Ed Gorman's Blog, page 224

Strangehold - Pulp Serenade

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From Pulp Serenade - Cullen Gallagher

"Stranglehold" by Ed Gorman (Minotaur, 2010)

Dev Conrad is that rarity among literary characters, a warm narrator whose inimitable voice quickly becomes as familiar as an old friend. And if you've read Ed Gorman's first novel about Dev, Sleeping Dogs, then the reunion in Stranglehold is all the more joyous.

As the Stranglehold opens, political consultant Dev Conrad has been called away from his home base to intervene in the campaign of one of his company's clients, Congresswoman Susan Cooper. She's been acting out of character, disappearing mysteriously, but she refuses to tell anyone what is going. With her reelection on the line, it is up to Dev to get to the bottom of things.

Cooper's campaign and personal life quickly begins to fall apart. First Dev follows Susan to a crummy motel room and discovers blood around the room, as well as the business card of a ruthless political consultant. Next, he finds himself being questioned for the murder of someone that might have been involved with Cooper's rivals. And Natalie Cooper, Susan's tyrannical mother, is very unimpressed with the skeletons that Dev is dragging out of the family closet.

Gorman is a humanist in the tradition of Margaret Millar. Both draw readers in with their strong, tightly-plotted mysteries. However, the real treasure of their books is in their ensemble of characters (even the minor characters are treated with the utmost respect and craft), and in the maturity and acuity of the writers' voices. Dev's patience and hardboiled insight embodies so much of what we've come to admire in Gorman's own writing.

Dev wants to see the best in people, but he is wise and weary enough to see the worst, and to recognize that people are human and they make mistakes. But what makes him trustworthy is that he is even quicker to spot his own weaknesses and errors. This blend of idealism and realism is what makes Dev such an endearing persona – he is never looking down at those around him, and never looking but, but always looking them right in the eye. And when another character returns that look – now those are special moments. Many of them involve Gwen – naïve, well-meaning, and brave, and who was unwittingly drawn into the Cooper campaign chaos; and others involve Ben, Dev's colleague, another fallen idealist with plenty of regrets about failing his own family, with whom Dev shares an unspoken bond.

Gorman doesn't just write stories, he puts them in worlds in which many stories are colliding. The book you're holding just happens to contain a couple. Here is an example: Dev spots a mother in a Toby Keith t-shirt, her husband in a NASCAR shirt, and a chubby child. Their clothes are ratty, and their car is in worse shape. There's almost a hint of caricature in Dev's observation – until he notices the husband's limp, and the wife's attempt to help him. "It was the sort of thing that could break your goddamned heart because it was so simple and loving and said so much about their years together. They were playing a shitty hand, one the dark Lovecraftina gods were probably still laughing about, but they were bound up and redeemed by their loyalty."

In these politically divisive times, we need a hero like Dev Conrad. Someone who's concern goes beyond party lines, and who can see beyond all the campaign and media hoopla. Heck, I'd vote for Dev, but I think he's too smart to run. In the meantime, I eagerly await the next installment in Ed Gorman's latest series.

As always, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. Gorman has some really wonderful turns of phrases, and shows a real love of language.

"Fog rolled down the streets on my way to foundation headquarters. Streetlights were dulled by ghosts and stoplights burned like evil eyes through the mist. A long stretch of fast-food places shone like a cheap carnival midway in the rolling clouds. And always there was the relentless cold rain, gutters and intersections filling up fast."

"After my years in army intelligence, when I'd functioned pretty much as a detective, I'd thought about joining a police force somewhere. I'd spent three nights in a squad car riding around Chicago. The dangers I'd seen were tolerable; there'd been moments when they'd been exhilarating. But the heartbreak was what I couldn't handle. The beaten wives and the forlorn children, the sad junkies, the prisons of poverty, the fear of people afraid to walk the streets of their own neighborhoods. I didn't have the gut for it."

"Then she started her awkward, belly-bumping slide out of the booth. I was thinking how good it would be when my own daughter was pregnant. I had so much to make up for. I wanted to do it right this time."

"And no, it wasn't the drinking; it was the fact that I spent so much time away from home working on campaigns. I wasn't faithful and neither was she. She had a good excuse for it, I didn't."

Secret Vengeance by F. Paul Wilson

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In the last few years young adult novels have become popular with many adults as well. F. Paul Wilson, one of the finest storytellers of my generation, has turned his hand to showing us the youthful days of Repairman Jack, the enormously popular namesake of his award-winning Repairman Jack adult series.

Wilson has his own style and voice, a vivid, evocative style that touches on all the senses to create a full, real world. In addition he paces his work the way a contemporary film editor would...

5 Mean Reviews

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"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson

Review by Susan Cohen:

"This is easily one of the worst books I've ever read. And bear in mind that I've read John Grisham."

Ed here: Most of us have gotten our share of bad reviews; a good number of us have even gotten the occasional savage review. Salon is claiming that these are the meanest reviews ever which is bogus. But they certainly didn't make the writers under review feel very good.


5 Meanest Book Reviews Ever: Franzen, Foer, Larsson A...

CUNEMA RETRO #18-THE BEST YET

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Ed here: For me this is THE best issue so far. The lengthy history of Psycho alone is worth the entrance fee. All kinds of material on Hitchcock and Bloch and the cast in depth. BUY IT NOW!

Posted by Cinema Retro in Entertainment News on Thursday, September 16. 2010
CINEMA RETRO ISSUE #18 NOW SHIPPING WORLDWIDE


Our final issue of Season 6 has now been mailed to subscribers worldwide, and the general feeling is that it's one of our best yet.
Gary Giblin offers an extensive, in-depth tribute to ...

bare.boones is back with a vengeance

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Ed here: Bare. Bones was a cool magazine that lapsed publication some years ago. Now editors Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri have brought it back as a website. And it's tearing up the land with in-depth articles about the origins of the post war magazines and paperback lines that paved the way for a good deal of the crime fiction that was to come. Here's their take on Manhunt.


The Complete Guide to Manhunt Part 1

Manhunt was the best crime digest ever published. I've been working on a book on...

Forgotten Books: PEEPER by Loren D. Estleman

I've probably read this books five or six times and reviewed it two or three. It always gives me an instant high because Estleman has created a character so despicable you keep wishing somebody would shoot/stab/strangle/burn him. And he's the protagonist.

Even though I know a fair share of the book by heart I still laugh out loud through a good share of it. Dirt-bag Detroit private eye Ralph Poteet is so sleazy you just got to laugh at him. And the big problem is for all the laws he breaks his...

Stephen Marlowe and Richard S. Prather DOUBLE IN TROUBLE

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Ed here: Here's another Stephen Marlowe piece from a few years ago. This time he talks about collaborating with Richard Prather on DOUBLE IN TROUBLE.


Stephen Marlowe on collaborating with Richard Prather

Almost exacty fifty years ago, Richard S. Prather and I decided--with a nudge from our mutual agent--to write a novel pitting our two private eyes, Shell Scott and Chet Drum, against each other until they could realize, almost too late, that they both were working the good side of the street in...

Big setback for Barnes & Noble

Ed here: I'm sure this kind of news seems like too much inside baseball to some of you but if the Riggios lose control over the direction of B&N we're likely to see some heavy duty changes in the company. From The New York Times.

September 20, 2010
Bookseller Has Setback in Struggle Over Board
By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED

Barnes & Noble sustained a setback on Monday when a powerful proxy advisory company endorsed directors proposed by the billionaire investor Ronald W. Burkle over the company's own...

Stephen Marlowe remembers Evan Hunter

Ed here: I want to run a few older pieces for newer readers. I've always liked this one especially. Stephen Marlowe's autobiography will be out in 2011.


Stephen Marlowe remembers Evan Hunter
THOUGHTS ABOUT EVAN, AND ME, AND EVAN AND ME

In the early 1950s, when we first met, he was still Sal Lombino and I was still Milt Lesser. Sal, a Navy veteran and sometime schoolteacher, was working the phones for a wholesaler of lobsters in New York, taking orders from restaurants, and I was working as chie...

Marlon Brando In Rebel Without A Cause? TV Dinners?

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Ed here: Today Movietone published a list of prominent actors' screen tests. Scroll down to find Brando's audition for Rebel Without A Cause. I've never seen or heard Brando like this. Very young, not so confident. Some of the other tests are interesting, too.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/09/13/...

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My buddy Harry Shannon was nice enough to remind me of one of the questionable joys of boyhood.

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From Parade magazine

Heat, Tra...