Review of Johnny Porno

In the Internet age, it's hard to imagine (at least for those of us of a certain age), that viewing pornography was once a collective experience, done in theaters. It's also hard to believe that one reel of celluloid featuring a rather commonplace sex act could cause a legal uproar, and become a cultural touchstone of sorts. But in 1973 that's exactly what happened in 1973 when a young lady who went by the stage name Linda Lovelace starred in a nasty little film called Deep Throat. Directed by a former hairdresser and financed by the mafia, the film became an unlikely success, ended up the subject of an obscenity case, and made the bad guys an obscene amount of money.

Charlie Stella's novel Johnny Porno (Stark House, 2010) is an entertaining snapshot of this particular period in history, chronicling the tough times of an out of work carpenter who has been reduced to ferrying around illicit copies of the film and collecting money for the mob as a way to pay the child support for his only son and keep his harridan of an ex-wife off his back. Porno suffers a little from having a huge cast of characters, which requires Stella to engage in a lot of setup, but once the book hits its stride, it doesn't fail to deliver.

John (who's last name is Albano, not Porno), has a lot to deal with. In addition to his wife, he has to deal with a loser wiseguy who hates him, the cops, his ex-wife's other ex-husband and a strung out ex-cop who wants him dead. All while trying to hold what's left of his life together and making sure the mob gets its money. Stella has a knack for dialogue, and the influence of The Friends of Eddie Coyle is evident. Stella even manages to work the novel into the book. The entire novel lacks glamor, and has the gritty feel of a 70's crime film with dirt under its nails and nicotine stains on its fingers. In a world where pornography has become mainstream, Stella reminds the reader that things weren't always that way, and that smut isn't pretty, and that sometimes there's no way for a good man to avoid getting his hands dirty.

The Internet and Self Publishing

I've only been half paying attention to the publishing world lately, but it seems like more established authors are moving toward Seth Harwood's model of releasing their material into the wild on their own. Dave Zeltserman has recently taken a lighter turn by trying to expand on his novella Julius Katz, which originally appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He briefly released the novella as a PDF, although the link now seems broken, and he has even started a blog where he interviews the character.

And yesterday, I found out that Allan Guthrie will be self-publishing his next novella Bye-Bye Baby, which is certainly an interesting turn of events. Are these signs of things to come?

Also, if you haven't read Dennis Tafoya's story "Doe Run Road," you really ought to.

Man out of Prison Sampler

Almost as good as a seafood sampler, Dave Zeltserman has made sample chapters of his three "man out of prison novels" (Small Crimes, Pariah, and Killer) available in PDF format. If you have yet to check out these novels, head on over and download it. You're missing out.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

I only see one.

Review of Shoot the President, You Must be Mad

I know I've been neglecting the blog for quite some time, but the past 12 months have been rather a lesson in how to take a metaphorical beating, and despite the pain, I find I'm coming out all right. Still, it's been a while since I've been jump up and down excited to receive a book in the mail. That all changed when I ordered a copy of Frank McAuliffe's unpublished Augustus Mandrell novel, Shoot the President, You Must be Mad (The Outfit, 2010), a book that has unfairly languished unpublished for decades.

It is the final novel chronicling the humorous exploits of well heeled killer for hire Augustus Mandrell, and it's quite funny and entertaining, even if it doesn't rise to the heights of Of All The Bloody Cheek. This novel, unlike Cheek, is not divided into "Commissions" as the droll Mandrell calls them, but constitutes one long tale of Mandrell setting up and executing a rather involved assassination in America. As such, the book drags a little in places, but it is filled with McAuliffe's singular wit, and his observations about American culture are surprisingly timely for a book that's been moldering in a drawer for years. Mandrell, to accomplish his goal, assumes the identity of one Clifford Waxout, a member of a right-wing group known redundantly as America's Americans. It was no doubt based on the John Birch Society, but it doesn't take much imagination to see a connection between the old right and the new Tea Party's yammering on about socialism. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

The story gets off to a bit of a slow start, with Mandrell putting in a lot of time and effort to seduce and opera singer in order to get an invitation to an event where the President will be present. While amusing, it is a little tedious. The good news, however, is that once the mayhem starts it is outrageous and laugh out loud funny. McCauliffe once again succeeds in bringing some much needed humor to the grim world of the contract killer.

(Let me apologize for a lack of a cover image. I seem to be experiencing technical difficulties in that department.)

OSS 117 Lost in Rio

Oh, God, there's a sequel to OSS 117 Cairo: Nest of Spies. I know what I'm doing tomorrow. And, this is totally NSFW BTW.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Is he holding a paintbrush?

More Good News

I've been stricken with a summer cold this weekend, so I've been sitting around feeling miserable, but I have had some good news. My story "Blown a Wish" (bonus points if you guess the title reference) has been accepted for publication in Crimefactory, although it won't be showing up for a while.

The Colorado Kid gets turned into something it's not

Stephen King's supremely shitty entry in the Hard Case Crime lineup has been optioned for a television show for the Syfy (I, know, I know, Syfy. Was there something wrong with Sci-Fi?) network for a TV show called Haven. Here's the show's description:

Syfy's all-new one-hour drama series Haven, starring Emily Rose (Jericho, Brothers and Sisters) is based on the novella The Colorado Kid from renowned author Stephen King. The series follows the shrewd and confident FBI agent Audrey Parker (Rose) who has a lost past, and arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine on a routine case. Before long, her natural curiosity lands her in the epicenter of activity in this curious enclave, which turns out to be a longtime refuge for people that are affected by a range of supernatural afflictions.

As the townspeople's dormant abilities begin to express themselves, Audrey helps keep these forces at bay while discovering the many secrets of Haven — including one surrounding her own surprising connections to this extraordinary place.

Now here's the description of The Colorado Kid:

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There’s no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues, and it’s more than a year before the man is identified.

And that’s just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...?

No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world’s great storytellers presents a moving and surprising tale whose subject is nothing less than the nature of mystery itself...

Do these two descriptions even seem remotely similar? Call me cynical, but it seems like someone bought the only Stephen King novel not under option just so they could put his name on a new series in hopes of getting people to watch it.

Call me when someone options Money Shot for a television show. I'd watch that.

Review of Late Rain

It's safe to lump Lynn Kostoff in with Pinckney Benedict and Madison Smartt Bell, which is to say he is a very talented writer who no one will read because they are too busy telling all their friends on Facebook how funny last night's episode of the hit sitcom "Two Bikini Models and an Adorable Puppy" was. This state of affairs does not fill my heart with hope.

Mere months after New Pulp Press resurrected Kostoff's -blink and you missed it- thriller A Choice of Nightmares, he is back with a new novel, Late Rain (Tyrus Books, 2010). The new novel is set in the low country of South Carolina, and centers around the events set in motion by the avaricious Corrine Tedros, when she conspires to have her father-in-law murdered so as to get her hands on his soft drink fortune and leave behind her sordid past forever.

When the murder is witnessed by a man in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, former homicide detective and current beat cop Ben Decovic, who has, like Tedros, moved to the deep south to try and escape his past. It goes without saying that two characters running away from things they can't escape will eventually run right into each other with tragic results.

Late Rain is very different in tone that Nightmares, which was a truly disorienting novel that throbbed with decadence and menace on every page. Rain is more restrained, and more straightforward, in that there are good and bad characters, and its much easier to get comfortable with since you know who you're pulling for early on. It's much more accessible in that respect, but Kostoff still refuses to tie up the story with a nice comforting bow at the end, turning what could have been a by the numbers crime story with a warm fuzzy ending into something better. Yes, the murder gets solved, but the truly evil characters still run free, and there is no real justice, just the rough approximation of justice which we are all forced to settle for in real life all too often, and the good guy gets only the consolation prize of knowing that he did what he could. Not exactly life affirming, but then, very little in life is.