J. FRANK JAMES - LOU MALLOY: THE RUN BEGINS (2013)

Synopsis/blurb……

Lou Malloy is 18 years old and ready for the world, but is the world ready for him. His brother Sam has left and his sister wants to move to Florida with the family. Malloy is having none of it and on a wild moment decides to hop in a boxcar going he knows not where. The important thing is that it’s not in Kansas. He has a problem and that problem is money. He doesn’t have any until Henry Lowe, who is in the same boxcar, offers Malloy the deal of a lifetime. All he has to do is help Lowe rob a casino in Georgia. With the promise of a big payday, Malloy throws in with the scheme and seal his fate forever…. AND THE RUN BEGINS

A quick read here with a 50-odd page long introduction to the author’s series character Lou Malloy. Best read ever? No, but an entertaining hour spent in the company of a young man starting out.

Lou Malloy is 18 and has itchy feet. He’s living in a small Kansas town, somewhere he’s outgrown.

Beating up on the sheriff’s son, after he was perving on Lou’s sister after she went swimming in the river in her undies probably wasn’t his best idea.  Dissatisfied with life at home, conflict with his police officer father and his older brother departing for California; sees Lou jumping on the back of a goods train heading away from Kentville.

Another fistfight ensues with a gang of three fellow railroad riders, Lou backing up his smart mouth with his fists rather effectively. Stealing his main victim’s bankroll and weapon before evicting them from the box car has Lou contemplating a life lived outside the law.

Falling in with Henry Lowe, a career criminal and a man we encountered earlier in our story - sees the pair of them headed to Atlanta and a hook-up with Lowe’s partner. A plan to relieve some $15 million from some mob-backed, casino running Timucuan Indians is underfoot……

Short, fast-paced, funny, fisticuffs and an interesting main character hurtling along a slippery slope towards a life of crime what’s not to like?

4 from 5

I’m looking forward to Dead Money Run when Lou’s story continues.

J. Frank James has his website here. Catch him on Facebook here.

I was lucky enough to receive this and Dead Money Run from the author, via Kelsey McBride at Book Publicity Services. 

Read in June 2016

NICK SPILL - THE JADED KIWI (2016)

Synopsis/blurb….

The summer of 1976 in Auckland, New Zealand. There is a severe marijuana drought.

Two couples; a gynecologist and a physicist, together with a violinist and an actress meet by accident in a pub and help a Maori evade the police.

A group of Maori plans to deliver a truckload of cannabis to Auckland.

A Chinese family has harvested four greenhouses of enhanced sensimilla.

A criminal mastermind plots to start a drug war.

A police Inspector hunts a fugitive Maori.

The war on drugs starts in New Zealand. Chaos ensues.

A wee while since I read this one and some overdue thoughts….

Great setting…New Zealand in the 70s and a bit of a social history lesson, particularly in police attitudes towards the Maoris – break heads first and worry about asking questions later. I don’t think they were too big on civil rights and liberties back then. (Some notes at the back of the book are helpful in explaining some facets of NZ as it was in the 70s and providing context with details on Maori history, language and culture.)  

Plot - a tale of dope growing; two crops, one from the Maoris and one from the Chinese and a white criminal gang lord in the city happy to sacrifice one crop so he can engineer the hijack of the other; always assuming he can concentrate on the task in hand and not get side-tracked by the kidnapping of an old flame. This old flame of his is related to one of our dope growers and a former employee at one of his massage parlours in the city. Opportunity strikes when she rocks back up in the city from the US. (Not just from a business perspective but also regarding pleasures of the flesh!) 

Action aplenty - beatings, shootings, a bar fight-cum-riot, petrol bombs, sexual violence, and a bloody stakeout culminating in a more explosive climax. This would probably make a decent film.

A little bit of romance thrown into the mix as well, adding to the plot rather than detracting from it.

Overall – fairly entertaining without being the best book ever.

Fast-paced and violent – as well as interesting and not least a bit educational. I know more about New Zealand now than before I cracked the spine on the book.

4 from 5

Author Nick Spill is an Englishman who spent a couple of decades in New Zealand before relocating to Florida. He was kind enough to send me a copy in return for a review.

His website is here. Facebook page - here.

  

2 BY ROBERT WRIGHT CAMPBELL

Robert Wright Campbell was one of my first crime/mystery author discoveries back in the late 80s.

He had a series of Jimmy Flannery books that were published in the UK. Flannery was a sewer inspector, but also part of the local political machine in Chicago. Each of the books featured an animal in the title.....Dog, Gorilla, Ducks, Alligators - 11 in total between 1986 and 1998.

Another series set in LA or La-La Land - 4 books featuring Whistler were interspersed with the Flannery books, as well as two with a railroad inspector - Jake Hatch.

I think one of my favourites of his was the standalone novel Juice released in 1990, though I can't for the life of me remember what it's about. A hike up to the attic and tub 30 could soon tell me but CBA!

Good job there's the internet to fall back on.......

With Juice, Campbell breaks out with his first non-series crime title, sure to be his biggest hit yet. Juice is a rollercoaster of a story that pulses with energy, suspense, and a healthy dose of offbeat humor. "Full of good-time crime and a pleasure to read".--Elmore Leonard.

Campbell was also a screenwriter and was the brother of William an actor in film and TV during the 50s and 60s and into the 70s.









Robert Campbell died in 2000. (Guardian obituary)

He had penned nearly 30 books by then. The Junkyard Dog won an Edgar and an Anthony Award. The Spy Who Sat and Waited - his debut novel was nominated for the National Book Award for Paperback Mystery in 1975.

Plugged Nickel (1988)

BODY COUNT

The night was pitch black, filled with driving rain when the California Zephyr jolted to a stop outside McCook, Nebraska. Somebody pulled the emergency brake, catapulting Jake Hatch out of the train – onto a severed corpse. He stumbled over the trousered bottom half. Someone else found the torso, neatly divided at the belt.

It was Hatch’s job to piece together the truth. All he had to go on was a book of sonnets and a money clip in one pocket, and three cigarette butts and a lipsticked handkerchief in the other. And a plugged nickel, now hidden in his own pocket – leading him to a criminal mastermind, a case of espionage, and an almost perfect murder.

The Spy Who Sat and Waited (1975)

Out of the Ashes

At the end of World War 1, a secret communique went out to German spies throughout the world; Maintain your cover and wait for orders. Will Oerter waited in Scotland. He fell in love. He began a family. But he never forgot.

The Reich Survived.

Then orders came. Missions. Beatings. Kidnapping. The chance for Oerter to become a Nazi hero – and the terrible duty of destroying his own world. The wait was over. The ultimate betrayal had begun.

“Irony, poignance, a moving love story, suspense, espionage, and much more” – David Westheimer, author of Von Ryan’s Express.

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART SEVENTY-FIVE

Another tub of 50, all male authors with a sprinkling of non-fiction.

Pre-logging look!

Tom Kakonis, William Ryan, David Finkel, Colin Bateman, Joe R. Lansdale, 

Book 7 - Hap Collins and Leonard Pine!

One of my favourite books of all time, I've read it twice and I'm ready to go again!

Ex-con, professional poker player Timothy Waverly travels to Traverse City, Michigan for a break... and falls into bed with a seductress named Midnight. She's an out-of-towner, too, there to rescue her self-destructive brother, who has stupidly ripped off a fortune in cocaine from a vicious Chicago mobster. Now she is being chased pursued by Shadow, a hemorrhoidal hitman who gleefully specializes in torture and rape, and Gleep, his muscle-bound henchman. The odds are stacked against her, but Waverly is a gambler who knows how to play them...

"A sure narrative voice, a richly shaded hero and heroine, nightmare-vivid villains, and a plot paved with switchbacks and big curves add up to classy, if brutal, crime entertainment: this one cooks," Kirkus Reviews

"Aptly compared to Elmore Leonard, Kakonis builds exquisite tension." Publishers Weekly

"Original, brutal, nightmarish. Kakonis is a sharp new gambler in the literary crap game. He just takes the pot,"
The New York Times

Non-fiction travelogue, looking at the weirdness of the US.

John Baker, Gerald Seymour, Gregory McDonald, Scott Wolven, Barry Eisler,

Stories of prison, crime and men!

Brooding, edgy, and sometimes violent, Controlled Burn's loosely linked stories are each in some way a distillation of hard time -- spent either in prison, the backwoods of Vermont, or the badlands of the American West. Peopled by boxers, drunks, truck drivers, murderers, bounty hunters, drifters traveling under assumed names, and men whose luck ran out a thousand miles ago, these stories feel hard-won from life, and if they are moody and stark, so too are they filled with human longing.

Controlled Burn is divided into two sections: "The Northeast Kingdom" and "The Fugitive West." In each, Scott Wolven reveals a broken world where there is no bottom left to hit. In the haunting "Outside Work Detail," convicts stoically dig graves for their fellow prisoners yet reserve their deepest grief for the senseless death of a deer. "Crank" introduces Red Green, a maniacally brilliant addict who brews his own crystal meth in a backwoods lab, and whose high-energy antics inspire both cautious admiration and mortal fear in his business associates. In "Ball Lightning Reported," Red Green's ultimate fate is revealed. In "Atomic Supernova," a revenge-obsessed sheriff deputizes a known cop-killer to help him hunt down a counterfeiter and drug lord. The unexpectedly tender and heartbreaking "The Copper Kings" concerns a father facing the dark truth behind his son's disappearance. And in "Vigilance," a hunted man struggles to escape his past, always yearning for an honorable yet perhaps unreachable future.

Powered by a spare, ruminative prose style that recalls the best of Denis Johnson and Thom Jones, Controlled Burn is an unforgettable debut.

Arnaldur Indridason, Albert French, Mark Jacobson, Bill Pronzini x 2

Nameless number thirty-something from Bill Pronzini!

Non-fiction account of Vietnam and the US - a black man in a white world.

Personal, lyrical, and extraordinary, Patches of Fire is a memorable exploration of the black soldier's experience in Vietnam, the plight of the Vietnam veteran, and the redemptive power of writing.

With the same passion for truth and stunning honesty that marks his highly acclaimed fiction, Albert French's remarkable memoir tells the story of a young man's encounter with a war and with deaths beyond his understanding; of his return to a country torn by racial unrest in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and of his painstaking efforts to defeat his inner demons and make a place for himself as a black man in white America.

With a starkness tempered by humor, French brings to life the horrors of Vietnam, and recounts in compelling detail his uneasy tenure as a newspaper photographer, his heady days as publisher of his own magazine, his confrontations with the ghostly images of Vietnam that haunted his dreams--and the sense of renewal and purpose he achieved as a novelist.

Hugh C. Rae, C. J. Box, David Corbett, Buddy Giovinazzo, Leif Davidsen,

Joseph O'Neill, Bill Pronzini, Russel D. MacLean, Howard Marks, Don Winslow,

Don Winslow - Frankie the hitman!

Frank Machianno is a late-middle-aged ex - surf bum who runs a bait shack on the San Diego waterfront when he's not juggling any of his other three part-time jobs or trying to get a quick set in on his longboard. He's a stand-up businessman, a devoted father to his daughter, and a beloved fixture in the community.

Frank's also a hit man. Specifically: a retired hit man. Back in the day, when he was one of the most feared members of the West Coast Mafia, he was known as Frankie Machine. Years ago Frank consigned his Mob ties to the past, which is where he wants them to stay. But a favor being called in now by the local boss is one Frank can't refuse, and soon he's sucked back into the treacherous currents of his former life. Someone from the past wants him dead. He has to figure out who, and why, and he has to do it fast.

The problem is that the list of candidates is about the size of his local phone book and Frank's rapidly running out of time.

And then things go really bad.

Nameless again!

Don Winslow, Adam Baron, Martin Cruz Smith, Derek Raymond, Daniel Jeffreys,

Hugh C. Rae - Scottish crime from the 60s!

Tale of a pathological killer at large in a quiet Scottish community.

Elmore Leonard, David Goodis x 4,

40s and 50s crime,

Len Deighton, John King, Mark Powell, Rod Kane, Richard Ford,

John King

For Joe, the summer of 1977 meant punk rock, fun and violence. Fast forward to 1988 and Joe is on the Trans-Siberian express coming to terms with his best mate's suicide back in 1977. In the present, Joe still has to come to terms with Smiles's death.

Iain McDowall, David Baldacci, Jeffery Deaver, John Sandford, Ian Rankin,

Police procedural - 2nd in a series of 7 from Scottish author,

Cass Pennant, Sam Hill, Eugene Izzi, Jason Pinter, Donald Goines,

Eugene Izzi

With a hot blonde and two million in cool cash on the line, small-time hustler "Tone" Nello is ready to score. But there are those out there willing to make sure the only thing Tone scores is a bullet. On the mean streets of Chicago there are plenty of crooks, and when they killed George's father they made a big mistake. Now he is after revenge from Tone--tooong man. 

"Right up there with Elmore Leonard and Ed McBain".--Chicago Sun Times.

Donald Goines

For twenty-three years of his life Donald Goinse lived in the dark, despair-ridden world of the junkie. It started while he was doing military service in Korea and ended with his murder at the age of thirty nine. He had worked up to a hundred dollars a day habit and out of the agonizing hell came Dopefiend! It is the shocking nightmare story of a black heroin addict. Trapped in the festering sore of a major American ghetto, a young man and his girlfriend- both handsome, talented, and full of promise- are inexorably pulled into death of the hardcore junkie!

Tub 75 put to bed!

HIGHLIGHTS...... I'm looking forward to Tom Kakonis, Don Winslow, Hugh C. Rae, Joe R. Lansdale, and others.

LOWLIGHTS....... Not sure I want to read David Baldacci to be honest. Everything he writes seems to be the size of a housebrick - as I keep telling my wife "size isn't everything"

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS:

AUTHOR		TITLE	YEAR	SERIES
BAKER	JOHN	POET IN THE GUTTER	1995	ST1
BALDACCI	DAVID	THE WHOLE TRUTH	2008	S+KJ1
BARON	ADAM	IT WAS YOU	2004	BR4
BATEMAN	COLIN	SHOOTING SEAN	2001	DS4
BOX	C. J.	TROPHY HUNT	2004	JP4
CORBETT	DAVID	BLOOD OF PARADISE	2007
CRUZ SMITH	MARTIN	HAVANA BAY	1999	AR4
DAVIDSEN	LEIF	THE WOMAN FROM BRATISLAVA	2009
DEAVER	JEFFERY	GARDEN OF BEASTS	2004
DEIGHTON	LEN	SPY SINKER	1990	BS6
EISLER	BARRY	REQUIEM FOR AN ASSASSIN	2007	JR6
FINKEL	DAVID	THE GOOD SOLDIERS	2009
FORD	RICHARD	THE SPORTSWRITER	1986	FB1
FRENCH	ALBERT	PATCHES OF FIRE	1996
GIOVINASSO	BUDDY	POTSDAMER PLATZ	2004
GOINES	DONALD	DOPEFIEND	1972
GOODIS	DAVID	NIGHTFALL	1947
GOODIS	DAVID	THE MOON IN THE GUTTER	1953
GOODIS	DAVID	DARK PASSAGE	1946
GOODIS	DAVID	DOWN THERE	1956
HILL	SAM	BUZZ MONKEY	2003
INDRIDASON	ARNALDUR	ARCTIC CHILL	2008	IE5
IZZI	EUGENE	KING OF THE HUSTLERS	1989
JACOBSON	MARK	AMERICAN GANGSTER	2007
JEFFREYS	DANIEL	AMERICA'S BACK PORCH	1996
KAKONIS	TOM	MICHIGAN ROLL	1988	TW1
KANE	ROD	VETERAN'S DAY	1989
KING	JOHN	HUMAN PUNK	2000
LANSDALE	JOE R.	VANILLA RIDE	2009	HC+LP7
LEONARD	ELMORE	DJIBOUTI	2010
MACLEAN	RUSSEL D.	THE GOOD SON	2008	JM1
MARKS	HOWARD	MR NICE	2010
McDONALD	GREGORY	SON OF FLETCH	1993	SOF1
McDOWALL	IAIN	MAKING A KILLING	2001	J+K2
O'NEILL	JOSEPH	NETHERLAND	2008
PENNANT	CASS	CASS	2000
PINTER	JASON	THE GUILTY	2008	HP2
POWELL	MARK	SNAP	2001
PRONZINI	BILL	HELLBOX	2012	N37
PRONZINI	BILL	SAVAGES	2007	N32
PRONZINI	BILL	KINSMEN	2013	N
RAE	HUGH C.	SKINNER	1965
RANKIN	IAN	BLOOD HUNT	1995	JH3
RAYMOND	DEREK	DEAD MAN UPRIGHT	1993	F5
RYAN	WILLIAM	THE HOLY THIEF	2010	CADK1
SANDFORD	JOHN	CERTAIN PREY	1999	LD10
SEYMOUR	GERALD	CONDITION BLACK	1991
WINSLOW	DON	THE KINGS OF COOL	2012	S1
WINSLOW	DON	THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE	2006
WOLVEN	SCOTT	CONTROLLED BURN	2005

SARAH M. CHEN - CLEANING UP FINN (2016)

Synopsis/blurb....

Life is a constant party for restaurant manager, Finn Roose. When he seduces an underage woman on one of his booze cruises and loses her—literally, it sets off a massive search involving the police, her parents, and a private investigator. Finn is an expert manipulator but his endless lies only tighten the screws on himself and his unsuspecting best friend. Finn scrambles to make things right which may be too much to ask from a guy who can’t resist a hot babe and a stiff drink.

Finn Roose is a restaurant manager and player; a man with his brains firmly housed south of his trouser belt. If you’re female and under forty and you land in Finn’s place, you’re getting appraised and rated and if you pass muster hit upon.

Ronnie with her fake I.D. passes the test and a date follows the following night. Best friend, Porter – still in hock to Finn for an event that happened when both were young and impulsive, for which Finn took the rap – reluctantly provides his car and boat for Finn’s latest assignation.

The inevitable almost happens – blame the booze (or with hindsight thank it) – but Finn and Ronnie pass out. Finn comes to, panics and flees the scene. Ronnie’s on her own.

A day or two later and the cops show up and the missing and underage Ronnie’s face is plastered on TV. A dogged PI soon starts asking some awkward questions. Finn’s starting to sweat, Porter’s got the hump and a blackmailer starts putting the squeeze on.

You feel like your sympathies shouldn’t really rest with our main man, but somehow in the hands of Sarah Chen, they do. Can Finn clean up his act, get out from under and find some measure of redemption? Or is he doomed to repeat the mistakes of his past?

Short, smart, funny, fast, great plot, great characters, a breath of fresh air! My kind of book. I’m looking forward to what she does next.

4.5 from 5        

Sarah M. Chen has her blog/website here.

Catch her on Twitter - @sarahmchen

Cleaning Up Finn is her debut offering. Published by All Due Respect Books! 

Thanks to Mike over there for the copy.

Read in June, 2016

STEVEN HAYWARD - JAMMED UP (A DEBT GOES BAD NOVELLA) (2016)

Synopsis/blurb….

Loyalty. Betrayal. Injustice.

A rudeboy never forgets. It’s been ten long years and ‘Jam’ has been working his way through a list of men who tormented his best-friend, Jabba. Now there’s only one name left to cross off…

When he takes an easy lookout job for criminal entrepreneur, Herbert Long, he knows something’s not quite right. Knock-off gear and bent coppers have never been his bag, but the money’s good and he doesn’t want to live with his aunt forever. All he has to do is get down to the depot, watch a handover and report back what he sees. Little does he know what he’s getting himself and Jabba in to.

He’s not the only one nervous about the deal, DI Terence Pinner needs this to go off smoothly to settle a debt that has him enslaved to South London gangster Raymond Riggs. But with so many people involved and serious money at stake, things get messy very quickly.

Out of his depth and up against an organised criminal gang, Jam has to learn fast to stay alive. But if there's one thing that keeps him going, it's thoughts of sweet revenge...

An enjoyable violent slice of Brit grit crime down Sarf’ London way.

Two competing gangs of criminals with odd-job man Jam, his mate Jabba and a kind-hearted waitress Siobhan caught up in the middle of it.

Counterfeit goods, a bent copper, a couple of competing criminal overlords – one, Herbert Long, a lot more likeable than the other Riggs – a sadist, just as happy abusing his wife as he is at getting one over on rival Long.

A tale of friendship, loyalty and perhaps love with Jam and childhood friend Jabba watching each other’s backs – unsuccessfully as it happens in this instance. But hey, if you can’t protect, you can avenge.

Chuck a kind-hearted waitress into the mix, someone with a past full of disappointment and loss, but still not embittered and all the ingredients are present for a fast-paced, entertaining read.

Plenty of local dialect and patois on display, (I’m sure I only managed to interpret 80% of it) which adds to the flavour.

Satisfying from start to finish.

4 from 5

Steven Hayward has his website here. 

Catch him on Twitter - @stevieboyh

He has another book - Mickey Take also featuring Herb Long available. One for the TBR pile - maybe when it's been reduced a bit!

He was looking for early readers to get reviews out to help spread the word, for this recent release. I’m somewhat late to the party, but was grateful for the copy nevertheless.

Read in June, 2016

HANS KEILSON - COMEDY IN A MINOR KEY (1947)

Synopsis/blurb…….

A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation - and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners - Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia. This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka. In 2008, when Keilson received Germany's prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring 'the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications.'

Published to celebrate Keilson's hundredth birthday, Comedy in a Minor Key - and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback - will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light.

A short 1947 book read back in March for Past Offences Crimes of the Century meme………oops a tad late posting then.

Secrecy and a sense of claustrophia prevails as Wim and Marie hide Nico upstairs in their house.  No telling Wim’s sister, the cleaning lady, the fishmonger who cleans the fish every week in the kitchen, no telling the neighbours. “Good people” or not someone will gossip. Jop had been caught three days ago – he was careless, he had been betrayed. Who knew which?

Nico stays in the room. A trip to the bathroom every hour and a half. No looking out the window, no turning on the light. No sneaking down the stairs in the afternoon when the paper is delivered. We’ll have to wait for Marie to bring it to us when she returns.

Marie gives Nico the news regarding Jop……..

She had seen fear: the terrible helpless fear that rises up out of sadness and despair and is no longer attached to anything – the helpless fear that is tied only to nothingness. Not fear or anxiety or despair about a person or a situation, nothing, nothing, only the exposure, the vulnerability, being cast loose from all certainties, from all dignity and all love. The man offered it up to her so shamelessly that it felt to Marie like she was seeing him physically naked. No cry out loud, no contortion of his face or his hands, he was simply uncovered, he stood in the middle of the room, the focal point and the bull’s-eye for all the poisoned arrows shot at him from beyond life.

On cleaning day…….

He heard the women’s footsteps stomping heavily through the house, heard how she carried the laundry into the bedroom, how she moved around with the vacuum cleaner and carried out her other duties. The nearness of another human being, even one who he knew harboured no suspicions, stirred up the tense quiet and solitude of his room.    

A few months later……..

Once in mid-October…..when the cleaning lady was in the house, Nico heard someone slowly coming up the stairs at around four o’clock.

Marie with the tea, he thought, and stood up. Why is she taking such deliberate steps? Maybe she’s carrying her tea, or some laundry?... He crept to the door and waited. The steps came closer………right up to his door. There was something tense inside him. It’s Marie, I’ll take the tray from her. He carefully opened the door.

Before him stood the cleaning lady…breathing heavily…….Her pains were back………..She held the laundry bag pressed tight against her chest and looked with astonished eyes, at the man who suddenly stood there in the doorframe turning dead white.

It’s all over, Nico thought. He understood that he had done something stupid that could never be made right again. He staggered and shut his eyes………  When he opened his eyes again, the woman still stood two steps away from him in the hallway. Her suffering face now wore an understanding smile, which also made it possible to see the gaps in her teeth. Nico put the index finger of his right hand to his mouth, nodded slowly and sadly at her with his contorted face, and gently shut the door……

Nico lay with sweat on his bed, as though paralysed, his face covered with both hands. He no longer knew if the encounter had been real or just a dream. His head ached.

Life (but not as we know it) continues…….. until Nico falls ill and dies and his Dutch hosts have the problem of disposing of his body in the German-occupied city.

Enjoyable, interesting, educational and a reminder of both man’s humanity and inhumanity at the same time.

4 from 5

Hans Keilson died in 2011. Read about him and his life – Wikipedia and his Guardian obituary.

Referred to as a “genius” and “the greatest novelist you’ve never heard of” – I’ve spotlighted him on the blog before……. 2 BY HANS KEILSON.

Well worth hunting down at least one of his books, in my opinion.

Bought copy. Read in March, 2016.

JIM STEWART - OCHOCO REACH (2015)

Synopsis/blurb…….

Mike's usual strategy was to gently stir the pot and wait for patterns to emerge, but this case was boiling over from the day Willimina showed up at his office. Freelance investigator Mike Ironwood doesn't hesitate for a moment when a lovely stranger asks him to help her get to the bottom of suspicious happenings on her family cattle ranch. The case is intriguing, and Willimina even more so. Six days in, the case has turned up two dead bodies, an alphabet soup of secretive federal investigators, and a client who just might be The One. That's when things get complicated. When a greedy DEA agent and his complicated and deadly triggerman kidnap Willy, Mike enlists help from his brother and sets out to rescue her from a conflicted cartel jefe. The trail leads them deep into Mexico, but they come home with dangerous unfinished business. Ochoco Reach introduces Mike Ironwood, his special ops brother Daniel, and Bucket, a Catahoula leopard dog who is equally at home herding cattle and pinning bad guys to the floor. Together, they are formidable allies who also seem to attract trouble at every turn.

Having failed to review (maybe too strong a word)…… pen some thoughts on my reading over the past 3 months, I’m struggling to know where to begin now.

Well a couple of months on from reading this one, I remember the characters and the major plot details and the outcome, so I must have had fairly positive thoughts when reading this. (Scored it a 3.5 from 5, just after reading)

I do like PI novels generally, probably more so than mysteries centred-around police officers. This one wasn’t too bad. There was an interesting plot concerning our ranch owner Willy who had been receiving veiled threats. Soon after the involvement of Mike this escalated to her kidnap arranged by a love-stricken cartel leader and the participation of a rogue US government agent. Mike Ironwood – a bit of a loved-up puppy dog himself by this stage, recruits his half-brother – half Native American Daniel to conduct some black-ops of their own south of the border in Mexico and recover Willy.   

Plenty to like…….plus points – a decent plot which held together fairly well; several story strands which entertained me – dead bodies, kidnap, a rogue agent, Mexico, drugs, people-trafficking, gun-play and a fairly satisfactory outcome. (Possibly a couple of slightly unlikely coincidences helped us arrive there.)

The relationship between Mike and his half-brother Daniel was entertaining, I liked how they bounced off each other and could trust how they each had the other’s back. Mike and his dog also scored higher than me than the love angle between Mike and Willy. I wasn’t quite reaching for the sick-bucket as the romance between Mike and Willy developed, but it was slightly irritating. Maybe, I don’t like romantic elements featuring so strongly in my books.  

Probably not a crime fiction read and maybe less mystery genre than a kind of action thriller. We know what is happening fairly early on and it’s a question of correcting the wrong. Overall enjoyable without threatening the top all-time reads list.  Would I want to read more from the author? On balance, no. No reflection on him, just I’ve too many other books that need reading.

3.5 from 5

I received a copy of this one from Jessica @ MBM Book Publicity in return for an honest review. Cheers.

Ochoco Reach was enjoyed over at Crime Fiction Lover – here. 

There’s more about the author over at the publisher’s website – word hermit press here.  

Read in April, 2016

2 BY GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD

Gar Anthony Haywood was a discovery of mine 20 plus years ago on a trip to London and the capitals now defunct world famous bookshop – Murder One.

I used to get a twice or thrice yearly fix of US crime long before Amazon took over the world and e-books became the norm. I’m not sure if Haywood ever got published in the UK. I think most if not all of my copies of his books are US imports.

He had 6 in his Aaron Gunner series, published between 1988 and 2000, 3 books in another series and 4 standalone novels, a couple published as Ray Shannon.

From memory I have about 12 of his 13 books and have read only 2 or 3 of them. The rest I’ve been saving for a rainy day!

Full bibliography courtesy of Fantastic Fiction……

Aaron Gunner Mystery

1. Fear of the Dark (1988)

2. Not Long for This World (1990)

3. You Can Die Trying (1993)

4. It's Not a Pretty Sight (1996)

5. When Last Seen Alive (1997)

6. All The Lucky Ones Are Dead (2000)

Joe & Dottie Loudermilk

1. Going Nowhere Fast (1994)

2. Bad News Travels Fast (1995)

Nowhere to Go and All Day to Get There (2014)

Novels

Cemetery Road (2009)

Assume Nothing (2011)

Man Eater (2014) as Ray Shannon (2003)

Firecracker (2014) as Ray Shannon (2004)

Brash Books have republished a couple of his standalones Firecracker and Man Eater.

Mr Haywood has his website here. Not sure how active/up-to-date it is.

REVIEWS FOR GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD

Haywood deserves comparison with Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Walter Mosley.... It has been too long between books for a writer who has always belonged in the upper echelon of American crime fiction.

Booklist

Haywood adroitly threads plots and subplots together, occasionally smashing character into one another with much brio and bloodshed.

Publishers Weekly

Haywood captures so well and perceptively a time, a place, and a likable protagonist in tough circumstances... Haywood is particularly adept at sliding social commentary into his carefully plotted tales. And his descriptions of Southern California are sometimes worthy of Raymond Chandler.

Los Angeles Times

A masterful mystery writer... Haywood's the real thing, all right, a formidable artist with something important to say about some of the most troubling issues of our day.

Chicago Tribune

Not Long for This World (1990)

A lawyer hires Gunner to help her prove that her gangland client is not a killer

Darrel Lovejoy doesn't owe South Central anything. By all accounts, he is lucky to escape this desperate corner of Los Angeles, to go to college and graduate into a well-paid advertising job. But something compels him to return. He dives into social work, attempting to mediate between the gangs which have brought hell to the streets he grew up on, and he makes slow but steady progress up until the day a shotgun blast cuts him down.

After an unusually forthcoming witness swears she saw a car of Imperial Blues kill Lovejoy, the police arrest Blue soldier Toby Mills. Suspecting a frame-up, Toby's lawyer hires private detective Aaron Gunner to vet the woman's story. To find out why South Central's favorite son had to die, Gunner will turn gangland upside down.

All The Lucky Ones Are Dead (2000)

Investigating the alleged suicide of a hip-hop star, Gunner uncovers a murder

Carlton Elbridge, better known as C. E. Digga Jones, was too nice for gangsta rap. When he allegedly shot himself, he had millions in the bank, his face on the cover of Time magazine, and a nation of fanatics to mourn his death. He was found in a locked room, gun in his hand and bullet in his brain, and the police assumed it was suicide. Only the rapper's father thinks otherwise.

Suspecting that his son was killed as the result of a hip-hop feud, Carlton's father hires private detective Aaron Gunner to investigate the death. As Gunner tries to juggle the case with security work for a conservative black talk-show host, he learns that for some in the hip-hop world, the thug life is much more than an act.

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART SEVENTY-FOUR

Another tub, as my enthusiasm for this project wanes, even with the finishing line in sight. A lot more logged than to be logged. Anyway here's the latest 50.......

Tub 73

Xinran, Edward Wilson, John Williams (ed.), John Sandford, Garry Disher, 

Aussie Crime!

One of Sandford's two series - probably Virgil Flowers.

Charlie Higson, John McCabe, Lauren Henderson, Tobias Wolff, Alan Furst,

Memoir from Wolff. I might look the film up, as I like DeNiro.

Charlie Higson of Fast Show fame (and lots more besides)

Arne Dahl, Colin Bateman, S. J. Rozan, John B. Spencer, Michael Herr, 

Tom Kakonis, Stuart Pawson, James McClure, Dale A. Dye, Ian Fleming, 

James McClure book 7 in the Kramer and Zondi series 

Platoon - Dale A. Dye - powerful film.

Len Deighton, Joe Gores, Max Allan Collins, Frank Lean, Sue Grafton,

Len Deighton series book!

Paul Johnston, John M. Del Vecchio, Anthony Holden, John D. MacDonald, Mohammed Hanif,

Travis McGee series book

Anthony Holden - non-fiction book about gambling.

Tom Wolfe, Joe Gores, Lee Child, William Gay, Sue Grafton, 

Jack Reacher series

Joe Gores

Interface (1974)........Neil Fargo is a San Francisco private investigator hired by the wealthy Maxwell Stayton to find his missing daughter. His search takes him into the very heart of the city's ugly underbelly. And Fargo makes the move into the drug business at just about the same time as Docker, a Vietnam veteran with close links to Fargo, is storming through San Francisco's criminal underworld on a murderous campaign of revenge.

William Gay

In a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine-until he learns of it first-hand. Gay's remarkable debut novel, The Long Home, is also the story of Amber Rose, a beautiful young woman forced to live beneath that evil, who recognizes even as a child that Nathan is her first and last chance at escape. And it is the story of William Tell Oliver, a solitary old man who watches the growing evil from the dark woods and adds to his own weathered guilt by failing to do anything about it. Set in rural Tennessee in the 1940s, The Long Home will bring to mind once again the greatest Southern novelists and will haunt the reader with its sense of solitude, longing, and the deliverance that is always just out of reach.

P. G. Sturges, Olen Steinhauer, John Grisham, Joe Gores, David Levien, 

David Levien
Jamie Gabriel gets on his bike before dawn to deliver newspapers in his suburban Indianapolis neighborhood. Somewhere en route, he vanishes without a trace. Fourteen months later, Paul and Carol Gabriel are on the verge of abandoning hope that police will ever find a trace of their son, when they discover private investigator Frank Behr. Behr is an enigmatic mountain of a man who doesn't make it a practice to take hopeless cases, but Paul's plea for help awakens a personal pain that Behr can't ignore. He begins an unrelenting quest for answers that is in turn dangerous, haunting, and thrilling, and will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Richly textured, superbly poised, and charged with unrelenting suspense, CITY OF THE SUN introduces a private detective as complex, idiosyncratic, and sympathetic as Crais's Elvis Cole and Connelly's Harry Bosch. David Levien is a gifted storyteller.

Shortcut Man novel - P. G. Sturges

Jim Nisbet, David Corbett, Shuichi Yoshida,

David Corbett - 2003 novel

Jim Nisbet

Jim Nisbet is a cult favorite in Europe and it's easy to see why. He's "a lot more than just good . . . his style has overtones of Walker Percy's smooth southern satin, but his characters--losers, grifters, con men--hark back to the days of James M. Cain's twisted images of morality," writes the Toronto Globe-Mail. In the tradition of Jim Thompson and Damon Runyon, Jim Nisbet is too good to miss and Windward Passage is a masterpiece that raises the bar even for a master like Nisbet.

In the parallel near-future, a ship named for a jellyfish sinks into the Caribbean with its captain chained to the mast. Left behind is a logbook missing ten pages, presidential DNA hidden in a brick of smuggled cocaine, and a nearly- completed novel. Tipsy, the dead sailor's sister, and Red Means, his erstwhile employer, travel from San Francisco to the Caribbean and back as they attempt to unravel a mystery that rapidly widens from death at sea to international conspiracy.

With verve and humor to match the Illuminati Trilogy, Nisbet has fashioned an engaging facsimile of our modern world, albeit with snappier dialogue, amped-up technology, and even more clearly stated political prejudices. "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved," writes Germany's Die Welt. Pick up Windward Passage and see why.

Robert Littell, M. J. McGrath,

Young Philby

An elegant, twisty spy story by a true master of the craft

Bestselling novelist Robert Littell employs all his considerable skills in telling the story of Kim Philby through the eyes of more than twenty true-life characters. As each layer is revealed, the question arises: Who really was this man?

When Kim Philby fled to Moscow in 1963, he became the most infamous double agent in history. A member of Britain's intelligence service since World War II, he had risen to become their chief officer in Washington, D.C. after the war. The exposure of other members of the group of double agents known as the Cambridge Five led to the revelation that he had been working for Russia for even longer than he had been part of MI6. Yet he escaped, and spent the last twenty-five years of his life in Moscow.

In Young Philby, Robert Littell tells the story of the spy's early years. In the words of his friends, lovers, and Soviet handlers we see the development of a fascinating, flawed man who kept people guessing about his ideals and allegiances until the very end.

Lawrence Block - 5 from the master!

Tub 73 put to bed!

HIGHLIGHTS...... Garry Disher, P. G. Sturges, John Sandford, Joe Gores, Tom Kakonis, Robert Littell, Lawrence Block

LOWLIGHTS....... not to sure why I bought the Tom Wolfe book,

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS;

to be updated!