Joe Surkiewicz's Blog, page 2
January 14, 2021
Fire in the Hole by Elmore Leonard
Fire in the Hole by Elmore LeonardMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The title story is the obvious reason to read this collection. But another story (which I've read before, so it must be in another Leonard anthology), When the Women Come Out to Dance, is a masterpiece of chilling crime fiction. Regardless, they're all great stories.
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December 26, 2020
High Water
I got this based on Elmore Leonard's recommendation, a slice of life about working a tugboat on the Mississippi River during a flood. Highly entertaining. A sample:
"I went out and looked at the river and it was cold and gray and the fog had lifted for a while but settled down into a cold drizzle, so the islands over across the way looked hazy and pale. The decks were wet and had a dull shine to them and the river smell was strong. Unless you have ever smelled the Mississippi River you don't know what that means and no use to attempt an explanation, but she smells like islands and willows and railroad ties and mud and she smells like Minnesota and Illinois and Wisconsin and Iowa and parts of Missouri, all mixed up together. Then she smells like standing under a bridge, or sitting in a duck blind, and like old overalls and marine engines, and like a retriever when he is crouched shivering in the boat on the way home. She also smells like wet oilskins, coal smoke, dead catfish and buffalo and gar pike, like rotten logs and hepaticas on the hillsides, and like the whiskey breath of an old deck hand who can't quite remember where he come from."
Not much in the way of plot. But with writing like that, who cares?High Water
"I went out and looked at the river and it was cold and gray and the fog had lifted for a while but settled down into a cold drizzle, so the islands over across the way looked hazy and pale. The decks were wet and had a dull shine to them and the river smell was strong. Unless you have ever smelled the Mississippi River you don't know what that means and no use to attempt an explanation, but she smells like islands and willows and railroad ties and mud and she smells like Minnesota and Illinois and Wisconsin and Iowa and parts of Missouri, all mixed up together. Then she smells like standing under a bridge, or sitting in a duck blind, and like old overalls and marine engines, and like a retriever when he is crouched shivering in the boat on the way home. She also smells like wet oilskins, coal smoke, dead catfish and buffalo and gar pike, like rotten logs and hepaticas on the hillsides, and like the whiskey breath of an old deck hand who can't quite remember where he come from."
Not much in the way of plot. But with writing like that, who cares?High Water
December 13, 2020
Switchblade reviewed
Switchblade: Issue Thirteen by David RachelsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
In-your-face noir, loathsome characters doing loathsome things, with an emphasis on car washes, loathsome places. Also an unfortunate uptick in typos when compared to previous issues (I'm a fan), an unneeded distraction (especially since I shelled out ten bucks for the print version). And only one woman author (Serena Jayne, always good). Just like Mars, Switchblade needs more women.
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November 20, 2020
For bike racing fanatics
The Beautiful Race: The Story of the Giro d'Italia by Colin O'BrienMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
After watching three grand tours and a handful of classics all crammed into a single season, I got hold of this book...and enjoyed it. Yes, I'm a fanatic. If that's you, too, and you're not really up on the history of the sport, get this book. It's short, readable and informative, both on the Giro's (and bike racing's) early years, and the great racers and rivalries (like Coppi and Bartali) that followed. I also really got off learning more about the later era, racers I followed like Stephen Roche, Andy Hampsten, Moser, and Hinault (but almost nothing on Mario Cipollini, who never won the Giro but was one if its greatest sprinters; weird). Not into bike racing? This ain't for you. It's aimed at fans, which by and large rules out Americans. As Stephen Colbert quipped (back when he was funny) after Lance Armstrong retired, "Now Americans don't have to pretend they like bicycle racing." Not many did.
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November 18, 2020
Washington was a jerk
Burr by Gore VidalMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Not high school textbook history. In this fictional version, Washington was a pompous jerk, Jefferson a raging egomaniac and Aaron Burr...? An unexplained footnote to U.S. history becomes real. But he's more of a vehicle for Vidal showing us what the Founding Fathers (now a laughable phrase) were really like. Not pretty, not idealistic, nothing to look up to or praise. I will be reading more of Vidal's novels on U.S. history.
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October 4, 2020
No Goddam Androids
My latest flash fiction on Horror Sleaze Trash: https://horrorsleazetrash.com/2020/10...
Joe Surkiewicz
Horror Sleaze Trash Fiction October 4, 2020 2 Minutes
No Goddam Androids
Stenciled in black letters on the frosted glass of my office door was “Adam Murky/Investigations.”
Scrawled on a sheet of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven taped below was a footnote, “No Goddam Androids.”
Not that it made a difference.
The door opened and wowie zowie. It’s a dame, all curves and shoulder-length blond hair, who sauntered into my seedy office. I swept the nearly completed jigsaw puzzle to the floor and settled back.
She nestled her haunches in the chair across from my desk and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “It’s my husband. I think he’s—”
“Are you human?”
“What does this look like, glycol?” she shot back, offering the damp wad.
“So you think he’s seeing another woman?”
She looked puzzled. “Not at all. He went out for a pack of cigarettes week before last and never came back.”
“Was there anything unusual in his manner?” I asked. “His mood or disposition—anything different?”
Forefinger to chin, she closed her eyes. ‘Yes, there was,” she said. “It just occurred to me. He doesn’t smoke.”
Now I had her.
“Duh, cigarettes were banned by the Global Warming Reform Act enacted by President Thunberg more than a decade ago,” I snarled.
I stepped around the desk. “Okay, lady, you’re going to stand for an inspection. There’s no second way.”
I yanked her to her feet, ripped her bodice and grabbed her left boob. A twist to the right and it swung open like a bank safe.
Her blubbering stopped. “Press star nine to reset,” she recited in a monotone. “Press star nine to reset….”
I entered a different code, swung her boob closed and pushed her back in the chair.
Her eyes took a moment to refocus. Then she looked at me, bewildered. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Fix your bra, honey, you’re hanging out.”
She scanned my squalid office as she made the adjustments. “Is this where I pay my gas and electric?”
“If only, baby,” I said, sliding the credit card reader across the desk. “Twelve hundred smackeroos and we’ll get those triple pane windows on order. Only a down payment, of course.”
She inserted her card and tapped in a code. “When can I expect delivery?”
“It’s on the way,” I said, and stood up. “Just like you. Don’t let the door hit that shapely ass on the way out.”
She stood in the doorway, started to say something, thought better of it, and sauntered down the hall.
Fucking androids. It’s a helluva way to make a living, but someone has to do it.
Joe Surkiewicz
Horror Sleaze Trash Fiction October 4, 2020 2 Minutes
No Goddam Androids
Stenciled in black letters on the frosted glass of my office door was “Adam Murky/Investigations.”
Scrawled on a sheet of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven taped below was a footnote, “No Goddam Androids.”
Not that it made a difference.
The door opened and wowie zowie. It’s a dame, all curves and shoulder-length blond hair, who sauntered into my seedy office. I swept the nearly completed jigsaw puzzle to the floor and settled back.
She nestled her haunches in the chair across from my desk and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “It’s my husband. I think he’s—”
“Are you human?”
“What does this look like, glycol?” she shot back, offering the damp wad.
“So you think he’s seeing another woman?”
She looked puzzled. “Not at all. He went out for a pack of cigarettes week before last and never came back.”
“Was there anything unusual in his manner?” I asked. “His mood or disposition—anything different?”
Forefinger to chin, she closed her eyes. ‘Yes, there was,” she said. “It just occurred to me. He doesn’t smoke.”
Now I had her.
“Duh, cigarettes were banned by the Global Warming Reform Act enacted by President Thunberg more than a decade ago,” I snarled.
I stepped around the desk. “Okay, lady, you’re going to stand for an inspection. There’s no second way.”
I yanked her to her feet, ripped her bodice and grabbed her left boob. A twist to the right and it swung open like a bank safe.
Her blubbering stopped. “Press star nine to reset,” she recited in a monotone. “Press star nine to reset….”
I entered a different code, swung her boob closed and pushed her back in the chair.
Her eyes took a moment to refocus. Then she looked at me, bewildered. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Fix your bra, honey, you’re hanging out.”
She scanned my squalid office as she made the adjustments. “Is this where I pay my gas and electric?”
“If only, baby,” I said, sliding the credit card reader across the desk. “Twelve hundred smackeroos and we’ll get those triple pane windows on order. Only a down payment, of course.”
She inserted her card and tapped in a code. “When can I expect delivery?”
“It’s on the way,” I said, and stood up. “Just like you. Don’t let the door hit that shapely ass on the way out.”
She stood in the doorway, started to say something, thought better of it, and sauntered down the hall.
Fucking androids. It’s a helluva way to make a living, but someone has to do it.
October 2, 2020
Lethal Injection
Lethal Injection by Jim NisbetMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
There's noir and there's grim, and Lethal Injection definitely leans toward grim. Me, I like my protagonists to have some redeeming values. That's noir to me, a hero with character flaws who rises to the occasion. Old school. Not much of that in Lethal Injection. On the plus side, Nisbet is a good writer, definitely pulls off some memorable phrases, a bit overwrought at times, but he kept me reading. And the book is short, a big plus when none of the characters are likable. One flaw at the end and I can't describe it here without being a complete dick. Or maybe it's me, I just didn't get it. And this one very big positive: Nisbet's descriptions of a heroin high makes me wonder (yet again) about what I've been missing. Might be something to look forward to when I get that incurable cancer diagnosis.
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Kissing the Coronavirus
Kissing the Coronavirus by M.J. EdwardsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Definitely a case where the GR rating system lets you down. It's so bad it's good, so 5 stars. But it's intentionally bad, so shouldn't it be 1 star? I went with 5, if only because I'm slightly pissed at myself for not dreaming up this satire first. Very funny and extra points for making fun of the current hysteria (which the author probably assumed would be over by now when this was published in April). I'm patting myself on the back for sending her (actually him according to the author's page) my 35 cents (U.S.).
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October 1, 2020
Shotgun Honey
My first flash fiction for Shotgun Honey, Blue Buns, is at https://www.shotgunhoney.com/fiction/...
September 14, 2020
The Road to Goshen Shoals by Paul W. Valentine
The Road to Goshen Shoals by Paul W ValentineMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It starts with a simple premise: a reporter in 1970 goes back to the rural North Carolina county where he was raised to find his black playmate from circa 1940. What happened to him? How have the tumultuous decades treated him? Arlis, the reporter, has even convinced his editor there might be a story. Valentine's prose grabbed me right from the start, the words of his dying mother in her lilting North Carolinian voice that also set up the train of mysteries that Arlis uncovers during his search. It's a multi-layered book that had me thinking of Balzac as I read it--things are never as they appear on the surface. But once you get beneath, Arlis uncovers layers of human fear, mistrust, anxiety, and ultimately violence that explore race and the complexities of life.Much of his dialog resembles interior thought, which threw me off at first. But ultimately I learned to depend on it and enjoy it. Valentine is a masterful writer. No, not all the mysteries are solved in The Road to Goshen Shoals, which isn't the point. It's a great read by a gifted writer. One mystery not addressed is why this book wasn't picked up by a major publisher. Kirkus Reviews gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Highly recommended.
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