Review of The Big Wake Up

Private-eye novels usually either go one of two ways; gritty, dirt-under-the-nails realism, or more comic, pulpy fare. One can make that Mickey Spillane mixed the two types of stories, but, it’s not at all clear Spillane knew when he was being comical, and either way, the results of his efforts may be the best argument one can think of for not trying to mix the two types of stories. However, Mark Coggins’ latest August Riordan novel, The Big Wake Up (Bleak House, 2009) successfully mixes plot elements that would fit more comfortably between the battered pages of a comic or pulp magazine with the modern hard boiled PI story. The result is a fast paced, entertaining read.

The plot of The Big Wake Up is ridiculous. It involves rival factions from Argentina searching for the embalmed corpse of Evita Peron, which was, through a series of rather unbelievable occurrences, supposedly spirited away to the San Francisco Bay area and interred under a false name. Apparently, whoever possesses Evita’s corpse will wield unlimited power over the easily impressed proles of Argentina or something. Needless to say, August Riordan is brought in by one of the factions to find the corpse, under false pretenses, of course. He quickly realizes something is up when he is trying to get his client’s daughter in bed, and a gang of thugs burst into his apartment, led by a woman named Isis, who commands an army of identical looking black men and has a fetish for embalming people alive.

So, yes, The Big Wake Up, is ridiculous, but it’s a well done sort of ridiculous. Coggins is pretty skilled at taking the reader for a ride, and the book zips along like a Maserati down the Pacific Coast Highway. Despite the over-the-top nature of the tale, Coggins still keeps it grounded. Actions have consequences. People die, and Riordan doesn’t make it out emotionally unscathed. No doubt because the book is part of a series, Coggins makes an effort at verisimilitude and blends it well with the overall story. The result is a book that is satisfying on more than one level.

Tyrus Books

It looks like Ben LeRoy and his editor Alison Janssen of Bleak House are striking out on their own to form a new publishing house, Tyrus Books. LeRoy sold Bleak House to Big Earth Publishing in 2005. There's a lot more information at Sarah Weinman's blog. All I have time to say about the news right now is, huh. That's interesting.

Review of Hogdoggin'

Anthony Neil Smith’s last book, Yellow Medicine, never quite came together, with its mix of half-assed terrorists who, for some godforsaken reason, wanted to control the meth trade in middle-of-nowhere Minnesota, rockabilly music, and bad cop and southern transplant Billy LaFitte, it seemed like Smith had thrown a bunch of disparate ingredients in a blender, hit puree and ended up with a bit of a mess. His latest novel, Hogdoggin’ (Bleak House, 2009) brings back many of the characters from Yellow Medicine,but improves upon the first novel in every respect.

Hogdoggin' is the novel Yellow Medicine could have been if Smith hadn't decided to go with terrorists over bikers. Hogdoggin' finds LaFitte acting as sergeant-at-arms for a biker gang run by a man named Steel God. He's trying to stay of the radar, but FBI agent Franklin Rome, humiliated by the beating LaFitte handed out at the end of Yellow Medicine, is putting the squeeze on LaFitte's mentally unstable wife in an effort to flush him out of hiding. Rome's actions work, to an extent, and LaFitte takes off on a turquioise chopper to ride to the rescue of a woman who wants nothing to do with him. While Yellow Medicine was told in first person from LaFitte's point-of-view, Smith decided to go with third person for Hogdoggin', which gives him the opportunity to get inside the head of Rome, as well as LaFitte and other characters. The choice works well, and the characters are more fully realized than they seemed in Yellow Medicine. It's nice to see what makes these characters tick, even if they all are, on some level, monsters. Smith writes monsters pretty well.

The Billy LaFitte saga shares a lot in common with Charlie Huston's Hank Thompson novels, where a garden variety loser gradually turns into a dangerous man, except LaFitte is a dangerous man who is becoming more dangerous, and it's harder to feel sympathy for him than it is for Thompson, although it is possible to feel some empathy for poor Billy because every time he tries to be nice, at least in relative terms, it tends to blow up in his face. The only time things ever seem to go his way is when he gets really nasty. Of course, seeing bad people do nasty things to each other is part of the fun, even if you can't quite bring yourself to pull for any of them.

Hogdoggin' Virtual Rally

Today I bring you a guest post from none other than Anthony Neil Smith, whose new novel Hogdoggin' is out from Bleak House Books in June. My post on his blog is here.

In the Last Episode, B. Clay Moore brought the past and present together in an unholy alliance, which resulted in a big dogfight in the backyard of a suburban home at dawn.

The wind had picked up soon as the sun rose, whipping red clay and gravel around. Most of the revelers had just passed out--leaning against storefronts, in the back of trucks, shoved twenty deep into hotel rooms, or just out in the wide open fields. They wouldn’t come to until well past noon.

The bike needed work, Steel God could tell from the engine noise wheezing weaker than a chainsaw motor, as the lone rider eased through the center of town, careful to avoid the other choppers lining the middle of Main in two columns, fifty or sixty thick. He watched, amused, as the guy in his Marlon Brando get-up pursed his lips and did a slow nod at everything around him as if it needed his approval.

He did a circle of the street before coming to a stop in front of Steel God, who was sitting on the front steps of the Virtual Dive Bar eating a breakfast burrito--chorizo, potato and egg.

The guy dismounted the obviously custom-built (Steel God thought thrown-together, but was still impressed) chopper and pulled off his riding gloves. He wore a leather cap on his head and old-fashioned riding goggles. When he turned in a circle, Steel God got a better view of the patch on his back. “The Decapitators”--a fist holding a bloody head by the hair.

The man looked down at Steel God and did that nod again. “You look like a man in charge.”

Funny guy, playing it serious. Steel God kept from laughing. “A little.”

“Hear there’s a rally going on.”

“Looks that way. You bringing in a gang?”

The guy shook his head. “I’m more of, say, an ‘independent’ contractor. In fact, they call me Indy. I pick up strays occasionally. You seen any strays?”

“Only every day. But strays can be a problem. They don’t follow the rules, they jump ship. They’ve got no loyalty.”

“Loyal to themselves,” Indy said. “That’s not so bad. And, you know, I’ve seen plenty of them who followed the rules, did what they were asked, and even brought in some money for the clan, and yet they were still cast out like yesterday’s garbage while the gang lived high on the hog.”

Steel God didn’t like how Indy was talking. Like some sort of revolutionary. But he had nerve, and Steel God admired nerve nearly as much as anything.

He said to Indy, “These Decapitators of yours, then. That’s where all the strays go?”

“No, man, see…I’m more like a gatherer of some kind. I find the lost and help shepherd them to smaller gangs. You know, the ones scattered all over, never going to take on the Angels or the Bandidos…Wait, you’re Steel God, right? You’re an Outlaw, aren’t you?”

Steel God grinned. “Not anymore. I’m one of those small ones you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you know what I’m saying. You’ve got to do more with less. You take bigger risks, but the rewards are sweeter.”

“Amen, brother. Amen. But…” Steel God pointed a finger in Indy’s face. “You leave my people alone, or we’ll see how the shepherd likes being sheared.”

Indy laughed, put his goggles back in place. “That’s good. But you don’t have to worry. The ones who need me always end up finding me. I just wish we had more MC’s to lead them to.”

He mounted his bike, nodded at Steel God again in that way of his, then kicked off and turned to go. “Off to find strays!”

As he crawled down the street, Steel God watched him go, chuckling deep in his chest. Lafitte stepped out from the Bar and watched the bike fade away.

“Who was that?”

Steel God said, “Said his name was Indy. I’ll tell you for sure, though--that man was a true One Percenter if I ever saw one.”

*

So crime fiction is supposed to be this big commercial thing, right? That’s where you’re supposed to get famous and make big money, writing detective stories or suspense thrillers.

And in the literary world, there’s a ton of respect for those souls who walk the wild side, publishing on small, prestigious presses. They never have to sell huge numbers to garner legendary status.

Now what happens to those in between? Those who write, say, noir (aka “The Unsellable”), or those working on the fringes of genre? Maybe even a detective who doesn’t fit the cookie cutter image we’ve come to expect (and that definition is “slightly flawed, but it’s usually because he/she “cares” too much, or show some kid who shot them first“)? Or maybe it’s just brutally violent and full of unsympathetic characters, by which we mean “interesting”.

That’s where the independent presses are doing the work of the angels all over the world.

And Nathan Cain is there to shout from the rooftops about it.

Thanks to Cain’s Independent Crime Blog, we get a front row seat to the stuff usually relegated to the back shelves. We also get a sneak peek into his private stash of old paperbacks, which inevitably makes every crime aficionado say “Damn, why don’t they make ’em like that anymore?” and sends us off looking for all the new stuff he pimps.

Like I said, angel’s work. A heavenly look at hellish writing.

Oh yeah, this isn’t just a pastime. It’s a calling. And I’m grateful to Mr. Cain for it, as well as for the support he’s shown to both me and to my publisher, Bleak House Books.

I’ve tried to sell my work to the big dog publishers, of course. Quite a number of times. But it’s always been the indie publishers where I’ve felt most at home and free. Thanks to Pointblank Press, Two Dollar Radio, and Bleak House, I’ve been able to have a hand in steering the ship. I never had to write the dreaded “synopsis” to get “approval” before I start writing the book. I just write it, and then we try to publish it. A staunchly old-fashioned approach, right? But that’s how all my books have been written so far, and I like the way that feels (most of the time. The rest, well, it’s panic-mode and nail-biting).

See if Hogdoggin’ stands up to the best that independent presses have to offer this year. Maybe I’m biased, but I think it does. I think kicks other books in the balls. You won’t want to like it because of that, but you can’t help but be attracted to this bad boy. Admit it.

*

Next, critic Gordon Harries wigs out on us. All the Needle Scratch Static is driving him nuts!

Tonight on the Main Stage: Thrill Kill Kult, “Sex on Wheels”

Free Books from Bleak House

I am back from my vacation, and regular posting should resume shortly. As I checked my inbox for the first time in a week, I found a message from Bleak House Books about their holiday promotion, which involves giving away books. That's right. Get a free book. All you pay is shipping and handling. It's difficult to beat that kind of deal. Bleak House has a ton of great titles to choose one, so don't miss out on this deal.

Review of Chasing Smoke

Bill Cameron's Chasing Smoke (Bleak House, 2008), the follow up to his debut, Lost Dog, isn't a proper sequel to that book. It shifts the focus to Portland detective Skin Kadish, who played a supporting role in the previous book. Wracked by bladder cancer, Kadish is on leave and not looking to get involved in any investigations, so he is less than thrilled when his partner has him picked up and brought to the scene of an apparent suicide so she can get his thoughts. Kadish isn't interesed until he learns that the dead man's death is one of many, all apparent suicides, by cancer patients who happen to share the same doctor, who also happens to be Kadish's own oncologist.

Despite the fact that he might be dying, Kadish can't let go of the case once he starts thinking about it. Without any official police support, Kadish launches his own investigation, without being sure a crime has been committed, risking his job and his relationship with his partner to find the truth.

Cameron has crafted a solid mystery novel, and he does a good job of keeping the reader guessing as to exactly what is happening. Kadish is an appealing character who straddles the line between hardass detective and victim of human frailty, and the conclusion and fallout are satisfying. Overall, Chasing Smoke is an entertaining, well plotted mystery well worth checking out.

Review of The Fourth Victim

Reed Farrell Coleman’s latest effort, The Fourth Victim, (Bleak House, 2008) published under his pseudonym Tony Spinosa, is an excellent novel and a good example of why Coleman may always be a cult figure, relegated to an artistic life of critical acclaim without commercial success.

The Fourth Victim picks up with his odd couple of Joe Serpe and Bob Healy, former NYPD detectives, investigating the murder and robbery of another former cop, who also happens to share a second career in home heating oil delivery with the two protagonists. The dead cop, named Rusty Monaco, happens to be the fourth victim in a string of robbery/murders of oil delivery men, and he also saved Serpe’s life once on the job. Serpe feels honor bound to look into the death and Healy feels honor bound to help Serpe.

Serpe and Healy have a strained relationship because Healy was the internal affairs investigator responsible for ending Serpe’s career. Serpe was a hot shot rule bending narc, while Healy was a law and order watcher of the watchmen. Reunited by chance years later, the two men teamed up to solve a murder in Hose Monkey, the first Tony Spinosa novel, and in the second book they are business partners and friends, although it is an uneasy friendship. Coleman’s starting point is a conventional one. Odd couplings are the stuff of Hollywood thrillers. Ask Mel Gibson and Danny Glover or Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Two people with different personalities come together. After some friction the two quit bickering long enough to fight a bad guy and learn something about themselves and each other in the process. It's trite, but Coleman, if he followed this well worn path, could have a bestselling series on his hands. He's a talented writer and his plots will stand up with the best of them.

Coleman rejects the easy route, however. While The Fourth Victim is firmly rooted in the tropes of the crime genre, Coleman refuses to give into the genre’s worst tendencies, which include glorifying violence and pat solutions to complex problems. In Coleman’s world murder begets murder and even good men end up being party to bad acts in the pursuit of justice. No one gets away clean, and redemption comes in small measures. Serpe and Healy do find out who killed their fellow cop, but there is no bullet filled climax. There are no witty one liners. There is no sneering bad guy who stops a well deserved slug with his face. There is no grand criminal conspiracy. There is just another body to be buried.

Sundries

It's Friday, and I've got a bottle of beer in hand and a list of links I've been meaning to post here, so I'm gonna get down to business.

There's an interview with Jason Starr over at Bookgasm, where, among other things, he reveals that there's a movie version of Bust in the works. I think Bust could be worked into an R-rated flick, however, don't hold out much hope for a movie adaptation of Slide. NC-17 films are commercial suicide. The final book in the Bust trilogy, The Max is coming out in September.

There's a new independent publisher on the block. Rudos and Rubes Press. I have not yet had the chance to check out their offerings, but Bookgasm likes one of their launch titles, Devil Born Without Horns by Michael Lucas. The cover's no great shakes, but you know what they say about judging books.

Bleak House author Mark Coggins, inspired by Dell Mapbacks, has created a Google Map of the locations of the crimes in his latest novel, Runoff.

And it's been a while since there's been an honest to goodness book porn link, and I don't think I've featured this site before even though I've known about it for a while.

Bleak House Message Board

Good news. There's finally a place for the many, many women who want Anthony Neil Smith to leave his wife and run away with them to gather on the Internet. It's Bleak House's new message board (Evan Kilgore and Reed Farrell Coleman cyber-stalkers are also welcome). It's a one stop shop for discussing Bleak House's ridiculously strong front list for this year, as well as inappropriate marriage proposals, and why you can't interest an agent in that 800 page historical science fiction mystery romance you wrote last time you forgot to refill your lithium prescription.

Review of Yellow Medicine

Deputy Billy LaFitte is a bad cop. He was run off the police force in his hometown of Gulfport Mississippi, and has taken a job working for his brother-in-law, who is the sheriff in the godforsaken hinterlands of Minnesota. Separated from his family, LaFitte, keeps up his old tricks, and trouble follows him in Anthony Neil Smith’s new novel Yellow Medicine (Bleak House Books, 2008).

Yellow Medicine, which is named after a real county in Minnesota, is well written. Smith is a tight writer, and he draws a sharp portrait of his antihero, LaFitte. The man is a mess of contradictions and a hopeless, lecherous screw-up, but he’s not unlikeable. The novel’s first half, which involves LaFitte trying to find a local meth dealer, cruises along quite nicely. The second half, which involves would-be Islamic terrorists and a rogue federal agent, is not as satisfying, mainly due to the fact that Smith never adequately explains why these would-be terrorists take a huge risk of exposure trying to get at a small town cop.

Still, Smith doesn't pull any punches, and Yellow Medicine is worth checking out for those who like their characters bad, their violence unflinching and their endings bleak.

Review of Empty Ever After

Reed Farrell Coleman’s Moe Prager series is unique because it features a private investigator whose role involves keeping secrets as much as it does exposing them. It is also unique in that Coleman has been carefully building a narrative arc throughout the duration of the series, which he clearly started with an end it mind. Empty Ever After (Bleak House Books, 2008) is that end, and what an end it is. It is the best book in the series that has already won it share of critical, if not popular, acclaim.

Coleman skips the decade of the 1990s, and starts Empty Ever After in 2000. The one thing Prager has always feared has come to pass. His wife Katy discovered the secret he has been hiding from her for decades; that he found her vanished brother Patrick years ago, and let him slip away. They have divorced, and Prager is trying to move on with his life, and deal with the fallout from what should be a closed chapter in his personal history. Someone however, wants to open old wounds, and Patrick’s grave is desecrated, as is that of his former boyfriend. Soon the fragile Katy is receiving calls from, and even seeing, her dead brother, and Prager is forced to go back into his past to search out the people who have reason to seek revenge against him.

The villain won’t come as a surprise to those who have read the series, but the resolution will. Coleman has always avoided pat endings, and this final bow for Prager has the least pat ending of all the novels in the series. There are no real answers, only more uncertainty, as the final curtain falls.

Those who have not read the series will likely be lost, as the story relies heavily on characters from earlier books, but this entire series is worth reading. The only book in the series that is out of print is The James Deans, which is easy enough to find second hand. The others are available thanks to Busted Flush Press and Bleak House. Anyone who seeks these books out will be well rewarded.

Bleak House in PW

Ben LeRoy and Bleak House books get a nice write up in Publisher's Weekly.

Bleak House Book Club

Bleak House books is starting a book club. To kick it off they're asking readers to pick the book they think should be the first title to get the treatment. After the winner has been selected there will be an opportunity for 10 folks to score a copy of the selected title gratis. For more details check out the announcement.

Edgar Nominations

So, the Edgar nominations are out. Independent presses fared very well this year, Bleak House in particular. Reed Coleman's Soul Patch got a nod for best novel and Craig McDonald's Head Games got a nomination for best first novel. "Blue Note" by Stuart Kaminsky, which appeared in Chicago Blues, got a best short story nomination. If there were ever an occasion for the Bleak House crew to dip into the hookers & blow slush fund this is it.

Other Independent press nominees include

Best Paperback Original:

Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks (Serpent's Tail)
Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill (Hard Case Crime)

Best Short Story:

"The Golden Gopher" – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books)
"Uncle" – A Hell of a Woman” by Daniel Woodrell (Busted Flush Press)

Best First Novel

Snitch Jacket by Christopher Goffard (The Rookery Press)

Odds and Ends

Author Anthony Neil Smith has signed a two book deal with Bleak House books.

The October Soho Crime newsletter is available.

The comic books series, which I wrote about here, has been optioned by Paramount pictures. The movie will be directed by David Fincher.

Thuglit's new issue is a good one.

And, have you ever wondered what it would be like if Renfield and Igor teamed up to work as private eyes in 50's LA? Neither have I, but you can find out here. (You have to click on channels and then select Strange Detective Tales. I can't figure out how to directly link to the episode.)

Bleak House Limited Editions

The latest Bleak House Books newsletter word that the Wisconsin publisher is introducing new, limited editions of each of its new titles. The Evidence Collection, as the new editions are called, will be limited to 250 copies of each title. Each copy will come with a police booking sheet with the author's vital info, including a fingerprint and signature. They sell for $45 a piece.
I have to say I'm disappointed. The fingerprint is a nice touch, but I like my limited editions signed in blood.

The Bleak House Podcast is all like "#$&*!"

You should already be seeking out the Bleak House Podcast on your own, and if you're not here's what you're missing: Jen Jordan the editor of the forthcoming Expletive Deleted (formerly Fuck Noir) speaks. Also there's some crazy funky transition music. And you can find out why she itches.

Craig McDonald Speaks

Craig McDonald, author of the forthcoming, Head Games, talks about Pancho Villa's severed head and other things on the Bleak House Podcast. I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but I'm sure it's worthwhile. Things involving severed heads usually are.

I've been slacking lately, so here's some stuff

I've been a bit slack with the content of late, so I sat down to try and find things of note this afternoon.
First, we've got a profile of Akashic Books' Johnny Temple that ran in the IHT some time ago. I missed it the first time around. He also managed to land himself in a Glenlivet ad.

Over at Bleak House Ben LeRoy interviews Mike Segretto of Contemporary Press. (For a publisher with books like these, they sure have an innocuous sounding name.)

The Rap Sheet has the scoop on Crippen & Landru's definitive collection of Lew Archer short stories.

Allan Guthrie is on television.

Bleak House podcast featuring me

Ever wondered what I sound like? No? I didn't really think so, but if you are curious you can listen to yesterday's Bleak House Books Podcast, where I was the guest. You will find that I am both incoherent and clumsy, as I managed to accidentally bang my head against the wall while talking to Ben LeRoy. There you have it: I'm inarticulate and accident prone. Now you know why I'm so popular with the ladies.