Oliver Clarke's Blog: Little Slices of Nasty, page 12

Pulp Paperback: The Smack Man by Jack Cannon #BookReview

In a world of junkies and whores, a killer’s on the loose – and Sgt,.Joe Ryker in on a rampage.

Title: The Smack Man | Author: Jack Cannon (aka Nelson DeMille) | Series: Joe Ryker #3 | Publisher: Grafton| Pages: 190 | ISBN: 9780586204597 | Publication date: 1975| Source: Purchased

I really enjoyed the first of Nelson DeMille’s Ryker books, ‘The Sniper’ which I reviewed here recently. Unfortunately, ‘The Smack Man’ didn’t grip me nearly as much. It’s the third book in the series of five and like ‘The Sniper’ was originally published in the 1970s and then revised by DeMille to bring it up to date and republished under the Jack Cannon pseudonym in the later 1980s. Because I’m an idiot, I read the books out of order (for some reason I had it in my head that this was books two). The second is, in fact, ‘Hammer of God’ which I have and will read soon. Whether I continue beyond that is in the lap of the gods. Books 4, 5 and 6 (‘The Cannibal’, ‘Night of Pheonix’ and ‘The Death Squad’) were never published in the UK and so are much harder to come by unless you’re willing to pay way over the odds for a trashy cop novel.

That preamble was so long because I don’t have much to say about ‘The Smack Man’. It’s another deliberately gritty (translation: unpleasant) read, but this time with the focus more on sex than the violence of ‘The Sniper’. The plot this time revolves around a batch of poisoned heroin that’s killing prostitutes around New York. Ryker investigates, along with a female undercover cop who he’s also having a relationship with.

That’s kind of it. There’s little or no suspense and no real action. Just plodding police work, the occasional grisly crime scene, and lots of unerotic sex. I finished it, but I didn’t enjoy myself nearly as much as I did reading ‘The Sniper’. That book was equally silly and unpleasant, but played like a greatest hits of ‘Dirty Harry’ rip offs and worked brilliantly as a result. By contrast ‘The Smack Man’ feels like a bad episode of a not very good TV show.

2/5

Advanced Triggernometry by Stark Holborn #BookReview

That gold you stole will burn a hole in your heart…

After pulling off the heist of the century, Professor Malago Browne and Pierre de Fermat are determined to hang up their protractors for good. But once you’ve been the most dangerous mathematician in the west, peace doesn’t come easy…

When three women approach Browne with a proposition, she can’t help but listen. Terrorised by a corrupt sheriff and his posse, the town need to hire the quickest and deadliest fighters they can find: in other words, mathmos.

Together with six unlikely allies, Browne once again finds herself facing incalculable odds in a battle for the town, its people, and the fate of every mathematician in the Western States.

And seven isn’t always a lucky number…

Title: Advanced Triggernometry | Author: Stark Holborn | Series: Triggernometry #2 | Publisher: Rattleback books | Publication date: 8th April 2021 | Source: Author

Stark Holborn is a very talented and interesting writer and one that I’m eager to see more from.

When I read ‘Triggernometry’ I assumed it was a one off. Reading this sequel it now seems that this is going to be a series, like Holborn’s excellent debut ‘Nunslinger’. That was a 12-part series of western novellas about a  gun-toting Sister in the old West. Packed with wit and incident, it had the pace and cliffhanger endings of a Saturday Morning pictures series and was effortlessly entertaining.

The ‘Triggernometry’ books are shaping up to be just as much fun, but there are differences and similarities between the two series. The humour and thrills are similar, but whereas ‘Nunslinger’ felt like a clever but fairly conventional take on the horse opera, ‘Triggernometry’ is far more quirky.

The books are set in an alternative universe where mathematics is outlawed and mathematicians are, well, outlaws. They follow a gang of “mathmos”, led by Professor Malago Browne, who are on the run and trying to live a relatively quiet life. In classic western fashion, they get called upon to defend the citizens of a small town in this second outing.

What makes the books so much fun is the fact that Holborn resolutely refuses to accept how absolutely crazy the concept is. The mathmos are drawn from throughout history, and this instalment introduces Archimedes, whose dialogue is written in Ancient Greek. Everything else is written with a straight face, the result being a gripping adventure that just happens to be set in a universe that makes no sense. The juxtaposition makes for a read that is pure entertainment from beginning to end. It’s fun, funny, and thrilling. What’s more, Malago Browne is shaping up to be as likeable and convincing heroine as Sister Thomas Josephine, the Nunslinger, was.

4/5

Thriller Corner: Firefox by Craig Thomas #BookReview

THE MACHINE: The Soviet Mig-31, codenamed Firefox. A thought-controlled, terrifyingly lethal warplane capable of ruling the Western skies.

THE MAN: His name is Gant, an obsessed renegade American pilot. His Control: Kenneth Aubrey of Great Britain. His plan: infiltrate the shadowy worldwide KGB network and make his way into the Soviet Union. His job: steal Firefox.

Title: Firefox | Author: Craig Thomas | Series: Mitchell Gant #1 | Publisher: Sphere | Pages: 294 | ISBN: 9780722105672 | Publication date: 1977 | Source: Self-purchased

‘Firefox’ was released in 1977 and was a deserved success for author Craig Thomas. It spawned a movie, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, and an Atari arcade game which I loved. If you remember the ‘Star Wars’ wireframe game where you sat in an X-Wing cockpit and destroyed the Death Star, with Obi Wan in your ears, then the ‘Firefox’ one will be familiar. 10 year old me got to sit in the cockpit of a super advanced fighter plane and shoot down Russian planes represented by bitmaps layered on top of real aerial footage (played from a laserdisc).

It’s that fighter plane that gives ‘Firefox’ its draw, and title. It’s a secret new Mig being developed by the Soviets which is, we are told, a decade ahead of anything NATO has. The plot revolves around Mitchell Gant, an ace fighter pilot who flew in Vietnam, going to Russia to steal the plane from under the noses of the KGB. For all the importance of Firefox (the codename the West have given the plane), it takes Gant half the book to actually get to it.

This is a Cold War thriller, through and through, and the first half is a fairly slow, but suitably gripping, account of him sneaking into Russia and hundreds of miles cross country. There are wily policemen and KGB agents, heroic rebels and Gant himself, a suitably damaged hero plagued by crippling flashbacks.

Once he gets to the airfield where Firefox is hangered, the book clicks into a much higher gear and becomes a breakneck action thriller filled with aerial combat and adventure. It’s just as cool as 10 year old me thought it would be, even if the build up feels a bit like low rent Le Carre.

Overall, ‘Firefox’ reminded me a lot of Tom Clancy’s later ‘The Hunt for Red October’. It has a similar mix of commie-bashing, tech-fetishism and expertly handled tension. If you like that kind of thing this is a blast.

4/5

Pulp Paperback: The Hammer of God by Jack Cannon #BookReview

A man in monk’s robes, The Hammer of God is butchering women to cleanse the world of witches. And maverick New York cop Joe Ryker is committing every sin in the book to bring him to justice!

Title: The Smack Man | Author: Jack Cannon (aka Nelson DeMille) | Series: Joe Ryker #2 | Publisher: Grafton| Pages: 223 | ISBN: 9780586204573 | Publication date: 1974 | Source: Purchased

‘The Hammer of God’ is the second of the Joe Ryker novels by Nelson DeMille (under the pseudonym Jack Cannon). I reviewed the first book, ‘The Sniper’, here and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, but this follow up is a bit of a letdown in comparison.

The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a mad monk who is killing women he thinks are witches with an axe. His first victim, rather than being an actual witch, is an actress playing one in a staging of Macbeth. The murder is as salacious and graphic as you’d expect from a low rent pulp thriller, full of gore and naked flesh. Detective Ryker gets involved and brings the same cliched maverick cop stylings to the book. His investigation involves him and two other cops (one of whom is conveniently a super hot woman) infiltrating a coven of devil worshippers so that they can attend an orgiastic ceremony that they expect the mad monk to strike at.

That storyline is little more than an excuse for DeMille to graphically describe lots of depraved sex. S&M, lesbianism, humiliation, watersports, gay sex, it’s all here if you want it, along with lots of violence. It was the explicitness and DeMille’s willingness to heap abuse on Ryker that made the first book so disgustingly enjoyable. This time around there’s less of that masochism by proxy, and Ryker just comes across as an arsehole. The plot drags in between the sex and violence and I found the whole thing a bit of a bore. It really feels like DeMille churned this one out while he was half asleep to cash in on the success of the first book.

There are sparks of lunatic brilliance though, my favourite being this snippet:

The blade caught her just above the eyes and sliced off the top of her head. Having nothing to hold them in, her eyes dribbled down her ruined cheeks.

A book with prose like that in it can’t be all bad, can it?

2/5

Calypso by Ed McBain #BookReview

What a lousy way to die. Calypso King George Chadderton, murdered on a wet September street in the 87th precinct. Detectives carella & Meyer shake their heads in the grey drizzle. Cops can do withouth brains spattered on the sidewalk on a wet city night…

Title: Calypso | Author: Ed McBain | Series: 87th Precinct #33 | Publisher: Pan | Pages: 191 | ISBN: 9780330262002 | Publication date: 1979 | Source: Self-purchased

‘Calypso’ is an archetypal 87th Precinct novel. It’s very funny at times, with dialogue that flows beautifully on the page. It has a solid (if not classic) mystery at its core that the bulls of the 87th solve by dogged determination and shoe leather rather and lofty theorising. And, despite its humour, it’s a book that never shies away from the impacts of social deprivation and crime on communities.

The novel follows detectives Steve Carella and Meyer Meyer as they investigate the apparently motiveless shooting of a calypso singer on a rainy night in the city. As the plot progresses, the body count rises, and while the cops know there is a connection between the victims, they struggle to figure out exactly what it is.

As with many of the 87th precinct novels, this is a book about working men. Resolution comes not through genius, but through sheer hard work. It’s an investigation that sees them investigating prostitution and other forms of exploitation, with an emphasis on the impact on the victims and their families. Written over 40 years ago, it’s a book that feels even handed in its treatment of race. There’s a well-handled analysis of the handling of crimes with black victims by white cops. At first, the non-appearance of the 87th’s black detective Arthur Brown feels odd, but as McBain develops the theme it makes more and more sense.

One character who does show up is the obnoxious bigot Fat Ollie Weeks. He’s as entertaining as ever, providing some light relief as Carella and Meyer struggle to make headway in the case. It’s a book where the reader is often ahead of the detectives, but McBain still manages to save some surprises for the end. The denouement is chilling and horrifying, with a gothic intensity that outclasses many horror writers.

If you’ve never read and 87th Precinct novel, this feels as good a place to start as any. It’s gripping and effortlessly entertaining. A small slice of crime genius from one of the masters of the form.

4/5

Karachi Vice by Samira Shackle

Karachi. The capital of Pakistan is a sprawling mega-city of 20 million people. It is a place of political turbulence in which those who have power wield it with brutal and partisan force, a place in which it pays to have friends in the right places and to avoid making deadly enemies. It is a society where lavish wealth and absolute poverty live side by side, and where the lines between idealism and corruption can quickly blur. It takes an insider to know where is safe, who to trust, and what makes Karachi tick, and in this powerful debut, Samira Shackle explores the city of her mother’s birth in the company of a handful of Karachiites. Among them is Safdar the ambulance driver, who knows the city’s streets and shortcuts intimately and will stop at nothing to help his fellow citizens. There is Parveen, the activist whose outspoken views on injustice corruption repeatedly lead her towards danger. And there is Zille, the hardened journalist whose commitment to getting the best scoops puts him at increasing risk. As their individual experiences unfold, so Shackle tells the bigger story of Karachi over the past decade: a period in which the Taliban arrive in Pakistan, adding to the daily perils for its residents and pushing their city into the international spotlight. Writing with intimate local knowledge and a global perspective, Shackle paints a nuanced and vivid portrait of one of the most complex, most compelling cities in the world.

Title: Karachi Vice | Author: Samira Shackle | Publisher: Granta Books | Pages: 272 | ISBN: 9781783785391 | Publication date: 4th February 2021 | Source: NetGalley

‘Karachi Vice’ is an interesting piece of reportage, but less entertaining and compelling than I hoped it might be. Written by Samira Shackle, a British journalist with English and Pakistani parents, it follows the lives of five citizens of the capital of Pakistan, Karachi. The book is constructed from interviews she did did on two trips to the city and certainly gives a flavour of life in such a turbulent metropolis. What it lacks is the energy and strong storytelling that might have made it a more gripping read. It certainly doesn’t live up to the exploitative promise of its title.

There are certainly some interesting characters here, I particularly enjoyed reading about Safdar, an ambulance driver who spends most of his time collecting corpses and Zille, a television journalist whose work frequently puts him in the firing line. In fact all five are well chosen and each adds something different to the picture of Karachi that Shackle paints. Of course, the city itself comes out as a character too: violent and desperate as it is fractured again and again by terrorism, crime and political  corruption.

The problem for me was that the writing is never as good as the subject matter. It’s all a bit staid and scholarly. Shackle writes well about politics but less well about crime, and so the book lacked the drama I wanted it to have. I don’t normally nitpick on the intricacies of an author’s writing, but the fact that Shackle re-uses two dollar words didn’t help matters. “Higgledy piggledy” and “febrile” both cropped more than once.

If the subject matter appeals, this is still worth a read though. The subjects are all interesting and Karachi itself is fascinating. What’s more, there’s never been a more important time than now to understand the lives and experiences of fellow humans around the world. ‘Karachi Vice’ certainly gave me a better awareness of everyday life in Pakistan.

3/5

The Right Mistake by Walter Mosley #BookReview

Living in South Central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict, still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Now freed after serving twenty-seven years in prison, he is filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets. Along with his gambler friend Billy Psalms, Socrates calls together local people of all races from their different social stations–lawyers, gangsters, preachers, Buddhists, businessmen–to conduct meetings of a Thinkers’ Club, where all can discuss the unanswerable questions in life.The street philosopher enjoins his friends to explore–even in the knowledge that there’s nothing that they personally can do to change the ways of the world–what might be done anyway, what it would take to change themselves. Infiltrated by undercover cops, and threatened by strain from within, tensions rise as hot-blooded gangsters and respectable deacons fight over issues of personal and social responsibility. But simply by asking questions about racial authenticity, street justice, infidelity, poverty, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference.

Title: The Right Mistake | Author: Walter Mosley | Series: Socrates Fortlow #3 | Publisher: Basic Civitas Books | Pages: 269 | ISBN: 9780465005253 | Publication date: 2008 | Source: Purchased

I’m really in awe of Walter Mosley’s Socrates Fortlow books. This, the third and I suspect the last, is just as good as the first two. It’s insightful, powerful, philosophical, and utterly compelling. 

Like its predecessors, ‘Aways Outnumbered, Always Outgunned’ and ‘Walkin the Dog’, ‘The Right Mistake’ is an LA set collection of related short stories about the life of ex-con Socrates Fortlow. In this book, Fortlow is running a centre helping local people in the neighbourhood he lives in. He has become a leader, something that would have surprised me at the start of his journey, but which now feels like a natural progression. The stories focus on his relationship with a young woman and on the people who help him at the centre. They also cover extensively his interactions with the police, who hound him throughout the book. 

Fortlow is a remarkable character, completely believable despite being somewhat iconic. He’s wise and determined, his words and actions measured and filled with a stoicism and intelligence that leaps off the page and lingers. The political side of the books has always been there, but it comes to the fore in this book in an incredible speech from Fortlow about race, racial identity and prejudice. It’s masterfully written and very powerful, all the more so because it has more questions than it does answers. 

Taken together the books are an amazing achievement. They have the readability of the best popular fiction combined with the striking intelligence and political message of something like Ibram X Kendi’s ‘How to be an Anti-racist’. Beyond that, Fortlow’s gradual growth and redemption is truly inspirational. He’s a memorable, convincing character who is honest about his own shortcomings without descending into introspective self-pity. This is crime fiction that gets to the heart of the genre. It’s about the impact our actions, good and bad, have on those around us. About the importance of forgiveness. About how the structures of our society and legal systems shape lives. It’s brilliant. 

5/5

A Change of Pace

Anyone who follows my horror and sci fi reviews on Sci Fi and Scary may have noticed a crime review (of Richard Osman’s entertaining ‘The Thursday Murder Club’) which popped up there on Sunday.

This will be the first of many, with the new Crime Files slot on SF&S publishing a crime review (book, movie or game) on the second and fourth Sunday of each month. That new commitment means I won’t have quite so much time for CriminOlly, so from now on the majority of my reviews of pure crime fiction will appear in Crime Files rather than here.

I’m not going to let CriminOlly fade away though (you may or may not be please to here that). From now on, I’ll use this site primarily for posting about pulp, thriller and true crime books. I’ll also continue with reviews of series that I’ve covered here in the past. You’ll see my review of the final Socrates Fortlow book here in a few days, and they’ll definitely be some 87th Precinct reviews soon too.

Hopefully, you’ll stick with me both here and there.

Thriller Corner: High Citadel by Desmond Bagley #BookReview

In the biting cold of the Andes, their hi-jacked plane crash-landed, Tim O’Hara’s passengers are fighting for their lives. While O’Hara leads one group along a deadly, snow-covered pass, the other is working to stall the armed soldiers who plan to kill them all. Ingenious ideas are put into action as they attempt to survive until help arrives.

Title: High Citadel | Author: Desmond Bagley | Publisher: House of Stratus| Pages: 287 | ISBN: 9781842320129 | Publication date: 1965| Source: Purchased

Written in the mid-60s, ‘High Citadel’ is about as solid a traditional adventure thriller as you could hope to read. It has a simple but effective premise, a square-jawed hero, a decent supporting cast, and as much of the peril coming from nature as it does bad guys. I wrote recently in my review of Bagley’s recently published novel ‘Domino Island’ that I thought this was one of he first “grown up” books I read. Reading it I’m not sure it was, as none of it rung a bell for me. I definitely remember a paperback copy of the edition I’ve used for the cover image being in the house when I was a kid though. And indeed when I mailed my Dad to give him my thoughts on ‘Domino Island’, he mentioned ‘High Citadel’ as his favourite of Bagley’s books.

Like a lot of these kind of novels, the hero is a white man abroad. If that feels like a dated set up nowadays, then the fact that a great deal of the dialogue is about how terrible communists are probably won’t seem any more current. The book is certainly very much of its time. In this case the white man is Irish pilot Tom O’Hara, who flies a battered old Dakota for a shoestring airline operating in the Andes. He’s given the task of flying ten passengers across the mountains, but then the flight is hijacked and he has to make a crash landing. O’Hara and the surviving passengers end up in a fight for survival against a vicious group of soldiers (communist ones, naturally).

Politics aside, it’s an immediately appealing set up. The battle against both the hostile environment and the troops is genuinely gripping, with the passengers using their ingenuity to survive. Bagley throws everything at them. The books features mountain climbing, aerial dogfights, medieval weapons and more. It’s a classic adventure and thrilling from first page to last. O’Hara is an enjoyable everyman hero, but it’s the ragtag supporting characters that really make the book fun. They have the variety of a disaster movie cast and are just as enjoyable. The book is over 50 years old now, but I’d still take this kind of thriller over the carbon copy ex-special forces operatives getting revenge style books that seem to make up the genre nowadays.

4/5

Walkin’ the Dog by Walter Mosley #BookReview

Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder – especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks.

Title: Walkin’ the Dog | Author: Walter Mosley | Series: Socrates Fortlow #2 | Publisher: Thorndike Press| Pages: 370 | ISBN: 9781852427023 | Publication date: 1st March 1999 | Source: Purchased

Walkin’ the Dog’ is the follow up to Walter Mosley’s excellent ‘Always Outnumbered, Always Outnumbered’ and it’s more of the same. That might sound like a criticism, but if you’ve read my review of the first Socrates Fortlow book you’ll know it’s high praise.

Like that book, this is a series of connected short stories about the life of a black ex-con trying to make a life for himself in Los Angeles. Also like the first book, it’s gripping, powerful, moving and deeply political. Fortlow is an amazing character, and spending more time in his company is an absolute delight. He’s determined, wise and filled with righteous rage. 

I don’t know if it is the short story format that makes the difference, or Fortlow himself, but I definitely prefer these books to Mosley’s better known Easy Rawlins series. The tales in this volume have both punch and emotion, and allow Mosley to focus on character and place rather than worrying so much about plot. That’s not to say the story-telling isn’t great though, and the threads that run through the stories bind them together as a cohesive whole.

The dog of the title is one of those threads, and Fortlow’s care for it is touching, The implications of his actions also adds some real tension in one of the stories. More than anything though, these stories are about the day to day struggles of the underprivileged in modern America. Mosley’s writing is fierce and impassioned. His depiction of impoverished LA leaps off the page and Fortlow and his companions are memorable and as real as any fictional characters I’ve read. That adds up to another amazingly satisfying book. For me it cements Walter Mosley as being in the top tier of crime writers, someone who writes about the mystery of the human condition, rather than just churning out whodunnits. 

5/5