The Dead are Discreet (Arthur Lyons, 1974)

It starts very promising, in the best tradition of the old school hard-boiled tradition: Los Angeles, movie stars, porn business, occultism, phoney religious leaders... Our hero, too, is (stereo)typical P.I. - he is a bit hungover when he gets hired by some hot-shot lawyer. We soon learn that he used to be a reporter, but was not only fired but had actually served time for not revealing his sources. So we know that he's an honourable man, a man of integrity. There's a nice episode, a bit Marlowe-esque, when some asshole tries to bribe him with 5 grand. He's tempted but instead chooses to drink it away: "By the time I was down to the bottom of the cup, the check had stopped glowing... I repeated the sequence ... and the check was gone."

Excellent start, written with lots of skill and style. Not forcing or overdoing it at all, just taking its time to introduce the characters and lay the foundation for the plot. A real page-turner; I was definitely hooked!

But then came chapter 11 (of 21), which starts with: "By the following Wednesday, I had checked out most of my leads and come up with a big, fat zero."

Okay, it's not exactly the end of the world, and our Jake is certainly not the first detective to be stuck in the case, but still - WTF!? And then it deteriorates from not very good to bad to even worse. His detective skills are pathetic and almost non-existent. For example, for no apparent reason, he tails a guy who was together with a victim when she had a car accident some time ago (not even related to the case). This dude meets another guy, and our lost hero just decides to start tailing him.

Shit like this becomes obvious even to Jake. At the start of the 17th chapter, he is so confused that he tries to summarise the situation, but fails to do so and simply concludes that "There was something else, some unconscious, instinctual force that had a ring in my nose and was pulling me along, and that was what bothered me. I never did believe in playing hunches, but that was what I was doing."

To conclude, it just turns from a first-rate mystery into a third-rate thriller. The only thrill I felt was to finish this damn book as soon as possible. The ending is pretty okay, though; I didn't see it coming.

4.5 for the first 10 chapters and 1.5 for the remaining 11 results in 2.92, but I'll round it up because of the good ending.

3/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Jacob 'Jake' Asch, P.I.

Location: 
L.A.

Body count: 
2 at the start and only one more later

Dames: 
Sheila Warren, the victim. Gloria Pilsen, her sister. Sasha, "more of a bitch than a witch". Allison Shaw, the actress.

Blackouts: 
Two. And both of them happen in the same chapter! First one is pretty standard: "There was a lot of pain and a lot of light flooding in my head all at once - too much to think about, so my brain decided to go to sleep for a while." Second one is nastier as he gets kicked in the balls: "My body convulsed and the pain instantly filled my intestines, then my stomach. I vomited and passed out." Ouch!!!

Title:
Cool, but its meaning escapes me.

Cover:
The photo of the old car is cool, but its relation to the story, once again, escapes me.

Cool lines:  
When she turned and smiled, her eyes said things. One of the things they said was that the martini in her hand was not the first one she had had today.

Recollections moved across his face swiftly, like steel balls in a pinball machine trying to hit 500-point pocket.

He looked at me as if I were a blood-rare steak he had ordered well done and had already sent back twice.[The Coolest!]

Too Many Women (Rex Stout, 1948)

Nero Wolfe, obese NYC detective, is hired by some big ass company to investigate shady circumstances surrounding the accidental hit-and-run death of one of their employees. His assistant, Archie Goodwin, is at first reluctant and doesn't really take the case seriously (it wasn't a lead pencil leak, it was murder), but eventually he's persuaded by the big fat paycheck (Naylor-Kerr is good for anything up to twenty million). Archie then 'infiltrates' this company and ends up among 500 women (clean, young, healthy, friendly, spirited, beautiful and ready - it was an ocean of opportunity) who are all suspects. Kind of. Throw into the pot the scheming of top executives and their family ties, and we have a mystery. 

This is definitely my least hard-boiled, non-noir of the year. It's kind of Agatha fucking Christie written for housewives so they can be amused by witty dialogues and naughty gags (slightly sexist if you ask me). Don't get me wrong - style is okay, but I got fed up with it after a few chapters. Especially because the story doesn't move anywhere (a corpse per 100 pages), and more than once, I had the feeling that the writer was more concerned about his characters than with the plot. Which gets totally stuck after one week, and then the great detective forces its development by simply:

"We have no clues at all. Literally none.  ... "
"What do we do when we have no clues? Do you know?" 
"No sir" 
"We make one"

Truly brilliant. So they fake some evidence, and the case is solved. I just wish they would do so some 50 pages sooner...

Apparently, 33 Nero Wolfe novels were published, but this is definitely my last one. It's not bad, but it's just not my style. And by glancing through reviews on Amazon I was a bit surprised to find out I'm the only one who dislikes this.

2/5

Facts:

Hero:
Archie Goodwin (brilliant lieutenant according to the Gazette), Nero Wolfe

Location:
New York

Body count: 

3 (also counting one suicide)

Dames: 
Miss Hester Livsey - "...she was in some kind of trouble, real trouble that no one but you would understand and no one but you could help her out of."

Rosa Bendini, who "knew her way about."

Blackouts: 

/

Cover:
Pretty cool; it was the reason I bought this in the first place.

Cool lines:  
Receptionist was away past the deadline, having reached the age when it is more blessed to receive than to give.

"I ought to warn you that his charges have not joined in the post-war inflation because they were already so high that a boost would have been vulgar."

[when identifying a corpse run over by the car] 
It was unquestionably him, when you had made the mental adjustment required by the transformation of a sphere into a disc.[The Coolest!]

"You must be aware that she is completely devoid of intellect, and therefore that her opinion on any subject whatever is without value. She is not a moron, but the quality of her brain is distinctly inferior."[The Coolest!]

Miami Blues (Charles Willeford, 1984)

Needs to be said that the start was not the most promising. It begins with this psychopathic asshole killing a Hare Krishna guy by breaking his finger. I kid you not, this sissy actually dies from the shock of getting his fucking finger broken!? So we have one less airport beggar in this world and one not very convincing prologue to a crime novel. Which right away becomes even less plausible because this same psycho asshole hires a hooker who turns out to be a deceased guy's sister. Later on (pg. 42 to be precise), there's information that Miami has 1.5 million residents, so you can calculate for yourself the odds of this actually happening.

It sounds like a mess, but it's anything but that. Quite opposite, actually - we are dealing with a masterfully constructed thriller. When homicide detective Hoke Moseley starts to investigate this unusual murder, he himself becomes the chased party in a cat-and-mouse game. So, this is not a classical whodunit, but much more a WTF is going to happen next. Taut and suspenseful story, told in 3rd person in alternating chapters from the perspectives of (mostly) our two main protagonists.

But still, as great as the story and narrative, this novel is foremost character-driven. Central one is, of course, Hoke, a rather washed-up detective. And I truly can't remember the last time I've come across such a likeable protagonist. He's just the coolest! 42 years of age, divorced with two little daughters. And he's not moaning and bitching about missing them or (usual) shit like that. His only problem with this is that every other one of his paychecks goes to them, leaving him more or less broke and forcing him to live in a cheap hotel where he's performing duties of a house dick. There's a delightful episode when he unexpectedly gets some (pretty obviously) dirty money, and he doesn't hesitate one second about it - he goes straight to a local bar to settle his 100$ tab. "Fuck where it came from. I need it, and I can use it." Great stuff, no moral dilemmas there! He's also not the best detective in the world, and he's actually somehow scared of his unpredictable and violent opponent. But he can be tough as his new partner has experienced. The part where he explains to unfortunate Ellita Sanchez her position in their relationship (hierarchy) is simply hilarious, I've reread it three times!

I could go on and on about our main man Hoke (didn't even mention his false teeth!), but I mustn't neglect others. Susan is great as a simple, greedy and stupid whore living in a "platonic-marriage" with Junior. And he himself is some piece of work, indeed. It's astonishing how Willeford manages to picture him as a total sociopath in the first two pages of the book. Later scenes, such as buying Frisbees and tossing them to himself, are brilliant, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were taken from a psychological study. And it's equally amazing that somehow this really mean motherfucker is sympathetic throughout the book.

Writing is in a league of its own. Hot and sweaty Miami makes a great background and adds something special to the atmosphere. And while one would easily expect that this kind of stuff would be full of some macho language and/or wisecracking, it's surprisingly tight and almost dull. And as such, it perfectly aligned with Hoke's character, his mechanical and emotionless police work, and his personal problems. And speaking about police work - the way they crack that family slaughter case is just - once more - brilliant, isn't it?

Authentic, funny, at times brutal and ... simply just really cool. I'm totally hooked on Hoke!

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Detective Hoke Moseley

Location:
Miami - where "It wasn't enough that Carter had destroyed the city by sending in all the refugees, Reagan was importing ex-cons from California."

Body count: 
4 + another 4 in unrelated massacre + 1 child murder in another unrelated case + 1 at the end. Maybe unrelated, or maybe a prologue to the next book in the series?

Dames: 
Susan Waggoner - "Is she really that dumb, or is it an act of some kind?"

Blackouts: 
Yes, Junior beats the living shit out of him: "The jaw cracked audibly, and blood poured from Hoke's nose and mouth."

Title: 
Pretty fitting. Miami plays a major role in building up a "blues" atmosphere.

Cover:
Nice, colourful illustration of Miami. Author not credited.

Cool lines:  
There was no way that Mendez could be his real name. With that bronze tan, he looked like an Afrika Corps Nazi, and it was definitely a tan, not dark skin.

The mentholated smoke tasted wonderful. A man would be a fool to give up smoking altogether.[The Coolest!]

But any way Hoke looked at it, the quality of life in Miami would be improved immeasurably now that Freddy Frenger was no longer out on the streets...

Retribution (Van Lacey, 1959)

Brad Connor, a no-name and nobody kind of guy, is minding his own business when someone tries to kill him. He survives the attempt, but his good friend Matt is not so lucky. They both have just one enemy in common, but he's supposed to be dead - Henri Rheims, sadistic asshole and devil himself reincarnated, was a prison warden in a Japanese camp where they were held captives, and he had died in a fire when the camp was liberated. Is it possible that he had survived and is now looking for revenge? And for a retribution!

The answer is, of course, yes. Not only has he survived the fire, but he has also come to the States to expand his criminal activities. He is now  Jonathan Byrd, host of sinister parties where he is drugging prominent scientists (with marijuana!, sic) to reveal their findings about H-bomb developments that he can sell to Russians. The only obstacle on his path is potential witnesses who could recognise him. So they must die.

This is a basic premise, and as you can probably figure out for yourself, it presents quite a problem. I somehow still cannot understand why someone would go through all the trouble of killing two guys (plus framing another one for murder!) who are convinced that he's dead in the first place!?? Especially, we learn that later, because he had completely changed his appearance in the meantime.

I think a more skilful writer could still pull something better out of this. But everything else is also so fucking sloppy and amateurish. There's no real reason (or need) for Marie's character and development of their relationship, which is at best unnecessary and at worst ridiculous. Something similar could be said for Hagen, the GI man who gets involved in the case. Detective skills of two combined are pretty pathetic (I suspect something, yes. I don't know what. I wish i did.) and I cannot see why they needed to fly to LA to just interview a guy. Surely there were phones in America in the late 50s?

It has some bright points worth mentioning, though. A brilliant touch is that Matt's body is found in the morgue. Now, how cool and original is that!? It really gave me high hopes at the beginning of an intriguing mystery. Another thing I enjoyed was the heavy use of slang, as we get more than a decent dosage of dames and reefers and coppers. Bad guys are heeled (armed), and so on. I think my favourite one was: "She fished a mirror out of her white leather bag and okayed herself".

But dialogues are far too scarce. And so it is action (app 100 pages between corpses), so reading this was a struggle at times.

2/5

Facts:

Hero:
Brad Connor

Location:
New York, briefly also L.A. and Chicago

Body count: 

4

Dames: 
Evie the nurse. Marie, the reporter. But "Dames'll be bad medicine kid, because the case is hot."

Cover:
Cool, comic book style art. But not too accurate - Brad gets a shot at through the window, but he is not actually hit.

Blackouts: 
Three of them - in fact, the book starts with one. On second occasion "ammunition truck exploded up above my left eye. I was out." and last one "I node-dived headlong into the cellar of limp oblivion."

Cool lines: 
I smelt trouble. I was right. Trouble hit me. Hard. The slug would have paid me off if Matt hadn't yelled. 

I was by that time as jumpy as a virgin entering the Tunnel of Love with an all-in wrestler.[The Coolest!]

The Guns of Heaven (Pete Hamill, 1983)

This novel has three parts. At the beginning, we join NYC reporter Sam Briscoe landing at Belfast airport. He's an old-school, disillusioned man of the world. Divorced (his wife - of course - couldn't and wouldn't keep up with his lifestyle) with a daughter in some Swiss private boarding school. He is also an IRA supporter and had come to Northern Ireland to do the "annual" St.Patrick's day article. His uncle, a big IRA shot, arranges for him an exclusive interview with the new leader, Steel. During this interview, Steel gives Sam a mysterious envelope and asks him to deliver it to America. Things begin to accelerate now: we get a first corpse, Sam goes to Switzerland to visit his daughter, but he's followed and his life is threatened, so he takes his brat to her mother in Spain, and then he returns home.

So the plot had thickened a lot, and we are now in mighty NYC, and we expect (at least I did) that Sam will do some ass kicking journalistic investigation. Unfortunately, he doesn't. He's so streetwise that he doesn't really need to. He knows everyone: from well-informed ex-junkies, bartenders, cops, fellow reporters, lawyers and even a biology professor at Columbia University. So, he wanders around asking questions, and in the meantime, the story becomes more and more convoluted and difficult to follow. Pace drops noticeably; we need to wait for a second corpse until page 109. Oh yeah, he also gets laid three times with a woman he had just picked up in the bar, so there can be no doubt about his coolness.

The third part begins when all this shit becomes just too incomprehensible to follow. It shifts from a mystery into an against-the-clock thriller. Besides IRA, we also get UVF thrown into the pot, plus another fanatical Christian faction, plus the FBI, plus some arms dealer, plus an assassination conspiracy, and so on. Needless to say, his kid gets kidnapped. There's actually a moment when Sam does a Hercule Poirot-type of shit, explaining whodunit and what the fuck is going on. I read that paragraph twice and still wasn't sure.

Plotting is disastrous, but Hamill gets away with it because it's written brilliantly. I mean, really, really good! So good that it sometimes even hurts the novel, as it is so far above the simple language and cheap gags usually used in pulp novels (which this still is, make no mistake). Little objection I had was once again this fucking New York fascination/near obsession thing. In every book that takes place in this city, we need to endure all that crap about its history, endless descriptions of the streets, subway stations, jazz, boxing...

But the thing I'll remember Guns of Heaven the most for is the total bluntness of the author's sympathies for the IRA. This was probably a bit unusual in the early 80s, but it's pretty remarkable to read it in the post-9/11 world, given that those guys were undeniably terrorists. And Hamill does try to be objective (and probably succeeds I think) but at the same time there's no doubt he's not neutral.

So when I checked this guy, it came as no surprise that he is a reporter with Irish roots, so this explains both the quality of his writing and his feelings about all that shit that happened in Northern Ireland. His life and career seemed interesting enough to warrant checking out something else from him. But not a crime novel this time and definitely not stuff about New York! Drinking Life sounds interesting :)

A bit unusual, still enjoyable, personal, thought-provoking, entertaining, still relevant.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sam Briscoe, reporter

Location:
Starts briefly in Belfast, moves to Switzerland and then concludes in "...that capital of Satan, Sodom-by-the-Sea, New York City"

Body count: 

6

Dames: 
Sheila Rafferty, "A good woman, for a Yank". Marta Torres, with whom he has an ambiguous relationship. Try to figure it out yourself: "I liked her more than anyone I knew. But I didn't know what to do about it." And there's also his whining wife, and maybe we can count Red Emma (Sam's Jaguar) too.

Blackouts: 
Once, briefly, when an explosion occurred near a pub. The second one is pretty standard and unoriginal: "A Jagged red scribble went through my eyes, and then there was blackness."

Title: 
Not sure. The main sub-plot is about one group of fanatics trying to steal a large arms shipment from another. Have no idea where/how heaven came into the picture. 

Cover:
Good as expected from Hard Case Crime. But not very accurate - I guess the chick is Sheila, but the only time she's outside the McDaid's is when the pub is blown to pieces by a planted bomb. Her description of that evening matches, though: she does have red hair, a green blouse, and large breasts (for a thin girl).

Cool lines:  
The thin, moustached bartender wore a Pioneer pin on his shirt, a sign that he had taken the pledge never to drink. Such Irishman are prized bartenders on the Irish saloon circuit, but I never trusted them to fix me a drink more complicated than a beer.

I slipped into the scalding hot bath. I jumped, moaned, then settled. The womb.