THE SUMMING UP, Friday January 14, 2011

Check out my review of THE KING'S SPEECH on Crimespree Cinema.


Schedule for next month. I will post a link to each week's host.

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


The Summing Up, Friday, January 14, 2011

Joe Barone, Engineered for Murder, Aileen Schumacher
Paul Bishop, The Detective Wore Silk Drawers, Peter Lovesey
Dana Cameron, The Man with a Load of Mischief, Martha Grimes
Bill Crider, Delta Factor, Mickey Spillane
Scott Cupp, Pavane, Keith Roberts
Mike Dennis, My Gun is Quick, Mickey Spillane
Martin Edwards, End of an Ancient Mariner, G.D.H. and M. Cole
Cullen Gallagher, Raven Settles a Score, Donald MacKenzie
Jerry House, The Dreamers: A Club, John Kendricks Bang
George Kelley, Cross Plains Universe, edited by Scott Cupp and Joe Lansdale
Randy Johnson, The Tall Man, Clay Fisher (Will Henry)
K.A. Laity, Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov
B.V. Lawson, Appleby's End, Michael Innes
Evan Lewis, The Green Hornet series
Steve Lewis/Bill Pronzini, Joe Gores' books
Todd Mason, Speak of the Devil, Joe Gores; Movies into Film, John Simon, John Simon on Film
(1982-2001)
Russel D. McLean, Hammett and Spade and Archer, Joe Gores
Juri Nummelin, Zane Grey Western Magazine
David Rachels, Here Comes a Candle, Fredric Brown
James Reasoner, Little Jack Horner, Robert Leslie Bellem
Ron Scheer, The Three Godfathers, Peter B. Kyne
Kerrie Smith, Found in the Street, Patricia Highsmith
Kevin Tipple, Tin Soldiers, Mark Leonard
Mike Wilkerson, Serenade, James Cain

Friday's Forgotten Books, January 14, 2011

Schedule for next month. I will post a link to each week's host.

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


Mike Wilkerson lives in St. Petersburg, FL. His short stories have appeared in numerous places on the web and he is currently working on his first novel. You can read Mike's work at his blog, Writing the Hard Way

Serenade

By James M. Cain

James M. Cain is one of those people I wonder about. I’d read two of his most popular novels, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, so many times I’m not even going to try and remember. Favorites. Highly influential. Same goes with the two excellent movies which bear the same name.

Still, my reading of Cain was limited to those two books. Then one day in Haslam’s book store here in St. Petersburg, I happened upon a little paperback by Mr. Cain on sale for a few bucks. I read the blurb on the back cover. Strange. I bought it and read it in a sitting.

Written in 1937, Serenade follows a down and out opera singer from the States, John Howard Sharp, now living in Mexico with three pesos left to his name. His voice is gone. His career is over. And then comes a chance encounter in a cantina with a beautiful local whore, Juana Montes. Their first night together is forgettable and months will pass before their paths again. When they do, Juana makes a business proposition. She wants to open a high class establishment/whorehouse for Americans in Acapulco, and she has a big politician as a backer. She asks Sharp to come along, “Play a guitar, little bit, maybe. Write a letter, count money, speak Ingles, help me, no work very hard.” Sharp agrees.

The venture in Acapulco turns out to be a sham and consequently, Sharp and Juana cross the wrong people. It’s only through the help of a kind ship’s Captain that they are able to migrate back to the states landing in California. Juana’s illegal status is a constant worry.

Back in the states, Sharp’s voice comes back and he becomes a Hollywood movie star with a three picture deal. Even though Sharp despises Hollywood, he’s far from the destitute he experienced in Mexico. He is once again a big success. He and Juana are happy and in love.

Sharp is soon offered a chance to return to his passion of singing, which means moving to New York and breaking his movie contract. Not a good idea. When Winston Hawes, a wealthy man from Sharp’s past, steps in with an offer to clear the path so he can fulfill his dreams of becoming an opera star again, Sharp understands the past and its consequences die hard.

And here is where Cain, considering the time period and restrictions in place when he wrote this book, begins dropping bombs.

Who is Winston Hawes? Can Sharp hold on to Juana, even after she discovers his secret (“Every man has got five percent of that in him”)? Do past events in Mexico eventually catch up to them, or are Sharp and Juana’s fate sealed within the States?

Though not nearly on par with my Cain favorite of Double Indemnity, Serenade is highly readable. Yes, there are some long passages which could easily be cut out-I don’t need to, nor want to know that much about the opera-and Sharp getting his voice back and rapid rise to stardom is just too damn easy. But Cain’s use of description, language and dialogue, along with his ability to subtly run a vein of grief and regret through people who seem to completely lack both, pulls the story through. Serenade was a great find.

Joe Barone

Paul Bishop

Dana Cameron
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Mike Dennis
Martin Edwards
Cullen Gallagher
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
K.A. Laity
B.V. Lawson
Steve Lewis/Bill Pronzini
Evan Lewis
Todd Mason
Russel D. McLean
Juri Nummelin
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Joelle Charbonneau

SKATING AROUND THE LAW is Joelle Charbonneau's first novel.

How I came to write the book

My first career choice was a stage performer. Yeah – I know how to pick the stable careers, don’t I? Musical theater, opera, operetta, children’s theater – I liked them all. Somebody wrote lines and music, I memorized them and the story came to life on the stage. Then coming home one day from a performance I had an idea for the opening line of a book. I’d always been an avid reader, but had never written anything longer than a term paper. I have no idea why I decided to write that book. But I did and while no one will ever read it (and trust me – no one ever should), I learned I liked to write and decided to try it again.

Several books later I attended a writing conference and ended up seated at the bar– because that is what one does at writing conferences. I was seated with a couple of writer friends and an agent who was attending the conference. For whatever reason, my performing career became the topic of conversation and someone at the table asked if my parents were performers.

My answer was “No, but my mother is a world champion artistic roller skater.”

Everyone looked at me as if I’d just hit them upside the head with a dead fish. The agent was the first to recover. She looked at me with a smile and said “You should write a roller skating book.”

We all laughed and the conversation moved onto other things. There was no way I was going to write a roller skating book.

Ten days later, I wrote the first chapter of Skating Around the Law. It just goes to show you never know where the idea for your next book is going to come from. I certainly don’t.

This is Joelle's first novel. A second book in the series will be published in September, 2011.

Sports' Movies

My two favorite sports' films are both documentaries although there are many great ones in the fictional realm too.

What movies about sports or athletes did you enjoy most? Or books?

I have to admit, I have read a lot fewer although Bang the Drum Slowly, Ball Four and Friday Night Lights were favorites.

"What's a Weekend"

Downton Abbey began Sunday night on PBS and my skepticism was soon put to rest as it became clear this was a well-rounded look at nobility and their servants in 1912.

Done by the fellow who did Gosford Park, it managed to imbue its sizable cast with enough tics and personality to tell them apart and be interested.

Best line. Someone refers to something happening on the weekend. Maggie Smith, in her role as the dowager duchess, says, "What's a weekend?"

Did anyone ever nail the life of nobility better?

This looks to be the best thing on PBS in a long time. Anything new on TV catch your attention?
I'm also looking forward to LIGHTS OUT on FX.

Proposals

My nephew proposed to his girlfriend this weekend. They live in Virginia, but they went to New York for the weekend. They were ice skating at Rockefeller Center and he proposed to her in front of the Christmas Tree. What a romantic! She said yes, of course, or I wouldn't be writing this.

Did you propose or get proposed to in some romantic way? If I remember correctly, I just started saying to Phil, "when we are married" we should do this. And after a while, he bought it. I don't think that late sixties lent itself to romantic gestures.

How about you?

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Ed Gorman

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop

"HOW I CAME TO WRITE: STRANGLEHOLD" by Ed Gorman

I'm a political junkie. In my Thirties and Forties I voted both Dem and GOP. I also wrote speeches for both Dems and GOPers. I went on the road with one campaign to film TV commercials. I sat in focus groups when candidates were discussed candidly by average folks. And I was present in a TV studio when a major GOP candidate for Governor went against the advice of his ops and ended his career on live television. He was a foolish, vain, desperate man.

I've worked all these experiences and many more into my three novels about political consultant and op Dev Conrad. Sleeping Dogs was the first, Stranglehold the second and Blindside, which I'm just now finishing, the third. They are of a piece because each deals with the American political system, which is probably dirtier now than at any time since the Gilded Age when Congress was owned and controlled by robber barons. And it is dirty in both parties.

In Stranglehold, as with the other two Dev Conrad books, I attempt to show that there are very few heroes on either side of the aisle. What we tend to forget is the primary rule followed by virtually every person ever elected to congress--get yourself re-elected. Every other consideration is secondary. And again, this applies to both sides. As Bob Dylan once wrote, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." And money is just about all that matters in politics. The Tea Baggers, ironically, have brought in a group of windbags who'll just make it worse. One of these new people has even hired a former K Streeter as his chief of staff.

On the other hand, the Dems are almost as corrupt. In Stranglehold I show a minor political dynasty trying to hold on to its power. We think of the Kennedys and the Bushes when we say dynasties but there are several others across the States. Generations of pols from the same blood line. The scion of my family is dead. He was once a fierce champion for the working class but by the time he died he had become accustomed to the panache and perks of Beltway life. He became a rich man himself and ridiculed his old beliefs.

Back to "almost." While the reviews have been good for both Sleeping Dogs and Stranglehold, every once in awhile a critic will wonder if I'm not being too cynical about our political process. I have to say I think that's impossible. We can never be cynical enough. The Wall Street Journal's Tom Nolan, in the course of a very positive review of Stranglehold, noted:

The author uses an observation by Thomas Jefferson as the novel's headnote: "Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct." The most frightening revelations in "Stranglehold" may be the unseemly truths it seems to tell about the status quo of our electoral process.

Ed Gorman is the author of Sleeping Dogs, the first book in the Dev Conrad series, A Ticket to Ride, a Sam McCain mystery and many other books in the fields of crime fiction, westerns and short stories. He is also the editor of a yearly anthology that collects some of the best of crime fiction stories.You can find him here.

OF MICE AND MEN and INSIDE JOHN MALKOVICH

This is a post that may skitter all over the place so I hope you will bear with me. I saw an incredible production of the play OF MICE AND MEN at a local theater, which managed to make every role shine in a way I've never seen before.

Suddenly I understood the play wasn't just about Lennie and George, but all the folks working at that ranch-each of them isolated because of race, age, intelligence, loneliness, unmet aspirations, sex, size. It was the moment in the theater when a chill comes over you and you know you are seeing something truly special. You know you finally understand a piece of work in a more profound way than before. AMAZING. This play also featured the oldest dog in the world. He had to be helped across the stage, helped up and down. (Is it animal cruelty to force a dog of this age to act?)

And one of the most amazing performances was from the actor playing Lennie.

Okay. Here's the rub.

The performance of the actor playing, Lenny, the guy who wants to tend rabbits (so I don't ruin for anyone who hasn't read it), seemed amazingly like what John Malkovich might be like in that role. So I am thinking to myself: am I inside John Malkovich here? His face, his voice and speech patterns, his gestures. JOHN.

Why does this actor seem so much like him? Back home, I go online and it turns out Malkovich played this part in the nineties and I probably saw it. The actor must have seen this performance too and copied it. Maybe unconsciously, maybe not.

Is this legitimate to you? If you copy another performer's speech patterns and mannerisms almost perfectly, is that acting or miming? I'm not sure. I have heard when roles are replaced on Broadway, the director often wants a performance as much like the original one as possible. Especially if the original actor played it to great acclaim.

But I can't imagine the director saying to this actor, play it like Malkovich did. Get inside his head. What do you think? Should you be able to copy an actor's style to this extent? Should an actor own his style? Have other actors played a part exactly the same way as in an earlier movie or play? Jeff Bridges' Rooseter Cogburn was different from John Wayne's, for instance.

THIS IS NOT TO DETRACT FROM WHAT WAS TRULY A BRILLIANT NIGHT AT THE THEATER FOR ME. I'm just wondering....

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, January 7, 2011

Check out my review of TRUE GRIT on Crimespree Cinema.













THE SUMMING UP, FRIDAY, January 7, 2011

Toby Ball, The Tremor of Forgery, Patricia Highsmith
Joe Barone, Paper Doll, Robert B. Parker
Paul Bishop, Dreamsicle, W.L. Ripley
Paul Brazill, Suspects, David Thomson
Bill Crider, Dreadful Sanctuary, Eric Frank Russell
Scott Cupp, Science Fiction of the 20th Century, Frank M. Robinson
Barna Donavan, The List of 7, Mark Frost
Martin Edwards, Hag's Nook, John Dickson Carr
Cullen Gallagher, Fire in the Flesh, David Goodis
Ed Gorman, Sharp Practice, John Farris
Jerry House, Planet of No Return, Poul Anderson
Randy Johnson, The Harry Fannin Novels, David Markson
George Kelley, Musings and Meditations: Reflections on the Science Fiction Scene and Other Matters, Robert Silverberg
K.A. Laity, What a Carveup (Forgotten Films)
B.V. Lawson, Murder Among Friends, E.X. Ferrars
Evan Lewis, Halo in Blood, John Evans (Howard Browne)
Steve Lewis/Tina Karelson, A is for Alibi, Sue Grafton
Todd Mason, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, Kitchen and Buhle
Kevin McCarthy, New Hope for the Dead, Charles Willeford
Anita Page, Borkmann's Point, Hakan Nesser
Eric Peterson, Down the Long Hills, Louis L'amour
David Rachels, The Ax, Donald E. Westlake
James Reasoner, The heritage of the Desert, Zane Grey
Gerard Saylor, City of Ice; Ice Lake, John Farrow (Trevor Ferguson)
Ron Scheer, Thicker Than Water, W.C. Tuttle
Kerrie Smith, Various Maigret titles, Georges Simenon
Kevin Tipple, A Dream of Drowned Hollow, Lee Barwood

Friday's Forgotten Books, January 7, 2011

Gerard Saylor is the Director of Lake Mills Library in Wisconsin.




Barna William Donovan is a professor of communication and media studies. He is the author of the film history books "The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films" and "Blood, Guns, and Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences and a Thirst For Violence." His third nonfiction book, "Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious," will be released in the summer of 2011 by McFarland & Company.


THE LIST OF 7, Mark Frost

There are three rules to success in entertainment: timing, timing, and timing. The key to hit novels or movies, television programs or musical acts is not merely what the artist produces but the timing of the release of the work. An unfortunate bit of timing must just have doomed Mark Frost’s Sherlockian occult/mystery/thriller, “The List of 7” to a forgotten read rather than a smash hit success it deserved to be.

Released in 1993, the novel, penned by the co-creator of the cult TV series “Twin Peaks,” is a sort of genre mash-up mixing paranormal and occult horror with conspiracy thriller elements, all wrapped up in a historical mystery starring Arthur Conan Doyle. With a supporting cast of colorful fictional and real historical figures – from occultist Helena Blavatsky to Queen Victoria, Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence, and Bram Stoker – the fast paced story careens through a plot that begins as a murder mystery and ends up in the middle of a grand political conspiracy that might or might not involve otherworldly manifestations. In the 1990s, a decade that would see a glut of conspiracy theorizing in the wake of “The X-Files” TV series, “The List of 7” is an extremely colorful early forerunner of such paranoid entertainment.

The story begins on Christmas day in 1884 when a young Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and part time writer bedeviled by the endless rejections of his fiction, receives a cryptic invitation to investigate what might be a ring of charlatans using séances to fleece the grief-stricken. Doyle, while committed to science and possessing a keen, highly logical mind, is, nevertheless, fascinated by the possibility of tangible proof of the paranormal. A lapsed Catholic, Doyle still feels a “hunger for belief.” Needing science to bolster this belief, he has been researching the burgeoning fad of spiritualism. More often than not, he winds up uncovering a string of frauds preying on the gullible and vulnerable. Things, however, take a turn for the chaotic and violent on this particular investigation.

At the séance held in London’s seedy East End, Doyle encounters the attractive, grieving Lady Caroline Nicholson, trying to seek psychic advice about the whereabouts of her missing three-year-old son. Then, just as Doyle thinks he has the means of the undoubtedly crooked medium’s methods for trickery figured out, very real-looking apparitions and demonic manifestations intrude on the event. This is followed by the apparent murder of Lady Nicholson. Doyle himself barely escapes an attack by a mysterious Dark Man and his grey-hooded minions, one of whom appears to be little more than an animated corpse. While fleeing for his life, Doyle is suddenly aided by the well-timed appearance of a man calling himself Armand Sacker, professor of antiquities from Cambridge University.

Although Sacker disappears as quickly as he had shown up, Doyle soon finds that his life has been turned upside down by the investigation. His flat has been trashed, all of his belongings dissolved in an unexplainable film of crystalline ooze. Moreover, he soon receives a letter from famed spiritualist Helena Blavatsky, urging him to travel to Cambridge for help in sorting out the ongoing threats facing him.

As Blavatsky reveals, Doyle’s troubles are the result of the writing he has been doing. One of his oft-rejected manuscripts, an occult conspiracy thriller called “The Dark Brotherhood” – liberally based on Blavatsky’s own “Theosophical” theories – has apparently attracted the attention of a very real cabal of shadowy, politically connected criminals. Doyle’s fictional adventure story, it seems, has gotten too close to the truth for a real dark brotherhood.

In Cambridge, Doyle is once again aided by the mysterious figure who saved him in East End. The man, as it turns out, is not a professor but a secret operative for the crown, named Jack Sparks. Sparks, in fact, confirms that Doyle really has stumbled onto a massive conspiracy where a secret society, headed by the Dark Man, has been attempting to orchestrate a far-reaching plot that would have dire consequences for the political future of England, if not the world itself.

“The List of 7” functions as a perfect example of every conspiracy theorist’s fondest fantasy. A seemingly random crime, what appears to be little more than a scam gone violently awry, ends up leading to a trail of high crimes and intrigue threatening the very power structure of society. A wild conspiracy theory few would ever take seriously, or in this case Doyle’s outlandish potboiler novel that every publishing house in London has rejected, also becomes the key to foiling the schemes of an evil cabal.

For Sherlock Holmes fans, of course, “The List of 7” is also a series of sly homages and nods to the Holmes cannon. The brilliant, fearless, eccentric Jack Sparks becomes Doyle’s inspiration for his intrepid investigator.

While “The List of 7” was released by William Morrow in 1993 to a great deal of marketing fanfare, it, unfortunately, did not become the success hoped for. One might attribute bad timing for the book slipping past readers’ attentions in the early half of the 1990s. Only two years later, TV’s “The X-Files” would rise from a short period of low ratings to become one of the most influential pieces of entertainment of that decade, making paranoia, cynicism, and conspiracy theorizing hip. Had Frost’s novel come along a little later, perhaps in the second half of the 90s as “Roswell” and “Are 51” became a part of the cultural lexicon and “I want to believe,” “Trust no one,” and “The truth is out there” were the most iconic catch phrases, or perhaps in the early 2000s when Dan Brown and his imitators inundated the bestseller lists with ancient secret-society conspiracy fantasies, “The List of 7” might not have faded into unfortunate obscurity.

For fans of Sherlock Holmes – especially fans of the 2009 Robert Downey, Jr. film – Victorian-era mysteries, horror, and conspiracy theories that leaven their heavy plots with just the right dose of subtle, tongue-in-cheek humor, “The List of 7” should definitely not be forgotten.

As a post-script, in 1995 a sequel called “The Six Messiahs” was released. Although at the time I read the book I wondered whether – and wished – other entries might have been conceived as a sort of countdown series, “The List of 7” is a self-contained and highly enjoyable read that stands well on its own.

Anita Page's story “‘Twas the Night,” which was published in The Gift of Murder (Wolfmont Press), won a Derringer award in 2010 from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Other of her stories have appeared in a number of online and print magazines, as well in anthologies. Her first novel, Damned If You Don’t, will be published next fall by L&L Dreamspell. She blogs at www.womenofmystery.net.

BORKMANN’S POINT by Håkan Nesser

Håkan Nesser’s Borkmann's Point, named best novel by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy when it was published in 1994, is a smoothly written, intelligent police procedural. While not the first in Nesser’s ten-book series, it’s a fine introduction to Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, who’s assigned to assist the local police when an ax murderer strikes for the second time in the seaside town of Kaalbringen.

Van Veeteren—philosophical, often depressed (de rigueur for Swedish cops, apparently), but with a dry sense of humor—finds a friend in the local chief of police. The two enjoy wine from the latter’s fine cellar while playing chess and analyzing the facts of the case. When the killer strikes again, this time leaving his ax lodged in the victim’s body, the townspeople are terrified. The investigation appears to be stalled, with the police unable to find a connection between the three victims: an ex-con, a wealthy business man, and a doctor. Tension escalates when a young police investigator, on the verge of discovering that link, disappears.

For Van Veeteren, forensics and police legwork have their place, but what he relies on most, while walking the beach or soaking in his bath with a dish of olives at hand, are his intellect and intuition. As the police accumulate data and the killer continues to elude them, Van Veeteren reminds himself of the rule formulated by Borkmann, his former mentor: There comes a point in an investigation when more information only serves to hide the truth. He knows that in this investigation he’s reached Borkmann’s point, and the information he needs to flush out the killer must already be hidden in the recesses of his mind. And that indeed turns out to be the case as Van Veeteren leads the reader to a highly satisfying and unexpected conclusion.

Nesser, the only writer to have won the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Prize three times, isn’t nearly as well-known in this country as he deserves to be. To date only five of his books have been translated into English. But perhaps with American publishers now seeking the next Swedish blockbuster that will change.

Toby Ball is the author of THE VAULTS. You can find him here

A Tremor of Forgery, Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith recently enjoyed a resurgence of popularity with the brilliant film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley. She became suddenly, well, not exactly hot, but maybe trendy. Her collected short stories were published in one volume, a new biography was written, and previous assessments from Graham Greene ("Highsmith is the poet of apprehension") and Gore Vidal ("One of our greatest modernist writers") were dusted off.

Her legacy, first and foremost, will deservedly be Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, both classics. The other Ripley books are good as well, though the first is an impossible act to follow. But beyond these lies a terrific run of books that I guess you can characterize as suspense novels, though her ability to stoke up menace and anxiety without seeming to try is unique in my reading experience. I read her and think of the Dutch movie, The Vanishing (not the US version), and the way that the everyday seems ripe with the possibility of danger.

You can't really go wrong with any of these books: A Game for the Living, The Cry of the Owl, The Two Faces of January, and Edith's Diary. But my favorite is The Tremor of Forgery, which follows the fortunes of Howard Ingham, an American working on a novel in Tunisia. In this foreign (in every sense of the word) town, events seem to occur in a kind of moral vacuum, where typical concerns about justice and consequence seem to apply in different ways.

I don't want to give away much of the plot which would not do justice to the book anyway. I read it in a constant state of unease. Highsmith does not allow the respites, -- the shelter of identifiable pauses in the tension -- that give the reader breathing room.

Ed Gorman is the author of STRANGLEHOLD, TICKET TO RIDE and other fine novels and short stories. You can find him here.

Let’s see. Sharp Practice by John Farris is a slasher novel. And it’s also a police procedural of a very British kind (though written by an American). A love story (the long-suffering wife of a cheating husband; the brother and sister who just can’t keep their hands off each other; numerous people lonely and neurotic in very modern ways). A gentle spoof of the hierarchy of academia. A look at the frustrations of a writer trying come up with another novel as good as the first one. And of course a look at one of the most savage murderers in modern suspense fiction, though Farris is wise enough not to give us an autopsy. He’s Hithcockian in his belief that less is more. Praise the Lord.

And that’s just a partial list of the novel's elements.

It is also one of the most sophisticated, elegantly told and perverse novels of terror ever written. The surprises are so stunning that two or three times I had to put the book aside and take a little rest. There are three twists in this novel that are so cunningly wrought they will shock even the most jaded reader.

That’s all I’m going to say about Sharp Practice. Read it and you’ll see that I’ve understated my enthusiasm for its suave brilliance.

So instead of a book report I’d like to turn to Mr. Farris himself.

Here's a quote from Steve Lewis that introduces Farris very well:

"It has just occurred to me that John Farris has one of the longest careers of any mystery writer still active. His first novel, The Corpse Next Door, was published by Graphic Books, a small but solid line of mostly paperback originals, in 1956. Farris was born in 1936, so if the book wasn’t published until he was 20, the odds are the most of it was written when he was still nineteen.

"He switched to the pen name of Steve Brackeen for his next few books, typical Gold Medal thrillers, except that Gold Medal didn’t do them. One of them, Baby Moll (Crest, 1958), will be reprinted by Hard Case Crime later this year under his own name, a mere 50 years later.

" Farris eventually became the author of the “Harrison High” books, which sold in the millions, and he became an even bigger seller once he started writing horror fiction that was invariably tinged with the supernatural. Books like The Fury (1976) and All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes (1977) are as close to classics in the field as you’re going to get, and yet … even though Farris has averaged close to a book a year since those two books, unlike Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and mystery-wise, Ed McBain, who came along about the same time he did, it is as if no one’s ever heard of him. Nobody knows his name."

If you were a reader in the early 1960s it was impossible not to know the name of John Farris. Harrison High, the novel Lewis refers to, was popular for two reasons. First because it was a fine true novel about high school life. The aspects that were judged scandalous by some critics were in fact the truest parts of the book.

What set it apart from all the other high school novels was that it was very much like the literary novels of the time, especially those of the unjustly forgotten Calder Willingham. Harrison High remains rich in dealing with its era (the late 1950s), its people (generally middle-class whites) and its social problems (back alley abortions were still common). But with all that it's the characters I've kept with me. And having gone back to the novel several times over the years I'm aware of how carefully and honestly Farris drew them.

The second reason for the book's popularity was that it was written by an ambitious young man who wasn't long out of high school himself. The Dell paperback edtion (much like Peyton Place just before it) seemed to be everywhere. Farris' photo on the back cover depicted a thoughtful man who might have played football at one time or another.

John Farris went on to write many more novels, a number of them true and lasting masterpieces. But for people my age that thick Dell paperback version of Harrison High was an especially important novel.

Joe Barone

Paul Bishop
Paul Brazill
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Cullen Gallagher
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
K.A. Laity
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Tina Karelson
Todd Mason
Kevin McCarthy
Eric Peterson
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Mike White

IMPOSSIBLE FUNKY: Cashiers du Cinemart.

"How I came to write this book" - Mike White

I'm a lazy man. To get off my duff and do anything takes quite a lot. Just as a confluence of events got me writing a zine, another series got the book Impossibly Funky on track. I had a great distribution network for my zine, Cashiers du Cinemart. My best distributor had to be Tower Records. The guy in charge of magazines, Clint Johns -- a prince among men -- asked me to put together a book proposal for a collection of articles. And the rest is history. Oh, wait... The economy imploded and by the time I turned in the proposal, Tower had filed Chapter 11. However, the seed had been planted.

The economy continued to circle the toilet while I worked on what would ultimately become my final issue. It wasn't until I tried to get that one out to the masses that I realized how many stores I used to deal with had closed up shop. I pulled the plug on the zine but still wanted to give one last hurrah. I won't go into how smart it is to put out a book in this economic climate. I
plunged headfirst into crafting a compilation of articles.

I sat down with two friends, Mike Thompson and Lori Hubbard-Higgins. Mike had been with me from the beginning, we were old college buddies. Lori had read all of the old issues.
The three of us met over a list of everything that had ever run in the zine. They volunteered their favorite pieces while I did the same. By the end of a long evening of coffee and weepy
reminiscences (we all had coffee, only I did the weeping) we had a workable list that was pared down until we got to a place that wouldn't result in an insane amount of pages. Additionally, we
picked authors with whom I could still get in contact. Some people have fallen off the face of the earth. I wanted to get sign-off to reprint their stuff and didn't want to chase some author around
for permission.

I wanted to make the book a good investment for people who may have been foolish enough to have read all of the original issues by updating some articles, combining and streamlining others. I also added quite a bit of new material: a couple interviews and articles that had never been published. Thus, the "13.2% New Stuff" emblazoned on the cover. It's fuzzy math, to be sure, but we can all pretend it's accurate.

And then the publishing process began... but that's a whole other story.

Mike White founded the zine on which this book was based: Cashiers du Cinemart. You can find him here.

First Wednesdays Book Review Club: STONER

Stoner, John Williams

John Williams' remarkable 1965 novel has recently been reprinted by The New York Review of Books and is now available to us again.

William Stoner, a farm boy in Missouri, is sent to university by his father, who tells his son it will be helpful to the family for him to learn more modern farming methods. But instead Stoner discovers the great passion of his life—literature and the teaching of it—and he goes on to earn a doctorate in the subject. He meets and marries a local girl, has a child, and teaches at the university for the rest of his life. He is under-appreciated in this and in most things.

This description makes it sound like nothing much happens in this book—and in a sense, it does not. This book is about choices we make, and Stoner’s choice to put his love of literature and teaching on such a high pedestal both makes and destroys him. He is passive when he should be active in nearly every instance in this book. He is so deeply afraid of being deprived of teaching that he loses everything else instead.

This was a marvelous book. Written beautifully and making its points with the utmost subtlety. Williams (1922-94) won the National Book Award for AUGUSTUS in 1973.

If you want to read a book that makes you think about the choices you make, this is a great choice.

FOR MORE REVIEWS, VISIT BARRIE SUMMY HERE.

THE BIG THREE

Your seventeen year old daughter, son, nephew niece, neighbor comes to you and says they've been given a bookstore gift certificate for the holidays. "Fifty bucks. I know you love crime fiction, Uncle Pete, where should I start?

What three books would you recommend to someone just starting on this path? It doesn't
have to be classics btw. Just three books that will excite this youngster.

To start it off: The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey, Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith, The Postman Always Rings Twice, James Cain

DAMN NEAR DEAD 2

Got its first real review at Mostly Fiction this week and it was a nice one. The book has been struggling in almost every way since the death of the creative force behind it, David Thompson. The hand-off of Busted Flush Press to Tyrus Publications could not have come at a worst time for the book. Or for David, of course.

The book exists and can be ordered on Amazon and other such online sites. A few other stores seem to have it. Bill Crider, its editor, has tried hard to get it onto shelves. I don't think the trouble is anyone's fault. Just bad timing all around.

I am not pushing the book because I have a story on it or because I know the cover girl or because there are great stories by many swell writers inside. Or even because it was edited by Bill.

I am pushing it because it was David's pet project and I want it to succeed on some level to honor him. Thanks to those of you who found a home for it.

TOY STORY 3

SPOILER ALERT

Although I was impressed with many aspects of TS3, I was also surprised.
It was basically unremitting horror and tension as Woody and Buzz and the merry band of toys, were on the run from the get go. Do children really need this much stress in their movies? What happened to the "breaking into song"or "chirping birds in the trees" to relieve tension like that found in the classic Disney movies.

I think TS 3 is a perfectly fine movie for older kids, but I am not sure it's so good for four-year olds. Should life, or more importantly death, be so vividly portrayed. Should they learn about treachery, unemployment, redundancy, betrayal, death by fire, violent treatment and imprisonment at such a young age? Sure it ends well, but that was only the last five minutes. I have seen prison break movies with far less single mindedness in intent.

And as long as I am being cranky, how about a toy that doesn't reek "WHITE." Woody, Buzz, Barbie, Jessie, Bo, the baby doll and so on are all white kids' toys. Even my kids in the seventies had Native American dolls and Black Barbies. Why are all the kids at the day care center white? Where is the diversity?

What do you think? TOY STORY 3? Does it have its downside? Or should I imbibe some Christmas cheer and stop being the Grinch?

Insouciant

A visitor to my writing group complained (gently) about my use of insouciant in a story. He said it brought him to a halt, taking him out of the story when he had to figure out its meaning.

Now, of course, this happens to all of us. Does an unfamiliar word take you out of the story? I think insouciant is fairly commonplace, but there are more difficult words or phrases you run into. Especially slang or foreign vernacular phrases sometimes.

Readers: should a writer use the simplest word to describe something to avoid this. Or do you like a wider vocabulary in your reading material? Do you resent the occasional trip to the dictionary? Do you as writers try to limit fancy pants words?

Is this kid insouciant on his new sled or what?

Saturday Night Music-Still the Same

My Favorite Films of 2010

1/1/2011-does that sound like a good or bad day for a birthday?


The nearest movie theater to me is the auditorium of the Detroit Institute of Arts. This partially explains why so many of these films are foreign or arty.

But little can explain why after four years with a blog, I still can't manipulate pictures on it!!!