Ed Gorman's Blog, page 20

NEW-FICTION RIVER-RECYCLED PULP

NEW Recycled Pulp Edited by John Helfers

The old becomes new again as fifteen talented authors go back to the lurid pulp titles of yesteryear through today’s rich, nuanced storytelling! Enjoy original tales featuring rebel angels fighting a heavenly enforcement squad, a cop whose life might depend on ordering the right deli sandwich, and a wizard who has just three days to pay off the loan on his tower or lose his very soul. Whatever your taste in stories, Recycled Pulp is sure to have something that will amaze, surprise, and delight you.

Gravetapping: GRANDMASTER by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran

Grandmaster was published in 1984. It won an Edgar Award for best paperback original in 1985, and it is the first, by my count, of seven novels co-written and published as by Warren Murphy and Molly Cochran. It is both familiar and fresh to readers of Mr. Murphy’s long running series, The Destroyer. The familiarity is its Eastern mysticism, and the fresh is its less satirical and more hard-bitten tone.Justin Gilead is nearly an orphan. His mother died before he was three, and his father—
“a novelist known worldwide by the single name Leviathan, which graced a stream of flashy if embarrassingly illiterate best-sellers”
—promptly unloaded the child to a succession of aunts, uncles, and anyone else who would look after him. An uncle encouraged Justin to play chess, which he did, and very well, but he is more than just a chess prodigy. He is mystical; the reincarnated Patanjali of Rashimpur; The Wearer of the Blue Hat. The fantasy element is remarkably complicated, in a good way, and important to the novel. It is played out in a straight forward cold war espionage with a slash of good an evil.              
Grandmaster, when it was released, was a wholly original novel, and still is. It is a mixture of the heroic and cold war machinations. It is larger than life, but reasonable with its grandiosity; Justin Gilead is greater than a simple man, but less than an outright hero. He has failed his destiny and is motivated by revenge. The espionage element is the playground for the story, and while a cold war novel, its focus, and what makes it work, is the thematic good versus evil. The good isn’t the United States, and the evil isn’t the Soviet Union. It is much more personal, and much more interesting for it.
Wonderfully (because it made me laugh), Justin Gilead’s father—at least in name—resembles the bestselling author Trevanian. A man Warren Murphy likely knew since he wrote the screenplay for Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Trevanian’s novel The Eiger Sanction. And Mr. Murphy’s assessment is less than fawning—see the quote above.
Purchase a copy of Grandmaster at Amazon.

Now for $1.99 Kindle Halloween THE MIDNIGHT ROOM

NOMINATED FOR BEST SUEPENSE NOVELOF THE YEAR BY SPINETINGLER MAGAZINE

A blackmailer is playing with fire when he makes a terrifying serial killer his target.

“The Midnight Room is lean, mean, and entertaining…and brutal and unforgiving of its characters, particularly of its three primary protagonists, police officers Kim Pierce and Michael and Steve Scanlon.” --Pulp Serenade 

“The Midnight Room is a terrific lean and hard crime thriller. Its roots are deep in the hardboiled and noir genres, but it is nothing less than original. The characters and its dark vision of an unfair world raise it well beyond the expected, and in the end it’s the very bitter dark that offers redemption for both the characters and the reader.” –---Gravetapping 

“Gorman's written a super-solid crime drama that’s less about a string of murders and more about the ties that bind those investigating, familial and otherwise. And it’s thoroughly engrossing, starting with the opening chapter, in which the mother of a girl who’s been missing receives a mysterious package she didn’t order. Inside? Her daughter’s skull. Me, hooked.” --Bookgasm

Forgotten Books: BLOOD RELATIVES by Ed Mccain

    Most mystery readers have their favorite 87th Precinct novels. Mine would include HE WHO HESITATES because McBain has the sly ability to give us an 87th in which the 87th appears only a few times. The other would be GHOSTS because McBain manages to wrap one hell of a ghost story inside a police procedural.
   For me the most enriching 87th is BLOOD RELATIVES. This is not to say that it's the finest in storyline or surprises or shock or bravura writing. But for me it is one of the most intriguing takes on romantic love I've ever read.
   The opening chapter is a stunner. Muriel Stark, who is seventeen, is savagely slashed to death as her cousin Patricia watches helplessly. The slaughter of a white girl from somewhat privileged family insures both a police and a press frenzy. But Patricia has difficulty picking out a culprit in the line up--indeed she picks out a cop. And the suspects the 87th boys and girls pursue all seem to have some of those damned alibis. (Note: McBain gives us a particularly gaudy cast of low lifes here. But as he frequently does he brings them to full and sometimes sad reality.)
   All this is to say that BLOOD RELATIVES is very good and in the tradition of the shorter 87ths. But what makes it remarkable is how, using the dead Muriel's diary as a means of understanding the complicated relationship she had with not only Patricia  but also Patricia's brother, McBain is able to write an eloquent commentary on romantic love and sex. 
   I've reread the diary entires several times because they so perfectly capture the rite of passage many of us go through at some point in our lives. The entries are by turns tender, naive, painful, foolish, wise, mysterious and never less than riveting.
  I knew Evan Hunter somewhat (among other things we were both diagnosed with cancer with eight days of each other) and I asked him if he thought most readers would appreciate the remarkable work he'd done with Muriel's voice and experiences. He said he hoped so but probably most readers read for plot and nothing more. I hope he was wrong.

Guns by Ed McBain Random House, Copyright 1976

Guns by Ed McBain
Random House, Copyright 1976
This is a reprint post


Someone reminded me that it's been over three years since Evan Hunter/Ed McBain passed away, I was all set to argue with him that "no he died last year," but I guess time does fly. "Guns" is a novel that I always was planning to read, but never did. I just finished it. McBain slams you in the face with this one.

"The side of Colley's face is throbbing where the shotgun stock collided with his cheekbone. The Smith & Wesson has been taken from his side pocket, he is aware at once of the absence of its bulk. He feels suddenly naked."

It's a 24 hour story of small-time robber Colley Donato. He and a couple of his pals rob a NYC liquor store and two cops are waiting. Colley blows the back of the head off of one of them and he's on the run from then on. As he is moving between apartments and meeting past acquaintances, we get an insight into Colley's mindset and how he became what he is. Brought up on the mean-streets of NYC, at twenty-nine he developed into an unstable, fearful (almost superstitiously) punk. The cops quickly get an ID on him and a massive city manhunt takes place. Colley allies himself with his partner's wife, but that goes sour. Escaping from NYC, he is left wandering in New Jersey with a constant hunger for a gun and trying to make another score.

This is a street-dirty novel and for 1976 it may have turned a few heads. But I'm sure Ed McBain had to present it that way to capture the vile nature of men like Colley Donato and the filthy streets they rise from. There are no decent guys (or girls) in the novel, just crooks, hookers, pushers, rapists and all of them cop-haters. The title has relevance throughout the novel and McBain latently reminds us of that. "Guns" is damn good, I read it in one setting and never looked at what page I was on. But beware, McBain's going to hit you with a fist.

cool KIller Covers post on Henry Kane

http://killercoversoftheweek.blogspot...

Coast to Coast: From Sea to Shining Sea Kindle Edition

Coast to Coast: From Sea to Shining Sea Kindle Editionby William Link (Author), William G. Tapply (Author), Robert S. Levinson (Author), & 7 moreSee all formats and editions
Kindle 
$4.99Read with Our Free App ONLY  $4.99 on Kindle
With a Killer Cast Including: Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini 
4 Time Edgar Winner William Link 
Shamus Winner Paul D. Marks 
Sherlock Holmes Bowl Winner Andrew McAleer 
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award Winner Robert S. Levinson 
Scribner Crime Novel Winner William G. Tapply 
Al Blanchard Award winner James T. Shannon 
...and other poisoned pen professionals. 

“Envelope-pushers! A truly WOW collection by the best mystery writers out there—full of surprises only they can pull off.” —Thomas B. Sawyer, best-selling author of Cross Purposes and No Place to Run, and head-writer of Murder, She Wrote 


Coast to Coast: From Sea to Shining Sea Kindle Editionby William Link (Author), William G. Tapply (Author), Robert S. Levinson (Author), & 7 moreSee all formats and editions
Kindle 
$4.99Read with Our Free App





“Envelope-pushers! A truly WOW collection by the best mystery writers out there—full of surprises only they can pull off.” —Thomas B. Sawyer, best-selling author of Cross Purposes and No Place to Run, 
and head-writer of Murder, She Wrote 

Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea 


Crime in high places. Crime in low places. Crime from Coast to Coast. 

Crime in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace of Boston to the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the Port of Los Angeles. From the wind-swept sails of the New England shoreline to the transitioning Italian-American neighborhood of North Beach in San Francisco and the Disney Concert Hall in L.A. 

Crime is everywhere, from the murky depths of Echo Park Lake and the body dump of the Angeles National Forest, to the clear waters of Oyster Bay and the beaches of Cape Cod—even Mexico City—in this collection of stories that range from hardboiled to suspense-thrillers. And while these stories differ in locale, climate, mood and the tone and voices of the various writers, they all resonate with the dark underbelly of crime. 

Continuing in the tradition of the great pulp magazines, stories and writers, we offer you Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea. 



Coast to Coast: Murder from Sea to Shining Sea 

With a Killer Cast Including: 
Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini 
4 Time Edgar Winner William Link 
Shamus Winner Paul D. Marks 
Sherlock Holmes Bowl Winner Andrew McAleer 
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award Winner Robert S. Levinson 
Scribner Crime Novel Winner William G. Tapply 
Al Blanchard Award winner James T. Shannon 
...and other poisoned pen professionals. 

Crime in high places. Crime in low places. Crime from Coast to Coast. 

ON ELLIOTT CHAZE by Bill Pronzini

Ed here: Bill Pronzini's contributions to the genre of crime fiction have been enormous. First he created the groundbreaking Nameless series (stronger than ever) second he wrote numerous stand-alones and stories that have won praise and awards world-wide and third he has compiled a body of excellent literary biography and criticism that needs to be collected and published. Here is an example from Mystery*File.

ON ELLIOTT CHAZE
by Bill Pronzini


Elliott Chaze (1915-1990) was an old-school newspaperman who began his journalism career with the New Orleans Bureau of the Associated Press shortly before Pearl Harbor, worked for a time for AP’s Denver office after paratrooper service in WW II, and then migrated south to Mississippi where he spent twenty years as reporter and award-winning columnist and ten years as city editor with the Hattiesburg American.


In his spare time he wrote articles and short stories for The New Yorker, Redbook, Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, and other magazines, and all too infrequently, a novel. In an interview he once stated that his motivation in writing fiction, “if there is any discernible, is probably ego and fear of mathematics, with overtones of money. Primarily I have a simple desire to shine my ass — to show off a bit in print.”

His first two novels were literary mainstream. The Stainless Steel Kimono (Simon & Schuster, 1947), a post-war tale about a group of American paratroopers in Japan, was a modest bestseller and an avowed favorite of Ernest Hemingway.

The Golden Tag (Simon & Schuster, 1950), like most of his long works, has a newspaper background, contains a good deal of autobiography, and is both funny and poignant; it concerns a young wire service reporter and would-be novelist in New Orleans who becomes involved with two women, one of them married, while reporting on a sensational murder case.

His third novel was the one for which he is best remembered today, Black Wings Has My Angel (Gold Medal, 1953; also published as One for My Money, Berkley, 1962 and as One for the Money, Robert Hale, 1985).

for the rest go here:http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=142

THE MARILYN TAPES PROMOTION

$2.99 On Kindle
“Ed Gorman’s writing is strong, fast and sleek as a bullet. He is one of the best.” —Dean KoontzPurchase a copy of The Marilyn TapesEd Gorman’s The Marilyn Tapes was released as a hardcover in 1995 by Tor / Forge. “Marilyn Monroe is dead but she left behind tape recordings that reveal every moment of her rendezvous with President John F. Kennedy and with his brother Robert. Now the tapes are missing and everyone from the Mafia to J. Edgar Hoover to the Kennedy family wants them.”The Marilyn Tapes is a crime novel saturated with period detail, and haunted by Marilyn Monroe. A Marilyn that never appears on page, and a Marilyn who no one really knew. It is thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and wonderfully readable.  The Marilyn Tapes has been favorably compared with the writing of Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy’s American Tabloid. It should have been a bestseller when it was first released and, now, its second chance, and yours, has arrived— The Marilyn Tapes  is back as a low cost ebook exclusively available for Kindle.Buy it. Read it. And Rate it (on Amazon).Praise for The Marilyn Tapes:“The flip side of James Ellroy's justly acclaimed American Tabloid and equally as powerful.” —London's Sunday Time Out“A fast paced tale of treachery and murder...the story ricochets off sociopathic games in high places.” —Publisher's Weekly“A fascinating and suspenseful novel on a grand scale.” —The Drood Review“A striking combination of Tom Clancy''s political thrillers and Elmore Leonard's hypnotically sassy novels of America's mean streets.” —Interzone (London)“A powerful and indelible portrait of Marilyn Monroe even though Gorman never brings her on stage.” —Baker and TaylorPurchase a copy of The Marilyn Tapes known Kindle for $2.99

unsung directors john flynn

(2014)
Peter Dragovich writes an interesting article about the late director John Flynn in the new Crimespot. He cites The Outfit and Rolling Thunder as Flynn's best pictures (there's a third with Steven Segal).

I believe that Don Westlake said that The Outfit's characterization of Parker (here called Macklin) is the closest to the novel Parker. Robert Duvall is excellent. You buy him as a tough amoral guy because he doesn't play him as a tough amoral guy. He's just going about his business. I dubbed this off on tape years ago and I still watch it two or three times a year. Karen Black is sexy and sad; Robert Ryan lends his usual melancholy to the action film; Joe Don Baker is in his prime here and particularly strong--and as if he he wants to salute the crime film in general Flynn uses many familiar actors for some of the smaller roles, among them Jane Greer, Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North, Marie Windsor and even Elisha Cook, Jr. Duvall's intelligence and mystery carries the film. Flynn' direction is absolutely on the money. This should have been on tape and/or DVD years ago.

The second picture is Rolling Thunder which I've always considered one of Paul Schrader's finest scripts. This is one of those films you don't watch--you inhabit it, sometimes against your will. The star is William Devane . He plays a returning Viet Nam vet with only one thing on his mind, revenge. This and most of Karl Reisiz's Who'll Stop The Rain are the two best films I've ever seen about the era of Viet Nam played out on the American streets. The rage, the dislocation, the sucker's game fate of so many of the characters, Schrader and Flynn really give us the bleeding wound of that time. An amazing, disturbing movie.

My choice for Flynn's third best would be Best Seller, a starring vehicle for both James Woods and Brian Dennehy. Woods plays a hit man who wants to get back at an old enemy. To do it he needs the help of widower Dennehy who wrote a bestselling book about a murder investigation he was involved in as a detective. Unfortunately he's stalled on a second book and running out of the funds he needs to support his teenaged daughter and himself. Dennehy loathes Wood and doesn't trust him when he says that he knows who killed Dennehy's old police partner. He also claims that this will give Dennehy the biggest best seller he can imagine--killer and scandal are one and the same. There is a particularly moving and very strange scene where Woods takes Dennehy back go the small town where he grew up. Larry Cohen's script is excellent and Flynn's direction is flawless.

Rolling Thunder and Best Seller are easy and inexpensive to come by. Just light a lot of votive candles and pray that someday somebody will put The Outfit on DVD,