Here it is, Part 2 of the Marathon, No-Frills (and few links) Book Review Issue.
First, some news:
1. Click to learn about and register for Lou Boxer's NOIRCon 2012 in Philadelphia.
2. Scroll down to the bottom to see an ad for ZOOM STREET's Noir issue.
3. Allan Guthrie, the well known crime/thriller author from Scotland tells us that TWO-WAY SPLIT, his debut novel, is now available for download from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
The novel was originally published by PointBlank Press in the US in 2004, and went on to win the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in the UK in 2007. This new edition is a Kindle-only publication.
About TWO-WAY SPLIT:
A lean and muscular crime thriller with a seriously twisted dark side.
Robin Greaves is an armed robber whose professionalism is put to the test when he discovers his wife has been sleeping with a fellow gang member. Robin plans the ultimate revenge, but things go from bad to worse when the gang bungles a post office robbery, leaving carnage in their wake. Suddenly they are stalked by the police, sleazy private eyes, and a cold-blooded killer who may be the only one not looking for a cut of the money…
"With razor-sharp characterisation and an evocative sense of place, the novel's pace never relents: the supremely damaged characters that Guthrie conjures up are seldom let off the hook, and stew throughout in their fetid juices. Dark and splendid." The Guardian
"...a memorable and stunning and pitch-perfect debut and one you should grab forthwith. I can't remember a first novel this good in a long, long time." Mystery Scene
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Now get ready for reviews of the following books, again, probably more than you'll want to read in one sitting:
Cowboys, by Gary Phillips and Brian Hurtt
Toxicity, by Libby Fisher Hellman
Penguin Lost, by Andrey Kurkov
Tough Town Cold City, by Fred Zackel
Tumor, by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon (previously reviewed by Sam Millar in Noir Journal 45)
The Craigslist Murders by Brenda Cullerton
More Beer, by Jakob Arjouni
Long Gone, by Alafair Burke
One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich
Death Notice, by Todd Ritter
Cowboys, by Gary Phillips and Brian Hurtt, Vertigo (July 19, 2011)
Once again Noir Journal is honored to post a review by the great Irish crime writer Sam Millar. And congratulations to Sam for having been short-listed for this year's Grand Prix de littérature policière, the most prestigious crime award in France.
Reviewed by Sam Millar
Cowboys begins violently in the swank, Three Penny Restaurant, and continues almost relentlessly to the final denouement. But there is more to Cowboys than simple violence. It tells the story of two cops, one black, one white. Deke Kotto, a black cop, is undercover at the behest of his captain. Kotto’s rules come from his gut instinct rather than any law book. His marriage is on the skids, and he has a disabled son, whom he loves dearly. Tim Brady, the white cop in the story, is the opposite coin: happily married, loves to go bowling, and looks forward to the day he can retire on his pension. Unfortunately, fate is about to spin that coin totally out of control, causing both men to go head-to-head in a shoot-out with fatal consequences in the air, and bringing with it accusations of a race-motive shooting.
Cowboys is an uncomfortable read, and that’s what makes it so damn good. Racism, police brutality and corruption are all tackled head on, giving the reader less ambiguity but plenty of soul searching as each page is turned. Brian Hurtt’s art is perfect with big fat ink drops of noir splattered throughout. It both compliments and enhances Gary Phillips’ gritty bullet-speed story with a determined ferocity. Vertigo are to be commended for bringing these two multi-talented people together, and hopefully we will be seeing more of this team in the future.
Toxicity by Libby Fischer Hellman, Amazon Digital Services
Reviewed by Ann Snuggs
Wow! Though this "Georgia Davis Prequel" might start out as a chapter-per-sitting read, by the time the second body turns up do NOT begin reading without a cleared schedule. Once the details begin to fall into place, appointments will be skipped, phone calls ignored, family pleas unheard until the final page is turned. It is riveting!
The prologue is from the point of view of the killer. It will definitely come back hauntingly.
Flash to Detective Matt Singer, peaceful and satisfied as he starts his morning after a night with policewoman Georgia Davis.
Shift again to a suburb community of Chicago where Detective Sergeant John Stone is starting his day with a low-key assignment, investigating vandalism at the construction site for a prestigious company. Dog poop was smeared on a sign, a noticeable pile left below it. Stone considers the job a perk after dealing with murder, rape and other mayhem in Chicago.
Now the tale moves to a police procedural pov, with a garbage man discovering the grinder on his truck has jammed on a body from a dumpster behind a high school. Matt; Georgia and her partner, Robby Parker; Jenny Lee, state crime lab tech; and other police personnel are called to the grisly scene.
The victim is Julia Romano, a teacher at the school. Quiet. Sweet. No unkind descriptions of her from the interviewed acquaintances. Her apartment is neat and organized. Even her massive collection of DVDs is alphabetized. Of course, what you see is not always what you get. The only item that seems out of place to Matt is a photograph. Finding a brown envelope on the kitchen counter containing only a five by seven photograph of what appears to be a large, empty field is incongruous. No ID of any kind. It just doesn't fit.
But the big puzzler comes from the pathologist. He can't determine the cause of death. No wounds. No traces of assault. It will take an autopsy. Yet the autopsy doesn't bring clarification either. It's obvious that her organs collapsed, but the cause is nebulous.
Meanwhile, back in the suburb with the construction site - or what will be if the town council permits the project to continue - Stone is gathering details of the conflict between SGF Development (Stuart Feldman) and CEASE (Citizens' Effort Against Senseless Expansion). That's a toxic situation, too.
As more seemingly unrelated crimes are uncovered - Matt's gut instinct tells him all these pieces are part of the same puzzle - the tension escalates.
Because the reader is privy to information the detectives don't have, he/she can see the solution well before the book ends. The suspense - the thrill in thrill-er - is not knowing when it will all fall in place for the police.
In the midst of the crime investigation and the interplay of the police departments involved are complications in the relationship between Matt and Georgia - and a few others. Though it does add texture to the characters, at times there's a wish to just stick to crime - that scenario is convoluted enough.
Quibbles aside, Toxicity is a great read. Knowing the perp does not decrease the suspense. Libby Fischer Hellman has delivered a top-notch crime thriller.
Footnote: The last time I looked Toxicity was available in Kindle format for only ninety-nine cents. No better bargain around.
Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov, Melville House (June 2011)
Reviewed by Ann Snuggs
Above all, do not read Andrey Kurkov's Penguin Lost without reading Death and the Penguin first. Even well into the sequel, references to events and characters from Death and the Penguin dot the story. Actually, it's almost as one book issued in two segments.
That said, the sequel doesn't quite live up to the fascinating Death and the Penguin, though it definitely has its moments. It's good but not great. (Spoiler ALERT: It is impossible to discuss Penguin Lost without including spoilers for Death and the Penguin. Stop now! Read Death and the Penguin first.)
After Viktor took Misha's place on the arduous journey to Antarctica, guilt set in for abandoning the penguin, Sonya and Nina. He had escaped the death threat - for the time - but now must find a way to get back to Kiev and find Misha.
An interesting facet of these "penguin" books is the frequency with which chances seem to drop into Viktor's lap. The way may be fraught with hardship and peril but the opportunities appear. It is one of these that allows Viktor to leave Antarctica.
So the odyssey begins - and Homer's hero never encountered much stranger circumstances on his journey.
From Antarctica, Viktor re-enters Kiev and attempts to pick up pieces from his past and, at the same time, stay hidden from those who wanted to eliminate him and move on with his life.
A trip to the Veterinary Clinic for a visit with Ilya Semyonovich, the doctor who replaced Misha's bad heart, reveals that two men collected the penguin when the animal had healed and settled the debts.
Viktor's next move is to go to the cemetery to place flowers on the grave of the penguinologist who taught him so much about the species. It is there that chance leads Viktor to Andrey Pavlovich, who will guide his life down a different path but will eventually help him find the penguin's trail.
In a financial upheaval, Misha's ownership was transferred to one Khachayev, who has placed him with the dogs in his kennel in Chechnya. Now Viktor must find a way to get to Chechnya.
Once more, Fate seems to step in and provide the path. Granted the path is grim and locating Misha is not as simple as locating Khachayev - and Khachayev himself is not easy to see in person.
Here the story seems to bog down a bit, though by the final pages every single wearing line has a connection to Misha's - and Viktor's - destiny. Hang in there. It picks up again and is worth it.
One of Kurkov's finest talents is his ability to create vivid characters. The assortment of persons who are interwoven into Viktor's life is fascinating. They are varied - from all walks of life - and well-painted. It would be intriguing if Kurkov penned a book of short stories telling the tales of some of these characters.
In a step away from my usual reviewing style, a first-person note feels warranted. In reflecting on these books as a unit, it occurred to me that perhaps I had missed something in reading the first one: Viktor is the penguin. Of course, Misha is there and was the one great impetus for me to get my eyes on Penguin Lost. But like the animal penguin Misha, Viktor's life is dictated by others and his surroundings. Much of the time he seems as helpless to control what goes on in it as does Misha.
These books are a prime choice for book discussion groups. I highly recommend them as selections for any thinking book club.
Tough Town Cold City by Fred Zackel, (Kindle) Amazon
Reviewed by Ann Snuggs
Cold is an operative word in this entry from Fred Zackel.
It's summer in San Francisco but the fog won't lift. It hangs cold and bone-biting, day and night. It practically becomes a character in the story.
Cold fits right in. Tough Town Cold City holds one of the coldest bunch of characters created in detective fiction. No one comes out of this squeaky clean. The closest to it is Frank Pasnow, private investigator and narrator of the tale.
He describes his approach to the scene of the messy shootout that leads to his involvement in the case:
"From all the red, white, and blue flashing lights ricocheting off the houses, trees and faces, there could have been a rave party going on beyond the barriers. The lights were on in every house on the block, and more neighbors were streaming out of their houses and coming this way. Still, this was a couple hours before dawn."
Captain Thomas Harrison has called Frank to the location in the Projects, shows him Black Pete Staple's dead body - trussed up and shot in the head in the trunk of Pete's own cherry red El Dorado. Black Pete was a mentor to Frank - taught him all the quasi-legal and illegal skills a P.I. might need. Pasnow knows he must do something.
Pete's boy was in the trunk, too, - Dr. Peter Staples, Jr., up and coming medical hotshot. The bullet is his head was not fatal. He's on his way to the hospital.
What was Black Pete mixed up in that got him killed? By whom? The candidates are numerous.
Was it Terry Danvers, his landlord? Not a very nice man, his history with Pasnow goes back to a crisis point in Frank's life. The P.I. would believe him capable of anything.
How about sleazy - but very pricey - lawyer Clay Macondray? Black Pete was doing work for his prestigious firm. No one knows for sure exactly what he was doing.
Clay's partner and former wife, Candace Macondray - "Candy Mac," can't be ruled out. She's out to screw Danvers' daughter Trudy out of everything she might have coming to her - if it can be arranged.
What about Trudy's mother's sister Gwen? She has a strange way of popping up. At the hospital she's young Pete's mentoring nurse, anxious to stay with him, in and out of the institution, to see him back on his feet. She's also whispering suggestions in Trudy's ear about her belief that Terry Danvers killed Trudy's mother.
Frank's old friend and lover Lucy Runyon has become a lawyer hoping for a partnership in Macondray, Macondray and Associates. She seems to be Candy Mac's lackey. Did she know what Black Pete was working on? Was he a threat to her? Her passion is still a threat to Pasnow's libido.
Pasnow also has to consider the site where Black Pete's car was found - in the middle of a shootout in the Projects with not bullet scar one on the car. How did that happen? Is his death linked to drugs or gang conflict as a result of whatever he was working on?
Does the guy with green eyes and many tats - including a blue teardrop at the corner of his eye - come into this? Frank has seen him more than once since this started.
What about the young teenage couple who stared at him so intently when he was in ER with Peter, Jr.?
Can Frank count anyone out of this?
Candy Mac gives him a fair description of the tangled web of relationships - married or otherwise - in the story when she says:
"My marriages are simply another example of the Byzantine network of relationships that have often developed from numerous California marriages between friends and/or enemies."
The body count begins to mount and the kinky trail leads Frank not only over the hills of San Francisco but on to the foggy roads of Marin County and the exclusive byways of Tiburon. Shark (the English translation for Tiburon) is suitably named. It describes many of the residents.
The police department there is interesting, too. A slick chief who likes the good life and knows his business with a thick-headed lieutenant to do grunge work.
Pasnow points out the lieut's failings:
" 'You've freaked out the next of kin, and you've insulted and threatened the citizen who called 911, and somewhere along the way you stepped into a puddle of blood at the crime scene.'
Lieutenant Glenn Thorpe looked at his shoes. In an old Loony Tune cartoon, his head would have abruptly become a lollipop, and a white balloon would have appeared above his head, calling him Sucker-sucker-sucker! As it was, he just raised his head and looked like himself."
Can anyone not love the images Zackel paints as he tells the story?
Tough Town Cold City is a whopping good P.I. novel of the old school, enhanced by Zackel's always vivid prose.
If you don't have a Kindle, download the Kindle app for computer, iPad or iPhone or whatever compatible device you can find. Don't miss this one!
Tumor, by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon, Archaia, Feb. 2010
Reviewed by Ann Snuggs (Also reviewed in Noir Journal 45 by Sam Millar)
Private detective Frank Armstrong fits the stereotype of the struggling private investigator of crime fiction - with one little exception. He has a brain tumor. It will be fatal. It causes him to switch realities without warning.
Tumor asks the question: "Can he conclude this one last case before the tumor concludes him?"
Armstrong is retired, he says. Sitting at table in a familiar cafe, taking aspirin for his headache, a familiar figure from the past suddenly appears - one he would just as soon not see - Adrian, who comes to take him for a ride - to the boss.
The boss doesn't want to kill Frank. He wants to hire him. His baby girl Evelyn is missing and Gibson figures Frank is just the man for the job of finding his daughter. "No way," Frank says, but changes his mind.
As the tumor presses, Armstrong's "reality" morphs into the past - back to his dead wife Rosa, also estranged from her father - and killed by him.
Now Frank has to decide whether Gibson wants his daughter back to save her or to kill her. Is this deja vu or the tumor affecting his brain?
Evelyn tells the P.I. she stole from her dad. She's trusts him about as far as she can throw him. Yet one of his biggest problems is not finding the truth but separating Evelyn from his lost Rosa as they become interchangeable in his damaged brain. Is he in the present or the past?
Joshua Hale Fialkov's dark tale - short story length had it no art - is harsh and riveting. It gives no quarter - not to the characters, not to the reader.
Noel Tuazon's stark, rough-looking art enhances the plot. His style is perfect for this story. As Frank's perceptions shift between the past and the present, the art immediately shows the change as Frank sees it. The reader's vision becomes as chaotic as Frank's. The first pages bend the mind until one realizes that this mutating disorder is the key part of the story.
Noir fans who have not read the graphic novel format may find Tumor a bit of a challenge but it is well worth the stretch. Try it, you might like it.
The Craigslist Murders, by Brenda Cullerton, Melville House (May 17, 2011)
Reviewed by Ann Snuggs
The mystery in The Craigslist Murders is not "who done it? but "will she get away with it?" This is a serial killer story.
That is not a spoiler - despite the question under the title on the cover - because the murderer is introduced in flagrante delicto in the first scene of the book.
Charlotte is an interior decorator, serving the richest of the richest to make their multiple homes showplaces that any high end decorating magazine would be proud to display.
She loves the colors, the fabulous antique finds, the rare one-of-a-kind treasures. What she hates are the shallow women who hire her. She scorns their purposeless but tightly scheduled lives that focus on themselves and how they appear.
It occurs to her that she has the means to release them from their lives of miserable pretense - a poker to the head will do it every time.
Using Craigslist and an account set up on a public-access computer, she begins her mission.
Charlotte is one of a growing number of fictional women who are either pushed toward madness or find incredible inner strength as a result of childhood abuse - generally by a parent - often a mother. Charlotte is the former. It is this inhuman cruelty she experienced in her childhood that makes her the sleek, stylish monster she has become.
If stories of rich, mean people and how the world might be purged of them are your cup of tea - glass of wine? - The Craigslist Murders is a book for you. Fans of more traditional dark crime may be happier looking elsewhere.
More Beer, Jakob Arjouni, A Kayankaya Thriller, Jakob Arjouni (Author), Anselm Hollo (Translator)
Reviewed by Steve Anderson
Jakob Arjouni’s tough and nonstop debut from 1987 could have been titled The Fifth Man.
Sure, private detective Kemal Kayankaya does like more beer, but he also can’t help sticking his nose where things stink. In More Beer, four so-called eco-terrorists in West Germany are accused of murdering the head of a Frankfurt chemical company whose products should, in a just world, get it accused of crimes of its own.
The four suspects had sabotaged the company’s chemical plant, but they deny murdering anyone. A fifth man was seen at the crime, yet no one in authority seems willing to find him. In a tight spot, the defendants’ lawyer hires Kayankaya to track down the missing fifth suspect.
If private detectives are outsiders in fiction, Kayankaya is doubly so. Born in Turkey but raised in West Germany, Kayankaya gets hit with ignorance, cruel insults and outright assault as he chips away at the case no one wants. In the 1960s, West Germany had invited Turks to come help the country rebuild and flourish, but now it doesn’t want to know about Turks in its midst. It even seems to resent them for it. If this was set in America, it would be (in a simplistic analogy) as if our hardboiled detective was black or Mexican and operating in a far less tolerant era.
Kayankaya can take the slurs and blows after a lifetime of both. He fires back with a sharp wit, yet it’s not only the dialogue that keeps us following our Turk PI. We aren’t told a lot about him so we learn a lot through how he acts and reacts. He’ll shout and insult back and go to the fist if need be; he’ll wear it on his sleeve but he’ll leave it on yours. To those with wealth, reputation and career to protect even when it’s a stranglehold, Kayankaya appears to be a lazy, uncaring problem child — and a dire threat. Yet he’s the only one who gives a shit, in his way, and he’s willing to keep after the truth.
In this translation from Anselm Hollo, few words do a ton of work. This isn’t literary fiction disguised as crime noir. In one passage, Kayankaya fails to address a suspect named Schmidi as “Mister.”
Schmidi shoots back: “Mr. Schmidi. I don’t call you rat-Turk.”
Kayankaya: “So that’s what you want to get off your chest all this time?”
“You better leave while the going is good.”
“Yes, I might just give in to the urge to beat the name of that fifth guy out of you.”
Some of it may come through as clunky in translation, but it always moves the story along.
The eco-terrorism threat is a ruse used by the forces of complacency and corruption, Kayankaya learns. A sad and thorny love scandal holds the real crime. There are shades of Chinatown here, though without the imposing Noah Cross figure. The staid Establishment in the West German state of Hessia fills that role, arrogant and entitled and getting a little jumpy.
One passage hits at the futility of the little guy versus ruthless power — Kayankaya’s small-time dealer sidekick, Slibulsky, comments on the real possibility of getting killed for their efforts:
“And who would give a fuck? Some little dealer from the railroad station, and a Turkish snooper. That doesn’t even rate a mention on the morning news. They’d just plow us under in a hurry. So you risk your life for something you believe is justice, and end up in the compost heap. What’s justice, anyway? It doesn’t exist, not today, not tomorrow. And you won’t bring it about, either. You’re doing the same scheiss-work as any cop ... you won’t change a thing about the fact that it’s always the same guys who do something, who get caught — not a thing, because the rules are set up that way.”
Supporting characters like Slibulsky and the grim Frankfurt settings are superbly drawn, and they deliver details that surprise. Who knew that arsenic was capable of improving one’s beauty in the right doses, even as it’s causing death?
I had few complaints. We know little about Kayankaya other than that he was born a Turk but raised by German parents. I wanted to know why and how he’s fallen so low. Usually I don’t need such background in a hardboiled tale, but Kayankaya’s unique background left me wanting to know. Also, the journalist Carla Reedermann seems underdeveloped, disappearing for much of the story.
Kayankaya doesn’t need her help in the end. He makes enough waves on his own, whether it’s in a sea of foul muck or too many liters of beer.
More Beer was a hit in Germany when it came out, and the English translation is now available in the US from Melville House. Arjouni’s other Kayankaya novels include Happy Birthday Turk, Magic Hoffmann and One Man, One Murder, for which he won the German Crime Fiction Award (Deutscher Krimi Preis) in 1992.
Long Gone, Harper; First Edition edition (June 21, 2011)
Reviewed by Vicki Wilt of Tucker Seven Editorial Associates, Inc.
The main characters of Alafair Burke’s Long Gone are the family, friends, and enemies of Alice Humphrey, the daughter of a famous movie director. But a character on the fringes of the action quietly but relentlessly steals the show—and readers’ hearts. That character is disgraced FBI agent Hank Beckman.
After declaring her financial independence from her wealthy father, the womanizing director Frank Humphrey, Alice loses her cushy job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She finds herself facing the bitter realities of unemployment for the first time in her life, and the streets of New York suddenly seem a whole lot meaner than she ever knew.
Then a stranger offers her a dream job, managing her own gallery. It seems too good to be true—and it is. Within days, the stranger is murdered, and Alice discovers that she’s been set up to take the fall. NYPD homicide detectives fall for the scam and are days away from arresting Alice.
The murder is linked somehow to her family’s past, and Alice can’t completely trust anyone—even her own family and friends. So why does she decide to trust the FBI man who has been tailing her? Because Hank Beckman has seen it all before. He failed to save his own sister from a similar scam—and he will not let history repeat itself with Alice.
Together, this unlikely duo probe secrets that link the downtown galleries of Manhattan, a missing teenage girl from New Jersey, and the not-so-perfect upscale families of Westchester County. To solve this puzzle, they’ll have to put together evidence that stretches from the sexual excesses of the 1980s to the latest developments in cybercrime and stolen identities.
Alafair Burke brings all these social milieux to life with crackling dialogue and a vivid sense of place. She gives a contemporary spin to the eternal plotlines of the damsel in distress and the privileged family with dangerous secrets from the past.
One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich, St. Martin's Griffin (June 13, 2006)
Reviewed by Stephanie Campbell
What’s the difference between a crime movie and real life? Apparently, a lot of things. That’s what former lingerie buyer Stephanie Plum discovers in One for the Money by Janet Evanovich.
In this hilarious comedy/mystery novel, Stephanie—who is in the throes of economic turmoil—blackmails her cousin into giving her a bounty hunter position. Unfortunately, when she is handed a case that is way over her head, she is thrown into a world of murderers and drug dealers. She can’t give up, though, lest she wants to lost her apartment and—heaven forbid—be forced to move back in with her parents.
She is forced to take bounty hunter lessons from a friend that she meets at her cousin’s bail bonding company. The problem is, after she becomes the target of a murdering boxer named Benito Ramirez, she may not live long enough to show off her new skills.
One for the Money is a good read for anybody with a funny bone. While the jacket flap screams chick lit, this book is anything but that. It has a decent mystery plot line, but Evanovich’s interesting characters and hilarity make the story unique. It is definitely the ultimate bad day book.
Death Notice, by Todd Ritter, Minotaur Books, released Oct. 12, 2010
Review by Jules Brenner
Take a quiet little town (Perry Hollow) that once thrived around the now extinct sawmill; a single-mom police chief (Kat Campbell) to keep the drunks off the highway; and the sudden appearance of a serial killer, and you have the makings of a tense yarn that's going to shake things up like never before.
Of course, serial killer yarns are a dime a dozen, but author Todd Ritter comes up with an intriguing deviation. Every murder is forewarned in a fax that arrives prior to the act taking place. And, when the murder is perpetrated, it's in the style of maniacal invention. The killer sews up his victim's mouth, opens his or her neck and pours formaldehyde down the carotid artery. He's embalming them!
It starts on an unusually busy day for chief Campbell. Just when she's dealing with Jasper Fox, the local florist, reporting his white van missing, she gets a call from Carl, her sole deputy, about a pine box that looks like a coffin, sitting on the side of Old Mill Road. After putting out an APB on the truck, she drives out to the box. In it, she finds the corpse of a local farmer named George Winnick. Two polished pennies sit atop each of his eyes, heads up.
What she has yet to learn is that the killer is playing games with her and the town. A fax announcing the victim and time of death arrives at the office of the Perry Hollow Gazette's obituary writer, Henry Goll, a reclusive man with a facial scar and a tragic history that haunts him.
To read more of this review, go to Jules Brenner's site Critical Mystery Tour.
That's it.
We leave you with a plug for Zoom Street's Noir Issue (below).
Take care,
ML
