Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CHRISTOPHER BUSH – The Kitchen Cake Murder.

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May 252013
 
THE BACKWARD REVIEWER William F. Deeck CHRISTOPHER BUSH – The Kitchen Cake Murder. William Morrow, US, hardcover, 1934. First published in the UK by Cassell, 1934, as The Case of the 100 Percent Alibis.    The British title is by far the better one here and quite descriptive. Why the U.S. publisher thought anyone would be [...]

Music I Like: Faces of the Heart – Dave Koz

 Music I Like  Comments Off
May 252013
 

This song is actually an updated version of the theme song from the soap opera GENERAL HOSPITAL. They started using this version as the music over the closing credits about twenty years ago but still used the original opening for a while. That was the combination I liked the best, because retro guy that I am, I enjoyed seeing the original opening. I haven't watched GH in a long time, so I have no idea what they do now. But I still like this song anyway.

Let’s Roll on Out, Steve

 Obits 2013  Comments Off
May 252013
 
The news that actor Steve Forrest died on May 18 at age 87 put me immediately in mind of what are probably his two most prominent leading roles--in the 1966-1967 British crime drama The Baron (on which he played an antiques dealer who is also a sometime undercover agent “working in an informal capacity for the head of the fictional British Diplomatic Intelligence ...”); and in the 1975-1976 ABC police drama S.W.A.T. (which cast him as Lieutenant “Hondo” Harrelson, the head of a Southern California Special Weapons and Tactics team).





However, I also remember Forrest--the younger brother of actor Dana Andrews--for a variety of his guest-star roles over the years. His résumé was extensive, including appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Arrest and Trial, Burke’s Law, The Name of the Game, The Streets of San Francisco, Ironside, McMillan & Wife, Cannon, Columbo, and … well, this list could go on and on. Interestingly, one of my strongest memories of Forrest is of his playing a condemned killer who was scheduled to die in an early electric chair, in “Hangman’s Wages,” an episode of Hec Ramsey. He did a splendid job defining his character’s long and mutually respectful relationship with small-town Oklahoma lawman Ramsey, played by Richard Boone.

Forrest will definitely be missed.

READ MORE: “R.I.P., Steve Forrest,” by Matthew Bradford/Tanner (Double O Section).

JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL

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May 242013
 


JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL
By Susana Clark
Tor Books
1006 pages
Originally published 2004

Why is it I have books in my library that are nearly a decade old and I’ve yet to read them?  Now a devoted book reader will understand that conundrum all too well.  You see, it is virtually impossible for me to visit a bookstore and leave without buying something; even if I’ve already way too many books at home to get to.  None of that concerns me. The only fact that matters is I’ve found a title that intrigues me and so I buy it, take it home and, as mentioned above, stick it on the shelf until the time I choose to read it. Trust me, book lovers around the world do this all the time.  It is nothing unusual for us bibliophiles.

Of course there is another element that needs to be taken into consideration when reflecting on this topic of “when” a certain title will get read.  You see, I am a slow reader and never-ever worry about how long it takes me to get through the any title.  With any normal book of two to three hundred pages, I can expect to finish them in one week and this allows me to post a new book review here every week.  But that all goes out the window with books that are way-way bigger than the norm.  Knowing those will eat up weeks of my allotted reading time; I tend to put off picking them up until something out of the ordinary spurs me to do so.  Such was the case with this particular book, which, according to the interior data was first released to public in 2004.  This being the paperback edition, it has been sitting on my bookshelf for seven to eight years now.

What was that extra prompt that made me finally open it up?  Answer; recently having learned that BBC Television is going to produce it as a mini-series.  Intrigued by that revelation, there was no way I wanted to end up watching this series and not have read the source material.  Thus four weeks ago I packed it away in my traveling bag and took it with me to the Windy City Pulp & Paper convention.  At the airport I began the long journey through Susanna Clarke’s 1006 pages of delightful fantasy adventure and just now have put it down, finished.

In the late 1800s Britain is without any practicing magicians though we are told the country once had a rich tradition of such practitioners.  Alas, with the passage of time, they fell out of grace with the general public who, in their fickle nature, turned their interest and attention to the wonders of modern science.  No longer were spells and potions sought after and soon the transparent roadways that led to the fairy kingdoms became overgrown with brush until their very existence became a thing of myth and legend. Magic was a thing of the past.

So it would have remained save for the appearance of a quiet recluse named Mr. Norrell who one day makes his presence known claiming to be the only remaining magician in all of England.  When others dare to challenge his claim, Norrell suggest a test by which he will prove his ability to create something miraculous.  If he succeeds all other so called theoretical magicians must end their studies of the occult forever.  Needless to say Norrell is most successful making all the stone statues of a church come to life and start talking to the assembly gathered there.  The event propels Norrell to instant fame and he moves from his rural home to London along with his manservant.  There he is soon the most sought after celebrity in the city.  But at heart, Norrell is still a recluse and would prefer to remain at home studying in his vast library of magical lore.

When he ill advisedly resurrects a young woman who died days before her wedding to a British Lord of Parliament. Norrell has to call upon a cruel and sadistic fairy that exacts a wicked price for his assistance in reviving the maid, though ironically Norrell remains totally aloof to the tragedy he has created.

The book’s plot then picks up pace with the introduction of Jonathan Strange, a shy, introverted young nobleman who, on a whim, decides to take up magic as a livelihood.  Much to his surprise, and everyone else, Strange discovers he actually possesses the skills to do magic and is soon weaving various spells to the amusement and delight of his friends and fiancé, Arabella.  When Mr. Norrell learns there is another practicing magician in England he feels threatened, worried that the lad will upset the comfortable lifestyle he has carefully constructed for himself.  But when the two meet, Norrell is charmed by Strange’s naïve personality and takes him on as his student shortly after Jonathan and Arabella marry.

At the heart of the book’s conflict is the evil fairy who, upon rediscovering his ability to cross from his world to ours, sets about kidnapping the souls of innocent people he takes a fancy to, keeping them his spiritual prisoners.  Ultimately he sets his sights on Arabella and goes as far as to fake her death so that he may keep her forever in his fantasy land.  But the foul creature had not counted on Jonathan Strange keen intellect and stubbornness; his refusal to let any puzzle go unsolved.  In the end it is Strange who unravels the evil fairy’s schemes and sets about confronting him, human magic versus fairy magic.

Please understand, there is a whole lot more that happens in this whopping tome and covering every subplot and character would require me to write a book-long review.  Suffice it to say “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” is a grand fantasy adventure that will demand a reader’s willingness to sacrifice hour upon hour of his or her time but the rewards will be proportional as it is a fantastically brilliant novel that is so well imagined that by its conclusion, I was sincerely sad to see it come to a close.  Though it does so in one of the most touching and loving scenes ever put to paper.

One of the major characters asks Strange, should they become separated for whatever reason, how are they to remember him.  He answers, “Think of me with my nose in a book.”  1006 pages to reach that line and my eyes watered as I added, “Amen.”

Review – Epilogue
During this time, wanting to keep this column active, I was saved by the contributions of several dear friends who offered to submit as “guest reviewers.” My humble and deep thanks to Nancy Hansen, Todd Jones and Derrick Ferguson for their marvelous reviews.

FFB: Thirteen Women – Tiffany Thayer

 Friday's Forgotten Books, sleaze  Comments Off
May 242013
 
I really don't know what to make of Thirteen Women (1932) by the eccentric stylist Tiffany Thayer. Is it a thriller? Is it a character study? Is it some kind of allegory on Fate? What I do know is it's tawdry, vulgar, lyrical, pulpy, poignant, disgusting, frustrating, infuritiatng, and utterly addictive. It's sort of the equivalent of driving by an utterly grueseome car wreck on the highway. You don't want to look, you know better. You, of course, are not a gawker or a rubbernecker. But when you get close enough you do slow down and you stare in horror and then look away, but you look back and you gape again. Then you move on. That's what it's like to read Thirteen Women. What can you say about a book that in the first chapter includes a dinner party scene in which the guests discuss a sex act that a depraved nanny performed on her charge and who ended up giving the boy a venereal disease? Of course it's all done in a sly innuendo type of writing, but it's just down right wrong, isn't it?

Thayer is not interested in making you comfortable as a reader. He wants you to squirm and recoil and shudder. He's a bit too obsessed with the nastiness and cruelty of life. He revels in pointing out his character's flaws -- their ignorance, their stupidity, their hedonism. The book is, I guess, meant to be a nihilisitc view of the early years of depression era America told mostly from the viewpoint of female characters. But these women are merely symbols and puppets for Thayer's intensely cynical and fatalistic philosophies. Few of them resemble anything approaching a real person. The plot involves an absurd revenge plot decades in the making that stems from the villainess' life of abuse, neglect and bullying. She blames a group of schoolgirls for all her problems and vows vengeance on them all. She devises a ridiculous plan in which she creates the persona of an astrologer who sends letters to all the women in her past. The astrologer fortellls death, suicide and disease for everyone.  And when the predictions start to come true one of the women sees not the power of superstition and Fate at work but a very real murder plot starting to unfold at the hands of a mad genius.


Illustrations from the 1st edition by David Berger

Laura Stanhope take her collection of letters to the police along with a packet of powder she received from the astrologer who goes by the preposterous name of Swami Yogadachi (a Japanese swami?). The powder was to be given to her son on his birthday according to the Swami's instructions and is meant to save the boy from a potentially fatal disease he predicts. Laura suspecting it harmful never did a thing but instead of disposing of it she saved it. For five months! She had to or else it wouldn't further the plot, right? The police have the powder analyzed and it turns out to be a highly poisonous compound usually intended as a pesticide for vermin. Thus begins the hunt for the murderous Swami Yogadachi and the search for the other recipients of his letters to prevent any further deaths.

The story is a veritable Pandora's box of ills and pestilence released upon the reader. Murder, suicide, insanity, venereal disease, sex addiction -- it's all there in abundance. In keeping with the shock factor Thayer also includes a lesbian romance and makes it as tawdry and unattractive as one can imagine for a 1930s audience. Simultaneously making fun of the butch/femme stereotypes and also writing in such a manner as to titillate the easily aroused. It's as tasteless as the sex addicted nanny story, and clearly there for the reader who picked this book to be shocked.

Thirteen Women is told in a hodepodge mess of letters, telegrams and author omniscent narration. We get to know the women through their own voices, but also through the consdescending viewpoint of Thayer's narrator who at times is himself. Often Thayer steps into the story addressing the reader as "you" and giving his opinions of his characters as if they are real people ("You can't have Josephine Turner. Make up your mind to that. In the first place, I want her myself.") It's only one of the many unexpected parts of the book that make it a genuine head-scratcher yet strangely entertaining in a very offbeat way.

Tiffany Thayer's life, however, would make for a much more interesting book than any of his novels. There is a fascinating article here that goes into great detail about his beginings as a writer, his friendship with Charles Fort, the origins of the Fortean Society which Thayer helped found, and his megalomaniac takeover of the society and its first magazine/newsletter Doubt. Someone should write a biography of the man. I'd read that with great interest. But as for further investigating the fiction of Tiffany Thayer I have had my fill after indulging myself in the pages of Thirteen Women.

This review was suggested to me by Curt Evans who has written about Tiffany Thayer's publisher Claude Kendall here. This week we chose to write about Thayer's bookend titles Thirteen Women and Thirteen Men. His review of Thirteen Men can be found at his blog The Passing Tramp.
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This post is by J. F. Norris and appears in its original form at Pretty Sinister Books. Please visit Pretty Sinister Books for more insightful and bantering commentary on forgotten but worthwhile books and movies. All written content is © 2011-2013 by John Norris.
 Posted by at 3:27 pm

Friday’s Forgotten Book, Friday, May 24, 2013

 Friday 's Forgotten Books  Comments Off
May 242013
 
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.


Elisabeth Sanxay Holding has been recommended on FFB many times and I finally got my hands on two of her books after Megan raved over them too.  In THE BLANK WALL, Lucia Holley's husband is away fighting  during  WW 2, and she is in charge of her aging father and two children. Bee, the seventeen year old, has become involved with an older man (Ted Darby) who manages to put off Lucia on their first meeting, and a few pages later, he turns up dead in the water. Lucia believes her father is responsible and sets out on a course to protect her family. 
Ted Darby’s nefarious associates soon turn up, with material to blackmail Lucia. Lucia suddenly becomes plunged into a world she knows nothing about. Her focus throughout, however, is not on how to save own reputation or life, but those of her family. She gives no thought to her own safety as she does what she believes will save them. She has help from her maid, Sibyl, who knows more of the world than her mistress and is also a keen observer. Both children dismiss their mother as unworldly, dull, and incompetent even as she works to keep them from harm's way. Their scorn for her is sadly but truthfully observed. Clearly Holding was a first -rate observer of what the lives of women were like at the time. Married women were seen as little more than children.  As the story progresses, Lucia's strength grows and she becomes more savy in her problem solving. 
Parts of this book were quite amusing. One of the scoundrels becomes quite taken with Lucia and tries to help her as much as he can. But mostly, it was terrifically suspenseful and the pages turned quickly. This is more a character study than a classic crime novel and I think that is what Holding wrote early in her career. She turned to suspense novels to make a living when the need arose and was highly successful. This s novel was twice adapted for the screen. (RECKLESS MOMENT and THE DEEP END).

Sergio Angelini, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TURK, Jakob Arjouni
Joe Barone, NOBODY'S PERFECT, Donald E. Westlake
Les Blatt, FATAL DESCENT, John Dickson Carr
Brian Busby, TAN MING, Lan Stormont
Bill Crider, BLACKBURN, Bradley Denton                                                                                                                                   
Scott Cupp, LOST GIRL OF THE LAKE , Joe McKiney and Michael McCarty
EARTHMAN'S BURDEN, Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson
Martin Edwards, MURDER ISN'T EASY, Richard Hull
Curt Evans, THIRTEEN MEN, Tiffany Thayer
Randy Johnson, TRACE, Warren Murphy
George Kelley, DEADLY WELCOME, John D.MacDonald
Margot Kinberg, WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS, Jonathan Kellerman
Kate Laity, LADYKILLER, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
B.V. Lawson, THE ALBERT GATE MYSTERY, Louis Tracy
Evan Lewis, THE SHADOW IN TRAIL OF VENGEANCE, Walter Gibson                                                                                                                                 
Steve Lewis/William Deeck, THE LYING LADIES, Robert Finnegan
Todd Mason, FREE ZONE and TENDER LOVING RAGE, Charles Platt  
Neer, NIGHT SCREAMS, Bill Pronzini and Barry Malzberg
J.F. Norris, THIRTEEN WOMEN, TIffany Thayer
James Reasoner, THE CASE OF THE SUN BATHER'S DIARY, ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
Gerard Saylor, THE BIRDMAN, Mo Hayder
Ron Scheer, THE SPELL OF THE YUKON, Robert W. Service
Michael Slind
Kerrie Smith, ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE, Agatha Christie
Kevin Tipple/Patrick Ohl, THEY LOVE NOT POISON, Sara Woods
TomCat, TRICKS, Ed McBain
James Winter, GERALD'S GAME, Stephen King
Zybahn, WINTER CRIMES 8 edited by Hilary Watson

Forgotten Books: The Case of the Sunbather’s Diary – Erle Stanley Gardner

 Erle Stanley Gardner, Forgotten Books, mystery fiction  Comments Off
May 242013
 

This post originally appeared in slightly different form on July 20, 2007.

This Perry Mason novel was originally published in 1955, an era during which Gardner’s work was still consistently good, although as far as I’m concerned his best books were published during the Thirties and Forties. The edition pictured is the first paperback, from February 1958. I have no idea why there was a three-year gap between the William Morrow hardback and the Cardinal paperback.

As for the story itself, it starts off in a typically intriguing Gardner fashion: Perry Mason receives a phone call at his office from a young woman who wants to hire him. It seems that she lives in a trailer, the small kind that can be pulled behind a car, and while she was out sunbathing -- nude, of course -- somebody stole the car and trailer, literally driving off with her home. She wants to hire Mason to bring her some clothes and find out who stole the trailer.

Well, you know there has to be a lot more to it than that in an Erle Stanley Gardner book, and of course, there is. It turns out the young woman is the daughter of a man who is serving time in prison for masterminding an armored car robbery, and wouldn’t you know it, the nearly four hundred thousand dollars in loot that was stolen in that robbery has never been found. The daughter is convinced that her father is really innocent and wants Mason to prove it. Meanwhile, various factions are equally convinced that the daughter really knows where the money is hidden. Sure enough, once Perry Mason gets involved in the case, it’s only a matter of hours before there’s a murder, and Mason’s client is arrested and charged with the crime.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the plot in this one, something I often have a hard time doing in a Gardner novel. I spotted some clues, recognized some misdirection, and was convinced that I had the solution figured out. Then, with only a few pages left in the book, Gardner throws in a perfectly logical twist that I never saw coming at all. I wound up being about half-right in what I figured, and for a Perry Mason novel, that’s not bad, I suppose.

This book is also interesting because of the trailer angle. Gardner was known for going off to the desert and staying for weeks at a time in a trailer, so he puts his knowledge of such things to good use here, throwing in a few nuggets of information about how such trailers are set up and what they’re worth.
The Mitchell Hooks cover on the paperback edition is okay, but if ever a book was crying out for a McGinnis cover, you’d think that one with a title like THE CASE OF THE SUN BATHER’S DIARY would be it.

UPDATE: And sure enough, there was a later edition with a McGinnis cover, which you can see below.


Top Five Things Not to Put in your Query because Kristin Asked

 Benjamin LeRoy  Comments Off
May 242013
 

BENJAMIN LEROY

As some of you may know, I infrequently (and quite poorly) do a Google+ hangout where, ostensibly, I’m supposed to talk about publishing, but usually the conversations devolve into discussions about all kinds of current events, bizarre fringe cultures, Choose Your Own Adventure readalongs, and God knows what else. The first guest I ever had on the show was @_TheRussian and she had a question for today’s blog post. She wanted a “humorous list of things not to put in your query.” Cool, it’s the Thursday night before a long weekend, but I think I can handle that question. So let me go ahead and handle it.

(1) Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t tell me your book is a “guaranteed bestseller” because nobody knows that kind of thing and if you’re delusional about that, you’re going to be delusional about a bunch of things and I’m too old to deal with that.

(2) Don’t query an agent/publisher for a project that isn’t right for his/her list. There is an abundance of information on what people are looking for on websites, from other authors, even from the acknowledgement page of your favorite book. Your job is to figure out a good fit when you see it, and query those people.

(3) Don’t try to get yourself over at the expense of others. Don’t tell me that Dan Brown’s new book is terrible and your book is 100 times better. You might be right on both particulars, but I won’t ever know because I’m going to read your query and think you’re a bitter and miserable Angst Cauldron, and I’ve been removing all of those people from my life since a Poetry 101 class I took back in college with a girl who never quit wearing a Smiths t-shirt because she thought she was going to marry Morrissey, and I’ll never read your book.

(4) Don’t try to put on the “I’m a professional writer type and I write like a robot with no sense of personality because I’m afraid of being myself” act. I want to know I’m dealing with a real human being and not some robot wearing a Smiths t-shirt writing poems about having tea with soccer hooligans. Nobody likes a robot. Not emotionally. And if they do, then I won’t read their queries either, because robots are NOT EVEN LIVING CREATURES AND DO NOT DESERVE YOUR EMOTIONS.

(5) Make sure you address it to the right person and that you don’t just accidentally leave the name/address of the person you just queried. Because that is embarrassing.

(6) Don’t send “presents” or “food” in an attempt to stand out. Some dude sent me a raccoon skull once. The thing is, I opened it right when I was sitting down to eat my lunch. I mean, sure, I kept it and mounted it on my computer, but I don’t think I ever looked at the guy’s book. It didn’t help the cause.

(7) Don’t list credits that—while impressive to you and your refrigerator—don’t mean anything to the outside world. I see people sometimes try to add something in at the bottom (“I was previously published in my high school annual, the Middlestone Marxist Quarterly”). It’s ok to not have a track record than to sound like you’re desperately grabbing at straws.

Also, “Desperately Grabbing at Straws” sounds like an unrecorded Smiths’ song.

There you go. There’s a list. I legit LOL’d at my own sense of humor. I wrote the whole list in less than ten minutes. If you were expecting more, I guess you’re a little sad right now. Somewhere there’s a girl in the Milwaukee suburbs who used to listen to the Smiths and dream in poetry, but now she probably works for a real estate company and shops at Wal-Mart.

Shoplifters of the World Unite!

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