The Real Cool Killers (Chester Himes, 1959)

While reading the Blond Faith I remembered another master of the urban black hard-boiled crime, the one and only Chester Himes. Alpha-60 blog simply must have few entries of his and what better way to start a series than with this cult novel.

I'm not really into police procedural stuff, at least not in Ed McBain's 87th precinct kind of (too) methodological investigations. But Real Cool Killers is light years away from those formulaic books. True, our main protagonists are cops but there's not much of the procedure here. Unless you count use of brutal force as a standard police procedure. And if you do, I welcome you to Harlem!

Starts extremely violently (and of course incredibly cool) by a guy attacking another customer in a public bar with a knife (!), getting his arm chopped off (!!) by the bartender and soon after being shot in the middle of street in the broad daylight (!!!) while trying to escape another crazed customer. In the shooting involved a juvenile delinquent also gets killed (!!!!) and an innocent passerby is wounded by a stray bullet (!!!!!). Plus Grave Digger and Coffin Joe, on their way to the crime scene, fire a  few bullets to a car of local mobster. Just to remind us how tough they are and that we are reading Chester fucking Himes!

Pace doesn't slow at all, this stuff just grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. In fact the whole book takes place in a mere 6 hours and in this period we follow two independent investigations (one by the police and one by Grave Digger) entwined by the happenings and tensions between the members of Real Cool Moslems gang. One of them also happens to be a Coffin Ed's daughter so we can expect some bloody retribution at the end. Needles really to say that we shall get one but there will also be a double (and even triple) twist!

True masterpiece and even 50+ years after its publication it still remains unique. Flawless stuff, everything simply works to a perfection. Won't start again about superb plotting and breathtaking pace - I also loved the dark style, terrific dialogues and use of a slang (too bad though that 'fuck' is replaced by 'rap'), realistic and not cartoonish characterization of all protagonists and especially depiction of Harlem slums as a savage racially segregated urban jungle. Hell, if nothing else, we can learn here what a zip gun is and even how to assemble one!

Mandatory re-reading. Give it a try while listening to Unsane, it will hit you even harder!

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Grave Digger Jones & Coffin Ed Johnson

Location: 
Harlem, NYC. Where 

"The broken concrete paving was strewn with broken glass bottles, rags and diverse objects thrown from the back windows: a rusty bed spring, a cotton mattress with a big hole burnt in the middle, several worn-out automobile tires, the half-dried carcass of a black cat with its left foot missing and its eyes eaten out by rats." 

And even better:

"Well, it's like this, Commissioner," Grave Digger said. "Every day in Harlem, two or three times a day, the colored people see some colored man being chased by another colored man with a knife or an axe or a cub. Or else being chased by a white cop with a gun, or by white man with his fists. But it's only once in a blue moon they get to see a white man being chased by one of them. That was an event. A chance to see some white blood spilled for a change, and spilled by a black man, at that. That was greater than Emancipation Day. As they say up in Harlem, that was the greatest. That's what Ed and I are always up against when we try to keep Harlem safe for white people."

Body count: 
5 (not counting the old granny)

Dames: 
Sugartit, Sissie

Blackouts:
 Nope, no time for anybody to get knocked out in this one.

Title: 
A bit of artistic freedom here since our gang is actually called "Real Cool Moslems". But we'll forgive Mr. Hines for sneaking "cool" into the title.

Cover: 
Great one. It pictures two guys having a fight with a bottle and a gun with some dark Harlem (I assume) blocks in the background. Expressionless and ruthless face of a guy gives a picture dark and sinister tone which reflects perfectly tone of the novel. I won't hesitate one second in case I find a poster with this cover! It would look great on my wall...

Cool lines:  
"Don't play with me," Grave Digger said with a sudden show of anger. "This ain't the movies, this is real. A white man has been killed in Harlem and Harlem is my beat. I'll take you down to the station and turn a dozen white cops loose on you and they'll work you over until the black comes off."  

"Don't show me your teeth," Grave Digger snarled. "I'm no dentist. I don't fix teeth. I'm a cop. I'll knock your teeth out." [The Coolest!]

During the hostage negotiation situation] 
"Don't be a mad dog like Vincent Coll. Be a man like Dillinger was." [The Coolest!]

Dream Girl (Robert B. Parker, 2006)

Had a shitty day at the office and was craving for a few pints in the local pub and some easy reading. But it happened that the only stuff I had was Hedge Funds for the Dummies (don't ask!) on my Kindle so I needed to pick something up at the local bookstore on my way home. Just took the first pulp that had matched my quickly constructed criteria: (1) not to be written by a woman (always), (2) to be written by the author without an entry on this blog (which somehow covers the first condition), (3) to have P.I. for its protagonist and (4) to be reasonably light (part of a serial written by some bestselling author, reasonably short, lots of dialogues etc).

I've read one or two Spenser novels some time ago so this one was no-brainer. And it proved to be a good decision because it has totally fulfilled the last condition of my demanding terms. It's as easy reading as they come and as far as I'm concerned could be filed in a cosy crime section together with Agatha fucking Christie. Although of course back cover blurbs are saying this is "one of the greats of American hard-boiled genre" and "...non-stop action,... kick-ass entertainment" (by Janet Evanovich of course, hehe).

Anyways, let's finally move on. Spenser is asked (not even hired) by his old friend April to get rid of some assholes threatening to take over her business. And since this business is a whorehouse it comes to no surprise that some sleazy gigolo, a local tough guy, big-time madam from New York and even good old mafia get involved in order to get a piece of the cake. Spenser and few of his buddies are caught in between of this mess and (with a lot of help from the police) they manage to crack this case.

Sounds better than it actually is. Story is okay and complex enough, but it's told in a really dull way. Spenser is just connecting the dots in pretty straightforward fashion and when Parker stops introducing new characters (which is pretty soon) everything becomes tiresome and repetitive. And at the end we get some moral redemption/salvation crap instead of a classical whodunnit. It certainly feels as the author himself was as disillusioned and disappointed as his hero and was just relieved to finish this.

Two major weaknesses here. First one is a lack of decent pace and consequently lack of suspense. Everything simply moves too slowly, we need to wait for ages to get the first corpse. Investigation itself takes the whole winter and after the first half it basically gets stuck. At the same time narration's rhythm is constantly interrupted with the whole chapters that don't contribute nothing truly substantial to the story. They are mostly about conversations with his shrink girlfriend about the case (but also about writing poems to each other on Valentine's day) and in one chapter our main man even speaks about it with his fucking dog! Very annoying...

The second thing that bothered me were Spenser's horrible detective skills. Most of the times this guy has no idea what he's doing or what he is even suppose to investigate. So he keeps running in circles, interviewing same people again and again while traveling between Boston and New York like a headless chicken. And still not making any progress - the only fact he has successfully deducted is that everybody has been lying to him all the time! His interrogation skills are beyond pathetic and my favorite scene is the one where he starts interviewing bunch of hookers by asking them how come they have ended up in this profession!? You know - just to break the ice and make them more relaxed... So it's not surprising that 50 pages before the conclusion he's still totally clueless and the way he cracks the case is just great. Without any apparent reason and out of the blue (gut feeling maybe?) he decides to follow one of his suspects and after five days on this tail job this guy leads him to the solution.

I also didn't like much the writing style, but we won't get into that. All in all, predictable and in some ways enjoyable read. Certainly got what I'd expected.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero:
Spenser P.I.

Location: 
Boston and New York

Body count: 3

Dames:  
April Kyle, ex-hooker and now aspiring madame

Blackouts: 
Nope, none. Not enough action.

Title: 
Words play - "Dreamgirl" is a future franchise name of  the "boutique sex mansions" across America that April wants to manage. Which - I guess - makes her a dream girl. Or - less likely - is she a girl that Spenser is dreaming about? 

Cover: 
Typical stuff for selling at the airports. Motive looks more suitable for some ghostly horror story and I would definitely prefer bunch of half naked prostitutes standing in front of the whorehouse (sorry, it's boutique of course) with a big neon sign saying "Dream Girl"

Cool lines:  
None really. Parker is constantly trying to be cute and funny but doesn't really succeeds.

Blonde Faith (Walter Mosley, 2007)

Me and Easy Rawlins go way back. Almost two decades ago I saw Devil in a Blue Dress and was completely blown away by this masterpiece. Simply one of the best neo-noirs ever! There are just a few ways how to make these movies right and many ways how to fuck them up. Carl Franklin had great material to work with and obviously knew his shit. If you are not convinced by the Devil, check out One False Move, another insanely cool flick of his. Too bad he's not making movies anymore, seems to be living comfortable life in the TV land...

So it was the most promising beginning of a would-be beautiful friendship. But somehow and unfortunately Mosley's books haven't been always as great as I'd hoped for. Plots sometimes too complicated (Black Betty, 1994) and overwhelmed by not really essential topics and personal crap that often just slows down the pace. Also had problems every now and then with a too academic and little bit forced language. It just felt like Mosley would prefer writing "serious" prose instead of pulp novels.

For those same reasons (and a few more) I didn't like his most recent detective Leonid McGill (The Long Fall, 2009) and had hesitated a bit when I saw Blonde Faith in a local bookstore selling for a mere 5 euros. But what the hell, this is still Ezekiel Fucking Rawlins with a great legacy that deserves a big respect. And besides, 5 euros is a cost of a pint of Guinness in Dublin...

And it starts okay and according to the genre rules. In the opening chapter we get briefly re-acquainted with Easy. He's on the job searching for his friend's runaway teen-aged daughter. He quickly finds this brat who's been street walking and after efficiently dealing with her pimp (Porky the Pig !!) he returns her home to the father explaining him that she's now a full-grown woman and not a child anymore. Cool, his methods and morals are as sound as ever. Later on we also learn that he owns two houses and three apartments building. He's on the wagon, but still smoking (just because he doesn't care if he dies). So things are going smooth for Easy. He even passes 20 bucks bills to homeless people!

After this opening it's time for a mandatory plot conception. And we get two in this one - our detective's (btw - he's finally licensed PI now) first assignment is to find his friend and fellow detective who has left his daughter in Easy's care. His second task is to find his crazy friend Mouse who's wanted by the police for killing a man in a bit odd circumstances. And right away I had a problem with this because I don't really like family shit to be mixed up too much in my crime novels. But no real worries yet, I was still enjoying it.

But then, after going through the first few chapters, I realized that this was going to be only about the family shit and not much else. In fact Easy manages to break the case on the page 152 (of 300+)! And from that point on we need to endure his midlife crisis, racism and war criticism, rambling about humanity in general and - certainly most painfully for me - his self-pity about the lost of love-of-his-life Bonnie. This shit is unbearable and reaches its peak in absurd scene when he breaks into some chick's apartment and then spends an hour and half on a phone whining to his girlfriend about his life and failed relationship with Bonnie. Crazy stuff, I have no idea what Mosley was trying to say or achieve with this one. I respect him enough to assume this crap is in the book for a reason, I just can't see one.

Ending is not important, at least not plot-wise. To be honest, it was just a relief to be over with it. Both aforementioned plots are entwined (surprise, fucking surprise!), Mouse finally arrives on the scene and Easy masterfully manipulates bloodthirsty police and saves his family and his friend etc etc etc

I really wanted to like this book but it was true struggle for at least two thirds. What was Mosley thinking, was he pressured by his publishing company? Or, since this seems to be a final book of the series, got he simply bored with his most famous character and wanted to bury him? But even so the guy would deserve more decent burial.

2/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, 47 now and licensed P.I.

Location: 
L.A.

Body count: 7

Dames: 
Lots of them and Easy even scores with  two. My favorite would probably be Pretty Smart (short, built to populate the countryside, and lovely in a way that Christians interpreted the sin). But it's of course all about his ex-wife Bonnie. With absolute zero impact on the story she's still overwhelming.

Blackouts: 
I'm not sure, I think there's one that qualifies. Easy gets totally mental because some assholes endangered his house (=his family!) so he loses his senses and simply wakes up next day in his friend's house.

Title: 
Another one beyond me. There is a character nicknamed "Blonde Faith" but she's really just a minor one. Maybe title was suggested/enforced by the publishing company in order to hide its depressing content and make it more marketable (btw - what a terrible expression that is, right?) 

Cover:
Very dull. Worth pointing out that letters used for printing Mosley's name are even bigger than ones used for the title itself. And I hate when they do that! And back we are at that "marketable" thing...

Cool lines:  
"Can I help you?" he asked in a Texas drawl that I felt all the way down to the soles of my feet. Then my right testicle began aching, and I knew that the dark side of my mind was preparing to go to war. 

They looked up at me like two soldiers from vastly disparate battlefields who had died simultaneously and were now sitting in Limbo awaiting the verdict of Valhalla.[The Coolest!]

Kill Now, Pay Later (Robert Terrall, 1960)

Cool, old-school PI mystery. It does not start very glamorous though - Ben Gates is hired by an insurance company to watch over wedding presents at the reception. Job somehow inapt and inadequate for any great detective soon turns into the murder investigation as our hero tries to clear his name in order to stay in sleuth business.

All the right hard-boiled ingredients are there: wealthy old family with a dominant patriarch and wild Junior (expelled from Yale and Princeton), few scheming dames with a dubious morals and questionable past, couple of murders, a robbery, tax evasion, a blackmail, dirty pictures, smut movies, corrupted private detective, unscrupulous police officers etc. Story is good and complex just enough, told straightforward without much twists in our favorite first person type narration.

But something's missing. Style is smooth enough but language could be more colorful and would definitely benefit with more slang and/or witty jokes. Pace at the beginning is great but somehow drops just when plot starts to thicken. There are almost 200 pages between corpses which understandably effects suspense building.

But still it left me wanting more and it was pretty disappointing to discover that Mr Terrall (aka Robert Kyle aka Brett Halliday aka John/Jose Gonzales) wasn't too prolific and Ben Gates series contains just five entries. All of them out of print and hard to find. I did see some of his novels on eBay and Amazon's second hand offers. Would appreciate any suggestions?

4/5

Facts:

Hero:
Ben Gates, PI, 34 years old

Location: 
Countryside outside the New York

Body count: 4

Dames: 
Anna DeLong, indispensable secretary who likes to keep control. Shelley Hardwick party society girl who's "In hock to more people". Hilda Faltermeier - part time maid.

Blackouts: 
Yes:  "Somebody slugged the goddam coffee." It's a pivotal for the story because right away at the start Ben gets drugged : "The voices cut in and out, as thought they came from a TV set with a poor connection.... I reached for the corner of the table, but it was gone by the time my hand got there. The walls had begun to change places."

Title: 
No contract killers in this one so I'm not really sure who was suppose to do either the killing or the paying. But still of course extremely cool sounding title!

Cover: 
Sexy, done again by Hard Case Crime regular Robert McGinnis. Redhead looks hot and her look is as provocative and suggestive as they can be! But it needs to be said that her right leg seems to be a bit out of proportions. Maybe Mr McGinnis has a thing with the long legs (who doesn't btw) because he has extended another one on the cover of Little Girl Lost. Anyways, this time I'm also including an older cover which is even better!

Cool lines:  
She had fewer buttons on her skirt that I had thought at first. Even with close scrutiny, and this is a matter which I like to give close scrutiny, I could only count one.

"And you do want to go on being a private detective?"
"I think so. I don't know of any other job where you meet so many peculiar people."

"I don't like other people to handle my gun," I said. "It's one of the things I'm eccentric about."

Knots & Crosses (Ian Rankin, 1987)

I don't care much for these modern crime writers who publish their novels as on assembly line. It's not a snobbish thing, I just find most of these books totally predictable and boring. But I do have a habit of checking out a local author when I visit some new country/city. So last year I (finally!) had an opportunity to go to the Edinburgh's famous Fringe festival (btw - soooo cool!) and a friend had recommended me to check out Rankin's Rebus.

And no surprise really, it's just another one of those formulaic "catch a serial killer" thrillers that focuses far too much on its main protagonist and not enough on the plot development. And as hard as Mr. Rankin tries to make him original, Rebus is as stereotyped as they come. He's an ex-SAS (top of his class!), weary, divorced, drinks to much, tries to quit smoking, doesn't get along with his superiors, does manage to get laid etc etc

Story is trivial and told in a straightforward way through the third person narration. Few flashbacks and a couple of sub-plots involving brother Michael and (once again mandatory) unscrupulous news reporter. Also few hints indicating that some seriously fucked-up shit had happened to our hero during his service days. Which, I guess, is supposed to give this novel its "psychological" thriller edge. Anyways, mysterious "Strangler" is abducting and killing young girls and Rebus seems to be somehow related to this because he keeps getting cryptic messages (there are clues everywhere) from this sinister asshole.

Plotting is basically non-existent, but this lack of suspense gives us the most hilarious twist. Because - check this, I kid you not! - the whole Edinburgh's police force is understandably working around the clock to catch this killer but still they fail to recognize that initials of his victims form the name of the next unfortunate girl. They actually realize this when they receive a telephone call from a concerned citizen who had managed to solve this incredibly difficult riddle. Jesus, I feel sorry for the Scottish tax payers.

This is getting a bit mean and nasty so I'd better stop. Especially because in all fairness it's not that bad, I'm sure that more skilful writer could pull a good short story (stripped of all the family crap) out of this material. But you can just tell that this was Rankin's first book and he was trying too hard to create his hero and dark(?) Edinburgh atmosphere and had in process simply failed to create decent mystery story.

2.5/5

Facts:

Hero:
Detective Sergeant John Rebus

Location: 
Edinburgh

Body count: 4

Dames: 
Gill Templer, Press Liaison Officer

Blackouts: 
One, pretty dull - "Rebus, unable to move, decided it was safe to go to sleep now..."

Title: 
Rebus had been sent knots and crosses as a part of cat-and-mouse game with the Strangler 

Cover:
Pretty unimaginative one, I guess it is a picture of some site in Edinburgh.

Cool lines:  
"We don't want vigilante tactics. Not in Edinburgh. What would the tourists say?"

New Hope for the Dead (Charles Willeford, 1985)

Simply loved Miami Blues and was a bit wary about checking out next Hoke's novel. It happens so often that I get disappointed with some artist debut's (or in this case his fictional character) follow-up expecting too much. But I'm glad to report that my fears were totally redundant in this case - New Hope for the Dead is simply brilliant and possibly even better than its predecessor. Although 'better' is probably not the word I should be using, let me instead categorize it as even more wackier.

Willeford once again focuses on his weird protagonist even more than on the crime(s) he's supposed to be investigating. Sure, our cool sergeant is busy working on a small-time junkie/dealer's OD and on a pile of 'cold' cases but - in all fairness - he spends more time trying to get laid and finding a house for himself and his two daughters. Parallel to his story we follow similarly problematic one of his partner Elita Sanchez who gets thrown out of her parent's house due to her pregnancy.  But both problems will get resolved at the same time in totally unexpected and hilarious ending. Justice will be served, in a Hoke's way at least!

It's all about our main man's colorful character. He's a living definition of stoicism but at the same time also unusually warm, sympathetic and honest person. His methods are not exactly by-the-book but still he manages to get the job done and at the same time also knows where to draw the line - no way he'll jerk off that fucking dog in order to get the house-sitting job! Hoke is simply efficient and - as miserable as his situation is - doesn't complain.

Hoke didn't like himself very much. He never had, now that he thought about it. Still, a man had to take care of his family.

So fucking cool! But nothing new really because we had known already how cool Hoke was from the first novel. What I'm really going to remember this one by is his relationship with his two teenage daughters. It's basically stripped out of all the usual trivial emotions and family crap. When they arrive (basically abandoned by their mother who had left with some baseball star) to Miami they form some kind of weird bond with Hoke (and pregnant Elita) which is based more on the survival (mostly earning money) then on affection. But that of course it's just on the surface, you can somehow feel and enjoy their affections to each other. And even if you don't, Hoke's words of wisdom are hilarious more than enough to follow his unconventional  parenthood:

"South Beach is now a slum, and it's a high-crime area, so I don't want you girls to leave the hotel by yourselves. If you had a doll, and you left it out overnight on the front porch of the hotel, it would probably be raped when you found it in the morning."

"Better make these two last. If you can't support your habit on the allowance I gave you, you'll just have to stop smoking till I can find you a job somewhere."

"I know you girls are normal, and you'll have normal urges. That's natural. But to relieve your urges, just go into the bathroom, lock the door, and masturbate. But remember this, masturbation is a private matter. Do it alone, and not to each other, and don't ever talk about it."

"AIDS you don't have to worry about. That comes from anal sex. If you avoid anal sex, you won't get AIDS, but the point is, I want you girls to avoid sex altogether."

Simply brilliant stuff, so refreshing and so unique - in style and as well as in the content. Cannot wait till my nephew is old enough to read it and looking forward to discuss this masterpiece with him.

5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Sergeant Hoke Moseley

Location: 
Miami, 80s when cigarettes cost $1.30 a pack, it made a man think twice before lighting up a cigarette worth six and a half cents.

Body count: 
1 + 3 in cold cases + unrelated death of an old lady in his hotel

Dames:
Mrs Loretta Hickey

Blackouts: 
None, Hoke's too busy with the house hunting to let himself be knocked off

Title: 
Fuck me if I get it. Somehow it doesn't seem plausible that house they manage to get at the end would be their "new hope". But it sounds cool anyways. 

Cover:
Nice design, but nothing special really. I wonder if artist had in mind Elita Sanchez or Loretta Hickey when he was drawing that good looking lady.

Cool lines:  
"I'm really sorry for her condition."
"Don't be. The world would look better if everybody drank a glassful of Wild Turkey in the morning."
 
"Jerry was my ex-husband's ex-wife's son by her first husband. "
"You may not believe me, but I can follow you. I run into a lot more complicated families than yours in Miami."

[The best one!]
"Jesus! You told the recording Jerry was dead? I could've done that myself. The reason I asked you to call call him in the first place was I thought you could do it gently."
"There isn't any gentle way to tell someone that a member of his family's dead. The direct method's as good as any. Besides, if Mr. Hickey was sensitive, he wouldn't have a recording answer his telephone for him."

"Christ, Bill, there must be ten thousand men named Leroy in Liberty City"
"It could've been worse. He could've said 'Tyrone'"

He showed the clerk his shield and asked if he could use a telephone. Since the pay phone rates had jumped from a dime to a quarter a few years back, Hoke, as a matter of principle, had never paid to use a phone again.