter Franklin was a senior crewmember on the space vessel Antares when he had to go outside to repair an antenna knocked askew by a small asteroid. His suit rocket got stuck wide open and he sailed off into cold, empty space out of control and expecting to die by oxygen starvation after several hours in the cold reaches of space.

He was rescued, four hours later, but it was the last time he would ever go into space. The trauma was deep and seemingly permanent. So the psychological staff treated him as best they could and he was returned to Earth to start a new life, leaving his wife and two sons on Mars. All this is briefly told in flashbacks throughout the first half of the book.

Franklin was put through a special course to become a Warden in the Bureau of Whales. The sea was being harvested for it’s food and mineral wealth, and – along with plankton farms – whales play a big part, for milk, oil, meat. Wardens keep watch over the herds and keep away predators. It’s an underwater, exciting job, and the sea provides a kind of security the very opposite of space.

The book follows the career of Franklin from raw rookie through Second Warden, First Warden, Chief, then on into the bureaucracy and finally to head of the Bureau. There are some exciting adventures, some dangerous encounters with sea life and the equipment that can be deadly if not properly handled, there are under-sea rescues, a light love story, challenges and rewards.

Yes, this is science fiction, nothing like what is depicted here existed in 1957 and still doesn’t, but the equipment Clarke describes is a lot closer to becoming real– and some already has – certainly much of the undersea submersible equipment is in use today. Clarke as usual had a good eye for future technology.

A very different science fiction book, almost more of an adventure tale. I found myself thinking a few times as I read it that it would make a pleasing audio book. There was one done in 1980, on cassette, a special library edition, which may be out there somewhere. Though how many people still have cassette players? If you’re looking for something different in science fiction, light but interesting, this may be one worth trying. I enjoyed it.

Short Story Wednesday: "Ambrose" by Allegra Goodman THE NEW YORKER

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/30/ambrose-fiction-allegra-goodman 

I have several of Goodman's novels over the years and they always speak to me. This story also rang true. 

Lily's parents have divorced, and although the separations is only touched on, it is clear Lily is troubled. Luckily she has an involved teacher who gives her a notebook and suggests she write. Which she does, to the exclusion of other interests. In fact, most of the adults in her life are paying attention to her, but she has built a little fortress for herself. She is feeling very fragile in the world and wants to live in an earlier time, be homeschooled, not be held accountable for various deficits, be freed from issues with her older sister. In other words, she is like most of us at some point in their life.Apparently several of Goodman's recent books deal with this family. Enjoyed the story. 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

TracyK

Monday, Monday

 

Nobody Want This. Very cute show on Netflix. Also enjoying How to Die Alone on Hulu, Slow Horses (Apple), My Brilliant Friend, (Max) Pachinko (Apple) and pushing through Homicide.(Peacock). Binging does not suit every show. So I am going to take a break from Homicide.

Went to see Manhattan Shorts, which they are probably showing at a library or center in your hood. Ten pretty good shorts that you vote on. Some probably will get Oscar nods.

Reading Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, Curtis Chin. This is for my book group and the restaurant was in Detroit. I think I might have gone to it in the seventies.

Horrible storms, I am hoping Jerry wasn't too affected by it. This is never going away, is it? 

What's going on with you?

FFB:THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT OF THE MUSHROOM PLANET, Eleanor Cameron

FFB For Kids: The Mushroom Planet Series – Eleanor Cameron

first published-27 Friday Jun 2008

(Randy Johnson)

Eleanor Cameron’s Mushroom Planet series came out back in the fifties. It was science fiction for small children. I think the series would be the perfect way to introduce children to  written SF as opposed to movies.

In THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET, David and Chuck respond to a newspaper ad that read:

” Wanted: A small spaceship about eight feet long, built by a boy, or by two boys, between the ages of

eight and eleven….”

The ad goes on to promise an adventure and a chance to do a good deed. The two boys build from materials at hand and haul it to the address in the ad. There they meet a strange little man named Tyco Bass, a scientist.

He paints the inside and outside of their spaceship with a “special” liquid to seal it, installs engines, fuel tanks, and equipment of his design, and they are off to the Mushroom Planet, in invisible orbit fifty thousand miles from Earth.

There they meet a race of small green men, of which Mr. Bass is one, on a world of giant mushrooms. They help them with a great difficulty, become heroes, and return to Earth.  Their spaceship gets dashed to pieces by tides on the beach and Mr. Bass reportedly blows away on the wind.

The end of their adventures? Hardly.

In STOWAWAY TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET, they encounter Mr. Bass’ cousin, Mr. Theodosius, who pours over notes left by his relative, and recreates everything. A new spaceship is built, slightly bigger, and plans are made to return to the little planet. Upon arriving, they discover Horatio, a young boarder, who hadn’t believed their tales, but now wants to exploit the planet and it’s people. They also find Tyco Bass alive and well.

Adventures ensue and they all return to Earth. Everything is fine. The planet is safe.

The first two books are readily available on used book sites at reasonable prices(one and two dollars, plus S&H). But the other three are a bit more expensive Twenty dollars for the third, forty odd for the fifth. The fourth is the breaker. I’ve seen prices, ninety on the low end and two hundred fifty on the high for used copies. (THIS POST IS FROM A LONG TIME AGO)

Local libraries may have them(our county system has three).

It would be nice if some publisher came out with affordable paperbacks of all five. I think small children would enjoy them.

I know this small “child” loved  revisiting that long ago youth.

• 
  

Short Story Wednesday; AUTOBAHN, Hugo Hamilton

 

THE NEW YORKER

What a great short story. It takes place in the seventies and the protagonist is thumbing a ride on the Autobahn. He's a young hippy musician and a cop spots him and thinks he might be one of a terrorist group who's killing cops. At gunpoint, he takes him farther into the woods. The cop reminds our hero of his father, also cruel and violent, and he remembers the story of how his father bought him the very mouth organ he still plays and is carrying in his pocket. He is also carrying a Teddy Bear for his infant daughter. This is the kind of story, I can stop after every sentence and think about-both the writing, the sense of place, the character, the plot.  Hamilton has written a memoir, which I will look for. I know that the father in this story will dominate it, as too his German mother. How have I never heard this name before? 

George Kelley

TracyK 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

A hot week that may come to an end tomorrow. Saw THE SUBSTANCE. I am not a horror movie fan and this was an absolute gorefest, but I got enough out of it in terms of the male gaze and even the self gaze to be worth it.

Watching the excellent MY BRILLIANT FRIEND (MAX), SLOW HORSES, (APPLE) and PACHINKO (APPLE).

Went to a chamber music concert, which was delightful. I swear there was no one under 65 in the large auditorium. What will happen to these terrific musicians in another decade. Will they play for the emperor?Love the piece they played by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor especially. 

Zuill Bailey, cello; Awadagin Pratt, piano

music by Arvo Part, Beethoven, Brahms. Coleridge-Taylor

Reading REAL AMERICANS still and EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT (a memoir) Both are for my book groups.

I went to a  lecture on SCOTUS at my senior center. The 88 year old professor was a liberal but he made the absurd statement that women who wanted an abortion could merely hop in a plane and go to a blue state. But after November, that's going to get worse according to Project 25. Does anyone believe Harris is going to win? Give me some hope.

If you would still like to hear what the crime writers think about the election and their books, you can watch it on you tube and other places. It was pretty inspirational. Just google Crime Fiction for Harris. Sara Paretsky was particularly memorable.  Cheers to Alafair Burke and Kellye Garrett for putting it together.

FFB-Thirteen Women, TiffanyThayer

 (reviewed by John Norris)

I really don't know what to make of Thirteen Women (1932) by the eccentric stylist Tiffany Thayer. Is it a thriller? Is it a character study? Is it some kind of allegory on Fate? What I do know is it's tawdry, vulgar, lyrical, pulpy, poignant, disgusting, frustrating, infuriating, and utterly addictive. It's sort of the equivalent of driving by an utterly gruesome car wreck on the highway. You don't want to look, you know better. You, of course, are not a gawker or a rubbernecker. But when you get close enough you do slow down and you stare in horror and then look away, but you look back and you gape again. Then you move on. That's what it's like to read Thirteen Women. What can you say about a book that in the first chapter includes a dinner party scene in which the guests discuss a sex act that a depraved nanny performed on her charge and who ended up giving the boy a venereal disease? Of course it's all done in a sly innuendo type of writing, but it's just down right wrong, isn't it?

Thayer is not interested in making you comfortable as a reader. He wants you to squirm and recoil and shudder. He's a bit too obsessed with the nastiness and cruelty of life. He revels in pointing out his character's flaws -- their ignorance, their stupidity, their hedonism. The book is, I guess, meant to be a nihilistic view of the early years of depression era America told mostly from the viewpoint of female characters. But these women are merely symbols and puppets for Thayer's intensely cynical and fatalistic philosophies. Few of them resemble anything approaching a real person. The plot involves an absurd revenge plot decades in the making that stems from the villainess' life of abuse, neglect and bullying. She blames a group of schoolgirls for all her problems and vows vengeance on them all. She devises a ridiculous plan in which she creates the persona of an astrologer who sends letters to all the women in her past. The astrologer foretells death, suicide and disease for everyone.  And when the predictions start to come true one of the women sees not the power of superstition and Fate at work but a very real murder plot starting to unfold at the hands of a mad genius.
Illustrations from the 1st edition by David Berger
Laura Stanhope take her collection of letters to the police along with a packet of powder she received from the astrologer who goes by the preposterous name of Swami Yogadachi (a Japanese swami?). The powder was to be given to her son on his birthday according to the Swami's instructions and is meant to save the boy from a potentially fatal disease he predicts. Laura suspecting it harmful never did a thing but instead of disposing of it she saved it. For five months! She had to or else it wouldn't further the plot, right? The police have the powder analyzed and it turns out to be a highly poisonous compound usually intended as a pesticide for vermin. Thus begins the hunt for the murderous Swami Yogadachi and the search for the other recipients of his letters to prevent any further deaths.

The story is a veritable Pandora's box of ills and pestilence released upon the reader. Murder, suicide, insanity, venereal disease, abortion, sex addiction -- it's all there in abundance. In keeping with the shock factor Thayer also includes a lesbian romance and makes it as tawdry and unattractive as one can imagine for a 1930s audience. Simultaneously making fun of the butch/femme stereotypes and also writing in such a manner as to titillate the easily aroused. It's not as tasteless as the sex addicted nanny story -- at times the relationship between Hazel and Martha is touchingly rendered -- but clearly the scenes are there for the reader who picked this book to be shocked.

Thirteen Women is told in a hodgepodge mess of letters, telegrams, newspaper articles, and author omniscient narration. We get to know the women through their own voices in their letters, but also through the condescending viewpoint of Thayer's narrator who at times is the author himself. Often Thayer steps into the story addressing the reader as "you" and giving his opinions of his characters as if they are real people ("You can't have Josephine Turner. Make up your mind to that. In the first place, I want her myself.") It's only one of the many unexpected parts of the book that make it a genuine head-scratcher yet strangely entertaining in a very offbeat way.

Tiffany Thayer's life, however, would make for a much more interesting book than any of his novels. There is a fascinating article here that goes into great detail about his beginnings as a writer, his friendship with Charles Fort, the origins of the Fortean Society which Thayer helped found, and his megalomaniac takeover of the society and its first magazine/newsletter Doubt. Someone should write a biography of the man. I'd read that with great interest. But as for further investigating the fiction of Tiffany Thayer I have had my fill after indulging myself in the pages of Thirteen Women.

Short Story Wednesday: BLOOD LINES, Ruth Rendell

 From B.V. Lawson in the archives

Blood Lines dates from 1995 and includes 10 shorter stories and one novella. Most of the stories are familiar Rendell territory including the villages of Kingsmarkham and Stowerton, which are the stomping grounds of Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant Mike Burden, featured in the initial story. "Blood Lines" finds Wexford and Burden solving a bludgeoning death that Wexford doggedly pursues despite the fact everyone else thinks it's a mere robbery gone bad, in the end piecing together a picture of infidelity, spousal abuse and betrayal.

"Lizzie's Lover" takes a new and literal twist on a Browning poem that comes to life; "Burning End" explores the difficult relationships between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law and what it takes to push someone over the edge; the accidental discovery of a poisonous mushroom in a garden leads to a game of culinary Russian Roulette by a mad man in a supermarket, in "Shreds and Shivers"; "Clothes" is the only story not to deal with death but rather peers inside an unusual obsession that drives a woman to emotional collapse.

The longest story, the novella "The Strawberry Tree" was one of seventeen televised feature-length adaptations of Rendell's work which aired on ITV in the UK and on some PBS stations between 1987 and 2000, under the title Ruth Rendell Mysteries, which Acorn Media just released in a DVD boxed set in March. It was apparently intended as a sketch for a Barbara Vine novel, a foreboding and atmospheric tale of lost innocence embedded in a lonely young woman's deep desire for love and friendship on the island of Majorca.

Rendell (and alter ego Vine) is known for her exploration of the darker human impulses forged out of society’s moral codes: passion, jealousy, anxiety, guilt, shame, rage are the colors she uses to paint psychological portraits as she allows the reader to delve into the minds of her characters. If you haven't read a Rendell novel, stories such as these make for a fine introduction. 

Steve Lewis

Jerry House 

George Kelley 

Monday, Monday

 Enjoyed the Martin Scorsese narrated documentary MADE IN ENGLAND. Their films are a bit too fantastical for me but I admire such vision and elegance.

Reading REAL AMERICANS by Rachel Khong and the new Jackson Brody book by Kate Atkinson. Lots of fun. (DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK). 

On TV, watching PACHINKO, SLOW HORSES, HOMICIDE, THE ENGLISH TEACHER.

We are in a drought here. The first one in a long time. 

The Lions are not looking Superbowl worthy so far.

What about you?

 

From the archives (Randy Johnson)

FFB: Due Or Die – Frank Kane

Author Frank Kane created P.I. Johnny Littell in a short story for the pulps in 1944 and went on to write twenty-nine novels featuring him, plus an unknown number of short stories. According to his granddaughter, he claimed four hundred, though she believes that an exaggeration. And Bill Crider said in 2000, if it’s a Frank Kane book, chances are “it’ll be a competent straightforward P.I. story.” DUE OR DIE certainly was all that. I quite enjoyed my first Kane book.

P.I. Johnny Liddell got the job offer from a most agreeable source. Beautiful redheaded singer Lee Loomis. Mobster “Fat Mike” Klein, who Johnny knew from the old days, needed help in Las Palmas, a small Nevada city where the gambling joints were controlled by aging mobsters, no longer the hard men they’d once been. The deal was $10,000 to find the killer, half now, half when the job was done.

They didn’t dare let New York know what had happened. The remaining five knew the vultures were already out there and they didn’t dare let anyone know that a hit had gone down without their knowledge.

But Johnny arrived too late. Fat Mike had been murdered as well, shot down in his car on the side of the road. The remaining four showed Johnny the note all had received promising each would be killed unless they ponied up a million dollars. With each death, the share went up for the others.

They wanted Johnny to simply deliver the money. The two deaths had been covered up, the first a heart attack, the body quickly cremated, and Fat Mike had committed suicide, the body to be buried as soon as possible.

Johnny didn’t like that. Fat Mike had not been a particular friend, but he’d accepted the job and he was loathe to quit before he got it done.

Tom Regan, the police chief, was as crooked as the mobsters, in their pocket, and was no help. Despite his bosses agreement, he seemed determined to impede the investigation.

Johnny plugs away, avoiding beatings, dodging frame-ups, and questioning anyone and everyone.

He thinks he has it figured out. Now all he has to do is prove it before being killed.

Enjoyed this one. Johnny Liddell appeared in 29 novels and numerous short stories(Kane claimed four hundred in a letter, though his granddaughter thought that an exaggeration).

Short Story Wednesday: "The Ballad of Timothy Touchett" from TABLE FOR TWO, Amor Towles

Towles is the author of one of my favorite books, A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW. He also wrote THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY more recently. 

This is a collection of stories and "The Ballad of Timothy Touchett" is one of them.
It can be hard to sum up a story that has a crime in it without giving too much away. Not that this story depends on its finale because it mostly relies on the characters and the writing.  A young man with the desire to be a famous writer is hired to work in a small bookstore. His employer figures out how to make good use of his particular skills, and it works out for both of them for a while. The ending, handed over to the police, lacked the charm of what went before it but not enough to ruin it.  There is one very nice touch before the denouement. 

TracyK

George Kelley 

Kevin Tipple 

Neer

Monday, Monday

 Pretty nice weather here. But it looks to turn hot this week. 

Saw MEMPHIS today. It was a great local production: great voices, costumes, music but the plot relies on a romance to carry the second half. 

I saw a great documentary on Arthur Miller (ARTHUR MILLER: WRITER) on Max, made by his daughter, Rebecca in 2017. Other than Shakespeare I have seen more of his plays than any other writer. At least ten of them and several more than once. I am sure Jeff can beat that. The doc did remind me that Miller institutionalized his Downs Syndrome son in the Sixties. It seems rather late to still be doing that. But I have come to the point where I don't judge the artist, just his work because so many of us are flawed in some way. Killers, child porn afficiandos and rapists are excepted from my tolerance though.

Also a good doc on the artist Alice Neal. Went to a lecture on the portrayal of America in art where I saw some of her work and got interested. Also went to a lecture on Mayan Civilization. What would I do without our Senior center, which has lectures, trips, music, classes, groups. etc five days a week. I am always looking to expand my network of friends as every article tells me I must do to avoid crushing loneliness. Of course, I never thought of this when I had Phil.

Watching PACHINKO, which is terrific. Also TROPPO on Prime, ENGLISH TEACHER on Hulu. 

My first haibun is up in DRIFTING SANDS latest online issue. #28. I have two more accepted in other journals. There are not many outlets for haiku but the ones that exist publish a lot of writers. I am trying to work my way out of confessional work, but nature is not my strong point, having always lived in cities and visited cities. I know haiku is not my strongest suit either but I lack the focus for writing novels. I am worried I will soon lack the focus for reading them, which has happened to a few of my friends.

Started THE HORSE by Willie Vlautin. I have liked all of his novels, especially LEAN ON PETE. GOD OF THE WOODS was pretty good although it seems like a few of the many, many characters were expendable. And a few less red herrings might be a good idea too. 

Very worried about the election. Those of you in CA or NYC don't know what it's like in the heartland. I think Kamala needs to take more interviews and do less rallies. The people who turn up at rallies are not swing voters. She's not going to win if she doesn't answer more questions and answer them better than saying on her first day in office she will make a salad. Jeez. Her opponent is completely bonkers now. Why don't these MAGA people see it? And why doesn't Bush speak up? So much is riding on the debate. I will probably follow the NYT coverage online rather than watch it. Yes, I am a coward. 

Hope the Lions did better than U of M.

What are you up to?

FFB: DEATH OF A CITIZEN, Donald Hamilton

 

Stephen D. Rogers:From the archives

Donald Hamilton's DEATH OF A CITIZEN changed my life.

I was brought up to be polite and courteous, to put others first, and -- if I had nothing good to say -- to say nothing at all.

Then, as a young teen, I opened DEATH OF A CITIZEN. Read it, flipped it over, and read it again. And again.

Matt Helm was a no-nonsense protagonist who thought for himself and did what needed to be done. If he was polite and courteous, he was polite and courteous because he'd decided to be, not because someone else how told him how to behave.

Some may say I'm splitting hairs here, but DEATH OF A CITIZEN taught me not only self-awareness but self-determination.

Sure, Helm killed people, but nobody's perfect.

No book is perfect. DEATH OF A CITIZEN comes very close.

Take the following exchange. Helm and his ex-lover Tina are traveling together. Teasing has lead to a game of tag, and the longer-legged Helm eventually brings her down.

"'Old,' she jeered, still lying there. 'Old and fat and slow. Helm the human vegetable. Help me up, turnip.'"

It's funny and it's fitting and it's a damn fine piece of writing. I've read the book dozens of times and still continue to be blow away by that paragraph.

As a bit of background, Tina and Helm (or Eric, as he was known at the time) worked together during the war as government assassins. He gets out once Germany is defeated, marries, and leads a normal life until Tina reappears.

Donald Hamilton delivers on multiple levels. Not only does he create entertaining plots, and write them well, he provides a rich array of three-dimensional characters.

Take, for example, what happens when Helm borrows a car, rushing home to save his daughter who's been kidnapped by Tina and her partner Frank.

"It was the ugliest damn hunk of automotive machine I'd ever had the misfortune to be associated with...

"[The gas attendant thinks differently.] 'That's quite a car you've got there. I tell you ... when they can get something real sharp made right here in America.'

"Well, it's all a matter of taste, I guess."

Helm might be his own person, but he understands and accepts that his way is not the only way. That's as rare in books as it is in real life.

One finds murder, kidnapping, and torture within DEATH OF A CITIZEN. The disembowelment of a pet cat. And yet, one finds the following passage while Helm waits for a female guest to leave Frank's hotel room.

"...the tartier the girl, strangely enough, the longer the skirt. You'd think it would be the other way around.

"This one was pretty well hobbled."

And after the woman leaves, and Helm follows Frank out of the hotel and under a nearby bridge:

"There were a couple of cars going past overhead. It was a good a time as any. I took out the gun and shot him five times in the chest."

Only later does Helm explain that Frank was too big and unimaginative to be made to talk. Killing Frank at least took him out of the equation, freeing Helm to concentrate on Tina.

"She licked her lips. 'Better men than you have tried to make me talk, Eric.'

"I said, 'This doesn't take better men, sweetheart. This takes worse men. And at the moment, with my kid in danger, I'm just about as bad as they come."

Between 1960 (DEATH OF A CITIZEN) and 1993 (THE DAMAGERS), Matt Helm appeared in 27 books. Donald Hamilton died in late 2006. He was just about as good as they came.