Dark yet fun story

Here's an easygoing review for a book starring an easygoing character.  Dark of the Moon is the first book in John Sanford's Virgil Flowers series, which I'm finally starting. Virgil is a laid-back, easygoing guy who like who likes women, bars, and fishing. And though redneck would be taking the description too far, Virgil definitely does have a, let's say, a relaxed, country sensibility.

And that quality often drives his law-enforcement colleagues crazy, until they are reminded that Virgil, once he gets started on a case, is sharp as a tack, tracking a solution like a barracuda searching prey (Virgil, by the way, often appears as a supporting character in Mr. Sandford's Prey series, starring police investigator Lucas Davenport). You don't want Virgil Flowers sniffing around, no matter how relaxed he may appear, if you don't want him to find out about something you did.

Dark of the Moon finds Virgil investigating a couple of murders in a small community, and then several more murders that occur shortly after he arrives in town to investigate (the first of the additional murders, with arson thrown in to boot, occurs the very night Virgil hits town to investigate the initial murders). As well as the interesting case he's working on, Dark of the Moon also entertains with colorful local politics and a romance or two- one for Virgil, and one for the sheriff assisting him. And yes, a double date is thrown into the mix during some downtime.

Anyway, after enjoying Virgil's presence as an entertaining supporting player in the Prey series over the years, it was great to see that he can ably occupy the spotlight in his own series, the other entries of which I'll look forward to checking out in 2021.

Hard epilogue

All Kinds of Ugly, the 13th and final (for now) book in the recently-reissued 1970's Hardman action series, was a terrific end to the series I've been reading for the past year or so. Thanks to Brash Books, this long-out-of-print series by the late Ralph Dennis is now available to a new generation of thriller fans and All Kinds of Ugly ends it on a high note.

In some ways, the most recent book is the best in the series, because it's deeper, more serious and introspective, and willing to take on deeper, more melancholy themes than the other entries.  The prose is richer and more descriptive, too.  

However, in some ways, this tale of unofficial P.I. Jim Hardman searching for an old millionaire's missing grandson in London is not as good as the others because it's mostly missing the fun banter between Hardman and his friend and associate Hump Evans and a lot of the action and danger we're used to enjoying.

But those elements not being a big part of this book doesn't mean it's somehow flawed, but simply that the story being told this time out is a bit different. It's not the usual fun team up between Hardman and Hump as they solve a case in around 1970's Atlanta.  This is Hardman on his own in London as he's simultaneously attempting to get over some personal problems.  It's a dark, more serious P.I. story that actually would make for a nice, moody film.  I'm just glad we also have all those lighter, more fun Hardman adventures, too (Atlanta Deathwatch is the first book).

This most recent Hardman novel was completed by author and Brash books head Lee Goldberg, who found an unpublished non-Hardman novel that (as he convincingly demonstrates in an afterword) most likely began life as a Hardman book that Dennis then altered into a standalone novel with different characters but then abandoned. Goldberg then skillfully converted the book back into a Hardman, and a very good one.

And though the book feels like a natural end to the series, I wouldn't mind seeing more of Jim Hardman and Hump Evans (who, though largely absent this time, still has a couple of memorable scenes). After all, though Jim seems to be moving on to bigger and better things as the book closes, an occasional trip back into the muck of gritty P.I. work might not be out of the question. Might be a fun thing for Mr. Goldberg or one of his colleagues to think about.

But, if things are over, these 13 Hardman novels have been a great ride.

I'll murderlize you!

Murderlized, by Max Allan Collins and frequent collaborator Matthew V. Clemens, reminded me a lot of the movie Grindhouse.  That film, also by two frequent collaborators, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, celebrated the violent, sexy, over-the top world of drive-in cinema of years past: tales of rough men and beautiful, deadly women, monsters human and otherwise, extreme violence, and sexy hijinks that barely got the "R" rating it required for exhibition. 

Most of the stories in this fun collection reminded me of Grindhouse and the movies it paid tribute to, and even the couple of the more traditional Collins/Clemens crime thriller stories included here are still a little out there.

The lead story, for example, Murderlized, is a nice piece of historical crime fiction, except of all people the real-life person trying to solve a murder is Moe Howard of The Three Stooges. And that's one of the more normal stories.  From there we move onto stories about a werewolf terrorizing a sex-starved wife in the Bayou, a vampire P.I. taking on a particularly formidable serial killer, and a James Bond-type figure whose sexy night with his wife keeps getting interrupted by femme fatales from his spy career who want to bed him down, too, and- oh, yes- then kill him.  All over the top, but intentionally so, making all of them a lot of fun. 

A couple of down to earth crime stories, of both the historical fiction and modern crime investigation variety, are also entertaining.  But it's the crazy stuff that really shines, in part because it's fun to see examples of Collins and Clemens working ousidet of their usual, more polished and disciplined comfort zones.

Bookending these day-glo stories of supernatural monsters hiding in the fog, human monsters who are even scarier, and normal but clueless men being helplessly manipulated by gorgeous women, is an efficient, informative introduction on how the Collins/Clemens collaborative relationship came about and an index telling us where the stories originally appeared.  Both are interesting and helpful.  But it's the stories with all their craziness that you'll remember.  Grab some popcorn and curl up with them one night.

 

Trick or Treat

It's Halloween time, so I thought you might like a suggestion or two about something scary to watch, as if the current times weren't scary enough.  Oh, well, what's a few more scares, right?

The other day I watched The Blackcoat's Daughter on Netflix and found it well worth my time. Now streaming on Netflix, this 2015 slow-burn horror film is beautifully shot and acted, only occasionally outright scary, and leaves it up to the viewer to piece together exactly what happened when it's over. 

I often find movies like that somewhat frustrating, but this tale of two girls stranded alone at their boarding school during a semester break because both girls' sets of parents were delayed in picking them up is so well crafted and has such gorgeous cinematography and lighting that I just ate it up. Besides, it's not too hard to figure out what happened.  And, at only a little over 90 minutes, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome.

If you'd like something a little more rollercoaster-ride scary, without all the arty ambiguity, try out the 2006 version of The Hills Have Eyes, now showing on HBO. Mutated townspeople hiding out in the desert in the American Southwest terrorize a family when their RV breaks down in that same desert (creepily, the RV is actually sabotaged by those who want to make an offering to the mutants).  It's a pretty brutal movie, but also exhilarating and exciting when the family members refuse to just get picked off one by one and start to fight back.  It's a fast, fun, and scary 90 minutes or so.  HBO is also offering the sequel, The Hills Have Eyes 2, and that's okay, too, but not as tense and involving as the first. The sequel features an army unit sent into the desert to take on the mutant threat.

Anyway, there are tons of other horror films out there now to stream at the moment, so I'm sure you'll find something else appropriate to the season, if these suggestions don't wow you. But whatever you end up watching, I hope the scares of a good Halloween movie will nicely distract you for a while from all the real-life scares we're inundated with every day. Happy Halloween!

Discovering Scudder

Thanks to a new deal at Audible.com, which now lets members access a vast library of older titles in addition to the one book a month its basic membership previously allowed, I've been getting into some new series I've always meant to check out.  In particular, lately I've really been enjoying Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series.

With a character name like "Scudder", I always thought this series was about a "tough guy" detective who engaged in fisticuffs, gun play, and all that gritty P.I. stuff. But no, Matthew Scudder is an introspective type, who quietly interviews those involved in the cases we accepts, then thinks about those interviews, usually over a drink or two in a quiet bar, while he puts the pieces together.

It's almost like author Block writes his Scudder novels (well, at least the first three I've experienced so far) as if they were meant to be adapted into community theater productions with limited budgets.  There are no action scenes, no jet setting, nothing "big".  The first three books are basically Matthew Scudder getting his case, interviewing people in their offices, apartments, or on the phone, then finally figuring things out and confronting whodunit. And no, despite the talkiness, none of this is dull. These efficient little novels move along nicely and the cases feature interesting puzzles.

Two other elements were also compelling in the first novel, The Sins of the Fathers, and the two follow-ups I've read (actually, listened to) so far. Scudder himself is an interesting guy who carries some guilt on his shoulders from his time on the police force (with him possibly being too hard on himself), and that guilt informs his musing and mulling over his cases.  The other thing is that, despite the general quietness of the books and the Scudder charcter himself, Matthew Scudder is a kind of avenging angel who in his own way demands eye-for-an-eye justice from those he ultimately confronts with their crimes, and he does so in ways that can make you feel bad for the accused, even if what they did in the first place was pretty bad. But again, his retributions, memorable as they are, are done in quiet, introspective ways. That's not something I've seen a lot in other detective novels.

I'm glad I'm finally getting into this series that's been around since the early 1970's.  I have a feeling that as I move along it's going to go into some intertesting places.

 

When dads read books...

On this fine September day, here are a few "dad jokes" about our favorite pastime of reading.

I read a thriller in Braille. You can really feel the suspense.

I read a book about submarine construction. It was riveting.

I'm reading a book about adhesives. It has me glued to my seat.

I've written a book on penguins. In hindsight, using paper would have been better.

My friend was recently seriously hurt when a huge pile of books fell on him. Of course, he only had his shelf to blame.

Whenever I read a comic book I always tear the last page out. I like to draw my own conclusions.

I saw a book on how to resolve 50% of your problems, so I bought two.

That's it for now. Enjoy these nice autumn days!

No grudge here

It's nice to have Sunny Randall back again. Starting with Blood Feud last year, the late Robert B. Parker's intrepid female detective was the last of his series characters to get continuation novels after Mr. Parker's passing in 2010. But with Mike Lupica at the helm, we're finally getting more of Sunny and her new adventures have been solid.

For the record, I'm not against new writers being commissioned to produce new novels in a series after the original author passes away.  After all, don't we all continue watching a favorite TV show even though writers, showrunners, and even stars come and go?  The only reason to leave is if the stories aren't good anymore. End of disclaimer,

And, as said, Mr. Lupica's Sunny Randall stories have certainly been entertaining and exciting so far, with Sunny being the same Sunny we remember from Mr. Parker's half dozen or so Sunny novels.  What always made Sunny interesting were her opposing, contradictory qualities, and how she reconciles them over the course of the novels.  She's dangerous and tough but also revels in being girly and feminine.  She won't let men push her around or decide things for her, but- when she chooses to- she is not opposed to being vulnerable and and wanting to be taken care of by the men in her life.  And, often the most fun, even though she is always fiercely loyal to her current romantic interest (in this case, her ex-husband Richie) she is not above flirting and showing interest in other men who cross her path, and even second guessing who should actually be her current romantic interest.

Mr. Lupica has fun with all of the above, while also delivering a cool thriller plot once again (his first Sunny book was the engaging Blood Feud).  This time Sunny is hired by her sometimes underworld ally Tony Marcus, who wants Sunny to find his missing girlfriend and business associate. Does Tony want to find his lady love Lisa purely for the sentimental reasons he tells Sunny, or is he worried the missing woman might know a little too much about his illegal business dealings and thus needs to be dealt with in some way?  As there are indications that the woman might be in real trouble, Sunny takes the case, but then has to decide just how much to tell Tony about her progress.

Grudge Match (the full title is Robert B. Parker's Grudge Match, in tribute to the character's creator) was a lot of fun and I look forward to future Sunny Randall novels by Mike Lupica.  The author, by the way, will also be writing Mr. Parker's Jesse Stone series for the time being, too. His first novel in that series will be Fool's Paradise, which will be out before the end of the year.  I hope it's not revealing too much to say that, based on Grudge Match, our gal Sunny may actually put in an appearance in Mr. Lupica's first Stone novel, too!