Forgotten Books, August 19, 2016

Fool's Gold, Dolores Hitchens

This was one of the books I read in anticipation of a panel in New Orleans. I think it is probably fairly indicative of the type of book found on spinner racks in the forties and fifties. The three main characters are all in school learning a trade. The girl (Karen), leaks the fact, that a man who rents a room in the house where she lives has a big stash of money in his room. One of her friends (Skip) immediately begins planning a theft and his friend, under his influence, agrees to help him. The girl is too gob-smacked over the boy to not go along with this.
Skip is too dumb not to tip his hand to bigger players and loses control of the job. The writing was good enough but I didn't quite believe that any of these kids, that sat behind desks at school in the daytime, and who largely came from decent families, would fall into this so easily. I am thinking this is just not my type of story. But it may be yours. Hitchens wrote many novels and the second I read I liked a lot more.

Sergio Angelini, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL, John LeCarre
Les Blatt, MALICE IN WONDERLAND, Nicholas Blake
Brian Busby, GAMBLING WITH FIRE, David Montrose
Bill Crider, THE GOBLIN RESERVATION, Clifford Simak
Martin Edwards, THE SEAT OF THE SCORNFUL, John Dickson Carr
Curt Evans, ACEDIA, THE NOONDAY DEVIL Ursula Curtiss
Richard Horton, THE REBELLIOUS STARS, Isaac Asimov, AN EARTH GONE MAD, Roger Dee
Jerry House, THE BRASS RING, Lewis Padgett
George Kelley, THE BEST OF AMAZING STORIES
Margot Kinberg, THE DINNER, Herman Koch
Kate Laity, THE DAIN CURSE, Dashiell Hammett
B.V. Lawson, SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER, Delano Ames
Steve Lewis, THE JEWELS THAT GOT AWAY, Gary Matterom
Todd Mason, FANTASTIC STORIES, 1971; Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971
J.F. Norris, THE WOMAN ON THE ROOF, Helen Nielsen 
Mathew Paust, THE DISCOMFORT ZONE, Jonathan Frantzen
James Reasoner, THE CASE OF THE HESITANT HOSTESS, Erle Stanley Gardner
Richard Robinson, THE VIRGIN IN THE ICE, Ellis Peters
Gerard Saylor, U.S. WORLD WAR II AMPHIBIOUS TACTICS, Gordon Rottman
Kevin TIpple, THE END OF EVERYTHING, Megan Abbott
TomCat, THE JUDAS CAT, Dorothy Salisbury Davis; WINDS OF EVIL, Arthur Upfield
TracyK, Forgotten Books Not Yet Read

(Not) A Funny Movie

We saw a movie on Monday, one we hoped would make us laugh. Sadly it did not. SAUSAGE PARTY was jut too vulgar and repetitive to make us even smile much. Plus it's half-baked try at adding some philosophical meaning rang trite and hollow. Maybe we are just too old to find constant profanity and talk of sex amongst food items humorous. Certainly the rest of the 20-something audience found more to love.

What is the last movie that really made you laugh?

Forgotten Movies: LAURA

Well, certainly not forgotten. But I hadn't seen it in 30 years and I was again swept away what must surely be one of the greatest films of the genre. Beautifully cast with Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson, Preminger brought a magic touch to it. Such good dialogue and so little fat in it. Great theme song by Raksin with help from Ravel. It couldn't be better.

A little info about the painting here.  

And this from THE ART OF THE FILM-LAURA. 

Amy Luna ManderinoJanuary 24, 2016 at 11:19 AM

This portrait is truly stunning. But there's more to the story of it. The movie is based on the book by Vera Caspary, published in 1942. The description of the portrait in the book is significantly different than this portrait. Notably, the description reads, in part, "Jacoby had caught the fluid sense of restlessness in her body, perched on the arm of a chair, a pair of yellow gloves in one hand, a green hunter's hat in the other." The difference is significant because the book version of the story paints (if you'll pardon the pun) quite a different picture of the three main characters: Lydecker, McPherson and Laura. In the film, Laura is all feminine elegance (as she is portrayed in the portrait) and McPherson is all masculine bravado. But the book (written by a woman, mind you) emphasized that Laura was a "modern woman" which was code at that time for a woman who lived with the freedoms of a man. And while the movie alludes to McPherson's leg injury, the book tells us that he spent a year in the hospital recuperating and that during that time, he read many books and became more cultured and sensitive, as a result. This book is about two people stepping out of their assigned gender roles and being intrigued by each other as a like-minded, fully evolved human. Part of McPherson's fascination with the portrait (one might assume from context) is that it was NOT traditionally feminine or elegant. Laura has gloves and a hunter's hat, meaning she is ready for sport, not an evening on the town. She is active, athletic. And it is significant that she (and the artist) chose to portray her in this way and NOT in elegant evening wear. So, beautiful as this portrait may be, it is an example of Hollywood watering down an interesting, complex and progressive story into tired old gender cliches. Read the book. It's way more inter

Incoming:

(Worried about Deb. Hope she checks in)

Did something I almost never do, went out and bought three new books. Paperbacks but still new.
All recommended by people I trust. I am still reading the Hawley book.And Megan sent me a heavily autographed copy of Mississippi Noir, where she has a story called Oxford Girl. Haven't read it  yet.

Medical update: Our surgeon, who called us at nine o'clock last night (giving us hives) says the cancer seems localized and small but he wants Phil to see an urologist before he operates since it is near the bladder. So good news bad news because this will delay the surgery by weeks most probably. We are nervous types anyway. To top it off, someone sideswiped our car and that will  have to go into the shop for five days. Knocked off the mirror too.

Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, August 12, 2016

A bit of an emergency here. Hope Todd is able to post. Not sure when I will be back.Wish us luck or prayers.

On Their 75th Anniversary-Gone but Never Forgotten

Forgotten TV: ROC

Roc is an American  television series which originally ran onFox network from August 25, 1991 to May 10, 1994. The series stars Charles S. Dutton as Baltimore garbage collector  Roc Emerson and his nurse wife, Eleanor played by Ella Joyce. 

ROC was a much more realistic look at a black family than we had on COSBY. Roc was a garbage collector and had a brother with drug issues. There was an interesting piece in the NYT on Sunday about ROC. Not many shows about lower middle class people from any race/ethnicity anymore.

I can only think of THE MIDDLE.What else?

Megan reviewed on NPR by Maureen Corrigan.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/08/489194410/novel-explores-the-fierce-and-frenzied-world-of-competitive-gymnastics?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Improv

The movie DON'T THINK TWICE is about an improv troupe. I have never seen much charm in improv, (give me a script) but I am sure it's a way for up and coming comedians to hone their skills. However, because they used the same prompt every night to get going ("anyone out there have a bad day?") I could see they were fooling themselves to some extent to think their material would be original each night. I mean the types of answers they'd get would probably be fairly similar. (Lost my job, lost my girlfriend, car broke down).

I have never been to an improv club though so maybe I am wrong. Anyone know much about improv? Anyone enjoy it more than standup comedy. Or scripted skits like on SNL.

Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, August 5, 2016

  ALONG THE RIVER TRAIL by Hugh Pendexter (1920) 

                                     (from the archives - Evan Lewis) 

I've long had an itch to re-read The Long Rifle by Stewart Edward White and report on it here in Forgotten Books. The Long Rifle was the book that introduced mountain man and trapper Andy Burnett, and was the basis for the Disney series The Saga of Andy Burnett. 

Well, I still haven't returned to The Long Rifle, but Along the River Trail by Hugh Pendexter scratched that Andy Burnett itch in a big way. This one, too, is about a young man who heads west in the company of older, wiser hands, and learns the ins and outs of the trade. The difference here is that one of those wiser hands is also quite young, and such a prominent character that he's almost a co-protagonist. And that's a good thing, because he's Jim Bridger, and Bridger makes a fascinating hero. 

This book, one of five volumes (so far) in Black Dog Books' Hugh Pendexter Library, was serialized in Adventure in 1920, and is collected here for the first time. Our official POV character is Ralph Lander, a St. Louis store employee of the American Fur Company who gets sacked for falling in love with (and capturing the love of) the boss's daughter. After winning a duel with a rival, he finds it wise to get out of town, and heads for the mountains with Bridger, one of the leading lights of the AFC's chief rival, The Rocky Mountain Fur Company. All sorts of wilderness adventures follow, including (but not limited to) encounters with friendly Indians (the Crow), hostile Indians (the Blackfeet), friendly mountain men and hostile mountain men, all set against the background of a battle for supremacy between the American Fur and Rocky Mountain Fur outfits. 

         
While Ralph Lander stumbles around, making mistakes and sometimes learning from them (and giving the reader someone to identify with), Jim Bridger does the thinking and provides the heroics. They make a great pair.

Hugh Pendexter loved history and was a meticulous researcher, so I'm guessing the picture painted here is about as close to history as fiction can get. But this is fiction, and mighty entertaining reading, because Pendexter was also a master storyteller. As a bonus, the book has a fine introduction by Mr. Robert Randisi. You know you want it, and the best way to get it is direct from Black Dog Books. 

Sergio Angelini, RUNNING DOG, Don Delillo
Yvette Banek, THE LAST POLICEMAN, Ben Winters
Les Blatt, THE DANCING DRUIDS, Gladys Mitchell
Bill Crider, NAKED FURY, Day Keene
Martin Edwards, FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED, John Beynon
Curt Evans, STRANGLE HOLD, Mary McMullen
Rick Horton, THE REIGN OF WIZARDRY Jack Williamson
Jerry House, I COULD GO ON SINGING, John D. MacDonald
George Kelley, SPEAKING OF HORROR, Vol 1&2, conducted by Darrell Schweitzer
Margot Kinberg, SHIELD OF STRAW ,Kazuhiro Kiuchi
B.V. Lawson, FOOL'S GOLD, Ted Wood
Steve Lewis, THE POLFERRY RIDDLE, Philip Macdonald
Todd Mason, COLLECTED FANTASIES, Avram Davidson
J.F. Norris, THE LAUGHING FOX, Frank Gruber
Matt Paust, SUPER, SAD, TRUE LOVE STORY, Gary Shteyngart
James Reasoner, IT'S LIKE THIS CAT, Emily Neville
Richard Robinson, THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ARTHUR C. CLARKE 
Gerard Saylor, 361, Donald Westlake 
Kevin Tipple, EVERY LAST SECRET, Linda Rodriquez
TomCat, "Lost Room" stories
TracyK, THE BIG CLOCK, Kenneth Fearing
Greg Tulonen FALL OF THE CITY, Donald Westlake
Westlake Review, FALL OF THE CITY

From ALLURE MAGAZINE

Got a kick out of this one.

http://www.allure.com/gallery/hipster-back-to-school-supplies

The Worst Movie I Saw at Traverse City Film Festival (or maybe ever).

The Kings of Kallstadt

This is a movie about the town Donald Trump's family came from in Germany. It was without a single interesting scene. Truly. It reminded me of the sort of documentaries they used to make us watch in assemblies in middle school. The people were dull: they made wine, they butchered hogs, they practiced for a play. Not one interesting comment was elicited by the film maker.
There was so little going on in this town, in fract, that they took some of them to Pittsburgh (Kallstadt is also the ancestral home of Heinz (ketchup) where we watch them go through the Heinz factory and then sit at a Pittsburgh Pirates game. Then on to New York where they march in a German-American parade and admire Trump skyscrapers.
You would think this might have been quaint or quirky or clever. It was not.
Trump is in a few scenes where he says his dad was great, his grandmother was great, the town was great. He's great.  Horrible waste of two hours.
However, not everyone agreed with me. This film won an award for best first documentary by a woman. 

What was the worst movie you ever sat through?

My Panel at Bouchercon: Lesser Known Writers of the Pulp Era

 Pete Rozovsky asked us each to choose one writer to concentrate on and I chose Dolores Hitchens. I am midway through my second novel by her. I would really appreciate any insight into Hitchens or other female writers of the era. I was going to chose Helen Nielsen but couldn't depend on getting her books in time. Whereas Hitchens has some ebooks.
Poor Pete is going to read along with all of us (Martin Edwards, Gary Phillips, Rick Ollerman, Eric Beetner).

So if anyone has anything to say about female pulp writers or Dolores Hitchens in particular I would be glad to hear it. I did find a few reviews of her work on one or two of your blogs.

I think this is like the first panel on Thursday morning so we may just be going out for coffee. 

Thanks.

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 29, 2016

Todd Mason will have the links today as I watch movies-11 in four days. Is that too many?

Bob Seeger Week

Bob Seger Week

Bob Seger Week

Bob Seger Week

Thanks to Tracy for her Kind Review

https://bitterteaandmystery.blogspot.com/2016/07/shot-in-detroit-patricia-abbott.html?showComment=1469449311428#c1245866242409301377

Bob Seger Week

Bob Seger Week

Bob Seger Week

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 22, 2016

Todd Mason will be on duty next Friday as I travel north to the Traverse City Film Festival

(from the archives)
Forgotten Books: DRIVE EAST ON 66 -- Richard Wormser (reviewed by Bill Crider) 

Okay, as I said yesterday, it was inevitable that after seeing the title of James H. Cobb's West on 66, I was going to read it. Today's book is the reason why. I read it around 40 years ago, and I have to wonder if maybe Cobb's read it, too.

A cop named Andy Bastian is hired to drive a kid named Ralph from California to Kansas, where Ralph will be put into what's called, in the novel,s 1961 way, an insane asylum. Ralph is brilliant, and his father's quite rich. Accompanying Ralph and Andy is Olga Beaumont, a psychologist who's along to care for Ralph. They don't get far before it's apparent they're being followed.

This isn't an adrenaline-fueled thriller like Cobb's book. The characters following along aren't hate-filled gangsters and hitmen. There are no heart-stopping car chases, hot sex, and shoot-outs. But that doesn't mean there's no suspense. It's just a quieter kind, and it's played out along a route that runs in the opposite direction, as the titles indicate.

James mentions that Cobb's book isn't quite a pitch-perfect recreation of a Gold Medal novel. Wormser's book is pitch-perfect, not as a re-creation but as an original. Read the first couple of pages, and you'll know what I mean, I think. Wormser's descriptions of the people, the landscape, and the seedy motels are on the money. I like all Wormser's GM books, including The Invader, which one an Edgar for best paperback. If you get a chance, give one a try and see what you think.

Yvette Banek, ANNA, WHERE ARE YOU, PATRICIA WENTWORTH
Joe Barone, FATAL PURSUIT   Martin Walker  
Les Blatt, DEATH OF A BOVVER BOY, Leo Bruce 
Bill Crider, RASH, Pete Hautman
Scott Cupp, THE PEACOCK FEATHER MURDERS, John Dickson Carr
Curt Evans, HELEN REILLY
Charles Gramlich, WARLOCKS AND WARRIORS, ed. Douglas Hill
Rick Horton, THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES, A TOUCH OF INFINITY, Harlan Elison
Jerry House, THE SNAKE, Mickey Spillane 
George Kelley, THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION, ed. Ann and Jeff Vanderveer
Margot Kinberg, UNLEASHED , David Rosenfelt 
Rob Kitchin, , MASARYK STATION, David Downing
Kate Laity, SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, Alan Sillitoe
B.V. Lawson, VICTORIAN DETECTIVE STORIES, Michael Cox
Steve Lewis, THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS, Anthony Boucher 
Todd Mason, THE CRIMES OF OUR LIVES, Lawrence Block
Stephen Nester (The Rap Sheet), SIDEWALK CAESAR, Donald Honig
J.F. Norris, PUZZLE FOR PUPPETS, Patrick Quentin
Mathew Paust, SALVATION ON SAND MOUNTAIN, David Covington 
James Reasoner, MURDER CALL THE BLACK BAT, G. Wayman Jones 
Richard Robinson, GREEN MAGIC, Crawford Kilian
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, A CHAIN OF EVIDENCE, Carolyn Wells
TomCat, THE CASE OF NAOMI CLYNES, Basil Thomson 
TracyK, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, Ian Fleming

By the Book: Megan Abbott

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/books/review/megan-abbott-by-the-book.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fby-the-book&action=click&contentCollection=review&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

My Favorite Gary Marshall Movie

The Commute Read

My best reading took place when I took a bus to work. It was an hour ride and I could sometime finish a book in two days that way. Airplanes are very good too. Trains not as much because you pass too many interesting landscapes but still...

But maybe this doesn't work for everyone. Where do you do your best reading?

Forgotten Movies: THE FISHER KING

Terry Gilliam directed this in 1991 and I liked it a lot at the time. Jeff Bridges plays a radio DJ (shock jock) who rants against hippies on air and a madman goes on a rampage and kills some people. (sound familiar). This pretty much destroys his career. Later he meets Robin Williams, who has gone off the rails after the death of his wife, and has delusions which the film is adept at showing. The two become friends and help each other escape their paranoia.There is considerable romantic interest too as both men find love  I haven't seen this one since its release and wonder if it would hold up now. The initial premise would be very disturbing.

For Those Who Don't Get The NEW YORK TIMES.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/books/review-in-megan-abbotts-you-will-know-me-gymnast-girl-and-cute-dead-guy.html

Summer Series

SPOILERS***

We have been watching MARCELLA on Netflix (from ITV in the UK) and find it difficult to follow at times. There are so many characters and so many plot threads. And they introduce an idea about Marcella's sanity and five episodes in they really haven't followed up on it . We don't know what incident got her into trouble. (Unless I dozed off).
When her husband paid people to beat him up so he would feel something, I almost bailed and I still might. No one in the series acts the way you'd expect them to act. Would a student writing a thesis continue to spend time alone with a man who has murdered several people?Would the cops allow Marcella to investigate a case involving her husband's firm? Or any case for that matter. And her kids, banished to prep school, seem to hate her but we never learn why. Why is everyone so suspicious of her? It's like there was a first series we missed.
If I didn't know it was going to be wrapped up in one episode, I would never have stuck it out.
I much prefer the single thread narrative in shows this complex. 
What are you watching?

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 15, 2016

 

Thanks to all of you who have posted reviews of SHOT IN DETROIT on your blogs or on amazon. I really appreciate it. And I also appreciate ones that will come in the future.

My review of SWISS ARMY MAN.

 


 From the archives, Randy Johnson. We miss him.

As a young boy discovering a love of reading even as I was learning, John Brunner was an early find, third I believe, behind Heinlein and Norton. The early stuff was mostly from the Ace Doubles. Black Is The Color is a little bit different. From 1969, part spy novel, it has a plot line that would fit in in things happening today.
Mark Hanwell, a disillusioned young man returns home to London after six months in Spain where he’d met and worked for The Big Famous Writer he only ever refers to as Hairy Harry. It didn’t take long for him to realize his hero had feet of clay, making the bulk of his money selling pornography and weed. In fact, the last four pieces of writing under his name had been written by Mark.
Home, he goes looking for a woman who’d sent him a few letters early on, then stopped. A singer, he traced the bank d she’d been with falling into as different a world as he’d ever run into.
Sadism was part of it, voodoo, a plan to start a race war in England, Mark finds his work an and the man she’d taken up with, a South Africaner.
I’d never heard of this book before I came across it. Good stuff

Yvette Banek, MURDER OF A LADY, Anthony Wynne
Joe Barone, SHOT IN DETROIT
Les Blatt, TOWARD ZERO, Agatha Christie
Brian Busby, THE QUEBEC PLOT. Leo Heaps
Bill Crider, THE NEDDIAD, Daniel Pinkwater
Martin Edwards, THE COLOUR OF MURDER, Julian Symons
Ed Gorman, THE EVIL DAYS, Bruno Fischer
Rick Horton, ROMANTIC COMEDIANS, Ellen Glasgow
Jerry House, CRIME STORIES FROM THE STRAND, Geraldine Beare
George Kelley, THE HOUSE OF CTHULHU, Brian Lumley
Margot Kinberg, RESURRECTION BAY, Emma Viskis
Rob Kitchin, CHASING VENUS, Andrea Wulf
B.V. Lawson, THE MIDNIGHT PLUMBER, Maurice Proctor
Steve Lewis/William Deeck, THE BLACK ENVELOPE, David Frome
Todd Mason, THRILLERS, 100 MUST READS, David Morrell and Hank Wagner
J.F. Norris, THE BLOODY MOONLIGHT, Fredric Brown
Matthew Paust, THE BEST OF MURRAY LEINSTER, J.J. Pierce
James Reasoner, KI-GOR AND THE STOLEN EMPIRE, John Peter Drummond
Richard Robinson, NORTHERN BLOOD, ed. Martin Edwards
Gerard Saylor, PAST REASON HATED, Peter Robinson
Kerrie Smith, THE CHOSEN, Kristina Ohlsson
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, THE WEB, Jonathan Kellerman
TomCat, THE HOUSE IN CHARLETON CRESCENT, Annie Haynes
TracyK, FIRE WILL FREEZE, Margaret Millar
Westlake Review, DROWNED HOPES, SECOND DOWN

What were your favorite toys in childhood?

Looking out my window on the new Pokemon Go craze, made me think about my own childhood. If I had to choose the two things that I played with most and ones that served to take me out of my world, they would be my bike and crayons. I heard yesterday also, there are 44 blue crayons now. Wow. (My bike was nothing liked this btw-used, painted with a dull finish, old style brakes).

What were your favorite toys as a ten year old?

It's A Livin' Thing

Forgotten Movies/TV: BRIAN'S SONG

 

 Brian’s Song (1971)

Director: Buzz Kulik
Stars: James Caan, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Warden

Brian’s Song, the widely praised 1970 made-for-TV movie was about pro football great Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and his Chicago Bears teammate/best friend Brian Piccolo (James Caan ) It's a tear-jerker of the first magnitude. Because of the caliber of its cast, it would have been a good sports movie in its own right, but the ending pivots it into something else.

Sayers and Piccolo were the first-ever interracial roommates in the NFL  history, an arrangement that established a close relationship. Piccolo was at beast an average player. Sayers was a star. But then Piccolo developed cancer, and that’s when the tears will start flowing for the toughest of viewers. Stars of this magnitude didn't turn up on TV very often in 1971. Play a few bars of that theme song, and I will be mush.

For Your Summer Reading...

White Shark, Ross Gresham

Jim Hawkins, and I think I remember a Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, is hired as a summer relief trafffic cop at a New England resort in White Shark. He is not quite an albino (his words) but white-haired, big and tough from recent military training. The idea that he will be satisfied with giving out traffic tickets (in a speed trap to boot) and keeping troublesome kids under control quickly goes afoul when the island turns out to have more trouble brewing than the beach in Jaws. 

A Viking funeral, a missing worker,  shark attacks, crooked developers, corrupt local officials, and white slavery are overrunning  this Edenic spot along with the hideous houses dotting the shoreline.  But Jim has misunderstood his function on Nausset and almost joins the pyre of mounting bodies. He's not the type of guy to overlook trouble when he finds it, a trait that got him drummed out of the military. 

I am imagining another Jim Hawkins novel is underway. This is a well-written, fast-moving story with a protagonist you will like. He hearkens back to heroes of old, but the crimes covered here are very much of today. There may be a few too many balloons in the air because Gresham lets few crimes go unsolved but Gresham is cleverly using the genre to critique what he finds wanting in society. A fine strategy to me because he's a good enough writer to do it.

The video that inspired Megan's YOU WILL KNOW ME

I hope I was not that mother!

A big surprise!

http://www.themorningsun.com/arts-and-entertainment/20160707/michigan-best-seller-list-for-june-2016

Also CONCRETE ANGEL is a choice on Book Bub today.

But the news coming from other places stinks. Oh, poor old world. We let you down. 

Friday's Forgotten Books: Rex Stout Day

From the Wolfe Pack, the Rex Stout Society.

About Rex Stout
Author, Business Man, Sailor, Activist, Family Man, & a person with many interests

Rex Todhunter Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana, December 1, 1886. After a brief time on campus at the University of Kansas, Stout quit school to enlist in the Navy where he spent two years as warrant officer on board President Theodore Roosevelt's yacht.

After the Navy, he began to write for pulp fiction magazines and also tried his hand at a variety of jobs.

He published three novels before he turned to the mystery genre. The books received favorable reviews but were not best sellers. Following the 1929 stock market crash he lost a great deal of the money he had saved. He returned to the United States and continued to write serious novels for a few more years. In 1932 he moved from New York City to High Meadow, the house he built on the Connecticut-New York state line. In 1934 Rex Stout published his first Nero Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance.

More than seventy other Nero Wolfe books and stories followed. During World War II, Rex Stout waged a personal campaign against Nazism serving as chairman of the War Writers Board, wrote and broadcast the CBS radio program "Our Secret Weapon," and was a member of several national committees. After the war, he resumed writing Nero Wolfe novels. In 1959 he won the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Rex Stout died October 27, 1975 at the age of 88. A month before his death, he published his final Nero Wolfe book, A Family Affair.

For you edification:
Forty Years with Nero Wolfe, Terry Teachout
An Addictive Author, Laurence DiMaria

THE BLACK MOUNTAIN, Rex Stout

Although I was warned that this was an atypical Rex Stout novel, I had read enough of his books 25 years ago to be in the mood to read something different. And in many ways, it was a good choice. Wolfe steps out of his brownstone, out of his country, and out of his typical "you do the footwork, Archie and I'll do the brain work." setup
But in other ways,  since it had been so long, I wanted that familiar setup. I am not even sure a man of Wolfe's girth and sloth could undertake this trip. But let's say he can.
But getting to the story...
When Nero Wolfe's close friend, a restaurateur is killed, followed by Wolfe's adopted daughter, the reason clearly lies in Montenegro (where both were involved in a protest movement), so much to all of our surprise, Nero abandons his usual methods of solving crimes and goes there, undertaking a difficult passage through the mountains. This is in 1954 and the geopolitics is difficult with Tito in power.
It was hard to know who your enemies were and indeed, Wolfe does not. This is not a whodunnit as much as it is how will Wolfe trip him up. And the real genius in it is that Stout gets to prove he could have written spy novels with as much grace as his mysteries. I enjoyed it but it was not as good as Fer De Lance, The League of Frightened Men or Too Many Cooks for me.
One review suggested that this was a way for Stout to clear out two characters that had been hanging around too long. I wonder.



Sergio Angelini, PRISONER'S BASE
Yvette Banek, MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD and CHAMPAGNE FOR ONE
Bitter Tea and Mystery, BLACK ORCHIDS
Cinch Review, TOO MANY COOKS 
Bill Crider, TARGET PRACTICE, Rex Stout
Rich Horton, CURTAINS FOR THREE 
Jerry House, THE GREAT LEGEND 
George Kelley, THE GOLDEN SPIDER
Steve Lewis, THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN
J.F. Norris,THREE MEN OUT;  ALPHABET HICKS 
Matt Paust, THE DOORBELL RANG 
Richard Robinson, CURTAINS FOR THREE
TracyK. SOME BURIED CAESAR

Brian Busby, THE QUEBEC PLOT, Leo  Heaps
Scott Cupp, JACK OF EAGLES, James Blish
Martin Edwards, THE NECESSARY CORPSE, R. C. Woodthorpe
Curt Evans, R in the Month, Nancy Spain
Margot Kinberg, THE CONSTABLE'S TALE, Donald Smith
Rob Kitchin, DARKSIDE, Belinda Bauer
B.V. Lawson, I'LL SING YOU TWO-O 
Todd Mason, ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS THE GREAT SF STORIES 18 (1956) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg ; SPEAKING OF HORROR: INTERVIEWS WITH WRITERS OF THE SUPERNATURAL by Darrell Schweitzer et al.

Terrence P. McCauley, THE HUNTER, Richard Stark
J. Kingston Pierce, ANYTHING BUT SAINTLY, Richard Deming 
Gerard Saylor, DOUBLE BACK, Libby Fisher Hellman
Kevin Tipple, JOYLAND, Stephen King
TomCat, BONY AND THE MOUSE, Arthur Upfield
A.J,. Wright, William Bradford Huie
Zybahn, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY, Horace McCoy

Your Favorite Musical

This is a question I think about quite a lot because I love musicals, especially seen live on a stage. I am very attached to ones from my childhood like GIGI, MY FAIR LADY, THE KING AND I, WEST SIDE STORY. Some I enjoyed sharing with my kids (A CHORUS LINE)
But some of the more recent ones are pretty swell too.BOOK OF MORMON was a knockout, for instance. And HAMILTON has certainly rocked the musical world. SPRING AWAKENING was great.
There is more than one aspect to consider, of course. Some have weak stories-some have less than perfect scores. And it depends on the production you see.
Here is a recent list from The Guardian. 

If I was forced to choose one, I might go with CABARET. What about you? 

Tuesday's Forgotten Movies,THE KNACK-And How to Get It. (from 2011)

Tuesday's Forgotten Movies,THE KNACK-And How to Get It. (from 2011)

In my continuing attempts to resurrect public memory of Rita Tushingham's fabulous films of the sixties, here is THE KNACK from 1965 (Dir: Richard Lester). It concerns a young man's irresistible charms and whether such a skill can be passed on. Rita plays Nancy, a waif on her own in mod London who meets up with the boys.
This was Tushingham's area of expertise, playing waifs. Not classically pretty, she used her ability to play spunky yet innocent girls to great avail.

For more forgotten films, please consult Todd Mason at Sweet Freedom.

My Jaunt to Stratford

At least once a year, we go with friends to Stratford, Ontario to take in a few plays. You can see what we saw this year and all of them were excellent, especially Macbeth. I loved the singing and dancing in A CHORUS LINE but have to say the narrative seems dated in its presentation. AS YOU LIKE IT had a terrific Rosalind but it is definitely a weaker play from the bard. And way too long at three hours. Still Stratford productions are always original and totally professional. As good as anywhere to my mind.
One of the treats of going to Canada is I always have lunch with Brian Busby and get to hear about what he's up to. And this year, he gave me these two terrific books with intros from Brian and J.F. Norris. What a treat. These Ricochet books can be ordered on Amazon, Abe Books and other venues.. Brian is Ricochet's series editor if you didn't know that.
We always try to bring home a greeting card or small print and this was this years choice from a 90 year old artist.

Oh, and have a happy fourth! I get to march in the parade as a Friend of the Library. Bring out the aspirin. 

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 1, 2016

Todd Mason will again have the links.

from the archives-One of my favorite books and favorite people. Lynn Kostoff

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: LATE RAIN, Lynn Kostoff

How I came to write this book.

I thought answering that would be a no-brainer. I mean, a copy of Late Rain, is setting right in front of me. I can reach over, pick it up, and open it to any page I want.

However, I’m not sure I can exactly untangle how it got here.

Five drafts. 1650 pages. Depending on how much life gets in the way, one draft a year or year and a half. Only the last two drafts resembling each other. That’s the way it usually works for me on a novel, and that’s how it played out for Late Rain.

Getting to that final draft is a messy process.

I don’t show the first three drafts of a novel to anyone. Inevitably, they are the equivalent of lab accidents. Characters’ names change frequently. Their back-stories bloat and shrink. Plot-lines appear and disappear and recombine. Style mutates. Good guys discover they’re not so good. Bad guys bang their heads against genre conventions until they draw blood. Lines of dialogue appear, and I have no idea who uttered them or why. Random images pile up. The style mutates again.

The pages and notes pile up (Late Rain eventually filled three and a half large boxes), and I begin to inhabit extended bouts of doubt and panic. I go on long walks and try to sort through the characters and plot elements and image patterns and find a structure and style to accommodate them. I spend a lot of time staring off into space. I obsess. I drive my wife nuts.

When I finally accept I’m lost, that’s when I know I’m ready to start drafting the novel I’ve wanted to write all along.

So, by the fourth draft, I get out of my own way and set the characters chasing after what they want and wait for the collisions to start.

I know who the characters are by then and what they’re capable of and not capable of, and because of that, they can still surprise me.

Hopefully, by the final draft, the same will hold true for readers.

Lynn Kostoff is a professor of English at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. His first book, A CHOICE OF NIGHTMARES was published by New Pulp Press.

Check out my review of MAGGIE'S PLAN on CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE.