Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, July 15, 2011

I won't be able to post links for forgotten books on Friday, July 29th or August 12th if anyone cares to step in. Otherwise, take a holiday.You need it.

Check our my review of THE TRIP.

Thanks to today's contributors.

Milton Burton is the author of NIGHTS OF THE RED HORN and ROGUE'S
GAME.

POINT ULTIMATE

Back in 1959 I was introduced to science fiction via a cousin who gave me a copy of Alfred Bester’s “Starburst.” It is still to this day one of the best single-author anthologies I have ever read. From then on, I was hooked. The next Saturday at the Safeway grocery store in Jacksonville, Texas, I looked through the small, revolving book rack for more. I had a free hand with my reading, which my mother never censored. A teacher herself, I have heard her say, “If he understands it he’s old enough for it, and if he doesn’t it couldn’t possibly hurt him.”

Seems to have worked. I haven’t developed too many quirks, twitches, or perversions.

That Saturday I bought two books, both of which I remember vividly: Erle Stanley Gardner’s “The Case of The Velvet Claws,” which doesn’t concern us here, and “Point Ultimate” by Jerry Sohl, which does.

Sohl was a prolific scriptwriter for “The Twilight Zone,” “Outer Limits,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and later “Star Trek.” Point Ultimate,” which appeared in 1955 was a classic example of Cold War fiction, one reflective of the fears and anxieties of the era, and it is a true period piece that stands alongside Pat Frank’s “Alas Babylon” and Nevil Shute’s “On The Beach.”

Set in 1999, as the story begins the U.S. has been conquered by the Soviet Union and is held in thrall by a widespread virus which infects citizens and conquerors alike, all of whom need monthly booster injections to stay alive. A handsome Midwest farm boy rebels, kills a local Soviet honcho, and then gets in contact with the Resistance, a small, tightly-knit group that has found a way to synthesize the booster vaccine in small quantities. The Resistance has also created a clandestine space program under the noses of the occupiers, who have become lazy and degenerate, and established a colony on Mars from which they plan to re-conquer the country. After many adventures, the book ends with our hero about to embark on a trip to this colony. The ultimate end is a foregone conclusion: the American people have become once again tough and resilient through oppression while their communist masters have let themselves become fat, lazy, and complacent.

It never happened, of course. In 1999 the Soviet Union was almost a decade in the dustbin of history. But if one approaches this book as an example of alternative history, one is in for a good read. Several used copies are available through Amazon, and probably other booksellers as well.

Yvette Banek
Joe Barone
Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Elizabeth Foxwell
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Barry Gardner
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Michael Slind
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple
James Winter

SNUBNOSE PRESS: SPEEDLOADER/CASH LARAMIE, Edward Grainger

What a nicely balanced group of stories to debut from Snubnose Press. They are companionable yet each one has a different tone, setting, style.

Of course, as if often the case, a writer will choose the story most like what he/she would write, or hope to write, and in my case I would single out the story that leaked the least amount of testosterone: Herniated Roots by Richard Thomas. (Not meant to offend, Mr. Thomas)

It was a story that was most about prose. The language was lovely, the story well told. Thanks for a great debut from a wonderful group of writers. Nary a miss in the collection and such gorgeous writing all around.

Available where ebooks are sold.

Like wise I greatly enjoyed CASH LARAMIE. I hope no one will be put off by what I consider a great compliment-the stories in this volume were written by someone with respect for humanity. Perhaps westerns are traditionally more elegant and reverent than other genres, but I can't adquately express the pleasure I got from reading about two marshals who conduct themselves with decency. Not that the outlaws and rapscallions in these stories are wimpy. But the good guys are...good guys. There is humor and pathos and history and a reverence for the land and times. What a nice collection.

Two great ebooks for you to try.

My Life at the Theater: Conversations with My Father

No you tube clips of this one.

I saw this at THE OLD VIC in London in 1995. It starred Judd Hirsch and was directed by Alan Ayckbourn. The play was written by Herb Gardiner.
I remember being vaguely disappointed despite Hirsh's usual good performance. He won a Tony and Outer Circle Award on Broadway for this play in 1992.

Anyone else catch it?

"How I Came To Write This Book" Jack Martin

"How I came to write this book", The Ballad of Delta Rose, Jack Martin

I’d been reading a lot of hardboiled writers and I was conscious that my own writing style was going in that direction. I like the minimalist style of writing, because when it’s done well it’s tremendously effective at creating mood. And the question of whether a western, my genre of choice, can be noir is an interesting one. I think the answer is a resounding, “YES”. The western is a genre flexible enough to be anything you want it to be.

So thinking along those lines I wanted a protagonist who was living on borrowed time, and knew this. He knows his life will soon end and he wants to redeem himself for a past ill-lived. At the time I’d been re-reading a lot of comic books that I used to read as a kid and I recalled a World War II character called D Day Dawson. The thing about Dawson was that he was carrying a bullet inside him that will eventually kill him, and he vows to fight on until that day. It was not a great stretch of the imagination to place a similar scenario in a western setting. And so Delta Rose was born.

“Take a sad song and make it better.” Hey Jude, The Beatles

And that’s how I think of the novel – a sad song, almost a narrative poem and so I came up with the title, The Ballad of Delta Rose. A ballad, to my mind, is a sad song and I just love that name, Delta Rose and so The Ballad of Delta Rose it is.

One of the thing about conventional publishing, as opposed to the almost instantaneous quality of ePublishing, is that books can often have a long lead time, and by the time Delta Rose sees print this July it will be over a year since I typed the last words. I re-read the book in proof form only the other day and I really am pleased with it. I think I’ve turned out my most complex, assured work, and I feel there is a haunting quality to the ballad.

That, however, is up to the reader to decide.

Jack Martin is a pen name for Gary Dobbs. Born in South Wales 1965, Gary as a bit part actor has appeared in Doctor Who, Torchwood, Moonmonkeys, Casino Royale, Larkrise and the Big I am. Gary has been published extensively under his real name and as Jack Martin he was responsible for The Tarnished Star which was the fastest selling Black Horse Western of all time. His second western novel, Arkansas Smith was also published by Robert Hale LTD and in July 2011 his third western from Robert Hale LTD is The Ballad of Delta Rose.

Food

In the excellent and hilarious movie, THE TRIP, two English gents visit a lot of restaurant in northern England, where virtually every meal is similar to this.

Or similar to this description: a single scallop on a English spring pea puree topped with a slivered radish marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette. Not much is made of this repetitious cuisine in the film and it's one I see on the Food Network (not my viewing choice, ahem) night after night. When is this sort of cuisine going to fade away?

It relies too heavily on exotic combinations for my taste. And I am not so sure piling things on top of each other is all that pleasing to the palette.

I'm not saying I want to return to the cuisines of the sixties and seventies but geez, can anyone get excited about this stuff anymore? What's your favorite eatery serve? And what happened to regional cuisines. You can get this sort of item anywhere in the world.

NOTE: Many wonderful bloggers have given Megan's new book a push, Jack Bates, a local writer, wonders if the Oakland County Child Murderer of the eighties in Michigan, influenced the book. I have to admit, I don't know. You can see his piece here.

Tuesday Night Music: Secret Sisters

What "World" Stays With You?

There was an interesting article in New York Magazine about what fictional worlds are particularly persuasive. Offered up was the bar in Cheers, Archie Bunker's neighborhood and various other fictitious places.

I once attended a talk where an audience member challenged Ruth Rendell on the geography of Kingsmarkam. Ms. Rendell responded by reminding the person she'd invented it.

What places do you believe exist once you close the book or turn off the TV or leave the theater? I would vote for McBain's 87th Precinct, the Oxford of Colin Dexter's Morse novels, and most of all the Baltimore of THE WIRE and HOMICIDE and the New Orleans of TREME. Now I realize these places exist but Simon breathes life into them for those who have never been or been there enough. He creates a fictional Baltimore or New Orleans in some respects by setting a fictional show there.

Perhaps no one has evoked two worlds more carefully and effectively. His first two series used the lens of crime to evoke Baltimore-although in THE WIRE institutions also came under his gaze: the schools, unions, politics, the newspaper business. Now in TREME he has broadened his gaze to include music, food, family relations, corporate and political greed.

What fictional world do you believe in? Who does a great job of making a setting come to life?

Singer/Songwriter

Every so often I play a CD and think, great voice, lousy songs, and often it turns out to be the songs were written by the vocalist. Back in the day, well even before my day, most singers did not write their own material. Frank Sinatra never wrote a song. All those big band types sang material from song writers.

But suddenly in the sixties, it became mandatory to write your own material. You could cover a song her or there, but you better write your own music too. Dionne Warwick great singer, never wrote a song, Same with Elvis, Three Dog Night and on and on.

Do you have respect for singers that are only voices or does the complete artist need to do both? Why does the one have to go with the other? I feel sorriest for those who have the ability to write music but not sing it. I great violinist is not expected to write his own music but pop singers are. Why?

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY: Alec Cizak

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Your Favorite Crime Fiction Relationship

John Neis.


What duo in crime fiction works best for you? I love Morse and Lewis in the Colin Dexter books.

Doesn't have to be a book. TV pairings count too. Kalinda and Alicia make a good duo.

THE SUMMING UP

will appear soon, but not tonight and probably not tomorrow. A busy day as our 85 year old bathroom is being redone and we are running wild trying to pick up soap dishes and toothbrush holders. Ah, the life I lead. No kidding, this bathroom looks better.

And thanks to Todd Mason, we have a summing up.


Yvette Banek: Detective by Parnell Hall
Joe Barone: The Smell of the Night by Andrea Camilleri (translated by Stephen Sartarelli)
Bill Crider: Unfaithful Servant by Timothy Harris
Scott Cupp: The Best of Randall Garrett edited by Robert Silverberg
Martin Edwards: Crossword Mystery by E.R.Punshon
Barry Ergang (at Kevin Tipple's blog): Catspaw Ordeal by Edward Ronns
Jerry House: The Room in the Dragon Volant by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Randy Johnson: The Santa Dolores Stage by W. C. Tuttle
George Kelley: Wolf of the Steppes by Harold Lamb
Margot Kinberg: Speak For the Dead by Margaret Yorke
Rob Kitchin: Red Riding 1974 by David Peace
K. A. Laity: The Fallen by Dave Simpson
B.V. Lawson: Danger in D.C.: Cat Crimes in the Nation's Capital edited by Ed Gorman and M. H. Greenberg; Murder in Japan: Japanese Stories of Crime and Detection edited by M. H. Greenberg and John L. Apostolou
Evan Lewis: The Gracie Allen Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine
William F. Deeck at Steve Lewis's Mystery*File: Poor Prisoner’s Defense by Richard Sheldon
Todd Mason: "Turn Off the Sky" by Ray Nelson; "Deadly Beloved" by William Campbell Gault; "Four Deuces" by Stuart Dybek
John F. Norris: Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (translated by Lewis Galantière)
Richard L. Pangburn: High Hunt by David Eddings; Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury
Eric Peterson: What of Terry Conniston? by Brian Garfield
David Rachels: Round Trip [a.k.a. Too Many Girls] by Don Tracy
James Reasoner: Slocum and the Invaders by "Jake Logan"
Gerard Saylor: Run, Boy, Run by Uri Orlev; Otto Dix edited by Otto Conzelman
Michael Slind: The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
Kerrie Smith: Gallowglass by Barbara Vine (Ruth RMy take on SUPER 8.

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 8. 2011

Just links this week. Ed is on an hiatus and I couldn't get a review done in time. First time in three and a half years without a lead.






Yvette Banek
Joe Barone
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
Margot Kinberg
Rob Kitchin
K.A. Laity
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/William F. Deeck
Todd Mason
Neer
J.F. Norris
Richard Pangborn and this.
Eric Peterson
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple
Michael Slind

MY LIFE AT THE THEATER, SHOWBOAT

I saw SHOWBOAT in Toronto at the North York Performing Arts Centre in 1993, after which, it went on to Broadway for a successful revival at the George Gershwin Theater.

The music, the staging, the acting: incredible. Elaine Stritch, Robert Morse, Lonette McKee, Rebecca Luker, Michael Bell, an all star cast.

Thrilling. It may be my favorite theatrical experience. Anyone else catch it?

"HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK": THE END OF EVERYTHING: Megan Abbott

The following was written as part of a reading group guide.

THE END OF EVERYTHING: A Novel,
by Megan E. Abbott

When I was a kid growing up in Grosse Pointe, a Detroit suburb, I was best friends with a girl named Jody. She lived three doors down from me, and she was blond and delicate where I was ruddier, more tomboyish, more bookish. But we were a perfect match and we spent all our time together. I particularly remember our summers, taking the bus to the community pool, spending our allowance on frozen Snickers bars at the snack bar, parading in our driveways, doing “beach towel” fashion shows by draping our towels into elaborate sarongs.

Part of Jody’s allure was a certain magic in her family, which seemed so much more exotic than my own. She had a raven-haired mother who looked like Elizabeth Taylor and who would sit in the driveway all day in glamorous bathing suits, tanning herself to perfection.

Her father was, no joke, a private detective, the strong, silent type, and his entrances and exits into our life were thrilling. Her sisters were teenagers with boyfriends and rebellions that fascinated. Her older brother, past college, was handsome and kind, with a beautiful girlfriend who lived above a dance studio.

Spending time there, in the attic-eaved second floor, with its pale blue panels hiding secret niches and alcoves, was my favorite, favorite thing to do. I can still remember lying on that deep blue shag in Jody’s bedroom, our bodies matching, our laughter.

Later, we grew apart—a slow process and a painful one. And the family that seemed so perfect began to suffer through small and then large tragedies—a wayward sister gone more wayward, the parents’ separation and then divorce, and, most terrible of all, the death of Jody’s older brother in a boating accident.

There’s something so intense about these relationships we have with other families during our formative years, and that’s one of the main things I wanted to explore in The End of Everything.

The narrator, thirteen-year-old Lizzie, feels so close to her best friend, Evie Verver, that she even feels at times like they share a skin, and the enchantment of the Verver family is a spell she is sure will never break. All her ideas of life come from her time there, in particular the warm glow Mr. Verver, Evie’s handsome dad, casts on the family, the home.

Without even realizing all this (really, until just now), all my feelings of Jody and her family flooded the book, and how could they not? These early relationships, the way we think they will stay the same forever (we need to believe they will), they matter. They form us. And, when they fall apart, we have to do the hard work of building ourselves back up all our own.

Megan Abbott is the author of four previous novels, one of which, QUEENPIN, won the Edgar and Barry awards. BURY ME DEEP was nominated for seven awards in 2009. She has also written a non-fiction book, THE STREET IS MINE (Palgrave) and edited the anthology, A HELL OF A WOMAN (Busted Flush Press). You can find her blog right here. And her web site right here.

A reminder, reviews on Amazon do sell books. If you've read and liked THE END OF EVERYTHING, please write a quick review. Thanks, Patti

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Barna Donavan

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Barna William Donovan’s

“Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious”

Several years ago I was watching what would turn out to be the final episodes of NBC’s science fiction series Surface. The plot revolved around giant sea monsters appearing in the world’s oceans. It was a novel premise, I thought, and I often gravitate toward high-concept TV shows. But around the same time, I also started watching a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries I had recorded earlier about the Bermuda Triangle. Then just about the same thing happened in Surface and Triangle. As the plots of both started sagging, along comes a major twist! There were “shocking” government conspiracies behind both the sea monsters and all the weird goings on in the Bermuda Triangle. For some reason, the creative teams behind both of these programs just didn’t seem to be able to sustain stories about Godzilla-sized sea monsters or the Bermuda Triangle without trudging out the tried-and-true government conspiracy, the mysterious men in dark suits, the hidden labs and the corrupt bureaucrats who manipulate the world from behind the scenes. This prevalence of paranoia in entertainment suddenly got me thinking about an in-depth look at conspiracy theories in film and pop culture. My book, coming out this month from McFarland press, Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious is the result.

At that point I already had two books about film history under contract, The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films (also with McFarland), and Blood, Guns and Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a Thirst for Violence (Scarecrow Press). With my Master’s degree from the University of Miami’s film school and Ph.D. in action-film fandom, I was always fascinated with finding the profundity in popular entertainment. Looking closely enough at even the most mainstream genres, I believe, will give us a glimpse of a very sharp and clear mirror of ourselves and our society. Plus, I just enjoy being one of those horrible pop-culture professors who leads America’s youth astray and tells them that studying Lost is as valid as studying Dickens or that if Shakespeare came through a time machine, he would go to Hollywood and make blockbusters with Michael Bay.

So I decided to take a closer look at whether all the conspiracy theories in film and on TV are merely a form of creative laziness, the use of unimaginative plot twists when a story slows down, or if all this paranoia is a sign of a world where so many people are profoundly afraid of being victimized by invisible forces beyond their control. To that end, I trace some of the most popular conspiracy theories from the early 1960s to the present day, alternating chapters between the theories and the films they helped inspire.

The end result, I believe, is the most extensive book written so far about conspiracy theories in entertainment. From the assassination and political corruption films of the 60s and 70s to the aliens and crashed UFOs of The X-Files, hidden Biblical codes and secret societies after the turn of the millennium, if it believes that some sort of a big picture is hidden by “them,” then I tried to cover it in this book.

As for what makes us afraid, conspiracy theory films, I came to realize, speak not only to how we are nervous about big government or big business, faceless bureaucrats and “power elites,” but of conformity, of the pressure to be rank-and-file followers, to fit in, to be trendy and go along with the crowd. With the offbeat and eccentric characters who usually become the heroes of conspiracy films, we might be looking at audiences’ desires to see fantasy heroes who are not afraid to be themselves, to follow their own beliefs, and march to their own tune.

However, I also chose to end the book with a question I’m not sure I know the answer to. It’s a question I often ask when I hear about conspiracy theorists who believe government weather experiments caused Hurricane Katrina and the Midwestern tornadoes, or who believe that Osama bin Laden is still alive and the CIA was behind 9/11. Just how much of this conspiracy culture is good and how much is bad? Have conspiracy theories become the tools of con men now, grifters shilling their latest self-produced videos about the “biggest secrets?”

For anyone who likes a good conspiracy film or novel, yet feels slightly ill at ease with every conspiracy theory after a major crisis or national disaster, I hope Conspiracy Films might be a thought-provoking read.

First Wednesday Book Review, THE PACK, Jason Starr

This was fun fast read that is hard to label precisely: part domestic drama, part crime story, part comedy, part horror story. Starr does a good job at keeping it fresh and accessible throughout. Each event follows on the heels of a precipitating one.

Simon Burns suddenly loses his job. Before he can blink, he is bundled up and escorted out the corporate America and turned into a house husband. His wife is okay with this, except when she isn't.

Things have begun to drag for Simon when he meets cute with three similar fathers at the play park. The guys seem happy with their lot in life. They immediately accept Simon, seeming glad to have him in their group, something that's been missing from his life of late. Burns' son likes their sons. Everything is copacetic until things turn strange after a late night party and a strange-tasting beer.

Suddenly Simon is the man he never was. Further plot summary will just dilute the surprises. This was a perfect summer read, which will make you laugh more than once. It is also a timely if light-hearted look at disenfranchised workers and their ill treatment.

For more book reviews, check out Barrie Summy's place.

Dave Miller Trio

A friend just gave me a CD (RAPTURE) by the Dave Miller Trio, which I am greatly enjoying.

It's exactly the right jazz for me. Mellow but passionate. For more information about their music, please visit here.

Hope you enjoy the clip.

Your Favorite CD?

track for track of original material created for that album.CD

I must go with Rubber Soul.

Per Wikipedia
Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market.

This is a choice from the heart as I know many people would choose THE WHITE ALBUM if they were choosing the Beatles output. But every track on here brings back memories of meeting Phil, graduating from high school, going off to college, senior proms. You get it.

What about you?

Forgotten Movies, July 5, 2011

FLIRTING (1992, John Duigan) is about two teenagers at private schools in Australia in the 1960s, a white boy and an African girl, who fall in love.

The boy, Danny (Noah Taylor), is awkward, a stutterer, the target of jokes from some of his classmates although he is brighter than most of them.

The girl is Thandiwe (Thandie Newton), pretty, smart, attracted to Danny because he possesses a sense of humor and a willingness to be different, to rebel. She first sees him during a get-together between their schools. Not long after, they are on opposing debate teams, and carry on a flirtation by disagreeing with the arguments of their own sides.

Nicole Kidman plays an older classmate, a snob at first, who is not the character you expect. In fact, few things about this film are what you expect. This is a follow up to the film THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE. Although this film would appear to be about race, it is about growing up in a difficult place in a difficult time. Charming movie.

For more forgotten movies, please see Todd Mason's blog.

Happy Fourth

And keep your fingers away from those firecrackers.

Hope it's sunny and 80 degrees where you are.

Although she may look small here

in TIME MAGAZINE this picture gets its own page. Sorry to be gushing but wow!
Save me your copies if you get TIME.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2080867_2080832_2080837,00.html

I'd print it, but I think they may have copyright issues.

TRUE CRIME

Phil's Garden Grows








I am kind of stunned in the excessive interest in the Casey Anthony murder case. People knocking each other over to secure a seat in the courtroom. What about this case interests people so much?

If I were to choose a trial I'd want to sit in on, it would be the Charles Manson trial. Although I have to admit, spending time with Charlie might be more than I could bear.

What about you? What true crime story interests you most?
What courtroom would you like to sit in--at any time/place in history, not just today?

THE SUMMING UP, Friday, July 1, 2011

John Neis









THE SUMMING UP, Friday, July 1, 2011

Patti Abbott, With Extreme Prejudice, Frederick Barton
Yvette Banek, Lullaby Town, Robert Crais
Joe Barone, I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
Paul Bishop, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, Lawrence Block
Bill Crider, Hunt the Killer, Day Keene
Scott Cupp, Tunnel in the Sky, Robert Heinlein
Martin Edwards, Poison in the Parish, Milward Kennedy
Randy Johnson, The Friendless One, Ray Hogan
George Kelley, Style, F.L. Lucas
B.V. Lawson, Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detectionm, ed. by Michael Cox
Evan Lewis, Doc Savage in Python Isle, Will Murray
Steve Lewis/Geoff Bradley, The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man, Daniel Stashower
Jack Martin, Kick a Tin Can, Dianne Doubtfire
Todd Mason, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1955-66, ed. by Barney Rosset; Smiling Through the Apocalypse, ed. Harold Hayes
J.F. Norris, The Sorceress of the Strand, L.T. Meade 7 Robert Eustace
David Rachels, Sin Pit, Paul S. Merkel
James Reasoner, Death's Frozen Formula, Brant House, (G.T. Fleming-Roberts)
Richard Robinson, Last Respects, Catherine Aird
Gerard Saylor, Running Blind, Lee Child
Ron Scheer, The Moccasin Ranch, Hamlin Garland
Kerrie Smith, A Great Deliverance, Elizabeth George
Michael Slind, Murder in Mesopotamia, Agatha Christie
Kevin Tipple, Conch Shell Murder, Dorothy Francis

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 1, 2011

WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE, Frederick Barton

Baron, a film critic, wrote a quartet of novels, The two of which I read managed to be exciting and thought-provoking. After loving THE EL CHOLO FEELING PASSES, I read this one back in the mid-nineties.

Set in 1988-89, the story is narrated by Michael Barnett, a movie reviewer for the New Orleans States-Tribune and a widower with a drinking problem. Returning home one night, Barnett finds that his house has been robbed--but, oddly, that the only missing item is his dead wife's case file on a lawsuit.

His investigation reveals some sad truths about his city, his friends, about his late wife. and even about himself. Race dominates and by the end, the "prejudice" of the title has become the real subject of the book. I am tempted to go find the two books I never read. It would be nice to read about a pre-Katrina New Orleans despite the corruption it is known for.

Ed Gorman is the author of STRANGLEHOLD among many other fine novels. You can find him here.

Shooting Star and Spiderweb by Robert Bloch Though Robert Bloch made his reputation with horror or horrrific stories and novels, he worked steadily throughout his career in the mystery and crime genres. Shooting Star, one half of a Hardcase Crime double book is not only crimonious it's also set in Hollywood, one of Bloch's abiding fascinations.

The hook here is a novel for those of us who can remember how actor William Boyd bought up all his Hopalong Cassiday movies when they fell from popularity in the Forties and later sold them to TV. Buy low, sell high. They brought him millions.

Failed literary agent Mark Clayburn, now paying the bills as a private eye, is hired to prove that a Boyd-like actor wasn't the decadent man the press revealed him to be following his murder. The man who hires Clayburn bought up the dead star's Hoppy-like movies and expected to make a fortune. But since the films are aimed at kids...who wants to see a hero whose tastes off-screen were, to be gentle about it, sleazy. In Spiderweb failed actor Eddie Haines is hired to be a "psychiatric consultant" to the stars by a rather arch villain named Professor Hermann. By blackmailing Eddie, Hermann has found the perfect tool for his racket.

There are moments that reminded me of Nightmare Alley throughout the book and more than a few scenes that move the novel into the kind of realistic horror of Psycho. Shooting Star is driven by its mystery storyline; Spiderweb, though the storyline is less focused, depends on shock material to keep you turning the pages. Neither of these novels is major Bloch but both deserve reading. For one thing they encapsulate a good deal of the obsessions, sociologically, of the Fifties.

For another we see the dark side of Bloch's obsession with Hollywood. In such masterpieces as his short story "The Movie People" we see his almost innocent sense of what the movies gave to him as a youth. When he speaks of Chaplin and Keaton and Lloyd it's as if he's speaking of secular saints. The movies of his boyhood are holy to him. In these novels and many short stories he deals with the business side of Hollywood. The voice becomes by turns sardonic and angry as he witnesses the passion and beauty of the great films and film artists reduced to power plays and dishonest deals rendered by men who have no idea what they're defiling. I enjoyed both of these books enormously.


Yvette Banek
Joe Barone
Paul Bishop
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Geoff Bradley
Jack Martin
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Richard Robinson
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Michael Slind
Kevin Tipple