Review of Driven

If ever there were a book that didn't need a sequel, it's James Sallis's Drive. Short, nasty, self-contained, when Drive ended it seemed final. However, the success of the recent movie, has given Sallis, who has been writing excellent books nobody reads for a long time now, a profile boost, which has prompted a sequel, Driven. Billed on its cover as, "The sequel to Drive, the award winning motion picture," it is unlikely that we would have Driven had it not been for the film.

Billing a book as the sequel to a motion picture isn't really fair to fans of the film (which ended much more ambiguously than it's source material), and it isn't really fair to the author, who wrote a sequel to his novel, not the film. It has the potential to confuse people. For one, Driven, is not really accessible if you have not read Drive. Watching the movie, which departed from the novel in important ways, isn't enough. Fans of the movie might pick up this book and find themselves a little lost and may lose interest. Instead of opening up Sallis to new readers, marketing the book this way might drive them away. So, let me say to fans of the movie who are thinking about picking this book up: Read Drive first.

Now, qualifications out of the way, let me say that Driven is a worthy sequel. The story picks up years after the events of Drive. Driver has settled down in Arizona and gotten married. He runs a successful business renting out vintage cars to movie productions. Then, one day, he and his wife are attacked by hitmen. His wife is killed, and Driver slips back into his old life and discovers that the past isn't as easy to leave behind as he thought.

The story is slick and fast-paced with plenty of action, much like the original, and the conclusion is satisfying in an existential way. Sallis is an excellent writer who uses deceptively simple language to express complex ideas. It's language at it's most pure and a joy to read. You'll pick the book up and won't put it down again until it's over.

The one nit I will pick is with the characterization of Driver. Always emotionally self-contained, Driver spends almost no time mourning his wife. His apparent lack of grief, or more correctly, lack of expression of grief, rings false. Driver slips a little too effortlessly back into his old life, and while I can see where it might have slowed the frantic narrative pace of the novel, it also might have had a bit more emotional resonance. No one is that self-contained.

Free Ray Banks

Don't miss this opportunity. Blasted Heath is going to be giving away Ray Banks' Dead Money tomorrow with his novella Gun as an added bonus. Gun is a great little novella, and if you haven't checked either of these books out, you really should.

Bringing Sexy Back: A Double Shot of Ray Banks

I can think of no better way to get this long moribund blog going again than with a double review of one of your favorite authors and mine, Ray Banks. Thanks to Allan Guthrie and his new Blasted Heath e-publishing company, Banks, last heard from finishing his Cal Innes quartet with Beast of Burden, has returned with two books, one old and one new. The first, Dead Money, is a reworking of The Big Blind, his debut novel about depraved double glazing window salesmen who don’t sell many windows, but do manage to get into a helluva lot of trouble. The second, Wolf Tickets, is a tight little shot of noir about two Army buddies who set out to find a woman who ripped one of them off and end up getting more than they bargained for.

Banks is a tight writer, and both of these books are short, sharp and right to the point, and their respective points are quite sharp. Dead Money is a sort of Glengarry Glen Ross without all the boring talking and focus on sales. Instead it focuses on the outside lives of two degenerates; Alan Slater and his even more despicable friend (at least to start with) Les Beale. Despite being a bit hazy on why Slater would hang out with Beale, who is a compulsive gambler, alcoholic and horrible racist, the story is strong. It focuses on Slater trying to juggle his job, his mistress, his loveless marriage, Beale’s problems and a couple of corpses, one human and one not. Considering how terrible our protagonist is, the book is funnier than it has any right to be, and Banks proves his skill with one scene in particular where Slater and Beale are trying to dispose of a corpse. It is both horrifying and hilarious. Not an easy task to pull off.

The story is ultimately one of delusion and unraveling, and Banks keeps it coming, pacing it well, making sure that, as he peels back the layers or Slater’s twisted personality that he never reveals too much too soon. By the time you get to the end, you’ll be laughing along with Slater, but not for the reasons Slater is laughing.

Wolf Tickets finds Banks up to his old narrative tricks, using dueling first person narration to tell a story, and what a story it is. No frills, no bullshit, just straight up action. This is the least reflective work by Banks that I have read, and I think the only thing I haven’t gotten around to yet is his novella California. It’s a deceptively simple story, seemingly straightforward at first, but Banks, ever the skillful storyteller, gradually complicates things, peeling back layers, getting at the truth, until you end up with something totally unexpected.

On the surface it’s about the Irish Farrell looking up his old English buddy Cobb to help him track down his girlfriend Nora, who has run off with a substantial sum of money, a small amount of blow, and, most importantly, Farrell’s favorite jacket. The story is a straightforward one of revenge, but the real fun comes from how the two characters see each other. The chapters alternate perspectives, giving the reader insight into how these two friends really see each other, adding a layer of complexity to what would otherwise be a slight story. As with Dead Money, Banks proves deft at doling out insight in just the right amounts, complicating what he presents to the reader as rather straightforward characters. By the end you’ve been spun 180 degrees with such deftness that you didn’t even notice it. A surprising, violent, and strangely uplifting ode to friendship, Wolf Tickets is not to be missed.

Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Martini Edition

I was taking a little Amazon window shopping break when I ran across this, the yet to be released Parker: Martini Edition, which combines the first two of Cooke's Parker graphic novels, along with some new content. It also says it contains a "brand new story," and I'm not sure what that means. I would like to own this, but if I have to buy a deluxe edition to get the next installment in a graphic novel series I already own, I'm not going to be that happy. Hopefully, the new story is something separate from the project of interpreting the first four Parker novels.

Also, I'm not sure why they called it the "Martini Edition." The only thing I can see Parker doing with a martini, is dumping it on the floor, breaking the glass and then stabbing the broken stem into someone's neck.

The Straw Dogs Remake

To my great horror, I came across the trailer for a remake of Straw Dogs today. I already have my issues with Peckinpah's adaptation of the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm, upon which his film was based. In a nutshell, I think he sexed it up too much. Somehow, I don't think the remake will tone it down any, or draw on any of the parts of the novel Peckinpah ignored. In short, it looks like shit.

L.A. Noire

I realize anyone who has followed this blog in the past has probably assumed that I ended up dead in a ditch somewhere long ago, but the truth is much, much worse. It's work. It turns out that writing all day for other people kind of makes logging onto a blog and writing at the end of a long day unappealing. And when I do have good intentions in that regard, I end up falling asleep on the couch or something. I have books I'm working on reading, I promise, but right now it's a slog. Reading is an activity that requires a certain level of alertness and concentration that I've been lacking, and I'm not going to review anyone's work unless I can give it the full attention it deserves.

So, let's start out with something a little more mindless: video games, specifically L.A. Noire. I bought a copy the day it came out, which I have never done for a video game before, but after seeing the previews and reading the reviews I realized it was as if a group of people had sat around and asked themselves "What kind of game would Nathan like to play?" Maybe they did. Maybe they broke into my apartment and realized I like fedoras and murders and adventure games and horrible crimes that expose the sordid underbelly of city life. Maybe.

Anyway, the game, so far is good. Not that I've had much time to play it. Hopefully, I'll be able to say more about it soon. In the meantime, enjoy these stories from a who's who of writers. And check out Charles Ardai's intro to the L.A. Noir short story anthology on BoingBoing. I'm glad to see the world of video games and literature coming together like this. They are, after all, both forms of storytelling, and there's no reason they can't complement one another. And, who knows, maybe these stories will lead video gamers to pick up a Hard Case Crime novel, or a James Ellroy book and see what they've been missing.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

This cover for Hard Case's debut hardcover novel hit me right between the eyes.

New Dashiell Hammett

Are you ready to read some new short stories by Dashiell Hammett? I hope so, because 15 new stories have been discovered and are set to be published.

Stansberry's Noir Manifesto

Domenic Stansberry's Noir Manifesto has made it online. I'm not sure if it's really a manifesto. It reads more like an essay, but it's certainly thought provoking, and I'd have to agree with a lot of the points he makes, like that fact that noir used to be, or should be a genre sympathetic to the powerless, as opposed to thrillers, which are more concerned with re-establishing the status quo at the end of the story. There are many definitions of noir, and many writers and aficionados don't agree on what noir is, but there's a lot to think about in this essay. I'm still digesting it, and hopefully I'll have more to say later.

A Post in Which the Author Admits He is Having Trouble Adapting to the Century in Which He Lives

So, I'm trying to get back on the reviewing and blogging wagon after having taken much needed break. While I've been away, lots of authors I enjoy reading, like Allan Guthrie, Dave Zeltserman, and Anthony Neil Smith have released electronic exclusives. After resisting the e-book trend for a long time, I finally broke down and downloaded Kindle for PC, and bought a couple of books I wanted to read. The problem is, however, that I'm having a hard time reading them. On many days, I spend the better part of eight hours staring a a computer screen, and when I get home I often find myself not wanting to spend another couple hours doing the same thing for recreational purposes.

And when I do fire up the computer, I always end up caught up in myriad distractions (I have four other tabs open in my browser as I write this.) As McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and I fear the Internet has conditioned me to jump around from one thing to the next, never staying in one place, or lavishing too much attention on any one thing. Sitting in front of a computer and trying to do something as straightforward and linear as reading a novel feels unnatural, and I'm having a hard time adapting. I recently read Grimhaven as a PDF, and it took me two weeks to get through. It's a short book, and I should have been able to sit down and read it in an afternoon, but I kept getting distracted, or feeling like I needed a break from staring at the screen. It wasn't easy.

Right now, I'm trying to decide on whether or not to shell out for a Kindle. I think that the portable format may be more book-like, and make me more comfortable with the whole electronic book concept, but I'm afraid it won't work, and I'll have wasted a bunch of money on something I'll never use. So, I'm asking anyone who's got one, how do you like yours? Was it worth the money? Is it similar enough to reading a book that you feel comfortable doing it? Or should I just forget it?

Review of The Dead Women of Juarez

Debut novelist Sam Hawken's novel The Dead Women of Juarez (Serpent's Tail, 2010) is a surprisingly assured and skilled first novel. First novels are often works where you can see the seams, and watch as an writer shows hints of potential. It's a fairly rare that a first novel doesn't seem like a first novel, and Hawken's novel reads like the work of someone who's been turning out novels for a long time.

The Dead Women of Juarez starts out as the story of washed up boxer Kelly Courter, who has retreated south of the border after making some horrible decisions that torpedoed a once promising career. To get by he picks up the occasional unsanctioned fight and helps his best friend Esteban sell weed. He's also involved with Esteban's sister, Paloma, who works for Mujeres sin Voces, a group dedicated to bringing attention to the hundreds of unsolved murders of women in Juarez.

Hawken takes a rather bold turn when, halfway through the story, he has events sideline Kelly, and switches the story's focus to aging Mexican cop Rafael Sevilla, who struggles with the loss of his daughter and granddaughter, who simply went out one day and then vanished, just two more victims of the senseless crime that thrives in Mexico. While he switches characters, Hawken, doesn't switch stories, however, so the transition is smooth, and works well.

Overall, Hawken's prose is strong, the plot is well thought out, and the characters are well drawn. Kelly and Rafael both have affecting and convincing backstories, that make them seem quite human and explains their motivations. The fact that the story is inspired by the real life murders that plague Juarez (more famously the subject of Roberto Bolano's novel 2666), serves to make the novel even stronger.

Lynn Kostoff Interview

Lynn Kostoff gets interviewed by South Carolina's NPR station about Late Rain. It's about time someone paid attention to this book. And if you haven't read A Choice of Nightmares, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Let's Read Grimhaven!

I've had a copy of Charles Willeford's unpublished novel Grimhaven for a while now, but I just got around to reading it recently. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest Fuck You's that anyone has ever committed to print. It's easy to see why it never made it into proper circulation, and that is a shame. Aside from The Burnt Orange Heresy, it's probably Willeford's most harrowing work, and it has what can only be described as the most twisted happy endings in the history of literature.

Grimhaven isn't really a crime novel in the traditional sense. It bears no similarity to Miami Blues or any of the other subsequent Hoke Mosely novels where broken down old Hoke continues to be an unorthodox, false teeth wearing hero with a badge. It has more in similar with Camus' The Stranger than it does with any contemporary crime novels. That's really not a surprise, as Willeford is nothing if not the rarest of creatures: An American existentialist. Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, the smiling, reassuring God everyone is so sure has some sort of grand plan, despite the fact that there is no evidence for this ridiculous assertion.

Grimhaven finds Hoke living a simple life. He has retired from the police force, works at his father's hardware store and spends his spare time swimming and working on chess problems. He is content until his ex-wife sends his two teenage daughters to live with him while she lives it up with a black baseball player in LA. The story is really about the lengths a man will go to get back what he has lost, and Hoke is willing to go a long, long way. He doesn't want his wife back. He doesn't want his job back. He just wants to go on living as he was, alone and with time to spend working on his chess puzzles without being bothered. The way he sets about doing this is harrowing and, well, grim, but it's also brilliant. I'm reluctant to say anymore because I don't want to give away the ending to a book that many people haven't read, but let's just say the ending made me laugh even though there's nothing funny about it. Hoke, the perpetual loser, turns out to be the winner after all, even though he's the only one who will ever know.

It's a New Year, and I'm back

It's 2011. The last half of 2010 found me suffering from reading, reviewing and blogging burnout. As anyone who's followed this blog knows, it's been moribund for a while now. I haven't been happy about this, but I did feel I needed the break. When a hobby starts to feel like work it's definitely time to back off for a bit. I do this for fun. I don't do it because I need another job. So, now that I've taken my break, I just want to announce that I'm bringing Independent Crime back for 2011. So, stay tuned for reviews and news about small press crime fiction. I deliberately took myself out of the loop for a while, but I'm getting back into the groove. I've got a couple novels I really want to read and review, and I'm sure I can find some new Wednesday Paperback Covers, as well as other interesting tidbits to post. Stay tuned.

Upside Down Pulp

Here is a great collection of pulp covers from Australia along with a good essay on the history of pulps down under courtesy of the University of Otago. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The Return of Hard Case

Here is the latest news from Charles Ardai regarding the return of Hard Case Crime. I'm just gonna reprint the entire statement in full since I'm sure it's of interest.

We've got some big news to announce today: After a year's hiatus, Hard Case Crime will be returning to bookstores with new titles in 2011, thanks to a deal we just signed with UK-based Titan Publishing.

Titan is a publisher both of fiction and of gorgeous art books focusing on pop culture such as movie poster art, pin-ups, newspaper comic strips, and Golden Age comic books, and has worked with filmmakers such as J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, and George Lucas. Titan has been around for 30 years, has more than 200 employees, and in addition to publishing books also has a magazine division, a retail division (Titan owns the famous Forbidden Planet bookstore in London, and until recently co-owned the Murder One mystery bookstore with Maxim Jakubowski), and a merchandise division that produces items such as t-shirts, sculptures, and accessories.

We look forward to exploring ways we might develop some cool Hard Case Crime products with them! But first things first: books. Hard Case Crime will relaunch in September/October 2011 with four new books, including CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust (sequel to her Edgar Award-nominated MONEY SHOT), QUARRY'S EX by Max Allan Collins (the latest in the popular series of hit man novels by the author of "Road to Perdition"), and two never-before-published novels by MWA Grand Masters (names to be announced shortly).

Additionally, Titan Publishing plans to acquire all existing stock of Hard Case Crime's backlist from Dorchester Publishing and to resume shipping these titles to booksellers immediately. New books will be published in paperback (possibly some in hardcover as well!); ebook editions will also be released across multiple platforms. Titan is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Random House. We're very excited about working with Titan (indeed, we had offers from five publishers and chose Titan over several that were much larger and better-known) -- they love pulp fiction as much as we do and appreciate that in books like ours the visual dimension is just as important as the storytelling. It's hard to imagine a better home for Hard Case Crime.

Harwood Rides Again

In time for the release of his latest novel, Young Junius, Seth Harwood has once again made the news for his innovative internet based self-promotion techniques. It's hard to put a price on the kind of press he's been getting for his work.

New Pulp Press in NYM Again

New Pulp Press has gotten the attention of the folks at New York Magazine again. First, Bad Juju shows up on the approval matrix, and now Dave Zeltserman's 21 Tales has been singled out.

The Sinners

I've been on a bit of a graphic novel streak lately, and my most recent read was Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips latest Criminal trade, The Sinners. This one picks up the story of Tracy Lawless, the hardass military deserter who came back to the city to find his little brother's killer, only to discover some ugly truths and end up working as a hitman for the city's chief crime boss. Turns out Tracy's heart isn't in paid killing, so crime boss Sebastian Hyde asks him to look into a string of killings of made men. Tracy is relieved to have some non-homicidal work, but he's also got the military on his tail, and he's been having an affair with Hyde's wife. After the last storyline, Bad Night, and its predecessor, The Dead and the Dying, both of which were innovative, touching and horrifying in their own ways, The Sinners feels a bit rote.

Lawless is your average antihero, the killer with the broken heart of gold who lives by his own moral code, even if society disapproves, and the story was also a bit of a disappointment. The identity of the killers felt like a stretch, and the choice of bad guys is hardly unique.

(Spoiler Alert)








A priest who corrupts youth isn't exactly original, even if sex isn't involved (and really, hasn't the Catholic Church been kicked around enough? I'm no fan of Catholicism. I could expound on my criticisms at length but I won't. This blog is about crime fiction not religion.) Criminal usually tells unusual stories (Coward or Bad Night), or tells more conventional stories in unconventional ways (The Dead and The Dying). This particular story arc did neither. There was no big twist or ending that provoked sympathy for the lost souls Brubaker creates so well. I think this stems from the fact that Lawless just isn't that interesting of a character. His first story arc was saved by the ending, which was quite the punch in the gut for both the character and the reader, but now that he's found out the truth about his brother, and quit romanticizing his past, he's just another big man with a gun and an attitude. Hopefully the next story arc will be a little more engaging.

The Outfit

Darwyn Cooke's follow-up to his adaptation of Richard Stark's The Hunter, hit shelves this month. The book glosses over much of what happens in The Man With the Getaway Face, the second Parker novel, in favor of the more exciting third novel. While this choice makes artistic and economic sense, it does, however, leave the book feeling a bit stuffed.

The Outfit was a book which had a lot going on, and the book described many different robberies by many different thieves. Cooke cheats a bit when it gets to this bit of the story, which feels like a bit of a gyp, since the description of clever heists is part of the appeal of the Parker stories. At one point, Cooke merely excerpts an account of a crime directly from the novel, disguising it as a newspaper article. This little trick doesn't work because Stark's prose doesn't feel like a newspaper article, and because this is a graphic novel. I've already read the novel. I own it. I can read it any time I want. The entire purpose of a graphic novel is to see as well as read. The other crimes, however, are presented in unique visual styles of their own, separating them from the rest of the book, which is a good trick, even if the entire section feels a bit perfunctory. Fortunately, the book is just as gorgeous as the first one, and is, overall, faithful to Stark's famous character. The three color artwork, and Cooke's obvious attention to period detail make the book a pleasure to read. I just finished it, and I think I'm going to go back and read it again, just to pick up any details I may have missed.