Ed Gorman's Blog, page 91

Scream Queen and Other Tales of Menace from Singular Points

Monday, May 12, 2014Scream Queen and Other Tales of MenacePosted by Charles R. Rutledge 



















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Posted by Charles R. Rutledge at 6:56 PM 



 I first discovered Ed Gorman's work back in the early 1990s. Crime writer Andrew Vachss was my absolute favorite author at the time and I was tracking down his short stories in books like COLD BLOOD edited by Richard Chizmar, DARK AT HEART, edited by Joe and Karen Lansdale, and DARK CRIMES, edited by, well, Ed Gorman. But see, all of these books also had stories by Gorman. I think it was the story THE LONG SILENCE AFTER that made me a fan and that led to me picking up Gorman's collection PRISONERS AND OTHER STORIES and one of my absolute favorite private eye novels, THE NIGHT REMEMBERS.   Over the years I've read a lot of Gorman's other books including a lot of his Westerns, most recently the collection A DISGRACE TO THE BADGE AND OTHERS.   This weekend though I've been back to the stuff that attracted me to Ed Gorman's work to begin with, crime and dark suspense stories, because there's a brand new collection out called SCREAM QUEEN AND OTHER TALES OF MENACE.  The very first story in the book, ANGIE, was a sharp gut punch of Noir that was dark, dark, dark. I read the last page and put the book down and said, "Damn."   Here's one of the things I love about Gorman's work. It's also something that I admire and envy as a writer, and that's his ability to get real people on the page and to do it in an economical way. Give an author a whole novel to tell you about a character and most of them can do it, but to do it in a short story and do it consistently is bloody impressive. Gorman has the knack. He's not writing about characters. He's writing about people, be they private eyes, cowboys, call girls, or what have you. They seem real and they will stay with you after you've closed the book.   The titular story, SCREAM QUEEN is an excellent example of this. Yes it's a tale with some menace, but it's also a story about growing up and that often painful period between high school and reality where you lose friends and try to establish yourself as a functioning adult. This story has a couple of heartbreaking moments, and only because, for that brief span of reading, Gorman has made me believe in those people and care what happens about them.  Probably didn't hurt that I found some stuff to identify with in the protagonist either.   I'm not going to review all the stories, because that would take too long and because the book is out now and I wanted to get the word out about how good it is, and because I'm not going to tear through all the tales. Or I'm going to try not to. I want to save a few for when I need a shot of something well written, dark, and memorable. Highly recommended.

Now Available: Mockingbird and Big Earl - James and Livia Reasoner

Now Available: Mockingbird and Big Earl - James and Livia Reasoner
They were an unlikely team, the big, gruff circuit court judge and the talkative Blackfoot girl. Together they travel across the Old West solving mysteries and bringing justice. Judge Earl Stark comes to El Paso to try the case of a man accused of a crime, but it's Mockingbird who finds the clues that lead to what really happened. A man's future depends on a missing dog, and it's up to Mockingbird to figure out the truth!

All you Judge Earl Stark completists will want to pick this up, since it's the rarest appearance of Big Earl, previously published only in a limited edition (as in, we printed it up ourselves and gave it to members of one of our daughter's classes when she was still in elementary school). It's a kid's chapter book aimed at 3rd and 4th grade level readers, but it has a little mystery and some good characters and, well, Big Earl is still Big Earl. I thought this one was lost forever, but Livia came across a copy at her parents' house and now it's back and widely available for the first time. Below is the original cover, with me as Big Earl and our daughter Joanna (who's now a 3rd grade teacher herself) as Mockingbird.


MOCKINGBIRD AND BIG EARL on Amazon

A PHOENIX IN THE BLOOD by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

This is from Gravetapping and Ben BouldenPosted: 10 May 2014 03:09 PM PDTA Phoenix in the Blood is the tenth novel published by Harry Patterson.  It was released as a hardcover by Barrie Rockcliff in 1964, and it is something very different from Mr Patterson’s usual.  It is an off kilter romance with racial tension thrown in for fun.  It is not often you read something like this in a Harry Patterson novel—
“Through the trees he could see the tower of an old church that seemed half-formed, unreal in the mist.  Everything had an air of nostalgic beauty and he was filled with a pleasant sadness.”
Jay Williams is a young, intelligent man of Jamaican descent who, after receiving his PhD in history, is doing his National Service in the Intelligence Corps.  He is learning Russian in a small language school in the textile town of Rainford, England when he meets Caroline Grey.  Caroline is a young girl—only 15 years old—who is more lonely and broken than anyone should ever be.  The two start a strange (and plutonic) relationship that causes something of a stir.  The townspeople understandably whisper about the relationship, and when Caroline’s mother finds out she forces its end.
A Phoenix in the Blood is an uncomfortable novel.  Jay is 23, and Caroline is 15.  The relationship is plutonic—they are basically two lonely outcasts who enjoy each other, but there is something of a romance between them.  The townspeople’s reaction to the relationship is portrayed to be as much about Jay’s race as his age, which, at least in today’s moral mindset is bewildering.  I think, or at least hope, the reaction of a romantic relationship between an adult and a child would be equally concerning whether it is of mixed race or not.
With that said, A Phoenix in the Blood is an enjoyable and smoothly written novel.  Caroline is a sweet girl living with her grandfather, and she is seemingly much older than her years.  Her father died at the Yalu River in Korea, and her mother is a career-minded woman living in London.  Caroline is the most interesting and likable character in the novel.  She is strong, sensible, and just a bit of a romantic.
A Phoenix in the Blood is one of Mr Patterson’s attempts at a literary novel; the other is his fine novel Memoirs of a Dance-Hall Romeo.  It is flawed, but entertaining and, in places, even thought-provoking.  There is an interesting scene late in the novel where Jay is watching Caroline walk toward him across a field.  A passing cloud’s shadow sweeping toward Caroline.  Jay, in an attempt to beat the cloud’s shadow to Caroline, begins to run.
“When he was still thirty or forty yards away, it enveloped her and he stopped running.  And then the shadow passed over him in turn and he felt suddenly chilled.”

This line essentially captures the theme of the novel.  There is a darkness, which Caroline and Jay are unable to escape.  There is a fatal romanticism, which is a tell of time and place.

Evan Lewis's very interesting take on THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT

Forgotten Books: THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT by Robert B. Parker (1974)


I’ve read The Godwulf Manuscript many more times than I can remember, certainly more times than any other book (and listened to the audio book many times too) and I never get tired of it. The reason for that repetition is that I keep reading and listening to the “complete” Spenser saga every few years. Each time I take that journey there are more books in the series, but I always start with the first, and this is it.

What struck me this time is how strongly the style of this book was influenced by The Continental Op. As it says on the dust jacket, Parker did his dissertation on the works of Chandler and Hammett. I had always seen the influence of both writers in his work, but over the past year I‘ve been studying the Op style very closely for projects of my own (the first of those, a story called “The Continental Opposite“ recently sold to AHMM) and it’s gotten into my blood. I was pleased to see it in Parker’s blood too.
Though Spenser has his Marlowe moments, his overall tone and attitude is much more Oppish, and Parker steered clear of the Chandleresque similes that other writers turned into parody.
Parker also borrowed a major plot element from the second Op novel, The Dain Curse. Like the Op, Spenser must rescue a young woman from a wacko cult bent on performing abominations on their initiates. In The Dain Curse it was The Temple of the Holy Grail. In this book it’s called The Temple of Moloch.
The most obvious hat tip to Chandler is Spenser’s first love interest, a woman named Brenda Loring. She’s clearly a literary descendant of Linda Loring, the woman Marlowe met in The Long Goodbye, and married sometime between Playback and the unfinished “Poodle Springs” story. Parker, of course, later finished Chandler's story, and it was published as the novel Poodle Springs in 1989.
for the rest go here:http://davycrockettsalmanack.blogspot...

Barnes & Noble: Gone By New Year’s

Barnes & Noble: Gone By New Year’sWritten by Daywalker on 2014-05-02 | No CommentsIf anyone gives you a Barnes & Noble gift card, be sure to cash it in by the end of the year.This may be the last year that Barnes & Noble bookstores remain open.It’s bad news for people who love books.  It’s worse news for the next generation of readers, who may never experience buying a book in a bookstore.B&N has been closing about 20 stores per year since 2012 and has said it will continue to do so for the next several years. But its financial position is bleak.This follows a decades-long period of expansion, moving into neighborhoods where privately-owned bookstores thrived, destroying those stores with cut-price best-sellers, and all but owning the book business.Borders collapsed because of poor choices — weak locations, an overemphasis on music, and, worst of all, selling off its online bookstore to Amazon for $20 million in the 1990s.  Chump change, by today’s standards.So why is B&N on the ropes if it has virtually no competition today from chains or privately owned bookstores?Five reasons.First, Amazon makes it so easy to buy books.Second, publishers thrashed B&N by selling best-sellers at deep discounts in non-traditional outlets such as supermarkets, Wal-Mart and Costco, thus removing a key source of revenue for the chain.Third, the woefully underfunded Nook is competing with Amazon’s Kindle, which is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.Fourth, the antiquated model of printing books on spec, putting them on trucks, and crossing your fingers that they’ll sell doesn’t work in the internet print-on-demand era.And fifth, book buyers want decent customer service. At B&N these days, the only way to find a sales clerk is to attempt to shoplift.The company that owns QVC nearly bought B&N a couple of years ago, presumably to sell low-cost jewelry and other tsotchkes in B&N’s nationwide chain of stores.That would have been hello collectible coins and bye-bye books.Now, one of B&N’s key investors has cut the level of its financial stake in the company.  A wise move, alas.In many B&N stores, it’s actually hard to find books.  You’ve got to wade through toys, umbrellas, Nook displays, chocolate bars, notebooks, birthday cards, and all kinds of other stuff that has stolen shelf space from books.The publishers have to be running scared.  If B&N suddenly shutters its doors, then billions of dollars of books, which the bookstores take on consignment, go into the limbo of bankruptcy court.But the fate of B&N weighs most heavily on readers. Literary agent David Vigliano says that the disappearance of bookstores, and the move to buying books on Amazon, represents the death of browsing.Serendipity — the sweet surprise of happening upon an unexpected book — is an experience that can happen only in a bookstore.Yes, Amazon’s algorithms can point you to books you may like, but there’s no substitute for wandering the aisles of a bookstore, looking into a section you might never have visited before, and finding a new author or subject you had never considered.That experience is on the verge of disappearing.  Barnes & Noble killed privately owned bookstores, and Amazon and technology are killing B&N.  It’s downright Darwinian.Can B&N hang on through the holidays? Most likely. But sad to say, once Black Friday gives way to the 12th day of Christmas, a once-proud book chain may well have reached its final chapter.And that would be chapter 11, of the Bankruptcy Code.About Michael LevinNew York Times best-selling author, “Shark Tank” contestant and “World’s Greatest Writing Teacher” Michael Levin runs www.BooksAreMyBabies.com, the portal to the ultimate 200+ video channel on writing and getting published. Levin has written more than 100 books, including eight national best-sellers; five that have been optioned for film or TV by Steven Soderbergh/Param

Coming soon: The Michael Grey Mystery by Moore & Kuttner

    The Michael Gray MysteriesC.L. Moore & Henry KuttnerEdited by Stephen Haffner
Introduction by Ed Gorman
Cover Art by Lawrence NobleISBN-13 9781893887633$40.00A massive omnibus of four novels from the late 1950s all featuring the amateur sleuthing of San Francisco psychoanalyst Michael Gray.         

Carolyn Hart Cliff's Edge

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Caligula just never seems to get good press.

Carolyn Hart, still shining bright from her well-deserved MWA Grandmaster award, once again demonstrates her astonishing range in this early novel dealing with love and treachery in First Century Rome.

I'm not necessarily a fan of historical romances so I wondered what I'd make of this one. Well, I enjoyed the hell out of it.

The set up concerns Camilla who, married at fifteen to Decimus--a man her father chose--learns over time that not only doesn't her husband love her, he wants her only for her wealth and family status.

Then she meets a man named Marcus Paulus and learns, as these things go, what a loving relationship is supposed to be. But how can she rid herself of Decimus who has plans now to use his wife's status to befriend Caligula?

Hart generally avoids the kind of scenery chewing it's easy to fall into with historicals and even better she brings wit and a surprising modernity to the form. There's a very clever scene where Decimus suspects her of not being true. In her defense she tells him that she's gone shopping and points to
some of the goods she supposedly bought on the trip. Hart makes the moment tart and beleivable.
The book has many fine moments like that one.

THE PICASSO FLOP, the poker mystery Robert J. Randisi

                  




      DEAL ME IN!
          THE PICASSO FLOP, the poker mystery I co-authored with WPT moderator Vince Van Patten, is now available on Amazon--and soon on Barnes & Noble--from Crossroad Press. It's the first book in the "Jimmy Spain" poker series, which was initially published in 2007 by the Mysterious Press.  Before the book could make it to paperback, however,  Warner Books was purchased by Hatchette, who then discontinued the Mysterious Press imprint.
           Now the book is back as an ebook and also available as a POD trade paperback.
       Critics have said:

The Barnes & Noble ReviewWith the colorful, neon-lit casinos of Vegas as a backdrop, Vince Van Patten and Robert J. Randisi's The Picasso Flop blends the world of high-stakes professional poker with murder, mystery, and masterful manipulation. Paul Goat Allen


Van Patten possesses the hard-boiled, professional writing skills of Robert J. Randisi; this first in the projected "Texas Hold 'em" series is a winner.
Library Journal




“Finally, a book that shows the drama and excitement of the poker world, plus adds an edgy yet humorous murder twist. I’m hooked!”
Farrah Fawcett


“A straight flush winner . . . the poker world told so well . . . I could not put it down.
Mike Sexton, The World Poker Tour


“Vince Van Patten draws an ace, teaming up with Robert J. Randisi on THE PICASSO FLOP. Whether you’re a poker fiend or a mystery fan, you’ve drawn the perfect hand in this exciting new thriller.
Max Allan Collins, best-selling author of ROAD TO PERDITION.

       The book will be followed by the previously unpublished sequel, THE JUDGMENT FOLD.

KIng of The Weeds Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

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Ed here: I screwed up last night when I said that MIke Hammer gets married. He's ENGAGED not married.

This starts out as a quiet look at the quiet days of one Michael Hammer but--

Kings of The Weeds reminds me of the days when Mickey Spillane was King of The World. The narrative drive, the colorful and mostly ruthless characters and the sheer mysterious darkness of the Spillane world. Here the players include Velda not only at her most vivacious but also her strongest and most determined; Federales who, to understate, consider Hammer scum; and the kind of mobsters only Spillane can create. On top of this is a tantalizing mystery that Hammer needs to solve and quickly.

There's also an enormous amount of money at stake.

Max Allan Collins doesn't merely collaborate with the late Mickey Spillane. He enriches and even improves on his master.  Collins plots a little tighter, writes more smoothly and adds the kind of wry takes his Quarry series is noted for. Amidst all the violence it's fun to watch Collins comment on a standard trope it two.

This was a two-sitting read for me. A real blast of what pulp fiction ought to be,

BAD GIRL IN BANGOR: HEDY LAMARR IN EDGAR G. ULMER’S THE STRANGE WOMAN (1946)

BAD GIRL IN BANGOR: HEDY LAMARR IN EDGAR G. ULMER’STHE STRANGE WOMAN (1946)Posted by R. Emmet Sweeney on May 6, 2014 go here for complete article: http://moviemorlocks.com/ The name Edgar G. Ulmer elicits images of the dusty roads of Detour and the empty pockets of its Poverty Row producers. He was a prolific purveyor of B-movie jolts, used to finding creative solutions to monetary limitations, but on occasion he was called up by the big studio boys, where the budgets were the least of his concerns. For The Strange Woman, out on a decent-looking DVD from the public domain label Film Chest, it was the leading studio gal Hedy Lamarr who gave him the opportunity. The Strange Woman was a salacious 1941 hit novel by Ben Ames Williams (who later wrote Leave Her to Heaven) about a poor, power hungry small-town beauty. Lamarr thought it provided an opportunity to, “do something other than merely be a clotheshorse or look pretty. I have always wanted to do character parts, and this gives me the chance I have been waiting for so long.” So she formed a production company, Mars Film Corp., with producer Jack Chertok, and secured distribution through United Artists. Lamarr met Ulmer on the set of The Wife of Monte Cristo (1946), when she was visiting her then-husband and lead actor John Loder. Ulmer and Lamarr had both trained with Max Reinhardt, and perhaps this slender bond led her to select him as the director. Their collaboration was combative and tense, though The Strange Woman ended up a modest box office success, with a reported $2.8 million in ticket sales. Unusually frank about how Lamarr’s character uses sex to get ahead, The Strange Woman is a nineteenth century variation on the pre-code jaw-dropper Baby Face (1933), in which Barbara Stanwyck climbs the corporate ladder on her back.