Max Tomlinson's Blog, page 9

Black Wings Has My Angel – Book Review

Black Wings Has My Angel

What a title and what a book. If you’ve never heard of Elliott Chaze you are not alone. But if you have a soft spot for noir a la James M. Cain then Black Wings Has My Angel is for you. And then some. Because this novel positively sings with elegant prose on top of being a classic hardboiled crime story. As evidenced by BWHMA Elliott Chaze could write, reaching literary highs while simultaneously providing the cheap thrills that anchor the book firmly in the crime genre. Published in 1953, this tale of two scummy characters who truly deserve each other, as they plot to rob an armored car and live the easy life while simultaneously betraying one other, takes the reader deep into a psychological suspense where the prospect of jumping down a mine shaft makes sense.

“The ultimate in horror is, for some unworldly reason, attractive. Hypnotic.”

The protagonist, an escaped convict who goes by different names, remains unbelievably sympathetic even as he murders and plots his way to an ill-gotten wealth he soon detests, while at the same time toying with pushing his sweetheart and partner in crime down that mine shaft. The reader identifies because, in his heart, Tim, or Kenneth—or whoever he is—ultimately speaks the truth about who he is and the world at large.

“Most of living is waiting to live. And you spend a great deal of time worrying about things that don’t matter and about people that don’t matter and all this is clear to you when you know the very day you’re going to die.”

Virginia, the fallen angel he teams up with, is his fated equal. The dialog between them crackles with originality, giving us characters who stretch far beyond their genre ‘types’ and become human beings we care about, even though they care about no one else—except, perhaps, for each other. Tim isn’t just a psychopathic criminal but an ad hoc philosopher who knows a fake when he sees it. Virginia is not simply the femme fatale from central casting, but a woman with a mind and will of her own—and a sense of humor to go with it.

“A gentleman is a door mat with all the scratch gone from it,” Virginia snapped. “Look ’em over sometimes. They even wear the kind of clothes that fit being a door mat: fuzzy.”



Not bad for 1953. The descent this pair makes has the reader envying their passionate ride as much as he or she fears having anything to do with anything like it. A must read.

Sendero – *nine-nine*

Sendero, a novel of suspense set amidst the backdrop of Peru’s dirty war, is now 99 US cents in the US, available for download at various retailers (Amazon, iBooks, B&N etc – links below.) – Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Sendero – *FREE*

Sendero, a novel of suspense set amidst the backdrop of Peru’s dirty war, is now *FREE* for download at various retailers (Amazon, iBooks, B&N etc – links below.) – Enjoy!

Ride the Pink Horse – Book Review

Strong writing and sense of place are not enough to save this noir story about a disgruntled crook who plans to blackmail his boss, a corrupt senator. Too much happens off camera and the story wanders into literary passages – not necessarily a bad thing – but in this case it draws attention to itself and feels like riffing. But the big issue with Ride the Pink Horse is the protagonist, an unappealing character by the name of Sailor. He simply doesn’t warrant the reader’s sympathy for the length of an entire novel, especially with his racist view of Latinos, a trait which is meant to be hardboiled and benign but doesn’t wear well in today’s world.

If you haven’t read ‘In a Lonely Place’ or ‘The Expendable Man’, read those instead, and find out what really makes Dorothy B. Hughes worth reading. She is one of the greats.

New Series – Colleen Hayes mysteries

I am *thrilled* to announce that I just signed a three-book deal with Oceanview Publishing for a new mystery series set in 1970s San Francisco featuring ex-con Colleen Hayes, who served nine years for killing her husband and is on the hunt for her wayward teenage daughter. Meanwhile, she makes ends meet by working as an unlicensed PI.

The first book, working title ‘Murder in the Haight’, is due out October, 2019.

Who Sings to the Dead? #Free Kindle Download!

Free Kindle download until 5/10 . . .

On the hunt for an abducted Indian beggar girl, Peruvian National Police officer Nina Flores is determined to track down the suspected kidnapper, a man who resembles what the locals call pishtacos: tall, pale ghosts who steal children. In spite of being jumped by a mysterious attacker, and the murder of a woman who gets too close to the truth, Nina is blocked at every turn by her superiors. Then she discovers links to a second case reaching back twenty years to the country’s dirty war. Defying the powers that be, Nina forms a shaky alliance with a member of a brutal drug cartel and heads deep into the Amazon jungle. She will bring the lost one home, or die trying.

 

CAIN FILE on sale! 99 cents until April 30th

The title says it all. Kindle Press, in their infinite wisdom–or reckless abandon–has dropped the price of THE CAIN file to 99 cents until the end of April, 2018.

Download while Amazon’s servers are still able to take the strain.

Enjoy!

CAIN FILE on sale! 99 cents through the month of December

The title says it all. Kindle Press, in their infinite wisdom–or reckless abandon–has dropped the price of THE CAIN file to 99 cents for the rest of the year.

Enjoy!

The Sun Ladies – women fighters against ISIS

The Yazidis are a Northern Kurdish minority of seven hundred thousand people who practice an ancient religion that precedes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and contains elements of all three.

The Sun Ladies – Yazidi women battling ISIS. Many are former prisoners. (Photo credit – India Times)

Throughout history, Yazidis have been ruthlessly persecuted, most recently by ISIS, who consider them devil worshippers. Thousands of Yazidis were killed in Northern Iraq in 2014 in an ongoing genocide to “purify” the region by ISIS. Thankfully the recent fall of Mosul and Raqqa, both former ISIS strongholds, have forced ISIS to retreat but over six thousand Yazidi women and children have been taken as prisoners. Yazidi women have been ransomed back to their families, forced into marriage with ISIS fighters, and openly sold and traded amongst ISIS as sex slaves. Some of these “women” are as young as nine years old. Many have been executed.

Enter the Sun Brigade, a battalion of Yazidi women created in 2015 by Yazidi folk singer Xate Shingali. Dedicated to overthrowing ISIS, many of the Sun Ladies were former ISIS prisoners themselves. Many are teenagers.

 

Yazidi Folk Singer Xate Shingali (left) formed the Sun Brigade in 2015 – (photo courtesy of http://kevin-mcelvaney.com)

 

The plight of the Yazidi people, and Yazidi women in particular, was the inspiration for my novel THE DARKNET FILE.

Three ebooks reduced to 99 cents for a limited time . . .

NEWSFLASH!

Three of my books have been reduced to 99 cents (US) for a limited time. This is your chance to save while binging on crime. Also applies to mystery and thriller bingers. Prudent crime-thriller-mystery-bingers take note.

(Binging: a period of excessive or uncontrolled indulgence)