Ed Gorman's Blog, page 60

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

from Gravetapping by Ben BouldenBen Garvald, an independent street thug, is released from England’s Wandsworth Prison—in Southwest London—after nine years of a ten year tab. Garvald and two partners robbed a Birmingham steel plant of a $15,000 payroll. In the ensuing chase one of the crooks was killed, one captured—Garvald—and one walked away clean. Now, Garvald his headed back home and he is definitely not wanted. Three street toughs are hired to discourage him, and his ex-wife’s sister asks CID to have a word with him.
Enter Detective Sergeant Nick Miller. An educated copper with money, drives his own Mini-Cooper on the job, an expert in karate and judo, and has a style all his own. He wears a stylish cap called “Schildtmutze”—no idea what it is, but the hipsters all seem to like it. Miller is tasked with finding Garvald, and warning him off, but, as expected the set up isn’t exactly what it seems and the only sure thing? Ben Garvald is at the center of everything.
The Graveyard Shift is a little different (but also the same) from Mr Patterson’s usual. The prose, and the protagonist are hardboiled. It is a straight 1960’s crime novel, but the plotting is old school Harry Patterson—linear, clean and a study of complex simplicity. There is the main storyline—propelled by Garvald as antagonist—and several supporting subplots including an attempted murder of a police constable.
There is also a relatively large cast of characters. The most interesting is an American jazz pianist, hero of the big war, and heroin addict named Chuck Lazer. Lazer is something of a forerunner for Mr Patterson’s Liam Devlin—disillusioned, wisecracking (and even a little wise) Irish rogue from The Eagle Has Landed. The difference. Lazer is more than just disillusioned. He is also a drug addict, which is described depressingly well—
“On top of a small bedside locker were littered the gear that told the story. A hypodermic with several needles, most of them dirty and blunted. Heroin and cocaine bottles, both empty, a cup still half-full of water, a small glass bottle, its base discolored from the match flame and a litter of burned-out matches.”
The Graveyard Shift is a well-paced, interesting, and entertaining crime novel. It is very definitely of its era—it has a glossy-gritty 1960’s feel—drugs, hip, and distrust. There is betrayal, murder, and enough of the unknown to keep the reader turning pages. And it is an example of Mr Patterson’s wide range as a writer of popular fiction.

The Len Levinson story continues

Sweeter Than Candyfrom the great website glorious trash
glorioustrash.blogspot.com/


(Aol went south Monday. I spent an hour on the phone with them.  They couldn't re establish
my link. They said they'd call back. They never have. I'm onGoogle now but have yet to figure out how to incorporate graphics. If any of you can help I'd be most appreciative. Thanks. Ed.)






Sweeter Than Candy, by Cynthia WilkersonNo month stated, 1978  Belmont Tower Books
I wrote two books as Cynthia Wilkerson. The first one was disgusting. The second one was slightly less disgusting. -- Len Levinson, in a phone conversation with me in April, 2012 
The more scarce of the two novels Len wrote as “Cynthia Wilkerson,” Sweeter Than Candy is “in the tradition of” a now-forgotten piece of bestselling 1970s sleaze titled Blue Skies, No Candy , by Gael Greene. Len told me this when I spoke to him the other year, saying that if his own novel was “disgusting,” so was Greene’s. When I asked him again recently about his novel, Len told me: 
[Belmont Tower editor] Milburn Smith told me to write something like Blue Skies, No Candy, which was very popular back then; I think it was on the Times bestseller list. So I read Blue Skies, decided it was quite trashy, and decided to out-trash it. The plot, characters, etc. of Sweeter were all mine. In a sense, it was my response to Blue Skies. In order to review Sweeter, you probably should read Blue Skies which inspired it. 
At 265 pages, not only is Sweeter Than Candy one of the longer books of Len’s I’ve yet read, it’s also by far the most trashy, sleazy, and explicit. Like Greene’s novel, this one is narrated by its female (anti)hero: Vivian Sinclair, the 35 year-old “sexual terror of Manhattan” who makes her living as a drama critic for a small New York newspaper. 
With blonde hair, big boobs, and “the greatest ass in the world,” Vivian is a regular man-eater, “fucking and sucking” practically every guy she meets – much to the chagrin of her Columbia professor of a husband, Roger, who starts off the novel by informing Vivian one day that he’s divorcing her. After getting over her shock – Vivian thought she and Roger had an understanding, as they both have had multiple affairs – our heroine consoles herself that she no longer will have a husband. 
Not that she suffers much. The novel occurs over a few weeks, and I think Vivian only spends one night alone (and even then she gives herself a “finger-job”). Moments after her husband’s left her, Vivian puts on her “warpaint” (ie makeup), some sexy clothes, and leaves her fashionable Greenwich Village apartment with its “ultra-modern furniture” and goes to a nearby bar, where she promptly picks up Steve, a good-looking young cocaine dealer. 
At Steve’s place there follows a super-explicit sex sequence that goes on for fifteen pages(!). Len leaves no stone unturned here, as the two fuck like crazy. These sex scenes bring to mind Len’s earlier novel  Where The Action Is , which also featured a female narrator relating every detail of her sex life, however Sweeter Than Candy is all about the sex, with no espionage or mystery subplot to get in the way. 
A recurring thing in the novel is that Vivian fights with just about everyone, especially men right before she screws them, but during the act she’ll tell them she loves them. I think Vivian tells about four guys “I love you” in the course of the novel. Steve’s no different, but he disappears from the novel after their herculean sexual bout; next up is Dudley Tarbush, a Broadway director who has been sleeping with Vivian for years. 
In fact, Vivian’s soon-to-be-ex Roger comes home the next day, hoping to mend things with Vivian, only to find her and Tarbush fucking on the kitchen floor! To make it even wackier and crazier, Len even brings Tarbush’s wife, Beverley, onto the scene, so that Tarbush and Vivian now find themselves openly caught in the act by their spouses. The two spouses leave, vowing costly divorces, but Tarbush gets over it soon, telling Vivian he’s always loved her and got married in the first place just to make her jealous. 
I thought this would prove to be the plot of Sweeter Than Candy, Vivian and Tarbush falling in love while getting vengeance on their spouses, but it isn’t; in fact, Vivian and Roger have made up well before novel’s end. Like most other Len Levinson novels, this one isn’t straightjacketed by much of a plot, and instead comes off like our narcissistic and sex-crazed protagonist going from one adventure to the next. 
Vivian soon finds herself giving a blowjob to Doug Gallagher, the Burt Reynolds-esque star who’s come to New York to promote his new theater production of Hamlet. Soon after this she’s trying to “make a man” out of a gay tenant of her apartment building, the sharply-dressed and charming Timothy Peabody. We get all sorts of stuff here that would be unprintable in today’s blandified world, as the things Vivian thinks and says about Peabody would be considered quite inappropriate in our modern age. 
But Len is just setting us up. The joke turns out to be on Vivian, for after inviting “Mr. Peabody” to a theater opening with her (where she forces her hand down his pants and jerks him off, much to his horror and discomfort), she demands that he let her into his apartment that night…and soon discovers that Mr. Peabody isn’t gay at all! Instead, his name is Craig and he gets off on posing as a homosexual, so women will try a little harder for him. You see, Craig finds sex so easy these days that there’s no challenge to getting laid, so he’s come up with this little game. 
Now, all this is relayed after Vivian has practically raped the guy, blowing him in super-explicit detail and then demanding that he go down on her. But Craig’s such an expert “cunt-lapper” that Vivian instantly suspects something. Not that she’s too crestfallen, as in Craig Peabody Vivian has found her ideal match: a narcissistic sex-fiend who is every bit as depraved, opinionated, and mean-hearted as she. They even call each other “Bastard” and “Bitch” while fucking, with Craig telling Vivian flat-out that he hates her – that is, before telling her he loves her while they’re going at it once again. 
The (sort of) main plot comes to a head again as Vivian, post-coitus, realizes that Craig could really help her out in her upcoming divorce from Roger, who by the way is attempting to sue Vivian for alimony(!). In a protracted caper Vivan and Tarbush fool Tarbush’s wife Beverley into thinking she’s about to be interviewed for a tell-all book about Broadway, but instead she’s seduced by Craig, and their ensuing sex is captured on film. This is then used to prevent Tarbush from paying Beverley alimony, and also to destroy Beverley’s credibility as a reliable witness for Roger. 
But Len’s characters are always seeking happiness, even when they’ve found it, and Craig promptly breaks it off with Vivian, telling her he doesn’t trust her, thus she can’t be his perfect match. This occurs around page 160, and Vivian pines for him throughout the 100 or so remaining pages of the novel, even when she and Roger have gotten back together in an open relationship that’s even more open than it was before. 
The incident which causes their reunion is another of the novel’s many highlights. In the opening of the tale Roger informs Vivian that he’s leaving her for a young, pretty co-ed named Taffy. Much later in the novel, after being dumped by Craig, Vivian goes into a bar to get drunk. She’s soon checking out the super-hot waitress. Guess what her name turns out to be? That’s right – Taffy. It’s none other than the “tramp” Roger left her for, though a clueless Taffy tells Vivian that she herself has now left Roger, once she found out he was going to sue his ex-wife for alimony. 
Not letting Taffy know who she is, Vivian sets about on yet another of her madcap plans: namely, taking this lovely young woman home and having hot lesbian sex with her! And after smoking a little pot the two do just that, with yet another protracted sex scene as they go down on each other in the bathtub. And in a funny callback to the earlier part, Roger once again walks in on the scene! (Strangely Len does not write the three-way I expected, with Taffy fleeing in shock from these two “freaks.”) 
Vivian and Roger back together again, you’d think the novel would end…but there are still 40 or so pages to go. Len introduces an eleventh hour subplot about Sir Richard Tysedale, a reclusive British billionaire who is about to buy out Vivian’s paper. Tysedale owns papers all over the world, this being the first in New York he’ll appropriate, and in each previous case he’s always fired the old staff. Realizing her job’s on the line, Vivian finds out from a rich friend that Tysedale lives in a mansion on the moors of Scotland. 
Purchasing a last-second ticket, Vivian takes off alone for the UK (blowing the good-looking guy in the seat next to her and screwing him upon their arrival in Scotland), where she’s determined to corner an interview wihth Tysedale, who has never before granted such a thing. When she meets the old recluse, Vivian once again finds a kindred spirit, an opinionated, high-born racist who hates the lower classes, minorities, and gays with even more vehemence than Vivian. After granting her interview, Tysedale then asks Vivian to “make pee-pee and poo-poo” on him in a bathtub!! 
Thankfully Len doesn’t write this particular scene, but when we meet Vivian again she’s back in Manhattan, loving life as the managing editor of Beautiful People Magazine, another of Tysedale’s recently-purchased New York publications. In other words, Vivian is given the happy ending I figured she’d be denied, achieving her worldly dreams and, despite still being married to Roger, engaging in open affairs with a variety of men. 
The one sad spot in her life is her unrequited love for Craig Peabody, as she still finds herself obsessed with him. Len ends the novel with the tantalizing chance that there could be sequel, someday, with Vivian declaring that, no matter what, she will find Craig, but if Len actually did plan to write another book about Vivian Sinclair he must’ve changed his mind. His other book as “Cynthia Wilkerson” was an unrelated novel more akin to a category Romance, and Len considers that one the superior of the two. 
Len’s writing is as ever strong and enjoyable; there are tons of lines and pieces of dialog that are rife for quoting, but I’m a lazy man. He covers all the bases from the sleazy to the profound. He does though slip in and out of present tense at times, which makes for an awkward read given that the novel is in past tense. Also, the book is littered with typos and misprintings, though this isn’t Len’s doing; it’s the usual subpar Belmont Tower “editing” at work. 
One of the more interesting things about Sweeter Than Candy is that Vivian Sinclair is like the antagonists of trashy bestsellers of the day, like the sort of stuff that made Jacqueline Susann rich and famous. She’s vituperative, shrill, self-centered beyond the point of narcissism, opionated, arrogant, highfalutin, racist, manipulative, untrustworthy, and basically just a general bitch. 
Yet as the narrator, Vivian presents herself to us as the hero of the tale, which makes for an interesting reading experience – and a fun reading experience, for sure. But I can’t say Vivian is a character I much liked. After reading her self-obsessed thoughts for almost 300 pages, I kind of hoped she’d get some sort of comeuppance, but it never happens – she ends the tale just as blissfully vain as she was in the beginning.
This is not to take away from the novel itself, which is a fun and sleazy romp through late 1970s New York City.  As I read it, it occurred to me that Sweeter Than Candy was yet another of Len’s novels that would’ve gotten a lot more attention if it had been published by an outfit with better distribution -- the very scarcity of Sweeter Than Candy suggests that it likely had a small print run.  It’s a shame, really, as the novel deserved a better fate.
Len offered to write up his thoughts on Sweeter Than Candy, and as usual his “addendum” is just as entertaining as the novel itself:
I volunteered to write an addendum to Joe’s review of Sweeter Than Candy by Cynthia Wilkerson, who in real life was none other than me. I wonder what Cynthia’s fans would think if they discovered she’d grown a beard. 
To the best of my recollection, it all began in 1977 on an afternoon when I was sitting in the editorial office of Belmont-Tower in New York City, beside the desk of one of my editors, Milburn Smith. I don’t remember where my usual editor, Peter McCurtin, was that day. 
After initial pleasantries, Milburn asked me to write something similar to a novel that was on the best-seller lists then: Blue Skies, No Candy by Gael Greene, which was much discussed in the media as a sensationally erotic breakthrough in feminist literature. A friend referred to it as "Blue Skies, No Panties."  Ms. Greene also was a well-known restaurant critic for New York magazine.  
After leaving BT’s offices, I bought a copy of Blue Skies, took it home, read it front to back, and evaluated it as pedestrian middlebrow smut. My only reasonable response was to out-smut it, a challenge for which I felt fully qualified, given my smutty brain during my younger years. 
I’ve just now finished reading Sweeter Than Candy for the first time since I delivered the manuscript in 1977. Approximately 60% percent of the novel is hard core erotica spiced with zany comedic overtones. The rest is a satire on NYC snobbery and pretentiousness, also spiced with zany comedic overtones.  
A few times I laughed out loud at my own words written around 37 years ago. The sexually overactive lead character Vivian Sinclair, drama critic for a daily newspaper, is hilarious in her hypocrisy, silliness, self-deceptions and ruthless ambition. The plot firmly held my attention with its unexpected twists and turns drizzled with sparkling dialogue. 
It was fun to write a novel under a woman’s name, from a woman’s point of view. The National Organization of Women probably will put me before a firing squad if they ever read this novel, but I only was trying to lampoon certain NYC women who considered themselves completely progressive, far above traditional morality, going from love affair to love affair, perhaps getting married a few times along the way, always on the lookout for hedonistic pleasures, gold diggers par excellence, not above one-night-stands, and naturally seeing psychiatrists regularly. 
Unfortunately, there are many typos in Sweeter Than Candy, but BT was not known for its copy editing skills. For example, on page 196, a Greenwich Village bar was referred to as the Nebraska Midnight. On page 198 it had become Dakota Midnight. Such errors must have been very disconcerting for readers. The bar was based on the Montana Eve on the west side of 7th Avenue north of Sheridan Square, where my brother worked as bartender and then manager for awhile, and where I hung out occasionally. 
I’m proud to say that Sweeter Than Candy truly was more smutty than Blue Skies, No Candy, in my admittedly biased opinion, and a better read as well. Unfortunately, Sweeter Than Candy never was embraced by the New York literati, went out of print long ago, and is not available now as an ebook. But it was very enjoyable to write, and I guess that’s what mattered most to me.
Posted by Joe Kenney at 6:30 AM 3 comments:Labels: Belmont-Tower, Book Reviews, Leonard Levinson, Sex, Trash Fiction

Monday, December 8, 2014

Stark House Half Price Sale (from Gravetapping)

Stark House Half Price Sale
Stark House Press —one of my favorite publishers of vintage crime fiction—recently announced its annual Holiday Sale. This year they have a large selection of books—20 to be precise—on sale for half the cover price, which is a terrific deal. The titles are below:  Catherine Butzen: Thief of MidnightRobert W. Chambers: The Slayer of Souls / The Maker of MoonsJames Hadley Chase: Come Easy—Go Easy / In a Vain ShadowJada M. Davis: Midnight RoadDon Elliott/Robert Silverberg: Lust Queen / Lust VictimFeldman & Gartenberg (ed): The Beat Generation & the Angry Young MenA. S. Fleischman: The Sun Worshippers / YellowlegArnold Hano: So I’m a Heel / Flint / The Big OutElisabeth Sanxay Holding: The Unfinished Crime / The Girl Who Had to DieRussell James: Underground / Collected StoriesStephen Marlowe: Violence is My Business / Turn Left for MurderE. Phillips Oppenheim: Ghosts & Gamblers: The Further Uncollected StoriesVin Packer: The Damnation of Adam Blessing / Alone at NightRichard Powell: A Shot in the Dark / Shell GameBill Pronzini: Snowbound / GamesPeter Rabe: Kill the Boss Good-By / Mission for VengeanceDouglas Sanderson: The Deadly Dames / A Dum-Dum for the PresidentBill Shepard: California CornerstoneCharlie Stella: Rough RidersCynthia Campbell Williams: This Fool’s Journey: Tarot Tales for Modern Minds

For more information visit the latest Stark House newsletter (scroll down towards the bottom of the newsletter).
Posted by Ben Boulden at 4:16 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest


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Forgotten Books: Fake I.D. by Jason Starr

Forgotten Books: Fake I.D. by Jason StarrJason Starr is the poet of pathological lives. In Fake I.D. he gives us Tony Russo, gambling addict and bartender/actor, who believes, despite enormous evidence to the contrary, that someday real soon now he will reap a bonanza with his gambling just as he knows that he will soon enough be King of Hollywood. Gold at the track and movie star pussy forever.

One of the ways he hopes to hurry his dreams along is by stealing ten thousand dollars from the bar where he works. He has a chance to buy a share of a race horse and thus become a (another fantasy) a gentleman of the horsey set (his daydream about standing in the winner's circle with a movie star lady practically going down on him is especially embarrassing and pathetic). But being the good businessman he is he takes the ten grand and goes to Vegas where he is real real sure he will play this into much much more. He returns home broke of course.

Being a good sociopath Tony must now replace the money he lost in Vegas. This quest, and it is nothing less, involves more stealing and not incidentally murder. Starr gives us a trio of women who become indelible in the reader's mind. My favorite is Janene. Like Frank, the man who owns the bar where Tony works, she is sensible, intelligent and honest. It is from her that he lifts jewelry.

Starr has one of those quintessential New York voices. Because Richard Price's Ladies' Man is one of my favorite novels I kept hearing riffs on that in this book especially when Starr was writing about the bar and the people who work there and hang out there. Starr has an almost surreal eye and ear for manners and he can be both witty and chilling at the same time. He's excellent with boozy conversation.

Starr is on record acknowledging his debt to certain of the paperbacks of the 1950s and 1960s and the pace and punch of his novel certainly demonstrate that affection especially when all of Tony's sweaty plans begun to unravel. But the book is wholly Starr's and it's a sound strong good one. So many writers try hard to replicate Jim Thompson by using similar material. Tony Russo's heart is as dark as any of Thomson's sociopaths but his environment and his style could not be more disimilar. Lew Ford wouldn't know what to make of him.

Because of his social eye and because of his ambition to include the wider world in his work, Jason Starr is among my favorites of the neo-noir writers. Fake I.D. is a gem of treachery.

Libby Fischer Hellman and Chicago stories

Dear Ed -- 
If you've been following me for a bit (and welcome if you're new to our crime-fiction-loving group), you know that I live in Chicago and love it here.
In that spirit, I want to bring you three true life (nothing fiction here, folks) Chicago stories for your reading pleasure. These stories appeared on my blog, but you may have missed them, so enjoy...
Libby's blog-http://www.libbyhellmann.com/blog/

You won't believe what I told the judge and how red his face became...



As a crime fiction writer, you can just imagine how cool it would be for me to be on a jury. In this post (from the archives), I describe my day in the jury pool at Daley Center downtown.
Let's just say that I ended up in the judge's chambers, and I spoke my mind.Ahem...
Check out this blog post here.
Why did WE Hold our breath?
What makes people want to death defying feats, and why do we have to watch? You probably heard about Nik Wallenda's wire walking between Chicago high rises.
If you haven't, you'll want to check out this video right away. And even if you have, you may want to see it again and monitor your vitals. Does your heart race? Do your palms sweat?
It's fascinating on so many levels. Check out the video/blog here.




The Mystery of Vivian Maier

In the mood for a mystery?
Well, this is a different type of mystery, especially if you love photography and the visual arts Vivian Maier is one of the most fascinating stories I’ve come across recently.
Although she took over 150,000 images, she never tried to display, sell, or otherwise profit from her photography. In fact, the photos weren't found until after her death! ​ Continue the story here.



Holiday Book Bundles for Mystery Lovers
Still stumped on what special gift to get for the mystery lover on your list?
Not only are these printed novels discounted, but I will autograph each one for your loved one, even if that loved one is you.
Don't delay... only available until Dec. 20.
Check out the Holiday Bundles here.



Wishing you and yours the joy of the season.Warmly,
LibbyPlease add my email address to your safe sender list so my emails don't get trapped in the netherworld of your spam box.Latest Articles from my blogMy Latest Novel - Nobody's Child

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Al Collins & I were talking about Aron Sorkin today...now here's Ken Levine's opinion

My thoughts on the recent Aaron Sorkin controversy


A lot of readers are asking my opinion of the recent Aaron Sorkin/Alena Smith flap. This is nice. Before I had a blog no one asked me about anything. So I’ll take a moment from plugging my book sale (the real reason for this blog) and weigh in with my thoughts.
In case you’re not familiar with the story. On last Sunday night’s episode of THE NEWSROOM there was a campus rape storyline that has angered many viewers. It’s also very timely considering the recent Cosby allegations and University of Virginia/ROLLING STONE debacle. But the episode was filmed months ago. The fact that Sorkin touched on a hotbed subject is actually coincidental. It happens. Real life events sometimes have the audacity to interfere with entertainment scheduling. 
Alena Smith was a staff writer on the show and tweeted this week that she strongly disagreed with Sorkin’s position on the campus rape issue in the writers room, and when she wouldn’t stop pressing it Sorkin eventually asked her to leave. 
Sorkin then issued a statement. Here is part of that response:
Alena Smith, a staff writer who joined the show for the third season, had strong objections to the Princeton story and made those objections known to me and to the room. I heard Alena's objections and there was some healthy back and forth. After a while I needed to move on (there's a clock ticking) but Alena wasn't ready to do that yet. I gave her more time but then I really needed to move on. Alena still wouldn't let me do that so I excused her from the room. 
The next day I wrote a new draft of the Princeton scenes--the draft you saw performed last night. Alena gave the new pages her enthusiastic support. So I was surprised to be told this morning that Alena had tweeted out her unhappiness with the story. But I was even more surprised that she had so casually violated the most important rule of working in a writers room which is confidentiality. It was a room in which people felt safe enough to discuss private and intimate details of their lives in the hope of bringing dimension to stories that were being pitched. That's what happens in writers rooms and while ours was the first one Alena ever worked in, the importance of privacy was made clear to everyone on our first day of work and was reinforced constantly. I'm saddened that she's broken that trust.
And now Sorkin is taking more flack. 
So where do I stand?
Well, first of all, I wasn’t in the room. I don’t know how long the debate was. I don’t know how contentious the debate was. I don’t know Alena Smith. I didn’t even know Aaron Sorkin had a writers room. I did see the episode however. I am still a loyal viewer of THE NEWSROOM. It makes me feel smart if I can understand half of what is going on. So I have no idea who was right or wrong. I’m clueless as to whether Sorkin gave her sufficient time or was dismissive, whether she had a myriad of points that required time to express or the same point repeated seven times. I don’t know if he warned her that she was in jeopardy of being tossed. I don’t know if ultimately in his rewrite Sorkin did change things as per her argument or ignored her completely. 
But I side with Sorkin on this point: Confidentiality in the writers’ room is a must. And it’s more than just “you shouldn’t air your dirty laundry in public.” Writers need to feel safe. The best stories and moments come from real life, and in the quest for a good story a writer will often share the most intimate details of his or her life. It is a brave and courageous thing to do, to expose yourself for the sake of art. You truly cannot believe some of the shocking things writers will confess in those rooms – things they haven’t told their family, spouse, or shrink. I was once in a rewrite (and this was for a sitcom) where one of the baby writers revealed she had once been gangbanged. Holy shit! She’s telling me this and I didn’t even know her name? 

When you join a writing staff it is understood that you honor confidentiality. That’s a cardinal rule. No exceptions. Heide Perlman was a staff writer on CHEERS. Her sister, Rhea, was in the cast. But we knew that nothing said in the room about Rhea or anybody would ever get back to her. And we all said NICE things. 
But that’s the code and Alena broke it. Did she ultimately harm anybody? No. But it’s like Pete Rose gambling in baseball. After the Black Sox scandal in 1919 baseball determined that the one thing that could kill the game was if the public thought it was fixed. So there is a rule that players, managers, and coaches are forbidden to bet on baseball. They sign agreements to that effect. There are big signs posted in every major league clubhouse. When Pete was managing Cincinnati he broke that code. You could argue that he only bet on his team, but what about nights he didn’t bet? Wasn’t that sending the message that he didn’t think his team would win that night? Wouldn’t that be handy information to have if you’re a professional gambler? 
Again, I’ve never worked for Aaron Sorkin. I might want to kill him if I did. I dunno. He might want to kill me if he were ever on my staff.  But internal struggles have to remain internal. It’s necessary for the process.
Think of it this way:  the writers' room is the ultimate Las Vegas.  What happens in the room STAYS in the room. 
Some suggest that Alena Smith will have trouble getting future staff work because of this. In some cases I’m sure that’s true. Would I ever hire her? If I thought she was the best writer for the position then yes I would. Really good writers are hard to find. And the confidentiality issue?  I bet she never does that again. 
Now the plug for my book:  Last few days of the sale of  THE ME GENERATION...BY ME (GROWING UP IN THE '60S) .  Only $.99, an 81% saving.   Way more laughs to the penny than you'll ever find again.  Here's where you go.  But hurry!  


By Ken Levine at 6:00 AM 

Max Allan Collins Goes To The Movies

On Beetlejuice: **1/2
"Bonus: vile things are done to Robert Goulet."

Police Academy 3: *1/2
"Having already destroyed most of my credibility by admitting that I like certain lowbrow horror films, I will lose the rest of it by admitting that I enjoyed both Police Academy and Police Academy 2."

Bestseller: ****
"This shrewd, disturbing comedy thriller has a wonderful premise...a whirlpool of betrayl and conspiracy, courtesy of Larry Cohen, king of cinematic paranoia."

Dead Ringers: **
"But director/screenwriter David Cronenberg's hatred of women and distaste for human sexuality is becoming as tedious as it is unpleasant."

True Lies: *1//2
"Tom Arnold gives the best performance in the movie."

Ruthless People: ****
"This is the one: the comedy jackpot.
"Imagine one of Donald E. Westlake's comedy caper novels filmed RIGHT--but nastier. Imagine a James M. Cain story directed by the boys who made "Airplane." Imagine a crime story in which the only nice people are the kidnappers. Well, open your eyes and look at the screen."

Ed here:
Back when I was editing Mystery Scene I couldn't wait to get Al Collin's'  new movie review column. It wasn't that I always agreed with him--who could possibly find Isabelle Huppert or the novel ANGEL HEART less than spectacular?--but Al combined humor and stunning observation constantly making reading his opinions always both fun and enlightening to read.

Not everybody shared my enthusiasm for his opinions. A few readers managed to sound deeply wounded when Al besmirched one of their favorite directors/actors/genres.  And some just could not believe that he preferred small even sometimes trashy movies to the big slick award-winners. I always admired him for doing this. "Best Seller" is for instance is an infinitely better movie than all but one of the Academy Award nominees of 1987.  My opinion only of course. Al gave it a deserved four stars.

In 1998 Brownstone books published The Mystery Scene Movie Guide which was all of Al's MS reviews collected in a nice trade paperback.

So here's what I think a small press publisher should do. Combine the first book with a collection of Al's current movie reviews on his blog http://www.maxallancollins.com/blog/. Now that would be one hell of a great read.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS at his thoughtful best

A few days ago I received in the mail a long-ago pre-ordered blu-ray of HICKEY & BOGGS (1972), one of my favorite private eye movies; it’s an early script by Walter Hill and stars its director, Robert Culp, reunited with his I, SPY co-star, Bill Cosby. A few years before his death, Culp was at the San Diego Con and I was able to chat with him briefly and tell him how much I loved his movie; he seemed very pleased, and would be no doubt be thrilled by the availability of the film. I haven’t watched the disc yet, but I wonder if it’s going to be hard to get past Cosby’s presence in the light of the media storm around him.I am frankly still trying to sort out my feelings about the Cosby scandal. Based on the where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire theory, he seems to be a sexual sociopath; but the common aspects of the stories his alleged victims tell are so public, making up a new one wouldn’t be that tough. Public figures are easy targets, and I have to wonder how many famous actors and rock musicians who caroused their way through the Swinging Sixties and the sexual revolution of the Seventies aren’t just a little bit nervous right now. Do you really imagine every groupie Mick Jagger partied with was of legal age?The best that can be said for Cosby is that he has been a hypocrite, spouting family values and peddling wholesome kiddie entertainment and telling young black men how to behave. You can’t be a pudding pitchman and America’s favorite TV dad and also hang out at the Playboy Mansion (as a married man) and not come up smelling like Brut.It shouldn’t be necessary to say it, but women are correct that no means no, and that dressing provocatively is not an invitation to dine. At the same time, if I were the father of a gorgeous teenage daughter heading out to a party at Caligula’s place, I just might advise her that she’s putting herself in harm’s way.Rich and powerful men – and show biz figures are often regular folks who rose (from poverty, in many cases) to dizzying heights – often think decadence is a privilege. But even if Cosby is the monster he’s being made out to be, should the court of public opinion pass the ultimate verdict? I’m just asking. When the journalistic landscape is blurred with blogs, and even Rolling Stone messes up on this very same issue of sexual misconduct (on campus), aren’t we being urged to listen to our basest instincts? Cosby has never been criminally charged. Allegations of misconduct many decades old are as unreliable as memories of that vintage.My favorite comic strip is Li’l Abner, and I consider Al Capp a genius – a great writer, satirist, artist. But I have long struggled with the sexual misbehavior of Capp’s last years (concurrent with a shrill swing to the right in his comic strip, lessening its impact and its legacy). I dealt with this in my novel STRIP FOR MURDER, for which I’ve taken some heat as a Capp basher. I am anything but a Capp basher – he probably has few bigger fans. But he seems, tragically, to have fallen prey either to mental illness or his worst demons. Or perhaps it’s as easy (and hard) as this – a bad human being can also be a great artist.The Capp conundrum has never stopped me from enjoying Li’l Abner. On the other hand, I can’t watch a NAKED GUN movie without squirming when O.J. is on screen. And Robert Blake was once a favorite of mine, but since the murder of his wife, I can’t watch anything he’s in. Will I react the same way to HICKEY & BOGGS? Don’t know yet.Jackson Pollock killed a young woman and injured another when, in a deep drunken depression, he crashed his car. He killed himself, which is an artist’s privilege, but what the hell business did he have endangering one woman and murdering another? Does that make his art invalid? Does it put the splatter into his splatter paintings? I honestly don’t know.Artists – and I include writers and film people and painters and our entire sorry breed – are all, to some degree, messed up. My wife Barb, in her wisdom, says that all an artist owes us is the art. God knows what Sinatra did behind closed doors, but oh when he was at the microphone. Bing Crosby beat up his boys, and two or three of ‘em killed themselves; but what would Christmas be without Der Bingle?
I would like to think that I will have no trouble watching HICKEY & BOGGS or episodes of I, SPY (I’ve never seen an episode of Cosby’s famous sitcom). But I’m not sure. I seem to be selective about who I forgive. Still, I come away with two things: Barb’s notion that artists only owe us their art; and my notion that the Internet is not the place to go for a fair trial.

From Gravetapping "The Empty Manger " by Bill Crider

"The Empty Manger" by Bill Crider
from Ben Boulden at Gravetapping


I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas. I love that I get a day off work. I love the stereotypical atmosphere of goodwill—I usually don’t see it, but I love the idea of it—the music (in small doses) and time spent with family and friends. And eggnog. Always eggnog.
The part of Christmas I don’t love so much are the crowds, both in stores and on the roads. The rush to buy junk no one wants. And the “me me” of the season. So to make-up for the all the bad stuff I usually lose myself in a few mystery stories with Christmas as a backdrop. My only rule—if I actually have one—is that Christmas should only be a backdrop and not the central theme of the story. So this year I thought I would share a few.
The first is a Sheriff Dan Rhodes Christmas primer. It is a novella length story titled “The Empty Manger.” Blacklin County, Texas isn’t a typical Christmas location. There are no white Christmases, it is warm and there probably aren’t many pine trees. But it is the type of rural county where the people are eccentric, there is always a perplexing crime, and enough humor and mystery to satisfy any reader.
The story begins when Sheriff Dan Rhodes is called to investigate the kidnapping of the baby Jesus doll from the manger scene in downtown Clearview. Clearview, like the rest of America, has a decaying and nearly abandoned downtown and one of the plans to attract more traffic to the area is a live manger—including a donkey and a few goats. The production is sponsored by the local First Baptist Church and when Rhodes arrives to investigate the missing Jesus he finds much more—namely the murdered body of Councilwoman Jerri Laxton, a proponent of the downtown revitalization plan, in the alley behind the abandoned furniture store next to the manger.
“The Empty Manger” is pure Dan Rhodes. It is a whodunit with style, humor, and just enough hardboiled action to carry the mystery. Sheriff Rhodes is an old style detective. He doesn’t rely on crime scene investigation or science to solve his crimes, but instead he talks to people and generally noses around until he finds a thread and then picks and pulls at it until the mystery unravels.
The supporting cast, as usual, is an eclectic mix of varying eccentricity. Rhodes is surrounded by bickering geriatrics, hostile romance writers, nosy young reporters, spiteful housewives, lonely widowers and a host of small town goofballs that not only make good suspects, but act as foils to Sheriff Rhodes. They tend to keep him in his place and whenever possible remind him of his failings, both past and present.
“The Empty Manger” is good and fun entertainment. It clocks in at 88 pages in paperback. It can easily be read in one sitting and it has everything that makes the Dan Rhodes series vibrant and it makes for a great escape from crowded super stores, clogged roads and cold weather.
“The Empty Manger” was published in the novella anthology Murder, Mayhem, and Mistletoe. It was released in 2001 by Worldwide and contains three additional novellas—“The Headless Magi” by Terence Faherty, “Christmas Cache” by Aileen Schumacker, and “Stocking Stuffer” by Wendi Lee.

Posted by Ben Boulden at 6:22 AM 

Gravetapping by Ben Boulden "In a Small Motel" by John D. MacDonald

 by Ben Boulden

Ginny Mallory is a widow. She owns a small motor-in motel on a major highway in South Georgia. The summer heat is still strong in the waning days of October, and she is tired from a long summer season. The story opens with Ginny fighting an uncooperative rollaway bed. The guests are not cordial and treat her less like an equal and more like the hired help.
As the evening progresses Ginny’s motel begins to fill-up and we are introduced to the four secondary players in the story—Ginny’s dead husband Scott, a full-time motel resident named Johnny Benton, a strange motel guest who insists on parking his car behind the motel, and a would-be suitor named Don Ferris.
The story revolves around Ginny—a single and lonely woman trying to operate a business in 1950s America. Ferris wants to marry Ginny, but he admits it is not entirely because he loves her; Benton is a friend, but he seemingly has a dark underside that may surprise both Ginny and the reader; a guest that is the catalyst for a long and frightening night; and a dead husband whose long shadow is cast across Ginny’s life like a long heavy rain.
“In a Small Motel” is an accomplished and full-bodied story—the characters each have their own subtle and convincing motives. The setting is brilliantly realized. The climate is described with short visual blasts:
“Thick October heat lay heavily over South Georgia. Though she walked briskly, she felt as if all the heat of the long summer just past had turned the marrow of her bones to soft stubborn lead.”
And Ginny is perfectly cast as a strong and resilient woman in a quandary—she doesn’t know whether to go forward or back. The memory of her husband is a prison. A prison she does not want to escape, and the motel is its literal translation.
“In a Small Motel” is a character study cast within the confines of a rich and textured crime story. The characters—the way they act, talk, and shift from one desire and fear to another—control the story and plot. It is also a tightly woven story that MacDonald never loses control of; everything is in place and works perfectly on the reader. The suspense is pure and it ratchets tighter and tighter as the story plays out. 
There are more than a few surprises and the writing is so fresh and alive—even after 54 years—that the reader can nearly smell the autumn Georgia air, the car exhaust, hear the highway noise, and feel the empty and hard fear escalating from a nervous vibration to a deep and harrowing roar.
This post originally went live July 31, 2009 after my first reading of “In a Small Motel”. I have since gone back to the story several times, and after each reading my appreciation and enjoyment of it only increases.