FFB: VANISHED, Mary McGarry Morris

VANISHED, Mary McGarry Morris

I don't know if anyone saw this book as crime fiction 25 years ago. It's certainly noir and straight out of the Woodrell/Jim Thompson universe. It was nominated for the National Book Award.
 

A laborer is lured into helping an attractive woman he sees on the road. He deserts his family and embarks on an odyssey with Dotty, who is a femme fatale of the highest order. She has kidnapped a baby and the three cobble out a life on the road over the course of the next five years. 

Their fate is further complicated when they run into an ex-con and his family, who come up with the idea of demanding ransom. This is one dark, often heart-breaking tale, and amazingly Morris' first novel. Highly recommended. Her other novels aren't bad either

BARNES AND NOBLE-Northville

 Megan had a great event and sold out the books ordered for it. Great questions from the audience too.Thanks to all who attended.

Short Story Wednesday: PLAYING GAMES, edited by Lawrence Block"THE PUZZLE MASTER, David Morrell

 I have read two stories from this collection. The first by S.A Cosby made use of the game of checkers. It was a fine story, well written, but pretty predictable. "The Puzzle Master" was not really a crime story but was clever. A couple were doing a jigsaw puzzle given to them by a neighbor and found clues in the puzzles left by the puzzle creator. I learned a lot about jigsaw puzzles and was treated to a clever story.  Any more information would ruin it. 

George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThY-n1IxOww 

Every June the Detroit area hosts the Great Lake Chamber Music Festival where for two-three weeks, concert halls, churches, synagogues the DIA and other venues have gorgeous music. We saw the Emerson Quartet perform pieces by Brahms and Mendelsohn and the final piece above. This is their final tour after 40 years of performing. They played at Kirk of the Hills the night we saw them. 

Another friend and I saw ASTEROID CITY by Wes Anderson, which we both pretty much hated. Such warm colors for such a cold story-if you can even call it a story. It's more a concept than a plot. I have seen every Anderson movie and liked none of them. Yet I always expect to. 

Reading this and that. About to dig into DAUGHTER OF TIME for my book group. It was my suggestion. I hope they like it. 

Watching JOE PICKETT (Boy, I like his family and their story is the better part of it), THE BEAR, looks to be great again,  ENDEAVOR, love the characters and tolerate the plots. Tried SEX AND THE CITY, but boy, just a large group of people running around in their underwear. Wasn't it better than this thirty years ago.  

Why am I paying $15 a month for Netflix and finding nothing to watch on it. 

Waiting for Megan to arrive for a one-day visit on Wednesday to do a book talk in the Detroit area and then in Petoskey. 

How about you guys?

FFB: DECOY, Cleve F. Adams

DECOY by Cleve F. Adams (reviewed by Evan Lewis in 2010)

Decoy, published in 1941, is the third book in the Rex McBride series, and also Cleve F. Adams’ third novel. I reviewed the first two, Sabotage and And Sudden Death in earlier Forgotten Books posts, and invite you to take a look.

Decoy picks up shortly after the events in And Sudden Death, in which McBride foiled a pre-war plot by Japanese agents. Rex is throwing an extravagant party at a fancy hotel to spend some of dough he made on the previous job. That’s when his usual employers, the execs of an insurance company, come begging him to take on a new case.

Three commercial airliners have crashed (one burning with all passengers) and the insurance companies are taking it in the shorts. When a fourth plane vanishes completely, they come begging McBride to save them. McBride tells them to go to hell until he learns that another insurance investigator - a man he likes - has also gone missing. His takes the case to find out what happened to his friend.

Rex McBride is never quite comfortable in his skin. He wear expensive clothes and drinks good liquor (or any other kind), but never forgets his roots. He came from the gutter, and is more at home with cab drivers, bellhops, barflies and petty grifters than with folks in his own income bracket. He has nothing but contempt for the insurance execs and captains of industry who employ him. They're phonies who pretend to have clean hands, but hire McBride to do their dirty work for them.

A stock element of Adams’ books is a temporary sidekick/drinking partner for the hero. In this one, that role goes to a down-on-his-luck pilot who’s lost his license to fly. He helps McBride in some tasks, but more often just helps him get into trouble. Every Adams novel also features at least one deadly dame who tries to cozy up to the detective, usually for nefarious purposes. Somehow, the hero’s inamorata (in McBride’s case that’s Miss Kay Ford, secretary to an insurance exec) always manages to walk in on one of the cozier moments and get her nose out of joint.

This evil babe factor was all the excuse a British publisher needed to issue a 1956 reprint under the title Decoy Doll. In the U.S., the 1944 Books Inc hardcover reprint isn't too hard to come by, but as far as I know the only paperback edition was an early Handi-books abridgment. Too bad. This is a good read. Don’t believe me? Maybe you’ll believe a youngster named James M. Reasoner, from a 1982 issue of The Not So Private Eye:

 

Adams' distinct prose style is tough to describe, but I find it infectious. It's what keeps me coming back for more. If you haven't tried him, click HERE for a complete 1938 novelette from Detective Fiction Weekly called "Jigsaw."

 

Short Story Wednesday: KISS ME IN THE CORAL LOUNGE, Helen Ellis

 

Although this is billed at a collection of essays, I thought it read equally well as a very humorous collection of stories about Helen Ellis and her husband. This is Ellis's fourth collection. Lex and Helen seem ideally suited to each other and, in fact, one chapter spells out the things they enjoy sharing (making paper valentines) and the things they don't. WE ARE NOT THE KIND OF COUPLE THAT....goes hiking, for instance. 

The coral lounge refers to the second bedroom in their apartment, which they have painted coral (they are child-free) and use it as a place they can privately relax together. These stories take the couple through the Covid years, which they seemed to have survived mentally better than most. Helen can toss out one joke and riff on it endlessly, like in the chapter on snoring or the ones on their cats. Highly recommended for those needing a laugh.

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

George Kelley 

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

 

Well we did NOT go to the thousand dollar a plate dinner at the DSO but we did hear Michael Feinstein and Jean Yves Thibaudet play with the DSO orchestra. Quite a thrilling concert of mostly Gershwin. We walked the red carpet, but were dressed normally unlike the many dressed to the nines people we mingled with. We did not realize the evening was about more than Gershwin so we got to sit through a lot of tributes to donors.

I also went to the Flag Day concert at the local park. I am not much of a fan of patriotic music played by amateur musicians but hey, it's free and I will do almost anything to get out of my apartment. Some of my friends find this puzzling. But they are people with a husband or wife, who have lived in the same house for 50 years, and have a yard to get out  to. What is there to do in a apartment for 18 hours a day? You have to love to clean or watch TV or read. I can do any of those activities for two hours a piece a day but that leaves me with 12 hours.

The Indy 500 that runs beneath my window grows more and more onerous as many cars now have both noise and lighting effects that strobe my walls and shake my glassware. Thousands of my neighbors take lawn chairs and coolers down below on Woodward Avenue to watch these cars drive back and forth from 7pm-11pm on weekend nights. And I count TH through SUN as the weekend. It is still two months to the official Dream Cruise. Will I survive?

Reading the delightful book of essays by Helen Ellis KISS ME IN THE CORAL LOUNGE. Will talk about it more on Wednesday. 

Watching Joe Pickett, which I like mostly although I don't find his case riveting. It is he and his family that steal the show. And I am very worried about his daughters. PLATONIC on Apple -which is so-so at best. Started Endeavour on PBS.

Hope you all had Happy Father's Days.

How about you? Is your 'hood driving you crazy?

FFB: THE WHISPERING WALL, Patricia Carlon

                                       THE WHISPERING WALL, Patricia Carlon

Patricia Carlon's THE WHISPERING WALL tells the story of a wealthy, paralyzed, bed-ridden woman who, thanks to a vent in the wall, overhears murderous conversations. The Phippses plan to murder singer, Roderick Palmer.  A niece discovers  Sarah can blink in response to questions.  But the Phippses realize Sarah has overheard their plot and determine to kill her, too. With enormous effort, using letter games and Scrabble, Sarah attempts to warn Roderick in the only way she can.

Carlon proved herself to be a first class suspense writer with this novel. Carlon is Australian and wrote most of her books in the sixties. Occasionally I run across one, although less and less over time.Carlon was deaf from age 11 onward and kept out of the public eye her whole life. This may also explain why so many of her books used disabilities of some type as a feature.

Here is an interesting article about her. 

 

Short Story Wednesday

 

George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

TracyK

Todd Mason

Monday, Monday

Hopefully it will rain today. It's been a long time. There is so much campground terrain in Michigan to worry about with careless campers. And the fact that it is so much windier than it used to be here aggravates it. 

Just discovered JOE PICKETT (from the C.J. Box books) on Paramount. Only have watched one and it doesn't seem up to the caliber of LONGMIRE, but not bad. Also watching MUSTER DOGS on Netflix. It's about the training of these dogs in Australia. Don't ask. I have formed a late-life attachment to other people's dogs. A four- part true crime series called BURDEN OF PROOF on Max was good. I am done with PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR although there are two more seasons that ran in the UK I am hoping for. Also finished TOP CHEF, which was a disappointment. I only watched it because I am paying for Peacock.  The cooking is at such a haute cuisine level now and looks much the same from chef to chef.

Reading FLY GIRL by Ann Hood (memoir). Maybe. I don't finish about 2/3 of the books I start so I am not sure I will find the life of a (at the time) stewardess interesting even though I have enjoyed Hood's fiction. 

Nice to see Megan's book recommended on the TODAY SHOW. 

What are you guys up to?

FFB: THE YELLOW DOG, Georges Simenon

(reviewed by Ed Gorman)

The early Maigret detective novels by Georges Simenon bear the stamp of the busy pulp writer Simenon he was before finding his voice and mission with the cranky even surly Commissaire.

In The Yellow Dog, a particularly well-plotted crime novel, Maigret travels to the small coastal town of Concarneau where a local wine merchant has been murdered under mysterious circumstances. According to a witness the man was strolling home on a windy night and paused to walk up steps leading to the narrow sheltered porch of a long empty house. Moments later the man fell backwards, dead from the shots.

Once there Maigret meets the four men and one waitress who seem to know much more than they're willing to share with him. He also sees a large yellow dog that keeps appearing at the crime scenes to come. Maigret feels a kinship with the animal which is more than he can say for anybody he meets in the town. 

Where did the dog come from? Why does he keep showing up at such odd moments? Does he belong to the person who by book's end kills more people?

This is a serial killer novel. Simenon even casts the local newspaper as one of the villains. The editor has a history of exploiting bad news to the point of making each local tragedy worse. And the killings are no exception. Simenon suggests that it is sop for Frenchmen to a) have mistresses and b) go about armed. Both are factors in the investigation. 

Most of the elements of classic Maigret are here. The weather is as vivid as the characters; Simenon buttresses his sociological look at French life with bleak humor; and his pity for decent people life has treated badly borders on the religious along with his contempt for pomposity and self-importance and cruelty. 

There is always a claustrophobic feel to the Maigrets; this allows the reader to experience what the Inspector himself does. As a forlorn chronicler of humankind Simenon is still without peer.

(We miss you, Ed)

Short Story Wednesday: "For Esme with Love and Squalor" J.D. Salinger

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iw7vSDCtRE 

First published in THE NEW YORKER in 1950, this is the story of a GI near the end of the war who meets a precocious young girl and her precocious brother in a restaurant after observing them at choir practice. He has an engaging conversation with her, finally promising to write a story for her. The second scene is the story he writes and the squalor is the shell shock he is experiencing as the war winds down. He receives a letter from her and enclosed is her dead father's watch, the face broken in transit. 

This one is collected in NINE STORIES. Literary writers today aren't as easy to read as the ones of an earlier generation: i.e. Updike, Cheever, Mailer, Bellow, McCuller, Cather, etc. Their style of writing did not call as much attention to itself and the point was usually fairly discernible. At least to me. What do you think?

Todd Mason

George Kelley 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House

Monday Monday

 Josh and Julie took me to see a local production of SINGING IN THE RAIN, which was amazingly good. The staging was so impressive in contrast to what you would have seen two decades ago. Today I go to see SIX.

Beautiful weather. It hasn't rained in a long time. And today it cooled off. 

I never have to have a colonoscopy again. Yay! Unless of course, there are troublesome symptoms. 75 is the cutoff.

Sad to see SUCCESSION, BARRY, TED LASSO and MRS. MAISEL go, All I have left is TOP CHEF, which is at the end and PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR.

Enjoyed YOU REALLY HURT MY FEELINGS with Julia Louis Dreyfus. Four people in the audience. Kevin gives 9/10 to SPIDERMAN IN THE MULTIVERSE. I think that is his highest score ever. 

READING SCORCHED GRACE (A crime-solving nun) and THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS.

                                                       Josh and Julie

FFB: IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE

 

IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE, Adrian McKinty

This is the third book of what McKinty calls THE TROUBLES TRILOGY. This won the Ned Kelly Award and I enjoyed it immensely. It's a locked room murder inside a story of the troubles. I have not read the first two books so that probably factors in to a certain lack of knowledge of the character and his problems with the Royal Ulster Constabulary,

Sean Duffy has a chance for reinstatement in the local forces if he is able to find the whereabouts of an infamous IRA member. The two were childhood friends so this gives him a certain insight into the terrorist. His deal with those who can tell him Dermot's whereabouts is to solve the locked room murder of their daughter a few years back. And watching Duffy solve this crime is enjoyable. McKinty writes very clearly and yet doesn't repeat himself. It's a pleasure to be led through the clues by such a good plotter.

Also enjoyable is McKinty's use of Joseph Kennedy Jr. on a trip to Belfast. And the final scenes, which take place during Margaret Thatcher's stay in a Brighton Hotel, are exciting. I liked the style of writing and the cast of characters a lot. We get some of Duffy's life but not enough to slow the action down. I also really like the single POV in this book. It does make following a plot easier. Highly recommended for crime fiction lovers.

Short Story Wednesday: AT THE GATES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, Amy Hempl

 Amy Hempl is considered a master of the minimalist short story. Many of her stories are less than 3000 words and still manage to convey characters and story. "Rapture of the Deep" is about a temp sent to spend Halloween with a bedridden woman who is afraid to have her house unguarded with kids coming to the door. All the things they might do in revenge, which she outlines. Their conversation mostly concerns the rings the invalid has on her fingers. Then the temp confides the death of a man she was engaged to by "Rapture of the Deep" which is what happens when someone scuba diving goes too deep and loses consciousness. The temp leaves, taking some Halloween candy and paper clips with her and remembers too late the remote is out of the woman's reach. The stories are slight but leave the reader with something to think about. 

Todd Mason

George Kelley 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

Jerry House

Monday, Monday

 A quiet week with too many doctor appointments. Nothing serious but once you have cancer, even one not requiring anything too horrible, you are constantly being checked. And this week a colonscopy, which would be bad enough but I am sure I will flash back to the last one where Phil was diagnosed with colon cancer. 

Very nice weather although we went from forties to almost ninety in a week. Reading THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS for my book group. So far, it is too twee for me but maybe that will disappear as our heroine ages. I got 2/3 through STAY TRUE but got bored with the examination of nineties music, which seems to be most of it. Read an article about Alice Sebold in the NEW YORKER, which was terrifying. She was the author of LOVELY BONES and LUCKY and her false (inadvertent) testimony put a man behind bars for 20 years. 

TV-So sad SUCCESSION ends tonight. MRS MAISEL ended well but after a lackluster final season. TED LASSO and BARRY are also ending. Still watching PORTRAIT PAINTER OF THE YEAR, which as someone with 0 artistic talent, I find fascinating. 

What about you? 

The Pierre Chambrun series by Hugh Pentecost

 I love looking at some of the older forgotten book posts and this one really peaked my interest. AGAIN.

(From Kaye Barley in the archives)

The Pierre Chambrun series by Hugh Pentecost

Hugh Pentecost. I thought I had remembered the PERFECT forgotten books. Perfect! Couldn’t wait to squeal about an author who I haven’t heard mentioned in forever. You can imagine how my chin hit the floor as I read Lesa Holstine’s November 28th blog post when the name Hugh Pentecost jumped off the page at me.

But, Lesa and I do tend to enjoy a lot of the same books, so perhaps not too surprising. Except this was a series which ended in 1988! How ironic is it for the two of us to want to re-read and remember these books at exactly the same time, and want to bring them to “Friday’s Forgotten Books?” It gives even more emphasis to the fact that they deserve to be remembered. Lesa did her usual excellent job in bringing these books to life and stirring some interest.

If you haven’t already read the Pierre Chambrun series, I too encourage you to try to find them and give them a try. I think my love of and curiosity regarding all things having to do with hotels must stem from discovering Kay Thompson’s ELOISE at an early age. I find myself drawn to books which have hotels as a “character.” Especially a luxury hotel, which is a world unto itself. Upon discovering this series, I was in heaven. I continue re-reading the novels and short stories simply to lose myself in the Beaumont Hotel.

Hugh Pentecost was the pseudonym of Judson Philips (1903-1989). Philips was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America and served as its third president, in addition to being Grand Master in 1973. Pentecost’s luxurious Beaumont Hotel is the leading character in 22 books. When asked if the Beaumont was based on the Plaza, the Ritz, or another luxury New York City hotel, Mr. Pentecost replied that although he knew these grandhotels well, none of them were as well known to him, nor as well loved, as his own Beaumont, which was as real to him as his own home.

While we don’t ever find Eloise scampering the halls of the Beaumont, there’s a host of interesting characters with their own stories and secrets to keep us entertained. At the start of the series, which was begun in 1962, we’re introduced to Pierre Chambrun who is the much admired, well loved, lord and master over the Beaumont. We’re also introduced to a cast of supporting characters – most of whom are still employed by the hotel when the series ends in 1988. There are few character changes; but the changes are important to the series, and I think perhaps one of the reasons for its successful, long life. They include replacing Mr. Chambrun’s original insignificant secretary with the intriguing Ms. Ruysdale. The involvement between Chambrun and Ruysdale is developed slowly and intricately during the series until the very last line in the very last book leaving no mistake as to the nature of their relationship.

Another important change is losing a likeable key character, Alison Barnwell, public relations manager. Alison marries and she and her husband move away from the city to open their own hotel. By replacing Alison with Mark Haskell, the series gains its “voice.” It's through Mark that the rest of the stories are told. The relationship between Mark and Pierre is very much like that between Nero Wolfe and Archie. A relationship which would not have been as wholly believable with a female character during this time period. One additional recurring character who remains a favorite is the elderly Mrs.Victoria Haven. Penthouse resident. One time stage star, and legendary beauty. A woman of great dignity, intelligence, mystery and humor. My favorite books in the series are the ones which include Mrs. Haven. Into this close, closed and tight knit community fall the adventures of the rich and famous, infamous, innocent or not so, scrupulous or unscrupulous, always intriguing visitors with mysteries begging to be solved.

Short Story Wednesday:THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway (reviewed by Ed Gorman)

If you grew up in the Forties or Fifties it was impossible to imagine that the literary luster of Ernest Hemingway would ever dim. I've never known of a writer as imitated (usually badly) as ole Papa.

He loved it. He carefully crafted the public persona of adventurer and man's man the press and the people loved. Novels such as A Farewell To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls outsold the books of his contemporaries.

But time and taste caught up with him and we now see that Hemingway's novels weren't quite as good as we once thought. He certainly had no Gatsby to brag of nor even a Grapes of Wrath by the despised Steinbeck; Papa believed he was a terrible writer. For me the only novel of his worth reading now is The Sun Also Rises. It's not a great novel but it's fascinating one and much truer to the real Hemingway than the novels he wrote afterward.

But then there are the short stories. Back in the day his collected stories were referred to with great reverence as The First Forty-Nine. Many of them were reprinted dozens if not hundreds of times around the world, textbooks included. They still deserve the reverence paid them back then.

From his story of death and dying ("A Clean, Well-Lighted Place") to his sad and ironic tale of a soldier who came back from the First World War too late for the parades ("Soldier's Home:) to the stories set in Upper Michigan this is American literature at its finest. This was Hemingway before he became Papa--the confused boy-man who went to war and then set himself up in Paris to write.

In numerous stories here he proves himself the equal of Faulkner (whom he saw as his main competition--he'd already arrogantly written off his old friend (and the guy who got him his Scribner contract) Fitzgerald) in experimenting with point of view. The line, as several critics
mentioned at the time, went from Stephen Crane to Mark Twain to Hemingway, that pure American voice. If you read Crane's The Blue Hotel before you reading Hemingway's Collected Stories you'll hear the echoes throughout start the book.

For readers and writers alike, this is one book that should be in every serious collection. There was no more vital and powerful voice than Hemingway's in his early stories (and I don't include The Old Man And The Sea which I never much liked; way too self-consciously Important). Today they're just as pure and perfect as they were when first published. All hail Hemingway.

 Jerry House

TracyK 

Todd Mason 

George Kelley

Monday, Monday

My reading for the last few days was BEWARE THE WOMAN, which was terrifying and beautiful. Of course, I am her mother.

Saw four good movies, two at the theater: BLACKBERRY and RIO BRAVO.

Two Erich Rohmer movies on Criterion Channel: A TALE OF WINTER, THE GREEN RAY. They are very similar in plot: a discontented female is looking for love in France. These movies are very slow and yet you stay with it. Who else gives women a chance to whine and cry?

TV: SUCCESSION, BARRY, TED LASSO, PORTRAIT ARTIST OF THE YEAR (Tubi), THE DOGHOUSE (HBO MAX). 

Happy birthday to my daughter-in-law, Julie Nichols, a great mother, daughter, wife. Julie works for Michigan Legal Services, representing people who can't afford an attorney.

What about you?

FFB: A PERFECT MATCH, Jill McGown (reviewed Richard Robinson)

 

Friday Forgotten Book: A Perfect Match by Jill McGown

Originally Posted on December 18, 2015 by Rick Robinson

A Perfect Match by Jill McGown, Fawcett Crest 1983 mass market paperback, mystery, first in Detective Inspector Lloyd & Judy Hill series.

“The September dawn crept over the sky like water on blotting paper, spreading a fine, thin light to supplement the yellow glow of the street lighting. In the town centre shopping precinct, photo-cells registered the increase, and the anti-theft store lights clicked softly, obediently switching themselves off.”

Once again, a recent Friday Forgotten Book review encouraged me to find a copy of a book. This book, to be specific, and, as it was at hand, just having come in the mail, I read it and here are my thoughts.

This is the first in a series, and I never know quite what to make of a first-in-series book. Is the author experimenting with setting and characters? Is this a plot that came to the author like a bolt of lightening, some inspired idea, an epiphany ? Or has the writer cobbled something together between lunch and dinner? With a first in series novel, you never know. So I sat, I read and here’s what I think.

Stansfield is a small English town an hour’s drive, perhaps a bit more, from London. Detective Inspector Lloyd Hill works on major crimes, but murder isn’t common. So it’s an unpleasant surprise when the body of a woman, dead, naked, strangled, is found in the woods near the boating lake just outside of town. The relationships between the victim, the family with whom she has been staying, her solicitor, his wife, the mechanic at the local garage, the estate agent working to sell the boating property to the town are all very tangled. In fact, the primary element in this mystery is tangled relationships. I suggest the reader pay close attention to that early on, or things will seem even more complicated than they turn out to be, and that’s complicated indeed.

I liked the book enough to try the next in the series, though it’s a bit off-putting when I guess the murderer very early on. Not that the author didn’t try to trick me away from my early conclusion, but I wasn’t convinced.

Another thing I should mention is that some of the relationships I mentioned are between the Inspector and his “charming young detective sergeant” Judy Hill. I assume that continues in following books. So if you’re opposed to a bit of “relationship” in your mystery books, you’ve been warned.