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Reviews from LAURENCE COVEN JANUARY - FEBRUARY REVIEWS FIDDLE GAME
Now
in the case of Richard A. Thompson’s FIDDLE
GAME I was sure I had that angle. It was just like a pre-war Philip Marlow
private eye novel set in St. Paul instead of Los Angeles, in the 1990’s
instead of the 1930’s, with the narrator, Herman Jackson, being a bail
bondsman instead of a private eye. He was a tough guy and full of wisecracks, so
yeah, that was the ticket. At one point he calls a pawnshop “an emporium of
discarded dreams” (Page 9). Surely if anything was Chandleresque, that was. But
then I thought no, this is really one of those mysteries filled with weird and
wondrous characters like Wide Track Willie, Herman’s friend, who comes to his
aid just in the nick of time; and Proph, the derelict soothsayer who lives in a
broken down car who comes to Herman’s aid just in the nick of time; and the
old grifter, Uncle Fred, in the joint who gives him sage advise about con games
and just what the classic “fiddle game” is and who comes to Herman’s aid
just in the nick of time. Uncle Fred sends him down the road to a diner where
there’s sexy hash-slinger named Rose, or Laura, or any of several other names,
who sells Herman a pecan pie with a gun in it and who comes to Herman’s aide
just in the nick of time over and over again. But
then the plot started getting really tricky and I thought no, this was more like
an updated Ellery Queen puzzle mystery. I mean, who were the mysterious Rom,
Herman had to beware of -- actually even I knew that was another word for
gypsies, for which I was patting myself on the back -- until it turns out Herman
has to go find this one gypsy, and it turns out three-fourths of them live in
Skokie, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Now I grew up a Jewish Chicago kid and
always thought Skokie was the closest thing this side of And
then I thought this was a kind of fable because the gypsy Herman finally finds
in a fortune teller’s tent tells Herman a story about a young kid who escaped
with the famous Wolf Amati (an incredibly valuable, if not sacred) violin when
he was escaping the Nazis during World War II. And this mysterious gypsy tells
Herman a long story about it which is supposed to direct him to what he had
better do if he wants to clear his name of the murders of Amy Cox and her
brother. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, she comes to him with this valuable
violin to get her brother out on bond, but then she’s run over by a car and
killed except it turns out even though Herman saw her flying thru the air her
neck was broken before she was hit by the car.
Then, awhile later, the same kind of thing happens to her brother.)
Anyway, Herman is blamed for the murders by a bent cop who tries to kill him and
who also winds up dead, so now the book is more like — well whatever you think
that makes it like. Herman
is always making mostly witty observations to himself about how screwed he is
and how he’ll never get out of this mess, but Thompson gets the reader to keep
rooting for him, and all in all things turn out fairly well, except for the
bunch of folks who turn into corpses along the way. What
I think might have happened, if I can look into the author’s brain, and I
guess I can if I want to, is that Thompson is a middle-aged guy writing his
premier novel and he maybe had a bit more to jam in it than he really had room
for. Even when you’re done reading
it you may not have it all sorted out. Don’t feel badly because neither did I,
and I don’t think Herman did either. More to the point the book is tremendously entertaining and you should read it, just letting everything go in one eye and out the other and don’t worry about it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. - Laurence Coven THE MANKILLER OF
POOJEGAI AND OTHER STORIES
In
the author’s introduction, he bemoans the lack of short stories in today’s
writing market; because of the shortage of markets that will publish them it
causes fewer writers to essay them. He says that short stories can achieve a
twist in the end as the great ones accomplished, such as O’Henry and Poe,
and/or a penetrating truth such as was accomplished by Stephen Crane and
Hemmingway. Although he modestly refrains from putting himself in that class,
nevertheless, in a few instances he strikes a twist or a truth that even those
greats could appreciate. Leading
off the collection is A Conflict in Interests from Alfred Hitchcock
Mystery Magazine, November, 1982. To each story the author adds an intriguing,
short preface telling a little bit about how and why it got published. In this
one he talks about how the author Nicholas Freeling, both his life and his
writings, influenced him. Later he gives the late Sara Caudwell much credit for
helping his writing. Also Satterthwait recounts his difficulty in finding an
agent who would support his desire to set his fiction in Satterthwait
orders the stories chronologically by publication, but I want to skip to the
fourth story Connection Terminated, that is superbly realized and
probably the most original in the volume. Published in AHMM in January, 1994, it
is a story that probably could not have been written at or about any other
moment in time. It concerns an
elderly, paralyzed man in a wheelchair living in There
are only two stories that use the same characters. These are Murder One and
the title story The Mankiller of Poojegai. Both of these are set in
Neanderthal times, but don’t hold him to task anthropologically as they are
written with tongue firmly in cheek. In
the preface to the earlier story the author explains he was asked to write a
story for an anthology where the tales would be published from the earliest time
to the last. He chose Neanderthal times so that his story would come first.
Also, as you can tell from the double entendre of the title, Satterthwait is not
shy about using his whimsical wit. The detective here is an older, wise,
semi-drunk Master Berthold, who loves his mead. When on a case he always
requests Doder (the narrator) to be his assistant, mainly to carry around his
heavy sack of crocks of mead. In both stories, at one time, Doder points out
that Berthold is drinking a lot of mead, Berthold responds, both times, that
this is a “three crock problem.” These Neanderthal stories are clever but
too often cross the line into overly cute, yet the solutions are reasonably well
fashioned. Cassoulet,
says the author in his preface, is his revenge against France and especially
French cooking. It’s impossible to say much about it without giving too much
away, but it’s basically told by a friend of a man who takes pride in his
French culinary skills, but every time he tries to cook a casserole, it’s an
unmitigated disaster. The story is kind of a cross between “My Dinner with
Andre” and Stanley Ellin’s “The Specialty of the House,” and it quite
slyly comes up with a delightful double twist. The stories here all have something to recommend them, and quite a few lift the bar a good deal higher than that. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. -
Laurence Coven Collector’s
Note: Crippen
and Landru also published this book in a special limited edition of 200 numbered
copies bound in cloth and signed and numbered by the author. Accompanying each
copy of this collector’s edition is a separately printed pamphlet The
Adventures of Col. Boone by
Walter Satterthwait. For information
on how to find these Crippen and Landru editions please feel free to contact me
at Clovecraft@aol.com.
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER REVIEWS
2OTH
CENTURY GHOSTS by
Joe Hill is without question one of the most powerful and evocative short story
collections to come along in years, in any genre. In fact, this collection
surpasses any genre tag with which one might like to label it. It is, as the
title suggests, often frightening, more often disturbing, and at times,
unusually touching, but always remarkably original both in structure and
content. Some of
the stories go for the jugular, some are soothingly subtle, and some go for the
jugular so subtly that you are drenched with blood before you even know you were
cut. Perhaps
the single most stunning story is Pop Art.
There have been many stories
that explored the childhood propensity for creating an imaginary friend. No
one’s ever gone anywhere near as far down that path as Hill does here. The
narrator’s “imaginary” friend is an inflatable Hebrew boy named Arthur
Roth. And yes, the problem of circumcision on an inflatable boy is discussed.
But more remarkable is the true bond that is created between the two as they
discuss everything from religion to art to philosophy, even though Art has no
mouth. That makes him a great listener and, in turn, his friend offers Arthur
protection from the other boys who would hurl thumbtacks at him. He communicates
by writing notes, and the two friends go to school together every day. In this
story Hill is astonishingly adept at making the metaphor of the imaginary friend
come to life. We begin to realize that the metaphor is not really metaphorical,
but more literal than actual life. Arthur Roth, the inflatable boy, is real, and
so is the friendship — literally real — and once that orgasmic pie has hit
the reader in the face, and Hill’s aim is breathlessly true, we can only lay
there on our literary backsides and wonder at the power of the story that has
just blown us down. In Bobby
Conroy Comes Back from the Dead, there technically is no supernatural
element at all, unless you count the fact that it takes place on the set of
George Romero’s horror classic, “Dawn of the Dead.” George
Romero even pops up as a character. The story is a surprisingly and delightfully
touching love story about two former high school friends, would-be lovers, one
of whom left the Pittsburgh area to go to New York to make it as a big time
comedian, while the other gave up her dreams more easily and stayed at home,
married a straight arrow kind of guy and had a kid. Danny has come home, having
given up on his career, and is living with his parents, where he meets up with
Harriet when they are both living dead extras for the movie, as is her young
loving and lovable son. Old passions
and discarded ambitions are awakened in this unlikely milieu, and it would be
unfair to even hint at the conclusion any more than to say it couldn’t happen
anywhere except in the movies -- even, or maybe especially, a George Romero
movie. However,
if it’s gore you prefer, the old fashioned kind, that is provided aplenty in Best
New Horror, a very scary story about a burnt out horror editor who every
year must put together a collection of the best original horror stories he can
find. Wading his way through every horror cliché known to man has left him
jaded and shock-proof. He always knows what’s coming. Until he receives a copy
of True North a high-tone, small
circulation literary magazine that contains one brutal horror story. The editor
of the journal lost his job for even printing it, but the editor is fascinated
by the power and horror and gore of the story, and goes out to obtain the rights
to print it in Best New Horror. Eventually
he finds the author and his enormously fat friend living in a true house of
horror that is even more than he can stomach. His only chance of escape is based
on the fact that who, besides himself, knows better what comes next in a horror
story. The
novella Voluntary Committal recounts
the story of two brothers. The elder, something of a misfit himself, is telling
about the nature and eventual disappearance of his younger brother.
Some think the kid is slow or backward, but he has the amazing ability to
fashion forts, first out of - Laurence Coven
If the characters’ names in DEADLY BELOVED have the ring of simple and direct symbolism — so direct that they may even remind you of characters from the golden age of comic strips — there are good reasons for it. The author’s early roots spring from writing the “Dick Tracy” newspaper strip which he took over from the creator, Chester Gould. Secondly Ms. Tree, and her aptly named cohorts such as Chic Steele, Dan Green, the young, inexperienced detective, and Lt. Rafe Valer (Valor), all had their origins when the independent comics scene was just getting started about 1980. So Collins, knew a good device when he saw it and used it in Dick Tracy, and then continued it on in his own creation, with artist collaborator, Terry Beatty. Ms. Tree
had a very successful run in graphic novels and full length DC comics, but up
till now there have only been a couple of straight prose short stories featuring
the dynamic female detective. This paperback original represents her first
appearance in a non-illustrated novel. However,
don’t get the idea that Ms. Tree’s transference to a more “literary”
form has in any way diminished her impact. The story and Collins’ imagery
serve to create a mystery-action yarn that never stops quivering. The pages
literally fly by without the reader even noticing he’s been turning them. The case
in question is the murder of Michael Tree. (You do need to know that Ms.
Tree’s first name is Michael and she married a Michael to form the Tree
Detective Agency). But on their wedding night her husband is brutally murdered
outside their supposedly secret honeymoon location. Collins
gives the reader just enough back story to fill in those who aren’t familiar
with the comics and yet never lets his story lag. This is due in part to
excellent plotting, characters who are sketched briefly yet very believably. Now
they don’t have the depth of say his characters in his award winning Nate
Heller historical mysteries, but that’s not needed here.
There’s just enough to get to know them and like them at a glance. From our
first look at young Dan Green, who grows a mustache to make himself look a
little older, but it really only makes him look a little gay (which he
definitely isn’t); we understand him, like him and root for him. And while Ms.
Tree is definitely all woman, there’s no doubting her hardboiled detective
skills. In any fight she’s going to do everything she needs to do to kick ass
no matter how unladylike, and yet she completely retains her sexuality and even
femininity. And then
too, with all the non-stop action, this is a flawlessly created who-done-it with
an infinitely satisfying conclusion, and in the golden age style, not frequently
adhered to in hardboiled mysteries, Collins plays completely fair with the
reader. The clues are all there to be found, assuming you can take a moment away
from the whiz bang action to make a few mental calculations and deductions. It would
not do to leave out Collins’ adept use of place. Collins, who is a past master
of using historical settings to amplify his work, has made contemporary But most of all I want to emphasize that this is pure hardboiled fun at its best. So be sure to set aside enough time to read it all, because once you start you’ll be hooked until you finish. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION. -
Laurence Coven Larry's review of THE
BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL Larry Coven may be reached at |
