Review of No More Heroes

The third time is the charm for Ray Banks. No More Heroes (Polygon, 2008), the latest in his ongoing series about Manchester’s sort-of private eye Cal Innes, is his best novel yet. One could level the criticism that Saturday’s Child’s reliance on two first-person points of view was a bit gimmicky, and the follow-up Donkey Punch didn’t quite hold together despite strong writing, but no such criticisms can be leveled against his latest book. No More Heroes is solid and satisfying.

Innes is back at work doing evictions for the city’s shadiest landlord, Don Plummer, when he ends up rescuing a child from a house someone has torched. The press makes him a local hero, which gives him the confidence to open his PI business again. His first and only client, however, is Plummer, who is taking a beating in the press and has reason to believe the arson of his property will not be an isolated incident. It doesn’t help that the people who occupied the burned house were asylum seekers and that the scorching summer temperatures are making people a little crazy. Uncovering the truth about the arson is the only chance Innes has of keeping Manchester from exploding in racial violence.

Banks’ writing is tight, and sharp, and American readers will no doubt be pleased he has dialed back the dialect a notch or two. Readers will no longer be forced to consult Samuel Johnson’s Big Book of Scottish Slang to figure out what the characters are saying. The plot, unlike that of his last novel, holds up all the way to the end, and doesn’t focus at all on Innes’ past as a convict or his relationship with local thugs the Tiernans. In letting some of Innes’ baggage fall to the wayside, Banks has written a novel that is easily accessible to the casual reader, and can be enjoyed just as much by people who haven’t read his previous novels as by those who have.

Three Brief Reviews

BLACKMAILER

Blackmailer (Hard Case Crime, 2007), is a breezy mystery by George Axelrod, the screenwriter for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Seven Year Itch. It focuses on hapless book publisher Richard Sherman as he searches for the final manuscript of famous writer and Hemingway stand in Charles Anstruther. After being offered the manuscript by the titular blackmailer, a young call girl, Sherman finds himself being harassed by gangsters and invited to a party by Truman Capote doppelganger Walter Heinemann. To compound problems Walter’s old flame Janis Whitney, now a movie star, is also mixed up in the missing manuscript mess.

Blackmailer is fun, but not an essential entry in Hard Case’s collection. The story moves at a brisk pace, but there’s not much there, and when it really counts the novel goes into explanation mode, using huge chunks of dialogue to clear up plot points. The last twenty pages of a novel should be filled with action, not explanation.

SHADOW OF THE SERPENT

Shadow of the Serpent (Polygon, 2006) is the first novel in an ongoing series featuring real life Edinburgh police inspector James McLevy. McLevy, a Victorian Era detective, was a crime fiction author and is considered a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Author David Ashton originally brought the fictionalized McLevy to life for a radio series on BBC4.

Shadow of the Serpent’s storyline is nothing special. After a prostitute is cut down with an axe on the streets of Edinburgh, McLevy follows the clues, which happen to point toward William Gladstone, who is in the midst of running for prime minister against Benjamin Disraeli. When McLevy gets too close to power he is removed from the case, but still manages to save the day.

The characters and setting are what brings the book to life. McLevy is a brooding introvert whose lack of concern for convention and social standing cause more than a little concern for his superior Lieutenant Roach as well as his sidekick Constable Mulholland, who has bourgeois aspirations. Indeed, the interplay between McLevy and Mulholland is one of the highlights of the book. The same can be said for the relationship between McLevy and brothel keeper Jean Brash, who maintain a wary friendship despite their irreconcilable differences. Ashton’s Edinburgh is finely rendered and the cobblestones and gaslight atmosphere adds to the book’s menace.

Inspector McLevy hasn’t made it across the Atlantic yet, so anyone who wants it stateside will have to order it from the UK, or wait until it gets adapted and ends up on Mystery on PBS, which it will.

COCAINE AND BLUE EYES

Fred Zackel’s Cocaine and Blue Eyes (Pointblank, 2006) is a classic of 70’s detective novels, right up there with James Crumley’s Last Good Kiss. How it ever went out of print is a bit of a mystery itself, but the good people at Pointblank had the sense to bring it back.

It should be stated up front that the book bears no resemblance to the OJ Simpson made-for-television movie bearing the same name, and that, if you have been unfortunate enough to see it, you should forget about it right now.

Unemployed PI Michael Brennan gives a guy with a broken down van a ride on Christmas Day. The guy finds one of Brennan’s old business cards and asks him to track down his live-in lover, who ran out on him. Brennan refuses and, a few days later, the man dies in a car wreck. Before he died however, he sent Brennan a thousand-dollar-bill and a picture of Dani Anatole, the girl he wanted found. With nothing else to do, Brennan sets out to find Dani, and soon finds himself neck deep in the sordid affairs of the wealthy Anatole family.

Zackel’s novel is a perfect period piece, capturing the aimlessness and permissiveness of the 70’s, not to mention the sideburns and mustaches. The rainy, empty streets of San Francisco at New Year serve as a perfect setting for a story of ruined dreams and doomed love.

Review of Hard Man

Allan Guthrie’s latest offering, Hard Man (Polygon, 2007), is a kick in the teeth. A novel about what it means to be tough, its unflinching depiction of violence is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness.
Hard Man reintroduces Pearce, the unlucky thug who first appeared in Two Way Split, having been released from prison just in time to watch his mother get murdered in a botched post office robbery. Pearce has settled down, bought an apartment, and gotten a dog, which he has named after his mother, even though it is male.
Pearce is drifting through life, with no particular plans, when he is approached by the highly dysfunctional Baxter clan, who want him to protect their youngest member, 16 year-old May, from her husband Wallace, who has found out that the child she is carrying belongs to another man. Pearce declines to tackle Wallace, but later changes his mind when his dog disappears and Wallace is the prime suspect.
Hard Man starts out pretty tame, but once it get going it builds momentum until it goes off the rails. In that way, it resembles a Jacobean drama and, like those dramas, its greatest weakness is its unrestrained violence. At this story’s heart is an abrupt turn that rivals the final chapters of Jim Thompson’s The Getaway for sheer ugliness. The sudden shift in tone and direction is unsettling, and the act of violence that triggers it cries out for more explanation. It is not giving away too much to say that Wallace is the perpetrator, and that, while he does seem like a hard man, he never comes off as being the sort of stone crazy lunatic who is capable of doing what he does. Guthrie shifts point of view, offering the reader glimpse into the heads of each character, but the glimpses afforded into Wallace’s mindset are not enough to fully explain his actions. The more terrible an act of violence the more context it requires, and Guthrie should have let the reader spend more time with Wallace.
While one character’s motives may fall short, Guthrie’s storytelling abilities are in full effect. Unlike his second novel, Kiss Her Goodbye, there is no whodunit element, and the plot barrels along at a breakneck pace, especially for the final third of the book, where there is enough violence and dark humor to satisfy every crime fiction fan. Once Guthrie hits his stride it's over. There's no going back.
The sadism in this story will be disconcerting to all, and may be a deal breaker for those with more sensitive constitutions, but Hard Man is like a gory car crash. You look at the carnage. You look away, filled with horror. Then you look again. You can’t help it.