Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

I tell ya - I ain’t too enthusiastic about this collection, despite its status; it been gettin’ its knocks recently, from a few people I’m connected to at the website. We’ll see, in my case, if this turns into a full-on Dangerous Visions situation, total loathing and disillusionment. What’s wrong with these stories? All? Some? I’ve read ‘Sticks’ twice, may skip it. This is part of my Stuck in the 70s reading jag.

All I’ve got left in this is a longer work - originally serialized - called Money and the Woman (aka The Embezzler), and I’m ready for that. The short stuff has been entertaining, but not Cain’s top output, IMO.

I like it. It’s got some of the vibe from The Sand Men By Christopher Fowler, or perhaps even Super-Cannes by J. G. Ballard. Compton is a writer who can’t seem to give me a book I love, but the books are fascinating to deal with, and to try and understand. I guess A Usual Lunacy is the one I have the best memories of, but this one is pretty cool.

I mean, technically, if I’m doing an Earth Air Fire Water mini-reading project, I should go to The Good Earth for one quarter of it; the word Earth is actually in the title, whereas Hill Girl…hill is earth, and we’re gonna make that work. Plus I wanna keep it Crime & Mystery. Plus The Good Earth is not really calling out to me right now. Plus I am not gonna renege of Natchez Burning just because it’s a behemoth.

It’s awesome. It reminds me a bit of the movie Hustle from 1975 starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Robert Aldritch. That movie has one of my favourite scenes, acting and dialogue, between Burt Reynolds and Eddie Albert - Burt tries to intimidate Albert over not one but two suspected crimes, and Eddie Albert just shuts him down. Anyway, here also we have cop seeking justice for a dead girl “nobody”.

It's a strong collection.

Ah, Chapter 10…. I knew it was coming, even if I had forgotten which chapter did what Chapter 10 does, and had forgotten the specifics of the vignettes. I did recall somehow that the chapter was disturbing. Now I know why. Anyway, I will finish this tonight.

A fun re-read. Fuzz is my favourite Deaf Man appearance, followed by this, and then Mischief. Fuzz got filmed with Yul Brynner as the Deaf Man, so his mention in this book is an in-joke. A subplot in Fuzz - film and book - is reported to have led to a real-life case of two horrible young men setting a woman on fire, and years later cops here in Toronto read Lightning which may have inspired a killer’s methods.

I forgot this was the book that introduced Augusta Blair - but dammit, I'm remembering some of the tricks of the cat burglar subplot, and would have preferred to have been surprised over clues and culprit. And of course the Deaf Man's real plan is not something I forgot. It's okay, though; this would have been one of the first in the series I ever read, early 1980s, along with Eighty Million Eyes, and Lady Killer.

In between each novel that fits my ‘Stuck in the Seventies’ March reading project, now modified, I shall dabble with an Earth Air Fire Water alternate reading project…starting here with…wet for it…water! (Rain.)

For the rest of the month, my ‘Stuck in the Seventies’ reading project will instead be ‘Stuck in theSeventies Half the Time’. Other notes: this is a re-read for me. I wanted to re-read Calypso, or Sadie When She Died, or Long Time No See, from this series - but a check of what’s in storage and what’s gone has nixed those ideas. This one should be fun, though. Forget who the cat burglar is, or the crucifier…

A very interesting Mystery. The series started strong.

This will be a re-read. It is one of the earliest in the 87th Precinct series that I recall reading. It is the third novel that featured the recurring villain of the series. This book made quite an impression on me - I was not expecting a character like the Deaf Man - but I think Fuzz is my favourite Deaf Man novel. Anyway, it will feel strange reading this again after so long; I will feel 12 at times!

Continuing my focus on books from the 1970s, this month. South Africa is, let us say, a distinctive 70s locale. This is the first novel in a series; the actual first book that I read in the series was The Artful Egg, which was suggested in Keating's Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books. Then I went on to a few others, and now I'm reading The Steam Pig, as suggested by The Crown Crime Companion.

This is a gem. I missed Hautala completely, way back when, but I’m thrilled I got steered to this by a reading guide, all these years later; I never would have made time for it. It’s often unsettling - or legit frightening. I’m at probably 4.5 stars, with a decision to round up or down based on the last 85 or so pages. Been a combination of dreadful stuff I did see coming, and totally unexpected scares.

Got a lot done, plan to do a bit more tonight. Someone creased the spine of my copy, horribly, right around the middle of the book - and it’s nice to be past the big fissure almost splitting the poor book in two. And no pages fell out as I dealt with the approaching the fault line. Books always a bit easier to handle after passing a big crease. Okay, well anyway, the novel’s other contents are very entertaining.

It’s pretty darn good. Fits in well with all the stories I’ve read in Spectral Sounds lately, and even a few in the Irish collection I’ve got on the (eternal?) go. This is a distant echo of Nazareth Hill, my favourite Horror novel, but Ramsey Campbell and Hautala do not have similar styles; both of them do up a creepy haunted house, though.

This is going great. But, it looks like I won’t be re-reading Calypso by Ed McBain this month, as part of my 70s reading focus. I forgot I don’t have it anymore! So I’ll pick a different 87th Precinct novel from the 1970s, as my revisit to the series. Whatever - Night Stone, an 80s Horror recommended in 150 Exquisite Horror Books, is a great trip back to a different decade!

Looking forward to this; loved The Sun Dog, which is a prequel to this opener in the series, even though I'm pretty sure Sun Dog was last one published! Meanwhile, I think I will run out of fresh reads for my March 'Stuck in the Seventies' reading project, and don't want to buy more. My Night Stone 'cheat' will help fill up days; after that, I've slated one re-read from the 1970s, a creepy 87th Precinct novel.

A Horror novel that is creepy right from the start is never a bad thing. Gonna use all 592 pages, apparently...