Dispatches From Noir

It wasn’t as if I intended to start my golden years early. Several decades early. But I had free time. All dressed up in a tweed jacket and vintage tie. All dressed up and no place to go. Except the thrift stores, antique shops and second-hand bookstores. So I wandered around town.

The antique shop was like any other antique shop. Loads of crap piled on cabinets, tables and bookshelves. Some of it was interesting crap. I hardly ever see a genuine straw skimmer anymore. I want one, but I didn’t want to pay $70 for one that was too small. So I kept looking. I found the cane in an umbrella stand. I didn’t need it. Still don’t. But I liked twirling it casually by the crooked handle. So I got it. For $7. Too bad the skimmer didn’t work out.

Then I was off down the street to the used bookstore. I twirled my cane as I went. God knows I don’t need more books. I have more than I can possibly read or store right now. But that never stops me. Fortunately for me, the bookstore was running low on quality literature. But I snap up anything I can find by John D. MacDonald. I love Travis McGee, but MacDonald’s other stuff is equally good. This was a non-McGee book called A Key to the Suite. For $2.50. Sold.

I tucked the book into my jacket pocket and strolled down the street twirling my cane. It occurred to me that I had jumped the gun. I was a little young to be a tweedy cane-carrier. With a book more than 50 years old, no less. But I wasn’t too concerned. The time will come. I’ll need a cane. And I’ll still be a gent with a necktie and a book in his pocket. Just an old gent by then. Might as well practice.

Updating James Bond to the 1980s was probably a novel idea at the time.  But now it doesn’t make so much sense.  Like the more recent Carte Blanche, No Deals, Mr. Bond is a decent thriller.  Jeffrey Deaver’s Bond will probably be much more dated in 25 years than Gardner’s Bond works are today.  Still, I can’t bring myself to approve of updating the literary (hardboiled, Tory pulp hero) Bond to the “present day”—whenever that happens to be.  

The semester is over, and I’m decompressing with Harry Harrison’s anarchically humorous sci-fi.  Fans of pulp literature may recognize Harrison as the ghostwriter of Vendetta for the Saint, the first which series originator Leslie Charteris did not write himself.

But here Harrison in on his own terms, with his own hero.  This is certainly not hardboiled, not by a long shot.   But it’s solidly entertaining pulp.  Harrison has a breezy, quick-witted style that makes Slippery Jim (a.k.a. The Stainless Steel Rat, a.k.a. James Bolivar DiGriz) a quickly endearing hero.

It’s no secret that John D. MacDonald is one of my hardboiled favorites.  Random House is reprinting his Travis McGee novels, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about McGee’s (and MacDonald’s) place in hardboiled literature.  So head on over to CFL for a “review” (such as it is) of The Deep Blue Good-by and a discussion of McGee—a beach bum and rather unqiue hardboiled hero.

Also, before you rush over to CFL, take a moment to admire the pulp art of Robert McGinnis, who illustrated a great many John D. MacDonald covers (both McGee books and standalones).  McGinnis was every bit the master that MacDonald was, and the pairing is inspired.  It’s like a pulpy seal of quality if I find an old paperback with John D. MacDonald’s name on it and cover art by Robert McGinnis.

But don’t just take my word for it. Go read the review, then take my word for it.

L.A.-based P.I. Shell Scott has a change of scenery when he goes to (the fictional) Verde Island.  Instead of the usual assortment of syndicate tough guys, Scott must go up against a voodoo priest.

Ex-newspaperman Jacob Asch is Arthur Lyons’ contribution to hardboiled PI fiction.  Asch seems a bit more deductive than other private detectives, but otherwise par for the course.  Still, not a bad read if you like private eyes.

Dead Ringer was published in 1977, but this fairly common edition is from 1983.  The reprints published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston certainly reflected the 1980s in their cover design. I have other Asch novels from the same series of reprints, so you may see other garish covers in the months to come—consider yourself warned.  

Boxing fans may be interested to know that Asch dedicated Dead Ringer to Ken Norton.

Mickey Spillane might not be your usual holiday fare, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this little paperback over Christmas.

It’s been a long time.  Too long.  Got busy.  Florid academic prose intruded.  Pushed out the lean, spare hardboiled stuff.  And I let it happen.  Too much worrying about how to test this or that thesis.  Too many redundant office hours and administrative tasks and goddamned e-mails.

But the semester is over.  I need a lifeline.  I could review books.  Probably will.  So read the reviews.  But that’s not a lifeline.  That’s just another task.  One I might enjoy a little more.  Still.  I need a lifeline.

So I reach for the only lifeline I know.  A pulpy little paperback.  They’re not just there for me, though.  I’m there for them.  And there have been too many of them piling up.  We need to resume our relationship before both of us become useless.  So I pick a little gem off the top of the pile.  Assignment Helene.

I’m on assignment, then.  And free of any other assignments for a while.  Sam Durell is serviceable as a hardboiled CIA agent.  The plot isn’t much.  Our hero, in his ninth adventure out of nearly fifty, needs to solve a murder and stop arms smuggling in a fictional country that bears a striking resemblance to Vietnam.  Oddly prescient in 1959.  Unremarkable otherwise.

The rest of the cast is predictable.  Various shady characters.  An alcoholic, a madame, a stuffy bureaucrat, a vainglorious blonde.  And Helene.  The alluring femme fatale.  Durell should watch his back.  But he’ll be all right.  Helene can’t resist his tough-minded magnanimity.  The villains won’t resist his toughness.

It’s the plot of hundreds of books from this period.  Some of them approach literature.  This one doesn’t.  I don’t give a damn right now.  It’s what I need.  So I follow our square-jawed hero through the yellowing pages.  I eye the lithe femme fatale on the pulpy cover. 

And that’s all I need.  I pull myself back to shore one page at a time.  Merry Christmas to me.

Classics in September continues apace over at Crime Fiction Lover.  In my new feature piece, I discuss Deadly Image and the pulp fiction of George Harmon Coxe.  Coxe is hardly a literary high point of hardboiled crime fiction, but he is a solid and enjoyable author.  

Unfortunately, Coxe is out of print these days.  Fortunately, MysteriousPress.com and Open Road Media (full disclosure: the latter is sponsoring Classics in September at CFL) are reviving Coxe and other classic crime authors via newfangled e-books.

Even more fortunately, you have a chance to win a MysteriousPress.com e-book of your choice.  Yes, any George Harmon Coxe book.  Perhaps you prefer Rex Stout or  Mignor Eberhart?  Or maybe James Ellroy?  It doesn’t matter which—you can win any MysteriousPress.com title you wish.  Just high-tail it over to CFL’s contest page and leave a comment there.