MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Hard Case Crime We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 THE CONSUMMATA by Mickey Spillaine and Max Allan Collins /2011/the-consummata-by-mickey-spillaine-and-max-allan-collins/ /2011/the-consummata-by-mickey-spillaine-and-max-allan-collins/#comments Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:49:59 +0000 /?p=21536 Book Quote:

“I can always tell if a broad is lying to me. I spent a lot of years honing this bullshit detector.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (OCT 9, 2011)

In the 1960s, Mickey Spillane began to write The Consummata–a follow-up to The Delta Factor, the novel which introduced super-crook Morgan the Raider. After a series of disappointments with the Delta Factor film, Spillane stopped work on the unfinished The Consummata manuscript. Twenty years ago, he gave the manuscript to long-term friend, collaborator, and creative heir, Max Allan Collins. Since the death of Spillane in 2006, Collins has devoted himself to finishing the many Spillane projects left behind. So far fans have seen a number of publications, including Dead Street, The Goliath Bone, The Big Bang, and Kiss Her Goodbye. Now comes The Consummata–the long awaited sequel to The Delta Factor. The appearance of the sequel is reason enough to celebrate, but the novel’s publication also heralds the autumn return of Hard Case Crime following a short hiatus.

The Consummata finds Morgan the Raider on the run in Miami’s Little Havana and being chased by “federal suits” teamed with “local fuzz” who think he has 40 million dollars in stolen funds. With no place to hide, the chase seems to be coming to its inevitable conclusion, but suddenly Morgan finds himself snatched and hidden from the feds by some of Little Havana’s Cuban community. As Morgan hangs out with the Cubans waiting for the heat to cool down, he learns that the exiles managed to scrape together a fund of $75,000 to assist their relatives back in Cuba. Double agent Jaimie Halaquez wormed his way into the Little Havana exile community, and once he gained their trust, he lifted the dough. Morgan, grateful for the Cubans’ help, agrees to track down Halaquez and get the money back.

Easier said than done….

Halaquez, as it turns out, is “an S&M freak,” and this leads Morgan on the hunt for La Consummata, a legendary dominatrix who is rumored to be “setting up shop in Miami:”

“Sometimes she works alone, by appointment through intermediaries. Other times she has set up a location with other young women trained in the arts of sado-masochism. And, again, clients are by referral only. She has turned up in every major city in America and not a few in Europe. Her clients, they say, are among the most rich and powerful men in business and government. If she exists.”

“You don’t even know if she exists?”

“She is a rumor. A wisp of smoke. A legend. A dream. Lovely, a vision in black leather, they say….”

Of course, it’s inevitable that La Consummata and Morgan meet and tangle.

The Consummata is unabashedly pulp, so this is fast-paced action with not a lot of down-time. The story is set in the 60s, so expect the women to be sexy babes and the men (Morgan specifically) to be macho. This is a sequel novel, and for those who didn’t read The Delta Factor, The Consummata plays catch-up for approximately one chapter. Naturally, since the action hits the notorious bordellos of Miami and includes some of its working women, the book includes sex which is told from a male fantasy perspective. Overall, however, the emphasis is on action, reaction, and the recovery of stolen money.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 2 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Mickey Spillaine and Max Allan Collins
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

And by both authors together:

Bibliography:

Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins:

]]> /2011/the-consummata-by-mickey-spillaine-and-max-allan-collins/feed/ 0 CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust /2011/choke-hold-by-christa-faust/ /2011/choke-hold-by-christa-faust/#comments Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:34:38 +0000 /?p=21538 Book Quote:

“Do the things you’ve done in your past add up to the person you are now? Or are you reinvented by the choices you make for the future? I used to think I knew the answer to those questions. Now I’m not so sure.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage  (OCT 9, 2011)

Hard Case Crime is back after a short hiatus, and for avid fans, the line-up is impressive: Quarry’s Ex by Max Allan Collins (delayed release from a year ago), Getting Off by Lawrence Block, The Consummata by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and Choke Hold by Christa Faust.

Choke Hold is novelist and former peep show girl Faust’s second title for Hard Case Crime, and it’s a sequel to Money Shot. Faust is Hard Case Crime’s first female novelist, and if you think that means a tender, sensitive look at crime, then think again. Faust’s protagonist is tough former porn star, Angel Dare, a woman who feels more comfortable giving a blowjob than extending a sympathy hug. In Money Shot, Angel, owner of an adult modeling agency came out of retirement for one last gig. Big mistake. The job is a set-up by some particularly nasty gangsters who are hunting for a briefcase full of cash. Angel, who’s raped, beaten and stuffed in the trunk of a car, finds herself on the wrong side of a prostitution ring.

Choke Hold (and the title’s meaning becomes clear as the story plays out) finds Angel living under an assumed name as a waitress in Arizona. She was part of the Witness Protection program for 19 months and attending mandatory therapy with a shrink named Lindsay:

“She was always making these unequivocal statements about ‘women in my situation’ that had nothing to do with how I actually felt. She also insisted that I was in denial about my ‘abuse’ in the adult film industry. I could never talk to her about the things that were really on my mind. About the fact I didn’t feel like a poor violated victim at all. I felt like some kind of war veteran. Like I’d been forced to turn off something important inside me to become the killer I needed to be and I didn’t have any idea how to turn it back on again. To become an ordinary citizen again, if such a thing were possible. So instead I spent most of our time during the sessions with her by telling the raunchiest, kinkiest stories about my ‘abuse.’ I think she secretly got off on it. Poor Lindsay just needed a decent orgasm.”

Angel’s boring life under the Witness Protection program comes to an abrupt end when she realizes that her cover’s been blown. With her emergency ever-packed, go-bag, “two shitty fake IDs” and a few grand in cash, Angel ran. She’s in Arizona, waitressing, and providing after-hours entertainment for her boss trying to work off the expenses of a forged passport when her past catches up to her in an explosively violent way. Thick Vic, crankster and washed-up porn star, unexpectedly walks into Angel’s diner and death’s along for the ride. From this moment until the novel’s conclusion, it’s non-stop action with Angel on the run from pissed off Mexican gangsters involved in illegal boxing matches and cocaine smuggling. And she’s also on the run from her old nemesis, brutal Croatian gangster, Vukasin.

Choke Hold moves the action from Arizona to the illegal boxing matches held in Mexico, to a Las Vegas porn convention with live-streaming action. Throughout the chase, Angel picks up two protectors, Thick Vic’s cocky son, Cody and Hank “The Hammer”–a legendary boxer who’s sunk to teaching in a tacky local gym, fighting illegal matches, and practicing a little loan enforcement on the side. It’s through Angel’s relationship with Hank that this pulp novel shows its depth beyond the action. Angel never sees herself as a victim, but here’s she’s used and abused more than once in an industry in which no one rides for free. Hank’s industry takes a similar approach. He’s boxed his way into physical damage and suffers permanent migraines and short term memory loss. There’s a sad connection between Angel and Hank–a connection of two people who use their bodies to get by.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 23 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Christa Faust
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

And:

Bibliography:

Angel Dare books:

With Poppy Z. Brite:

]]> /2011/choke-hold-by-christa-faust/feed/ 0 QUARRY’S EX by Max Allan Collins /2010/quarrys-ex-by-max-allan-collins/ /2010/quarrys-ex-by-max-allan-collins/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:28:19 +0000 /?p=12441 Book Quote:

“I don’t want to kill you.”

“That’s almost like…almost like hearing you say you still love me, Jack.”

Book Review:

Review by Daniel Luft  (SEP 28, 2010)

Another autumn descends and another Quarry novel is on the shelf. These are good times to be a reader. With four Quarry Novels in five years, Max Allan Collins can almost be forgiven for the 20-year gap in the series from the mid 80s to the mid 00s.

This time Quarry, a former hitman for the mob who has turned freelance, is on the set of a low budget biker movie in the late 70s. He’s trying to protect the director, Art Stockwell, from an inevitable assassination attempt. He is also trying to find out who put the contract out on Stockwell’s life. Among the suspects are a Chicago mob boss and Stockwell’s nearly-estranged wife who also happens to be Quarry’s fully-estranged ex-wife. This situation proves to be the first socially awkward moment in the hitman’s career.

Like all the books in this series, Quarry’s Ex is deceptively quiet. There are no 10-car pile-ups on the interstate, no helicopter police chases and no bridges that come crashing down at rush hour. What there is is paranoia, misanthropy and violence in close quarters. Quarry is truly detached from humanity and only looks out for his own interests. This can make for dark humor and understatement as Quarry tells his own story. He is inordinately composed when he discusses brutal subjects such as his methods of interrogation:

“Cutting off someone’s fingers or shooting them in the kneecap, trying to make them talk, it’s messy and it’s inefficient. And you have to keep them alive, in case the first thing they tell you isn’t true, requiring you to go back and cut off another finger or shoot another kneecap or something.

Torture is a whole different arena. Requires training that I never got. You never know when somebody is going to pass out or even die on you. And then where are you?”

With shop talk like this it is clear that Quarry is capable of killing anyone, a mob boss, his ex wife or even the man he’s working for if he has to. With an amoral main character any plot twist is possible.

Each of the recent Quarry books is billed as possibly the last before Collins puts the series to rest so each story feels like a little gift. And “little” is an important word. Quarry’s Ex is less than 200 pages and moves at the perfect pace for a single sitting. Quarry started off in a fast-moving pulp novel in the early 1970s and the author has retained that sensibility throughout the series.

The paperback era of hardboiled writing started after world war two and stretched into the late 70’s. In that time, mysteries, thrillers and noir usually came in very small, tightly wound packages that could explode in your hands and were finished at around 200 hundred pages. It was enough space to pull a reader in all the way and a small enough space to lack digression.

Then, in the early 80s, thrillers started to get thicker and subplots began to leak in. Private detectives picked up hobbies, bad guys developed endearing quirks and minor characters began to live their own story lines. This practice amounted to multiple distractions over much longer novels. The short, sweaty action novel morphed into something softer, often flabby and less structured.

But Collins is old enough to be part of the last wave of action writers who know how to tell a story fast and unsentimentally. For him, this kind of writing in neither nostalgic nor retro, it’s what he trained himself to do. He has been successful at writing longer, more circuitous books but for nine novels (over 35 years) he has managed to keep the Quarry series pure and untainted by the fashions of publishing trends.

Editor’s note:  Although Daniel Luft’s review starts off by saying this book is “on the shelf,” technically it will not be until fall of 2011.  The parent company of Hard Case Crime has decided not to print any more paperbacks and thus Hard Case Crime  has had to move to another publisher. This review will be reposted when the book is really on the shelf.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 11 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (September 20, 2011)
REVIEWER: Daniel Luft
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Max Allan Collins
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Nathan Heller series:

Road to Perdition:

Quarry novels:

Mallory Mystery:

Historical Mysteries:

Eliot Ness Novels:

Ms. Tree Series:

Other:

writing as Patrick Culhane:

with Mickey Spillane:

with Matthew Clemens:

Movies from books:

]]> /2010/quarrys-ex-by-max-allan-collins/feed/ 1 MEMORY by Donald E. Westlake /2010/memory-by-donald-e-westlake/ /2010/memory-by-donald-e-westlake/#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:55:11 +0000 /?p=8491 Book Quote:

“It was almost as though nothing existed until he looked at it, the world had no existence before he saw it. And would it fade again out of existence behind him.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (MAR 29, 2010)

As a long-time fan of Donald Westlake, I was very sad to read of his sudden death from a heart attack on December 31st, 2008. So naturally I was surprised to hear that there was a previously unpublished Westlake due to be released by Hard Case Crime in March 2010. When I learned that this was a book that Westlake wrote in the 60s, well I was intrigued.

Memory has to be one of the bleakest, darkest novels written by Westlake in the course of his long, outstanding career. Interestingly, the violence of Westlake’s Richard Stark/Parker series and the humor of the Dortmunder novels are absent. Instead Westlake’s tale reminds me of the novels of Philip Dick. Memory is a bitter noir tale of one man’s disorienting attempts to connect with the person he used to be, and it leaves behind lingering questions regarding notions of identity.

The tale begins in a hotel room with an unidentified couple:

“After the show, they went back to the hotel room, and to bed, for the seventeenth time in three weeks. He had chosen her because, being on the road with him, she was handy; and additionally because she was married, had already clipped the wings of one male, and could therefore demand nothing more from him than he was willing to give. Why she had chosen him he neither knew nor cared.”

As the couple clench in sweaty, focused sex, the woman’s husband bursts through the door and an ugly scene takes place. The scene is never completed–we don’t know exactly what took place that night. It’s as though the story creates a scene, a window that grants us just a glimpse of what happened; the rest is up to our imagination. The unidentified male involved in the adulterous affair wakes up in hospital. He remembers only a sliver of that evening, and so he has just about as much information as the reader. His body gradually heals in hospital, but he appears to be suffering from amnesia. He’s told that he’s an actor from New York named Paul Cole. He also learns that the acting troupe has moved on without him, and that the local cops are running out him of town.

With just a few dollars in his pocket, Cole doesn’t have the fare to make it to New York, so he takes the bus to a town called Jeffords. With enough change to rent a run-down hotel room for the night, Cole knows he’s in a bad spot. He can’t remember any of the names of his friends, so there’s no one to ask for help. Trapped in an impossible situation, Cole manages to get a menial job at the local tannery. He rents a room at a boarding house, makes a few friends and even dates a local girl. Life is a struggle. He has difficulty remembering things (such as appointments or directions), and he uses notes as prompts to help him survive, but as time passes even the notes and the slivers of memories become meaningless. At one point, he becomes attracted to soap operas hoping to see a familiar face of an actor he perhaps once knew:

”The soap operas were his only contact with his former reality; he watched them as a prisoner in a dungeon watches the clouds crossing the rectangle of sky behind his one high window.”

But getting a new life isn’t enough, and just who he is still nags away at the edges of Cole’s mind. He calculates how much money he will need to return to New York, and while he reasons that his memory doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, it also isn’t getting any better. At the same time, it’s obvious that Cole is suffering from something much worse than amnesia. He thinks that if can just get back to his life in New York, things will begin slipping back into place….

It’s a stroke of brilliance that Westlake created this character as an actor. The book starts with Paul Cole’s mind as a blank slate, and so the reader is at square one–right along with the protagonist. We really have no idea what sort of person Cole was before the accident. But one thing we do know about Paul Cole is that he is or was an actor, and the one thing an actor must have is a good memory. Without the ability to memorize, an actor is forced to become … well, something else.

Ultimately this is a chilling noir tale that explores notions of memory and identity. Are we a sum total of what we remember? Yet we all forget things to one degree or another, and a lifetime of memories crystallize to a few salient moments. Are we also what we forget? Cole loses his memory, but when he finds his life again, it’s as though he missed the train, passed his station or perhaps he just died…. Through Cole, a man who becomes increasingly marginalized and diminished, we see that without our memories, we are really nothing. Memory here is portrayed rather like a suit of clothes, and we wear those memories that provide a perfect fit. Without memory, we don’t really know who we are or what we enjoy. Cole thinks that his problems will be solved when he retrieves his memory, but instead he ends up attaching himself to a bunch of belongings and people, and nothing seems to be him–the person he has become.

I find myself a tad sentimental at this moment–it’s almost as though by leaving this book behind, Westlake remembered all his fans in his will. And on a final note, if you go to the official Westlake website, you will see the following comment: “I believe my subject is bewilderment. But I could be wrong.” Thank you, Donald Westlake and thank you Hard Case Crime.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 2 readers
PUBLISHER: Leisure Books; Original edition (March 30, 2010)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AMAZON PAGE: Memory
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Donald Westlake
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

The Cutie

Somebody Owes Me Money

Money for Nothing

Put a Lid On It

Books in the Dortmunder series:

Get Real

Watch Your Back

The Road to Ruin

And Westlake writing as Richard Stark:

Dirty Money

Breakout

Bibliography:

Hard Case Crime reprints:

The John Dortmunder Series

]]> /2010/memory-by-donald-e-westlake/feed/ 0 HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent /2009/honey-in-his-mouth-by-lester-dent/ /2009/honey-in-his-mouth-by-lester-dent/#comments Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:02:52 +0000 /?p=6118 Book Quote:

“Mr. Harsh, the only way I will deal with you is to buy you. I do not care to work with you on any other basis. I buy you or nothing. You are a cheap man, so buying you will not be expensive. Get it straight—I buy you, or I have nothing to do with you.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (NOV 7, 2009)

In Honey In His Mouth from pulp author Lester Dent, Walter Harsh is a nomadic, small-time grifter who makes a tenuous living selling photographs. Partnering with whichever woman he happens to be involved with, and working under the guise of National Studios of Hollywood, Harsh moves from town-to-town hustling customers to buy more photographs than they’d planned to when they “won” the free 8×10 portraits. It’s a low rent, sleazy operation, but it’s a living. Unfortunately, Harsh ripped off a supplier to the tune of $720 for photographic supplies. So when the supplier spots Harsh in a gas station, he’s out–not just for his money–but revenge too on the “thieving bastard” who took him for an idiot.

The car chase ends with Harsh in hospital with a broken arm. At first Harsh thinks he’s lucky to be alive, but when Harsh’s story doesn’t quite add up, a nosy sheriff begins sniffing for the truth, and Harsh, stuck in hospital recuperating–is worried that he’ll end up in the slammer.

As the net tightens around Harsh, suddenly his luck seems to change. Fellow grifter and accomplice, the avaricious, “well-stacked little trollop” Vera Sue shows up at the hospital along with a man known only as “Brother.” Brother presents Harsh with an offer of an unspecified job for $50,000. Harsh may be desperate, but he’s no fool. Every attempt to question Brother leads to a dead end, but since the sheriff is still pushing for answers, Harsh finds himself blackmailed into going along with Brother’s plans…whatever they may be….

Harsh soon finds himself a “guest” in a sprawling, beachside Florida villa, staring at the safe that contains his $50,000, but this $50,000 is just a chunk of what’s really at stake. The problem is that with a pot worth millions, everyone has their own ideas of who “deserves” the loot and who should get the biggest cut. None of the players trust each other, everyone has a separate and secret game afoot, and many old scores have yet to be settled.

Thrown into this classic noir plot is a womanizing South American dictator who models himself on Mussolini (one of his heroes), a handful of the dictator’s “trusted” advisors who’ve been busy transferring the dictator’s misappropriated funds to American banks, and Miss Muirz, the dictator’s beautiful but pissed-off discarded mistress. This avaricious, vicious blend of characters all appear in Honey In His Mouth–the story of a small time grifter who may very well have hit the big time.

Honey In His Mouth was originally written in 1956–just three years before the book’s author, Lester Dent died. Dent is one of the great pulp fiction writers of the 20th century who is best remembered for his most famous fictional creation, Doc Savage. But while Doc Savage is a larger-than-life fictional hero, Walter Harsh is a morally corrupt, nasty piece of work who rightly belongs between the pages of a noir novel.

This is the first ever publication of Dent’s novel, and once again it’s thanks to the dedication of Hard Case Crime that these lost gems see the light of day. For noir, crime and pulp fans, Hard Case Crime is a great, inexpensive way to discover new and almost-forgotten authors.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 3 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (September 29, 2009)
REVIEWER: Guy Savage
AMAZON PAGE: Honey in His Mouth
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Lester Dent
Lester Dent, Doc Savage Novelist
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Hard Case Crime:

Fake I.D. by Jason Starr

Killing Castro by Lawrence Block

Quarry in the Middle by Max Allan Collins

Bibliography (currently in print only):

]]> /2009/honey-in-his-mouth-by-lester-dent/feed/ 0 QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins /2009/quarry-in-the-middle-by-max-allan-collins/ /2009/quarry-in-the-middle-by-max-allan-collins/#comments Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:45:32 +0000 /?p=5952 Book Quote:

“I had a body in the trunk of the car.

I hadn’t planned it that way, but then it wasn’t that kind of job. It wasn’t a job at all, really, rather a speculative venture, and now I’d made more of an investment than just my time and a little money.“

Special: Author Interview

Book Review:

Review by Daniel Luft (OCT 27, 2009)

Writers are always telling each other to steal, but cover your tracks. So it’s funny that Max Allan Collins, in his new novel Quarry in the Middle, has decided to blatantly admit his inspiration by way of three epigrams at the beginning of the book. The epigrams are quotes from Dashiell Hammett, Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone, one novelist and two film directors who each told stories about lawless men who played one gang of criminals against another in the hope of getting paid by each. Perhaps Collins thought his rip off was too blatant and it was better to display rather than hide his appropriations. This was unnecessary because Quarry in the Middle stands very well on it’s own and merely nods to the works of these other artists.

All of Collins’s Quarry novels, this is the eighth, concern a midwestern hitman who has cut his mob ties and has decided to go freelance. Most of these books were written in the 1970s and are only available in used editions. Then, a few years ago, Collins decided to bring Quarry back with a final book in the series The Last Quarry. But that hasn’t stopped Collins from writing books that take place earlier in the criminal’s career.

Quarry in the Middle is his third recent novel in the series. It takes place in the mid 1980s with Quarry dressed like Don Johnson, spying on another known hitman and simply following him to his next “job.” This takes him down the Mississippi to a town called Haydee’s Port, Illinois. And the “job” the other man has is to kill the owner of an enormous illegal riverfront casino. Of course the suspected employer of the hitman is the owner of another illegal casino on the other side of the river.

Quarry intervenes in the assassination and gets himself hired by the man who was supposed to be dead. He then infiltrates the other casino and tries to get hired by the other owner as well. Both of these owners are backed by warring wings of the Chicago mob and Quarry nearly manages to get himself killed in each casino. And of course he makes friends with a couple ladies along the way. The book is pure sex and violence in the classic tough-guy mode.

Throughout the book, the first-person narration runs sardonic as Quarry trips his way through the less elite members of Ronald Reagan’s America:

“The joint was encased in the cheapest paneling known to God or man or even you uncle Phil, beautified by black-marker graffiti that made dating and other suggestions. Right now the tables were about half full, and the bar about the same. The clientele appeared to be blue-collar or below, displaying lots of frayed faded jeans, a look courtesy of factory work, not factory fabrication. One corner had been taken over by bikers in well-worn leathers — the bikers were pretty well-worn themselves, in their thirties or forties. Marlon Brando in The Wild One had been a long fucking time ago.”

Quarry’s narration, like the author’s prose, is simple and direct. Collins doesn’t waste any pages, paragraphs or even sentences on digression. Like all of the Quarry novels, this one is only about 200 pages and like the best ones, it has a fast pace with one scene intruding into another. There is no end to the action and violence and no chance for the reader to put the book down for the night. And, as usual with Collins, the plot is air-tight with no coincidences, holes or loose ends.

Once, in an interview years ago, Collins said that he would love to revisit all his old recurring characters that he invented years ago. The problem, he said, was that he didn’t want to conform to modern publishing schedules to do it. Quarry in the Middle is the third Quarry novel to lurk into bookstores in four years — hardly a tight schedule. There is also another book in the works but with no solid publication date as yet planned. Hard Case Crime, the small publisher with big distribution, seems to have helped Collins solve his dilemma.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 11 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (October 27, 2009)
REVIEWER: Daniel Luft
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Max Allan Collins
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Nathan Heller series:

Road to Perdition:

Quarry novels:

Mallory Mystery:

Historical Mysteries:

Eliot Ness Novels:

Ms. Tree Series:

Other:

writing as Patrick Culhane:

with Mickey Spillane:

with Matthew Clemens:

Movies from books:

]]> /2009/quarry-in-the-middle-by-max-allan-collins/feed/ 1 THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake /2009/the-cutie-by-donald-e-westlake/ /2009/the-cutie-by-donald-e-westlake/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:50:40 +0000 /?p=2153 Book Quote:

“There are four kinds of cops, none of which I like. The first kind is the fanatic, the second kind is the honest-but-reasonable, the third kind is the bought, and the fourth kind is the rented. The fanatic is out to get you no matter what. The honest-but-reasonable is out to get you, but he’ll listen if you’ve got something to say. The bought can be useful, but I hate to have to rely on him, because I never know but what he’ll turn out to be only rented. The rented cop is a bought cop who doesn’t stay bought, and he’s probably the most dangerous kind of all.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie (JUN 3, 2009)

Billy-Billy Cantrell is involved in narcotics, as a junkie and as a retailer on New York City’s Lower East Side. Heroin is his thing…Bigtime!. He’s a “meek, nervous, quiet little guy whose only offense is dope.” One evening he shoots up and falls asleep in a doorway. When he wakes up, in a drug induced stupor, he finds himself in the apartment of Mavis St. Paul, who until very recently was a would-be actress and singer. Now, Ms. St. Paul is a fresh corpse. Cantrell is no killer. He doesn’t ever carry a weapon and has no memory of leaving his doorway, let alone making his way to the Upper East Side apartment. As he flees the scene in terror, he sees a police car pull up in front of the St. Paul residence. Someone had called in the crime and set him up. Unfortunately, he left behind his fingerprints and his hat.

Cantrell knocks on George “Clay” Clayton’s door in the early morning hours and tells him he’s been “patsied.” Clay, our narrator, is the “right-hand man and trouble shooter for crime czar Ed Ganolese.” His appearance doesn’t fit his job description, however. He looks more like a respectable insurance salesman than a hit man. But then, the organization he works for is run like a top-notch business enterprise and Clay would fit right in as a junior executive.

Usually, in a situation like this, Ganolese would tell Clay to make Billy-Billy disappear. The addict knows too much about the narcotics business and all the police would have to do to get him talking is put him in a cell and deprive him of a fix. When Clay contacts Ganolese, the boss tells him that Billy-Billy has some powerful friends in the European organization – people he met while soldiering during WII. (The Cutie was published for the first time in 1960 as The Mercenaries). These friends want Cantrell to remain alive and well…or as well as possible, given his line of work and favorite pastime. But the police want to close the case. The victim also has some powerful friends who are pressuring the commissioner to arrest Cantrell and throw away the key. The solution: to find the “cutie” who murdered Ms. St. Paul and set-up Billy-Billy, who must leave town ASAP. Clay is supposed to drive him to a safe house in New England. When the police knock on Clay’s door, Cantrell escapes through the bathroom window. Will Clay be able to find him before the cops do?

As Clay investigates he finds out more and more about Mavis St. Paul, aka Mary Komak, her shady past and long list of lovers. Apparently, she had a most mercenary attitude toward men. When the cutie murders again and then tries to kill Clay, the situation becomes desperate, with the wise guy always just a step ahead of him.

Complicating Clay’s life further is his dancer girlfriend Ella, who loves him but is reasonably ambivalent about his career. Although he is wedded to his work, he thinks about the morality of his lifestyle throughout this very noir crime novel.

The author’s writing is tight and the narrative’s pace is fast. The humor is wry. The ending is a wowser.

This is Donald E. Westlake’s debut novel and, although not my favorite, I really liked the book and found myself riveted on many occasions. To the author’s credit, The Cutie stands up well after 49 years. Mr. Westlake, who recently died, was a three-time Edgar Award winner, one of only two writers to win Edgars in three different categories: 1968, Best Novel, God Save the Mark; 1990, Best Short Story, “Too Many Crooks”; and 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay,”The Grifters.” The Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master in 1993, the highest honor bestowed by the society. Once again, kudos to Hard Case Crime for paying tribute to the author and publishing this book.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 8 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (February 11, 2009)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AMAZON PAGE: THE CUTIE
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Donald Westlake
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and or Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Dortmunder Series and other Westlake reviews and some books written as Richard Stark

Read a review of Get Real

Read a review of Memory

Bibliography:

Hard Case Crime reprints:

The John Dortmunder Series

]]> /2009/the-cutie-by-donald-e-westlake/feed/ 0 FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr /2009/fake-id-by-jason-starr/ /2009/fake-id-by-jason-starr/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:43:45 +0000 /?p=2142 Book Quote:

“I was out of control – what can I say? But I have some good news – I won at the track with your money and I can pay you back for everything.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Daniel Luft (JUN 01, 2009)

Don’t let the retro-noir painting on the cover of Fake I.D. fool you, this is not one of those old books from the fifties that Hard Case Crime has rediscovered. It’s a smart, mean-spirited little tale of addiction and rage from Jason Starr who is one of the most under-read authors of the last fifteen years. But then this book isn’t really new either. It was originally published in England back in 2000 and has been quite easy to find in the U.K. ever since. It’s even had a successful life in German translation under the name Top Job but none of Starr’s publishers in his own hometown of New York would publish it until now.

Since Starr isn’t as widely read as he should be, a little background may be in order. His first novel, Cold Caller, from 1998, is the book that Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho failed to be. It is a darkly funny and very nasty tale of a downsized ad executive who is forced to take a job as a cold caller in a cramped office space. Soon he is stunned to find out he is fired again. He kills his boss and several others as he indignantly races through privileged Manhattan – the world that should have been his – as he plans his next move that will surely make everything alright. It is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and a wonderful satire of a New York yuppie going very, very bad.

Since then, Starr’s specialty is the down-on-his-luck thirty-something character who has dreams and goals that are just not working out. Their misdeeds and mania come not just from their own failures or from circumstances beyond their control but from an overriding sense of privilege inside of them, a sense that they deserve better than what they have. These protagonists lead to Starr being compared to classic noir writers like Jim Thompson and David Goodis but his characters also seem descended from the works of Patricia Highsmith. Like Highsmith’s most famous character, Tom Ripley, Starr’s protagonists have seamlessly blended into society only to strike against some unsuspecting victims. These low-rent Ripleys have lives that are almost going well and perhaps their inner demons would have never risen up except that they experience a few bad breaks or perhaps a pure coincidence.

Fake I.D. concerns Tommy Russo, a bar bouncer and would-be actor with a serious gambling addiction. On his day off from work he runs into fellow gambler Pete Logan who offers him a chance to become a fifth investor in a race horse for $10,000. Tommy has always wanted to be a big shot in the world of gambling and would love to be an investor. His problem though is that he is flat broke with maxed out credit cards. So as the idea of owning a race horse stews in his head for a couple days he notices all the money that is available to him. All he has to do is steal it.

Starr describes the nervous world of a gambling addict quite well. The little indignities Tommy experiences while gambling, the massive lies he tells himself and the leaps of logic that he makes to prove to himself that he’s alright are believably told by the author. Tommy constantly assures himself that his angry outbursts are all for legitimate reasons and that stealing money from the people who trust him is simply something that has to be done to get what he needs. It is thrilling and horrifying watching Tommy live in the world of his job right next to his binges of gambling. The scenes of him hopping a plane to Vegas for a one-day gambling trip is both the best part of the book and the hardest to read:

“I went across the street to the Flamingo. I bought two thousand bucks in chips and went right to the craps table, blowing a grand in fifteen minutes. Before things got really out of control, I got up and started playing blackjack again. I didn’t like the dealer at the table I was sitting at – he was smiling and joking around too much – so I walked around and found a table with an empty seat in the anchor slot. My chip pile was shrinking, but I guess my jet lag was starting to catch up with me because I was too tired to walk anymore.”

Tommy the narrator is an exhibitionist about his gambling. Readers may be left feeling uncomfortable and in need of a shower after listening to him.

It is this addiction, coupled with a big chance to own a racehorse, which fuels the plot. And Tommy uses up everyone’s trust and hope for him as he steals from a potential girlfriend and then his boss to get the money he needs to invest in the horse. Starr writes from Tommy’s addicted point of view and the book zips along with a sweaty sense of desperation and inevitable doom.

The second half of the book loses its way a bit as Tommy descends into even more sociopathic behavior. There is murder and there is rage and there are several subplots introduced that are left dangling including a homicide cop who Tommy knows from high school and a new, potential girlfriend arriving in the bar. Starr ends up with more elements than he can use in a 250 page book. These plots twists are clichéd devices that Starr didn’t need; the mind of a desperate gambling addict could have easily carried this book on its own. It’s almost like Starr didn’t trust his own writing skills.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 12 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime (May 26, 2009)
REVIEWER: Daniel Luft
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jason Starr
EXTRAS:
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:

Bibliography:

With Ken Bruen:

]]> /2009/fake-id-by-jason-starr/feed/ 0 KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block /2009/killing-castro-by-lawrence-block/ /2009/killing-castro-by-lawrence-block/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 00:14:21 +0000 /?p=1381 Book Quote:

“Garrison’s eyes opened. He grinned. He was an American businessman on vacation, a real estate speculator who occasionally took a taxi to look at a piece of property. He stayed in a top hotel, ate at good restaurants, tipped a shade too heavily, drank a little too much, and didn’t speak a damned word of Spanish. Hardly an assassin, or a secret agent, or anything of the sort. They searched his room, of course, but this happened regularly in every Latin American country. It was a matter of form. Actually, it tended to reassure him, since they searched so clumsily that he knew they were not afraid of him. Otherwise, they would take pains to be more subtle.

He stood up, naked and hard-muscled, and walked to his window. He’d been careful to get a room with a window facing on the square. The square was the Plaza of the Republica, a small park surrounding the Palace of Justice. Parades with Fidel at their head made their way up a broad avenue to the plaza. Then Fidel would speak, orating wildly and magnificently from the steps of the palace. From the window Garrison could see those steps.

With the rifle properly mounted on the window ledge, he could place a bullet in Fidel’s open mouth….”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Jana L. Perskie (APR 30, 2009)

From the moment Fidel Castro made the choice to wage war against the dictatorial government of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista and to begin the Cuban Revolution, his life was in constant jeopardy. There were the perils of guerrilla warfare in the Sierra Maestra mountains, post revolution dangers from those he deposed, civilian and military, Cuban and US, plantation owners and crime bosses, who so profited under Batista. Then there were the numerous CIA attempts to kill Castro with poison pills, toxic cigars and exploding mollusks. Rumor has it that the dictator once even volunteered to kill himself. He was joking, of course. For nearly half a century, the CIA, Cuban exiles, and heaven knows who else, have been trying to devise ways to assassinate el Presidente.

However, Lawrence Block did not know this when he wrote Killing Castro. The book was originally published by Monarch in 1961 as “Fidel Castro Assassinated.” Block used the pseudonym Lee Duncan, a moniker adopted for this novel alone.

Killing Castro is as much about the journeys, literal and figurative, of five men, as it is about an assassination. Five Americans are offered twenty thousand dollars apiece to kill Castro. That was really a lot of money back in 1961. The loot is to be collected after the fact. Every one of the five has different reasons for slipping into Cuba and risking his life to kill a man relatively unknown to them, except for the media, stories from Cuban exiles, and government statements. It is, after all, only 1961, two years into the revolution and shortly before the Cuban missile crisis. Each man’s journey, his motivations and outcome, are what is really exciting and unexpected here. All of these characters are changed by this deadly adventure.

Then one wonders who or what entity is behind the operation? Impoverished Cuban refugees could hardly have scraped together one hundred thousand dollars. So, “who was financing the assassination? Tobacco and sugar planters? Oil refiners? Batista fascists hungry to regain power? Americans unwilling to tolerate a Communist nation ninety miles offshore?”

Interspersed between the narrative are italicized chapters which provide a historical perspective on Castro and the reasons he became involved in the politics of revolution. The history of the man, his years as a student and young revolutionary, are absolutely fascinating – especially as the changes which occur in him are contrasted with those which take place in his prospective killers. However, there are occasions when the author, through the voice of the omniscient observer, makes certain points and allegations which are way too subjective for omniscience and border on editorializing. I think Block would have been more credible had he used one of his characters to express these personal political views.

I really enjoyed Killing Castro, and although it is far from the author’s best work, it certainly makes for an entertaining read.

Kudos to Hard Case Crime for making this most rare of Lawrence Block’s thrillers available.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 15 readers
PUBLISHER: Hard Case Crime; Reprint edition (December 30, 2008)
REVIEWER: Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Lawrence Block
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our reviews of:

Hope to Die (Matt Scudder series)
Small Town
The Burglar on the Prowl (Bernie Rhodenbarr series)
Grifter’s Game (Hard Case Crime)
All the Flowers are Dying (Matt Scudder series)
Girl with the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime)
Hit Parade (John Keller series)
Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime)
Hit and Run (John Keller series)
A Diet of Treacle (Hard Case Crime)
A Drop of the Hard Stuff (Matt Scudder series)

Bibliography:

Hard Case Crimes reprints:

Matthew Scudder Mysteries

Keller Series:

Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries (reprinted 2006)

Evan Tanner Mysteries (reprinted in 2007):

Writing as Paul Kavanagh

Nonfiction:

Movies from Books:

  • Nightmare Honeymoon (based on Deadly Honeymoon)
  • Eight Million Ways to Die (1985)
  • Burglar (loosely based on The Burglar in the Closet) (1987)
  • Keller (based on Hit Man)
  • A Walk Among the Tombstones
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