Archive for the 'Friday ‘s Forgotten Books'

A reminder that June 28 is Elmore Leonard day on FFB. Feel free to join in. I will post any reviews from those without blogs. 



THE BLANK WALL, Elisabeth Xanxay Holding.

Ed Gorman is the author of several series of crime fiction books as well as standalone mysteries, westerns, and the editor of many anthologies.

Rendezvous In Black by Cornell Woolrich

I don't have adequate time to do Patricia Moyes justice, but when I think back to the various detective series I read in my twenties, one that stands out for me is Patricia Moyes' series of mysteries about Inspector Henry Tibbett, who solved many of his cases with the help of his wife, Emmy. I found their marriage as well as their cases fun.

Anthony Boucher wrote this in the NYT at the time of the first of the series, DEAD MEN DON'T SKI.

“If you’re as hungry as I am for a really good whodunit. you will welcome the debut of Patricia Moyes."

We may not be as hungry for whodunits as we were then, but they can still be very satisfying when done well. If I can count on my memory, these were.

The setting for that first book DEAD MEN DON'T SKI was the Italian Alps, where Henry Tibbett, on vacation from Scotland Yard. Henry and his wife. Emmy, have settled in for some skiing, when Henry uncovers a smuggling ring, which includes hotel guests.
Then a guest who was alive when the ski lift began its descent is found dead when the lift touches bottom.

Henry Tibbett, Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, gave me many hours of pleasure and I remember sadly the day when I learned of Moyes' death.

Here are the books in the series:

Dead Men Don't Ski (1958)
The Sunken Sailor (1961)
aka Down Among the Dead Men
Death On the Agenda (1962)
Murder a La Mode (1963)
Falling Star (1964)
Johnny Underground (1965)
Murder By Threes (1965)
Murder Fantastical (1967)
Death and the Dutch Uncle (1968)
Who Saw Her Die? (1970)
aka Many Deadly Returns
Season of Snows and Sins (1971)
The Curious Affair of the Third Dog (1973)
Black Widower (1975)
To Kill a Coconut (1977)
aka The Coconut Killings
Who Is Simon Warwick? (1978)
Angel Death (1980)
A Six Letter Word for Death (1983)
Night Ferry to Death (1985)
Black Girl, White Girl (1989)
Twice in a Blue Moon (1993)
Collections:
Who Killed Father Christmas?: And Other Unseasonable Demises (1996)

Sergio Angelini
Les Blatt, VULTURES IN THE SKY, Todd Downing
Brian Busby, STORIES FOR LATE NIGHT DRINKERS, Michael Tremblays
Bill Crider, THE STARTLING WORLDS OF HENRY KUTTNER, Henry Kuttner
Scott Cupp, DOC SAVAGE: SKULL ISLAND, Will Murray
Martin Edwards, CORPSE GUARDS PARADE, Milward Kennedy
Curt Evans, UP HILL AND DOWN DALE: DEATH OF A CURATE, Kenneth Ashley
Jerry House, TARZAN, JR, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Randy Johnson, THE SHORES OF SPACE, Richard Matheson
Nick Jones, DR. WHO AND THE DALEKS, David Whitaker
George Kelley, SLAM THE BIG DOOR, John D. MacDonald
Margot Kinberg, A IS FOR ALIBI, Sue Grafton
B.V. Lawson, THE COMFORTABLE COFFIN, Richard S.Prather
Evan Lewis, WHAT PRICE MURDER, Cleve F. Adams
Steve Lewis, SCATTERSHOT, Bill Pronzini
Todd Mason, Some Anthologies from WEIRD TALES
J.V. Norris,ALARUM AND EXCURSION, Virginia Perdue
Neer, THE AFFAIR AT ALIQUID and BURGLARS IN BUCKS, Margaret and G.D.H. Cole
James Reasoner, THE BEST OF SPICY MYSTERY: VOL. 1, Al Jan editor
Gerard Saylor, GHOSTS OF BELFAST, Stuart Neville
Ron Scheer, THE PRAIRIE WIFE, Arthur Stringer
Michael Slind, DISSOLUTION, C.J. Sansom
Kerrie Smith, THROUGH THE WALL, Patricia Wentworth
Kevin Tipple, SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT, Bill Crider
TomCat, THE TITANIC MURDERS, Max Allan Collins
Jim Winter, OUT OF SIGHT, Elmore Leonard

Desperate Characters by Paula Fox (the first forgotten book)

It's difficult to remember, thirty years on, New York in the seventies, The City was facing bankruptcy, the streets were dangerous, frequent strikes left unattended garbage for the rodents, buildings crumbled. Paula Fox's novel Desperate Characters perfectly captures that time along with the similarly disintegrating marriage of Sophie and Otto Bentwood. The story begins with an unexpected cat bite. "Because it's savage," Otto answers Sophie's puzzled, "why?" It was a cat she was trying to feed that bit her. This well-intentioned act, this McGuffin, sends the couple off on a weekend odyssey, where ominous events continue to haunt the childless couple. They find little solace in each other and there is no easy resolution at the end. The quiet desperation that suffuses their story is heart-breaking. The writing is haunting, lucid, and succinct.

Fox has also written two books about her life (Borrowed Finery and The Coldest Winter), a few other novels (The Widow's Children) and many children's books. But nothing is finer than this one for me.

Ed Gorman is home again. Yippee!

TEXAS WIND, James Reasoner

We all have books we go back to several times over the years. For me one of the finest private eye novels I've ever read is Texas Wind by James Reasoner. It is a virtually perfect utterance, a story of a man, an era and a place.

While the set-up is familiar, "a missing daughter job" as Hammett once began a story of his, the op here, named Cody, gives us a Texas I'd never seen before and a private eye who might be the guy you have coffee with at the donut shop counter a couple days a week. The reality is what makes the dark surprises of the book stay real. A real person is telling you the story.

Texas is too often writ so large it becomes comic without meaning to be. James' social observations are worth the price alone. My favorite is a scene where Cody, a Southerner, wonders about a man because he's a Northerner. I've seen this written so many times by Yankees that it was a jolt realizing that it cuts both ways. I loved it.

Filled with exciting incident and humane observation, Texas Wind is one of those books that should be read by everyone who wants to write a mystery novel. This will show you how.

Livia Washburn, James' talented and lovely writer wife, is also a talented and lovely artist. Who knew? Here's her new cover for Texas Wind.

Sergio Angelini, MEMOS FROM PURGATORY, Harlan Ellison
Joe Barone, THE MADONNAS OF LENINGRAD, Debra Dean
Randal S. Brandt, CARAMBOLA by David Dodge.
Randall S. Brandt, CARAMBOLA, David Dodge
Bill Crider, DARK TRAVELING, Roger Zelazny
Martin Edwards, GARSTONS, H.C. Bailey
Curt Evans, THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, John Buchan
Michael Gregorio, YARDIE, Victor Headley
Jerry House, ATOMIC CHILI: THE ILLUSTRATED JOE LANSDALE, ed. Rick Klaw
Randy Johnson, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, John Burke
Nick Jones, Richard Stark's Parker Series
George Kelley, THE END OF THE NIGHT, John D. MacDonald
MARGOT KINBERG, DIGGER REST HOTEL, GEOFFREY McGeachin
B.V. Lawson, THE ABANDONED ROOM, Charles Wadsworth Camp
Steve Lewis/ Michael Shonk, RISING DOG, Vince Kohler
Todd Mason, INTERSECTIONS: THE SYCAMORE HILL ANTHOLOGY edited by John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name and Richard Butner; MIRRORSHADES: THE CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY, edited by Bruce Sterling
Jeff Meyerson, KILLING CASTRO, Lawrence Block
J.F. Norris, BENIGHTED, J.B. Priestley
Ayo Onadate, A RAGE IN HARLEM, Chester Himes
James Reasoner, BEST OFFER, Robert Calder
Gerard Saylor, THE CONSUMMATA, Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Ron Sheer, THE MANTLE OF RED EVANS, Hugh Pendexter
Michael Slind, BLOOD UPON SNOW, Hilda Lawrence
Kerrie Smith, DEATH MASK, Ellis Peters
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, BURN, John Lutz
TomCat, MURDER AT THE ABA, Isaac Asimov
Rich Westwood, REVELATIONS OF A LADY DETECTIVE, William Stephens Hayward
Jim Winter, CHARLIE OPERA, Charlie Stella

 Happy Birthday this week to Bill Pronzini. April 15th.


"Death of a Nobody" by Bill Pronzini was first published in 1970 and was later collected in ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE'S FIFTY YEARS OF CRIME AND SUSPENSE, edited by Linda Landrigan.

You don't find many stories like this one nowadays-where a P.I follows the clues, none of them particularly surprising, to the conclusion of a case. What makes this story work, in fact,  is its ordinariness. This gives the story complete authenticity. That and lovely writing and fine details. And the voice is perfect. If someone wants to learn to write a P.I story, this one could be a model.
A skid row denizen, Nello, comes to the detective to tell him of the recent death of his friend, another skid-row fellow. He is convinced the police will do nothing to solve the crime of a bum. But the P.I., with the help of a cop, follow the trail to a satisfying conclusion.  Thus he proves to Nello that both he and the cops do care. There is no real villain in the piece-it is the sort of crime that has no big payoff other than the satisfaction of a mystery solved.


Ed Gorman

THE CRIMES OF JORDAN WISE, Bill Pronzini

While this fine novel was published in 2006, I think it's appropriate here because while it got its due critically, it deserved a much larger audience.Actuary Jordan Wise tells a joke on himself a third of the way through the novel: (paraphrase) an actuary is somebody who doesn’t have the personality to be an accountant. If you watch many true crime shows, you see a lot of Jordan Wises. People who fall into crime through circumstance rather than those who go looking for it. 

Jordan becomes a criminal only after meeting Annalise, a troubled and very attractive young woman who needs two things badly – sex and money. But in order to get the sex on a regular basis, Jordan must first provide the money. 
He embezzles a half million dollars and flees with Annalise to the Virgin Islands. In this first part of the novel, there’s nice James M. Cainian detail about how Jordan comes alive for the first time in his life. Some of this is due, whether he admits it or not, to the danger of committing a serious crime. But most of it is due to Annalise and his profound sexual awakening. The central section of the book reminds me of one of Maugham’s great South Seas tales – lust, betrayal, shame played out against vast natural beauty and a native society that, thanks to an old sea man named Bone, that Jordan comes to see value in – even if Annalise, her head filled with dreams of Paris and glamor, does not. Old Maugham got one thing right for sure – as Pronzini demonstrates here – a good share of humanity, wherever you find them, are both treacherous and more than slightly insane. There are amazing sections of writing about sea craft and sailing that remind me not of old Travis McGee but of the profoundly more troubled and desperate men of Charles Williams who find purity and peace only in the great and epic truths of the sea. That they may be as crazed and treacherous as everybody else does not seem to bother them unduly. There are also amazing sections (almost diaristic sections) where Jordan tells of us his fears and desires, his failings and his dreams. In places he deals vividly, painfully with his secret terror of not being enough of a man in any sense to hold Annalise. The publisher calls this a novel and so it is. 
Pronzini brings great original width and breadth to the telling of this dark adventure that is both physical and spiritual. He has never written a better novel, the prose here literaryin the best sense, lucid and compelling, fit for both action and introspection. You can’t read a page of this without seeing it in movie terms. The psychologically violent love story played out against a variety of contemporary settings gives the narrative great scope. And in Jordan Wise and Annalise he has created two timeless people. This story could have been set in ancient Egypt or Harlem in 1903 or an LA roller skating disco in 1981. As Faulkner said, neither the human heart nor the human dilemma ever changes.



Sergio Angelini, PROOF OF GUILT, Bill Pronzini
Yvette Banek, SIAMESE TWIN MYSTERY, Ellery Queen
Joe Barone, THE CLAIRVOYANT COUNTESS, Dorothy Gilman
Les Blatt, BLIND DRIFTS, Clyde B. Clason
Brian Busby, City of Peril, Arthur Stringer
Bill Crider, BARON SINISTER, Joseph Hilton
Martin Edwards, STILL DEAD, Ronald Knox
Curt Evans, ETERNITY RING, Patricia Wentworth
Jerry House, SIX-GUN IN CHEEK, Bill Pronzini
Randy Johnson, THE MARSHALL, Frank Gruber
Nick Jones, MURDER ME FOR NICKELS and ANATOMY OF A KILLER, Peter Rabe
George Kelley, A FLASH OF GREEN, John D. Macdonald
Margot Kinberg, THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY. Edmund Crispin 
B.V. Lawson, LOS ALAMOS, Joseph Kanon
Evan Lewis, LOVELY LADY, PITY ME, Roy Huggins
Steve Lewis, Dan Stumpf, THE OUT IS DEATH, Peter Rabe
Todd Mason GRAVEYARD PLOTS by Bill Pronzini (1985); WITCHES BREW (1984) and KILL OR CURE (1985), edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini
Neer, DEATH IN CYPRUS, M.M. Kaye
J.F. Norris, DEATH IN THE LIMELIGHT, A.E. Martin
J. Kingston Pierce/Linda Barnes, LIFE'S WORK, Jonathan Valin
James Reasoner, FANG-TUNG MAGICIAN, H. Beford-Jones
Gerard Saylor, THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER, Alan Sillitoe
Ron Scheer, THE YOUNGEST WORLD, Robert Dunn
Michael Slind, BLACK WIDOW, Patrick Quentin 
Kerrie Smith, THE 4:50 FROM PADDINGTON, Agatha Christie
Kevin Tipple, THE BOOK OF MURDOCK, Loren D. Estleman
Jim Winter, NEEDFUL THINGS, Stephen King