Joe’s
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(group member since Nov 27, 2018)
Joe’s
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from the Point Blank group.
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Five I've read recently...
March Violets by Philip Kerr (1989); From past favorable reviews I was really looking forward to reading Philip Kerr's March Violets...ya win some, ya lose some...this was the worst piece of crap I've read in years...way over-rated...unoriginal....cheeky cartoon noir...subliminal propaganda...waste of time & money....Zero Stars
Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo (1995); Excellent...very suspenseful in a street-wise way...Fabio Montale is a cool cop who gets pulled into some murder cases with a personal connection. -I lived in Istres, France, just north of Marseille in '95 & '96...I went to Marseille about 10 times on business, Total Chaos took me right back there, very realistic...only minor compliant is there were a few lengthy jags about food, no biggie...I will read the other two books of the trilogy...4.5 out of 5.0 stars.
The Name Is Archer by Ross Macdonald (1955); A collection of Archer short stories...stand-outs are the first Find The Woman (which reminded me of the film Night Moves (1975) with Gene Hackman)...and The Sinister Habit was the best story...
The Freak Show Murders by Fredric Brown (1940's); Fun collection of murder yarns by Brown...a little dated but a light-hearted easy read...
The Blue Knight by Joseph Wambaugh (1972); I always wanted to read a Wambaugh book...The Blue Knight is his first novel (I'm pretty sure)...it's a pretty good read, covers the final week of a street cop in LA before he retires...the police procedure part is excellent...the ending is a little over the top with the drama...3.0 outa 5.0 stars.
Excellent podcast & review of Hemingway's To Have And Have Not by J & K...Other than likes & dislikes I pretty much agree with the analysis given in the podcast. Overall I”d give the novel a 4 on the strength of the Adventure story(s)...that 4 being very relative, I just felt I liked THAHN a smidgen more than J & K...not that J & K disliked the book, not saying that. Anyways, I felt that THAHN was first & foremost an Adventure story with some noir elements. In fact I'd have to say all of Hemingway's writings are in the realm of Adventure, even The Sun Also Rises, which may seem to give a nod to Fitzgerald, but is actually a story of life after war & adventure risks taken. I read THAHN back in the '80's and remembered it well but I must say the brutality & racism threw me for a loop in the first section. I took Morgan's racism and language in context to the character and the era, not towards Hemingway...there is a negative NY Times review written in 1937 (link below) and the most you get in this direction is “And there is also pointless brutality, passages of purely sadistic writing. The famous Hemingway dialogue reveals itself as never before in its true nature.” I also wanted to add that it's not a far reach that psychopaths Harry Morgan and Killer Inside Me's Lou Ford could be compared similarly, yet, Jim Thompson is looked on as a “crazy Uncle Jim” type, while Hemingway's every-word has been weighed, sliced & diced...but that comes with Noble award winning territory...I thought the narrative writing was great, and that's what I like most about reading Hemingway...the staccato phrases, dialog that seems out of place but is reality, the change of pov. I wanted to say that For Whom the Bell Tolls has a campfire scene in it where the pov jumps from character to character...this same scene was kind of lifted by Ken Kesey in Some Times A Great Notion. And you get A LOT of this in THAHN! I think it's pretty cool writing! In fact, in this second reading I liked the last quarter of the book most where the writer & his wife drink & squabble in the bar, the writer goes off on a binge and ends up kicking the ass of the wife's fruitcake new boyfriend...this whole scene was a barely connected thread to them main story but was strong...I also liked the look inside the rich folks yachts while Morgan's boat & body were being brought into the pier. Hemingway gave you a long enough glimpse in each yacht to size up the little drama going on in each...it was kind of like a slow moving camera on a dolly panning each boat for x amount of time. In the first yacht, the two late 30-something men, former college/fraternity classmates where one was rich & the other had lost his fortune...did you notice the reference to them being part of the Skull & Bones 322 Secret Society? I wonder if Hemingway rubbed elbows with Prescott Bush and his minions?
Yeah, I liked THAHN...it's a tough guy crime fiction adventure story with lot's of fancy writing, warts and all. Was it three short stories or two novellas stitched together? I really don't care, it worked for me....Does Hemingway deserve all the accolades, criticism & press? I think For Whom The Bell Tolls alone he deserves it ALL...I'd have to say it's the topper-most novel of the 20th century...And so many writers hitched a ride on Hemingway's work...Ken Kesey, John D. MacDonald, Jack Kerouac, Larry NcMurtry, Pat Conroy and not too mention all the pulps...-Good Read...Great Podcast! -Oh yeah, rust-belt Milwaukee Noir sounds really good, it's on my list...my great grandfather was the mayor of a town in north-east WI back in the day, can't remember the name of the town right now...
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Jay wrote: "Matt Phillips, Accidental Outlaws. Three interlinked novellas; in each Packard, a lone biker, interjects himself into the lives of people living on the edge of a small deeply rural working class to..."yeah...this sounds really good...it's on my list.
The last six books I've read are:
Sacrificial Ground by Thomas H. Cook (1988)...Cook, from Georgia, is a very good crime fiction writer, he's won an Edgar and other writing awards...Sacrificial Ground is the first of a three book series that follows down & out Police Detective Frank Clemons, a southern boy, on a murder case in Atlanta. Well written and moves right along...(very minor spoiler) Clemons bags his Police job after solving the case and heads for NYC where book two takes place...3.5 to 4.0 outa 5.0.
The Big Nowhere by James Ellory (1988)...I'm a big Ellory fan but for one reason or another I never got around to reading the L.A. Quartet till recently...the first book The Black Dahlia is OK, BUT, The Big Nowhere is Excellent! Follows Ellroy regulars Buzz Meeks, bad-bad Irish cop Dudley Smith and others as they L.A. Noir-it in 1950 rubbing elbows with Howard Hughes & Mickey Cohen...this is without a doubt Ellory's best novel up to this point of time and stands with Bloods A Rover as his best novels...5.0 outa 5.0.
To Have And Have Not by Ernest Hemingway (1937)...liked it...alot...will put up note later...
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick (1968)...About the fourth time I've read this...my 18-year old daughter said she wants to watch Blade Runner 2049. I said wait, wait...let me reread Sheep, then we'll watch Blade Runner (directors cut), THEN we'll watch 2049. Sheep is a solid PKD sci-fi novel and contains all his elements...desolate future setting, addictions, whacked out religious references, and triangle of man, wife and another female (Rachael the android)...I'd put it about in 10th place of listing PKD's novels, BUT, highly recommend to a first time reader of PKD...4.0 outa 5.0.
Black 9/11 by Mark Gaffney (2013)...I'm always reading books on 9/11, False Flags, David Icke, military stuff...Black 9/11 is a very good read...easy to read, very conversational...pointed out a few things I did not know about the financial dealings immediately before & after (the attacks on WTC & the Pentagon were all a distraction...the real crime was theft of billions, including a stash of gold, and the roll-up to the War on Terror...which is another whole load of shit...)...a close examination on the UA 93 crash in PA (the Feds have released seismic data on all the crashes and at 10:03 am of the UA 93 Flight, BUT, will not release the data from 10:06 am when there was a second crash...maybe...-???). And a look at the patents on avionic remote control...a good easy read...4.0 outa 5.0. 
Sleep With The Devil by Day Keene (1954)...found a new fave...Day Keene is Gunard Hjertstedt a fantastic pulp writer, right up there with Jim Thompson & Donald Goings...Devil kicks butt, I couldn't put it down and read it in two nights...about a louse from NYC who shifts his locale (and identity) from the city to the Catskills...thinks he's smarter than everyone else and got it all sewed up tight! If you like Thompson & Goings & She Rides Shotgun you're gonna love this one! 4.5 outa 5.0.
The Horses podcast was excellent, Great Job! -The movie was very good...I was in the 8th grade when it came out and I saw it at the theater...it was VERY popular and had quite a buzz about it, all my friends saw it, but, it kinda faded away with time...starred Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern and others...Gig Young played the roller rink MC...I saw it again a few years ago and it holds-up...follows the book faithfully...sorry, no Robert Mitchum. -I always thought the governor to existentialism and the arrival to one's own moral code was the human traits of consciousness > guilt > empathy, etc, and this leads to the psychopath and his/her lack of these human traits, which takes us right down noir-alley! This is an issue we'll be dealing with in an AI world, robots and a lack of empathy...detective fiction has many PI's with a self made moral-code fighting psycho's, my fave Lew Archer...-I think Hoarce McCoy had issues with financial common-sense...ya think! :-) -Twilight Zone moment, Myth of Sisyphus was mentioned...not two hours ago my wife & I discussed the similarities between Myth and “Mercerism”, the addictive religion in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) By Philip K. Dick...I just started a reread of Androids after finishing To Have and Have Not this afternoon...
The follow-up podcast to In A Lonely Place is excellent...yes the ending in Place is a touch clipped but I think it's realistic....some books draw out the action/ending such as the first Travis McGee The Deep Blue Goodby where (working off of memory here...been awhile) there's a boat chase, a swim in wild water, kill the bad guy, save the girl & fortune, etc., etc...yes adventurous but not noir or realistic. -Speaking of Travis McGee, from your review of Green I think I'll avoid it. The last McGee I read was Cinnamon Skin long ago, it was just OK...Thanks for the tip on the Lou Reed short stories, I'm a big Lou Reed fan...most gravitate toward VU, I like his solo stuff better...Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, & New York are all classics...
Rob wrote: "I'm currently reading the Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy, the second of three books in Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy. I'm not sure if this series fits within the scope of this group, although ..."Ellroy's Underground USA trilogy is excellent...the third book Blood's A Rover is Great AND it is flat out Funny...there are a many, many hilarious lines...such as "Hi! We're Archie Bell & The Drells from Houston Texas and we're gonna play our hit Tighten Up!"...you'll understand when you read Blood's A Rover...
They Shoot Horses Don't They (1935) by Horace McCoy; J & K Thanks for putting this on the list! Loved it! Even though they are 83 years apart, hits ya like She Rides Shotgun...quick, down & dirty...more laters...5 outa 5!
five recent books I have read through last night...1.
The Trapdoor (1988) by Keith Peterson; Keith Peterson is the pseudonym for Andrew Klavan...Klavan has won two Edgars and writes very suspenseful noir crime-fiction...The Trapdoor is an early Peterson novel, it is the first of a series of four books following John Wells, reporter for the New York Star...the book takes place in NYC & the Catskills I believe. The Trapdoor is really good...Wells is for all purposes is a PI/Detective, but here a tough aging journalist....like a lot of first novels the ending comes together rather quickly, but other than that I highly recommend it, it's a page turner...I plan on reading the other three in the series...3.5 outa 5!2.
Everything You Need To Know But Have Never Been Told (2018) by David Icke; I read a lot of non-fiction. I started Icke's newest last September, I would read a hundred pages, put it down, soak it in, and then a month later read another hundred...it starts off with the vibration of atoms and goes from there...the last two hundred pages covers Silicon Valley...it's a tough 700pg read...David Icke is one ballsy mo-fo...4.9999 outa 5!3.
They Shoot Horses Don't They (1935) by Horace McCoy; J & K Thanks for putting this on the list! Loved it! Even though they are 83 years apart, hits ya like She Rides Shotgun...quick, down & dirty...more laters...5 outa 5!4.
Big Oil And Their Bankers In The Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror NetworkBig Oil And Their Bankers In The Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network (2010) by Dean Henderson; Henderson kicks butt...literaly, I THINK he was former MMA fighter (check me on that)...Henderson takes on the Big Oil, the Elite families, and the Middle East...non-stop page turner non-fiction...very, very interesting...a tough read though, 500+ pgs...like David Icke, Henderson is one ballsy mo-fo...4.5 outa 5!5.
The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly Summary & Study Guide|28220473]Concrete Blond (1994) by Michael Connelly; I read this back around '95...I recently read a review where Blonde was listed in the top 10 crime-fiction novels set in L.A. (I must say though the list was pretty generic)...so, Saturday I started a re-read and finished by Monday night...Great, Great Novel...if you want to read just one Bosch, this is the one...this is probably the best Bosch, and I've read nearly all of them...now, not a lot of action, but just enough...half the novel is a court-room setting, but it moves right along...also the main mystery plot is just ok....but all the sub-plots, the police-procedural, life in LA post Rodney King riots, the porn industry, make Concrete Blond a page turner...500+ pgs, 4 outa 5
well said...
Excellent Podcast...-I've been re-reading a number of my favorites the past couple of years...I used to think re-reading a book was a waste of time & effort, but now I enjoy it. Since you already know the plot you can concentrate on the characters, prose, etc. By coincidence I read In A Lonely Place just last April...I liked it so much I had no qualms to read it again as I did two weeks ago. Dorothy Hughes prose is excellent and Dix is still twisted! :-) Great noir crime fiction...5 Stars! -Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of the Humphrey Bogart & Gloria Grahame film...but it's a whole different animal...
I just finished five quicky crime-reads:1.
Last night I finished Sleeping Beauty by Ross Macdonald...Lew Archer's the coolest...my fourth time reading the novel, never tire of it...complicated...the last page is a stunner...2.
Telefon by Walter Wager...probably the best fiction about the use of MK-Ultra...more a spy novel...made into a movie with Charles Bronson...the book is very good, very suspenseful...3.
The Outfit by Richard Stark...Parker #3...the early Parker's were really good...most of this book takes place in Buffalo, NY, of all places...I reread it because I'm going to watch the '73 movie with Robert Duvall which is supposed to be the best Parker movie...4.
Downtown by Ed Mcbain...a zany caper in NYC during the Christmas holiday week...a fun read...5.
Blood Innocents by Thomas H. Cook...Cook's first book...a dark NYC police procedural written in '80...excellent until the very end where it came together rather quickly...pretty good first novel though...Thomas Cook is really good, he's won a few Edgars and has written quite a few crime novels......about to start Total Chaos...
In addition to noir crime-fiction I read a lot of non-fiction in 2018:1. The Ultimate Sin by Maury Terry; non-fiction; true-crime; Mind blowing account of how the murder of a young woman on Stanford University in '74, the Manson killings, the Son of Sam killings in NYC in '76, and an Air Force base in North Dakota were all connected...
2. Perfidia by James Ellroy, excellent...LA in Dec '41, after Pearl Harbor, is the setting for a murder case...ties together with The LA Quartet (The Black Dahlia, etc.)...
3. She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper; down & dirty quick read about a guy released from prison who is instantly on the run...won the Edgar for best 1st book release...
4. The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle; a cop on the bad list gets stuck on mid-night security at an Omaha grocery store, then all hell breaks loose...fun read...
5. The Myth of German Villainy by Benton Bradbury; non-fiction; revisionist history; just watch, this book will get banned too...excellent read...
Excellent episode on Flash of Green! I agree with all you had to say...yes, needed a HUGE Edit...in Chap 2, I thought MacDonald was trying to write like Hemingway when it went on endlessly about Jimmy thinking about Kat...there are some excellent John MacDonald stand-alones though including The Crossroads, Deadly Welcome, and especially The End of the Night. All three of these are tight noirs of around 180 pages... There is a worse MacDonald book, The Beach Girls...horrible, absolutely the worst...about a bunch of drunks hanging out at the end of a pier getting bombed nightly. -Other mentions: I had a 20 year Don DiLillo phase...read Underworld when it came out. Tough read & dark but I liked it. White Noise is excellent & more accessible, funny too...about a college Professor who teaches Hitler studies! Libra is good too...about Lee Harvey Oswald. Thanks for the Marseille Trilogy recommend, it's now on my list...I lived in Istres, France, in '95, just north of Marseille. One correction if I heard right (and not a biggie), James Arness, Marshall Dillion on Gunsmoke, played The Thing in the original movie, not James Garner of Rockford Files...I read Devil In a Blue Dress years ago and barely remember it so I'll give it a re-read...once again, Excellent Podcast!
