Review of DEAD GIRL BLUES

TITLE: Dead Girl Blues

AUTHOR: Lawrence Block

218 pages, LB Productions, ISBN 9781951939649 (ebook, softcover, hardcover)

DESCRIPTION: A man walks into a bar. It sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s the precursor to a heinous crime: the murder and rape (in that order) of a young woman. The perpetrator and protagonist, at first known only as “Buddy,” narrates the crime and the rest of his life waiting to be caught without ever turning himself in.

MY RATING: Five stars out of five

MY THOUGHTS: Don’t read Dead Girl Blues if you’re looking for an action-packed thriller like Block’s Scudder or Keller books, or if you’re looking for the feel-good comedic hijinks of his Bernie Rhodenbarr series. If this book can be likened to any of Block’s work, it would be his early stand-alone crime books (many written under various pseudonyms and reprinted by Hard Case Crime in recent years). But even that comparison falls a bit short, because there’s really only one major crime in the entire story, and it happens in the opening pages.  No, what Dead Girl Blues really is is a character study, a deep dive into the inner monologue of a man who committed a crime when he was young and who has spent the rest of his life waiting to be caught while not making any effort to turn himself in. As such, the book is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But if deep psychological character studies of unsavory personalities are your type of book, you won’t be disappointed in Dead Girls Blues.

The book starts exactly as the description says, with a non-descript man walking into a bar in Bakersfield, California. Not long after, he drives away with a drunk woman, and proceeds to murder and rape her. The crime is brutal, and Block pulls no punches in describing how “Buddy” feels before, during and after (although the author thankfully does leave out the gorier physical details). And as far as the bloody crimes so many early Block books are known for, that’s it. “Buddy” never commits another crime (and even unintentionally stops one), other than doing what he can to change his identity as he moves east – a trick much easier in the late 1960s than it would be now – and ultimately settles in Lima, Ohio.

The rest of the book is “Buddy” moving on with his life in his new identity: joining the Rotary and other service organizations, becoming the owner of a business, building a family … but always with an eye over his shoulder waiting for the police to show up. The tension in the book comes from the reader wondering along with “Buddy” (or John Thompson, the identity he settles into completely long before the end of the book) whether he’ll finally get caught, as DNA forensic science grows by leaps and bounds.

And that’s where the character study aspect comes in. We meet the lead character in the present day, as narrator, but know nothing about his present life because he starts his story with the worst moment of his past. His own analysis of why he did what he did, and how he continues to fantasize about it without ever again acting on the impulse, doesn’t endear him to the reader. His thoughts about what he’ll do if the cops ever do show up at his door don’t necessarily make him any more likeable, as he considers options from suicide to a killing spree. But the tone of the story shifts as he finds a woman he can truly love, adopts her young son, has a daughter of his own. He becomes the kind of neighbor any of us who grew up in small towns would recognize: family man, businessman, member of the bowling league. “Buddy” is totally reprehensible but John Thompson is very likeable. Exploration of that dichotomy, of how someone can be a murderer and a family man, is at the heart of the book and informs pretty much every page. I have to wonder: if we, as the reader, didn’t know what “Buddy” had done, would we feel friendlier towards John? Would we love him as much as his wife and kids and neighbors do? If Block had structured things differently, introduced us to John and his family in the present first before revealing the murder/rape much later, would the revulsion we feel for him from the start be replaced by shock at the depth of his secret? We can’t know, of course, because Block wrote the book the way he wrote it. But even with his story told in chronological order, there was a small part of me that wanted the John we get to know to continue with his family even as most of me wanted “Buddy” to pay for his crime. Block manages to elicit these conflicting feelings in me without resorting to baldly manipulative language. Liking John sort of creeps up on you, as much as becoming a family man creeps up on him.

There’s also something Block never addresses but which occurred to me as a reader: could John Thompson ever have come into existence if “Buddy” hadn’t done what he did? We are all a product of every decision we’ve ever made, every right/wrong/in-between thing we’ve ever done (on top of being a product of all the decisions made for and about us when we were too young to have control over our own lives, as evidenced in the backstory of John’s wife Luella), and it was running from his crime that led “Buddy” to change his name and to settle in Lima.

I won’t spoil the later developments or the end of the story for those who might be intrigued enough to read Dead Girl Blues when it comes out in late June. There are a few twists, quite a few well-written high tension moments, and no end of questions for the main character and the reader that propel the action forward. As said at the beginning of the review: this book isn’t for everyone, but I think fans of psychological horror/crime will enjoy it.

Review of FROM SEA TO STORMY SEA

TITLE: From Sea to Stormy Sea: 17 Great American Paintings and the Stories They Inspired

EDITOR: Lawrence Block

336 pages, Pegasus Books, ISBN 9781643130828 (hardcover, ebook)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Seventeen stories by seventeen brilliant writers, inspired by seventeen paintings. That was the formula for Lawrence Block’s two ground-breaking anthologies, In Sunlight or in Shadow and Alive in Shape and Color, and it’s on glorious display here once again in From Sea to Stormy Sea. This time the paintings are exclusively the work of American artists, and the roster includes Harvey Dunn, John Steuart Curry, Reginald Marsh, Thomas Hart Benton, Helen Frankenthaler, Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent, Grant Wood, Childe Hassam and Andy Warhol. Among the star-studded lineup of writers you’ll find Jerome Charyn, Jane Hamilton, Christa Faust, John Sandford, Sara Paretsky, Walter Mosley, Charles Ardai, Barry Malzberg, and Janice Eidus.  It’s an outstanding collection, with widely divergent stories united by theme and culture, and—no surprise—beautifully illustrated with full-color reproductions of the seventeen paintings.

MY RATING: Four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: As noted in the synopsis, From Sea to Stormy Sea is editor Lawrence Block’s third anthology of short stories based on famous paintings (In Sunlight or in Shadow focused exclusively on the works of Edward Hopper, while Alive in Shape and Color cast a more worldwide net). As such, I knew to expect stories that covered, and sometimes crossed, several genres. This time out there’s a science fiction tale, a pair of meta-textual pieces, a number of historical period tales and a few that some readers would likely call “literary,” but which I’ll categorize as “modern drama” because they cover current every-day life. (The idea that fiction is only “literary” if it doesn’t feature recognizable genre elements is a discussion for another time.)

The lone science fiction tale is Jerome Charyn’s “The Man from Hard Rock Mountain,” inspired by Rockwell Kent’s painting “Twilight of Man.” It’s a tidy piece of post-apocalyptic fiction in which a lonely man, subsisting on what little he has after something permanently takes out the power grid and society collapses, finds himself visited by a traveling woman and girl who are a bit secretive about how they’ve been surviving. Rumors reach the main character through other travelers, but are the rumors true, or just vicious spite? The character work is wonderfully nuanced, the world-building subtle but complete. One of my favorite stories in the collection.

Of the two potentially meta-textual pieces in the book, I have to admit I struggled with Barry N. Malzberg’s “Riverfront,” in which the unnamed narrator takes painter George Bellows to task for not knowing more about a woman in his painting “Riverfront.” I’m not sure I really got what Malzberg was going for, which I suspect says more about how I process certain types of stories than anything about the writer’s talent. Lawrence Block’s own “The Way We See the World,” based on Raphael Soyer’s painting “Office Girls,” raises questions about how and when we see ourselves in art (paintings, short stories, novels) via a conversation between a woman viewing the painting and a man who approaches her to start up a conversation. I usually love Block’s dialogue-driven short stories, and this was no exception.

Seven of the stories actually incorporate the paintings that inspired them as a prop, to varying degrees of importance. Mark Rothko’s “Number 14” is simply the main character’s favorite painting in Janice Eidus’ “You’re A Walking Time Bomb,” a deeply introspective piece about mortality, missed opportunities and making the most of second chances. In Scott Frank’s “He Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” on the other hand, Robert Henri’s portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney drives the action across several owners/thieves and locations.

A number of the period pieces have the dark tone Lawrence Block anthologies are usually known for. Patti Abbot’s “The Prairie is My Garden,” based on the painting of the same name by Harvey Dunn and set in 1884 South Dakota territory, starts with a woman watching over her children playing in the plains around their remote homestead while her departing traveling preacher husband frets about their safety, but the story takes a darker turn as the history of the marriage and how they came to this house is revealed. Charles Ardai’s “Mother of Pearl,” set in post-Depression New York City (appropriate for the publisher of the Hard Case Crime line, I think) and inspired by Piet Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie Woogie”, is a rumination on success, failure, identity, and the search for where we come from. It’s one of several stories I’ve read multiple times and I feel like I get something more from it each time. Two other favorites that are dark period pieces: “Get Him” by Micah Nathan, inspired by “Light at the Crossing” by Daniel Morper, switches POV between a young man traveling to meet his intended bride and the hitman who is trailing him, while Sara Paretsky’s “Baptism in Kansas” (inspired by the painting of the same name by John Steuart Curry) fetches a young east coast woman up against Midwestern Kansas stern morality, traveling religious shows, and anti-native racism. 

One period piece that isn’t as dark but also tackles racism: Gary Phillips’ “A Matter of Options” (based on “Why Not Use the ‘L’?” by Reginald Marsh) introduces a cunning cat-burglar called The Satin Fox. The public thinks The Fox must be a white man, but the truth enables the thief to blend in among her intended targets. It’s a fun, but still thought-provoking, piece of “new pulp,” taking the feel of classic pulp adventure magazine stories and adding a more modern sensibility. It’s a credit to Phillips’ world-building that I finished the story and went looking for where else the character has appeared. I was surprised that this is The Satin Fox’s first appearance. I hope the author is intending to do more with the main character and her companions.

It’s not just the period pieces that are dark. Jan Burke’s “Superficial Injuries,” inspired by Andy Warhol’s “Thirteen Most Wanted Men,” Brendan DuBois’ “Adrift Off the Diamond Shoals,” inspired by Winslow Homer’s “Reefing Sails Around the Diamond Shoals,” Christa Faust’s “Garnets,” inspired by Helen Frankenthaler’s “Adirondacks,” and Tom Franklin’s “On Little Terry Road,” inspired by John Hull’s “This Much I Know,” are all to one degree or another modern crime stories with interesting twists. The Burke is almost a cozy-mystery/classic 70s TV detective type of story; the other three are a bit more violent with main characters who carry secrets that threaten to boil up at any moment.

John Sandford’s “Girl with an Ax” (inspired by Thomas Hart Benton’s “Hollywood”) takes place in modern day LA and focuses on the relationship between a young musician and her elderly neighbor. Jane Hamilton’s “Someday, A Revolution” (based on Grant Wood’s “Daughters of the Revolution”) covers a woman’s conflicted feelings about her son’s life path and how her “friends” in the DAR feel about it. Both lack genre elements, although the second has a bit of a darker feel to it.

The most emotionally resonant story for me personally was Warren Moore’s “Silver at Lakeside,” inspired by the author’s father’s painting “Homage to Les Fauves.” The narrator reminisces about his childhood experiences with painting, trying to follow in his father’s footsteps, and how his father reacted to the narrator finally choosing a life path of his own. Wistfulness, nostalgia, childhood embarrassment and adult acceptance are expertly woven together.

Review of AT HOME IN THE DARK

TITLE: At Home in the Dark

EDITOR: Lawrence Block

259 pages, Subterranean Press, ISBN 971596069176 (Hardcover) or ebook from LB Productions

Disclaimer: Although I bought the Subterranean Press edition, the editor also sent me a free e-ARC in exchange for a fair review.

DESCRIPTION: (from the Introduction): The crime fiction canopy's a broad one, with room to give shelter to writing of all sorts, as editor Lawrence Block shows with At Home in the Dark: “Some of these stories have one or both feet planted in another genre. James Reasoner's story is a period western, Joe Lansdale's is bleakly dystopian, and Joe Hill's novelette slithers through a little doorway into another world. “And now that I've singled out those three, I suppose I should go ahead and list the rest of the gang: N. J. Ayres, Laura Benedict, Jill D. Block, Richard Chizmar, Hilary Davidson, Jim Fusilli, Elaine Kagan, Warren Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Ed Park, Nancy Pickard, Thomas Pluck, Wallace Stroby, and Duane Swierczynski. “If you're looking for a common denominator, two come to mind. They're all dark stories, with nothing cozy or comforting about them. And every last one of them packs a punch. “Which is to say that they're all very much At Home in the Dark—and we can thank O. Henry, master of the surprise ending, for our title. 'Turn up the lights,' he said on his deathbed. 'I don't want to go home in the dark.'”

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: Man, do I love short stories and novellas that take dark turns or explore the darker end of morally grey situations. Not that such stories are all I read – I like a nice balance of hope and despair in my reading over the course of a month and enjoy a good upbeat ending as much as anyone – but especially when it comes to short fiction I seem drawn to the dark. Which is maybe why Larry Block keeps sending me ARCs of anthologies like this one. I’m practically the ideal audience.

Of course, even the ideal audience can be disappointed occasionally. While I enjoyed most of the seventeen stories Block has curated here, and in fact outright loved more than a couple, not every single story worked for me. I struggled with Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Flagellant.” Despite some beautiful prose, despite the fact that I normally enjoy Oates’ short fiction and am intrigued by unreliable narrators, I could not fold myself into the dense, unhinged mind of the main character. Your mileage may vary.

The stories I enjoyed the most were, interestingly, for the most part the genres other than crime. I’m not a widely-read Western fan, but James Reasoner’s “Night Rounds” engrossed me from first word to last. If it were filmed in the heyday of the genre I’m sure Jimmy Stewart would have played Sheriff Dave Blake; now I picture Jake Gyllenhall in the role. Reasoner works a small frontier town’s night-time silence and moonlit streets into a frenzy of revenge that builds tension perfectly throughout. Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team” manages some impressive dystopian world-building in a short first-person narrative, along with high character tension and plenty of remembered bloodshed. “Faun,” Joe Hill’s novella, combines portal fantasy with “the most dangerous game” in a way that had me guessing and then second-guessing what would happen – and unexpectedly cheering in a public place when a certain character gets what’s coming to him. And Laura Benedict’s “This Strange Bargain” is a fairy-tale retelling with a conflicted lead character and some creative twists. I will be greatly surprised if the Lansdale, Hill, and Benedict stories do not each appear in at least one “year’s best” SF, fantasy, and horror anthology.

Among the crime stories, almost every sub-genre is represented. Thomas Pluck’s “The Cucuzza Curse” is an interesting blend of mob story, cozy mystery, and generational conflict that tweaks not only the characters’ expectations of each other but the readers’ expectations of who these characters should be, and I’m grateful to Block for including a story that touches on issues of perceived masculinity and living in the closet as sub-plots. Jim Fusilli’s “The Eve of Infamy” is a classic con-man narrative that culminates on a particularly infamous day in United States history. Duane Swierczynki’s “Giant’s Despair” is a neat bit of Appalachian family drama with drugs, murder and cover-ups at the core, along with a main character who is hampered in his actions by carpal tunnel syndrome gone too long untreated – too real a situation with the current American health insurance climate. “Nightbound,” by Wallace Stroby, is a straight-up robbery-gone-wrong gun and car battle across Brooklyn (I picture Michelle Rodriguez in the lead for the inevitable adaptation of this one.) And Hilary Davidson’s “Cold Comfort” is perhaps the quietest of the crime stories in tone, centering on a dead pregnant woman, her accused ex-husband, and the family priest. Jill D. Block’s “O, Swear Not By the Moon” plays with the current “guilty until proven innocent” social media mentality while Ed Park’s “The Things I’d Do” is deep psychological horror.

The stories in this collection may all be dark, but they’re not all grim. There are some happy endings (for certain values of “happy”), but the road to them is not particularly easy.  And several are even funny. The ending of “Rough Mix” by Warren Moore will probably not surprise anyone, but the narrator’s voice will feel familiar to anyone who’s ever played in a garage band. “If Only You Would Leave Me” would probably be far less funny in less capable hands, but Nancy Pickard wrings all the morbid humor she can out of the machinations of a husband and wife who each want a divorce without being the one who asks for it. And Richard Chizmar’s short, punchy “Whistling in the Dark” features so much awkward humor I couldn’t help but laugh.

If I have any complaint about the anthology, it’s that Block didn’t write a story of his own this time out, as he has for most of the recent anthologies he’s edited. Hopefully, he’ll contribute to the follow-up anthology he’s already planning.

The Subterranean Press hardcover edition is sold-out but Amazon is still mistakenly taking orders. If you didn’t order the hardcover direct from the publisher, you should be able to pre-order Block’s e-book and paperback editions by the time this review posts.

READING ROUND-UP: February 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and listening to:

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in ebook format as “books.” I read or listened to 18 books in February: 12 in print, 4 in ebook format, and 2 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #105 (February 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories and novellas. This month’s favorites for me were Carrie Vaughn’s “Marlowe and Harry and the Disinclined Laboratory,” Ashok K. Banker’s “Oath of a God,” KT Bryski’s “Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, as told to Raccoon,” and Kat Howard’s “Hath No Fury.”

2.       The Thing: Liberty Legion, by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Frank Robbins, Don Heck, and others.  This hardcover collects stories from Marvel Premiere, The Invaders, Fantastic Four and Marvel Two-In-One to tell a time-hopping story involving some of my favorite tertiary-level Marvel characters. The art style varies greatly between the four main artists and that might be a turn-off for some folks (I personally miss both Frank Robbins and Don Heck’s work.) I still own all of the original monthly issues these stories appeared in, as well.

3.       The Terrifics Vol 1: Meet The Terrifics, by Ivan Reis, “Doc” Shaner, Jeff LeMire, and others. DC brings four unlikely characters together as a team: the long-existing Mr. Terrific, Plastic Man and Metamorpho and a new version of Phantom Girl, in a loving pastiche of that other fantastic foursome published by Marvel. The characterizations are solid and make me want to pick up the second volume when it comes out, but there’s a feeling towards the end of the volume like the story has taken a jump that never really gets explained.

4.       Check, Please! Year Three, by Ngozi Ukazu.  Bitty’s junior year on the Samwell hockey team is full of secrets, revelations, supportive friends and more than a little drama. I’ve enjoyed the three volumes of this so far, and might just have to catch up on Year Four on the webcomic rather than waiting for the next Kickstarter.  And I am way out of practice reading regularly-updated webcomics.

5.       Scrum by P.D. Singer. Picked this very short novella up because I’ve suddenly grown an interest in reading gay sport romances (see Check, Please! Above), it popped up as a free Kindle read and I’m not really familiar with the sport of rugby so a story told from the POV of a guy who also has no familiarity with the sport should have been an easy sell. I left the story feeling like I knew a little bit more about rugby, but the romance angle didn’t work for me. Too much “creepy-stalk the hot sports star” for me.

6.       Brothers Keepers by Donald E. Westlake.  Another of Westlake’s more fun crime thrillers, this one involving the impending shut-down of a monastery in the middle of Manhattan thanks to a real-estate deal / land-grab that involves a theft from the monastery, family secrets, and one Brother going way outside his comfort zone to save the day. A fast, fun read.

7.       The Spark by David Drake. The first in a new “Arthurian SF saga,” recommended by a friend. The first half doesn’t feel particularly Arthurian but sets the stage and main characters well enough so that when the familiar Arthurian tropes do appear, it becomes obvious you’ve been reading about a futuristic Sir Percival/Parzival the whole time. (His name is Pal, so yes, that should have been a give-away right off….)  Really enjoyable read, but lots of hand-waving to explain the future tech and this world’s versions of the Mortal World, Faerie, and the spaces in-between.

8.       The City Beyond Play by Philip Jose Farmer and Danny Adams. A really wonderful SF novella about a small city-state that cuts itself off from modern times and lives “as the medieval times should have been lived.” There’s a bit of romance, a lot of derring-do and a ton of interesting world-building. You can find a longer review of this book if you page back through my blog to HERE.

9.       Isola, Chapter One, by Brendan Fletcher, Karl Kerschl and others.  A powerful queen has been cursed to live as a tiger, and her bodyguard must find a way to reverse the curse and get to the truth of what’s behind it all. Very solid world-building and character-building in this first trade collection. The art is a mix of manga and Chinese influences, I think, that give it a particular kind of beauty.

10.   Bedfellow, by Jeremy C. Shipp.  Shipp’s second novella from Tor.com is as eerie as his first (“The Atrocities”). A mix of physical and psychological horror that works on all levels and doesn’t necessarily provide easy answers.

11.   The Voyage of Argo, by Apollonius of Rhodes, translation by E.V. Reiu.  I’m almost ashamed that I never realized there was an actual epic poem that served as the basis for the Jason and the Argonauts movies and stories I loved so much, until I tripped across this. The classic 60s movie took a lot of liberties with the sequence of events from this original and was the more exciting for it. Reiu’s translation is interesting as source material, but kinda lifeless in many ways.

12.   Legion Vs. Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World, by Myke Cole. My first non-fiction read (as opposed to listen) of the year was way outside my wheel-house. I’m not a student of the military or military history, and most of what I remember about the Greeks, Romans, and associated empires is thanks to mythology. But Cole’s intent with this book was to make the discussion understandable to people like me, and he did a great job. I still can’t quote times and names to you, but I could probably give you a decent idea of the differences between a legion, a phalanx, and who Cole thinks the clear winner is.

13.   The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, by Mark Twain.  Another classic I don’t think I’d ever read before but have thanks to my subscription to Melville House’s series “The Art of the Novella.” And I loved it, as I love so much of Twain’s work. There’s snarky humor, of course, but also social commentary that is as pertinent today as it was when the novella was written. And I love the fact that we never really find out who the aggrieved man is who manages to corrupt and incorruptible town.

14.   Scratchman (A Doctor Who novel), by Tom Baker. What a fun, nostalgic read. Apparently this is adapted from a movie script Baker co-wrote. The first half feels absolutely like ClassicWho; the second half feels very meta and drops a few comments about the Doctor’s “future” (for him, anyway). I think there was even a little Clara Oswald cameo (tying to her “Impossible Girl” status from NewWho). And listening to Baker read it was an extra treat. He’s a great storyteller.

15.   Diaries: The Python Years 1969-1979, by Michael Palin. Interesting to hear Palin read, unexpurgated and emotionally raw, his diary entries from Python’s heyday. A very different feel from the Idle and Cleese memoirs I read late last year.

16.   Section Zero Volume 0, by Karl Kesel, Tom Grummett, and others.  It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of 50s-60s-era “adventure team” comics: give me the Time Masters, the Sea Devils, the Challengers of the Unknown, Cave Carson’s crew, the original Secret Six, and I’m all in. Kesel and Grummett hooked me from page one with this mysterious “group-of-usually-four” that ages in real time and has a lot of backstory to be revealed. Grummett is also one of my favorite comic artists. I love his clean, open, expressive style.

17.   The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell, Scott Hampton, Paul Chadwick, Lovern Kindzierski and others. Dark Horse Comics continues to publish Russell’s adaptations of Gaiman stories and books, although this time the artist has some help. The title story, drawn by Russell, is Gaiman’s rumination on what happened to Susan after the Narnia books and it’s quite good, but I was also happy to see how well “October in the Chair” converts to graphic form.

18.   At Home in the Dark, edited by Lawrence Block. A great anthology of very dark short stories – mostly crime but a few sf/fantasy/western to keep the reader on their toes. A longer review will be forthcoming in about a week or so on this site, but for now the individual stories are listed below, and I can easily call out the Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, Elaine Kagan and James Reasoner stories as favorites.

So eighteen books in February, which Goodreads told me was a few ahead of goal for the month/year.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I did read and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too (with some short notes for stories that really stood out to me). If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “Life Sentence” by Matthew Baker, from Lightspeed Magazine #105 (February 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “Okay, Glory” by Elizabeth Bear

3.       “The Incursus By Asimov-NN#71” by Gord Sellar

4.       “Marlowe and Harry and the Disinclined Laboratory” by Carrie Vaughn

5.       “The Perpetual Day” by Crystal Koo

6.       “Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, As Told To Raccoon” by KT Bryski

7.       “Oath of a God” by Ashok K. Banker

8.       “Healing Benjamin” by Dennis Danvers

9.       “Hath No Fury” by Kat Howard

10.   “On The Side” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

11.   “Hot Pants” by Elaine Kagan, from the anthology At Home in the Dark, edited by Lawrence Block

12.   “The Eve of Infamy” by Jim Fusili

13.   “Night Rounds” by James Reasoner

14.   “The Flagellant” by Joyce Carol Oates

15.   “The Things I’d Do” by Ed Park

16.   “Favored to Death” by N.J. Ayres

17.   “Rough Mix” by Warren Moore

18.   “This Strange Bargain” by Laura Benedict

19.   “The Senior Girls Bayonet Team” by Joe R. Lansdale

20.   “If Only You Would Leave Me” by Nancy Pickard

21.   “Giant’s Despair” by Duane Swierczynski

22.   “Whistling in the Dark” by Richard Chizmar

23.   “O, Swear Not by the Moon” by Jill D. Block

24.   “Nightbound” by Wallace Stroby

25.   “The Cucuzza Curse” by Thomas Pluck

26.   “Cold Comfort” by Hilary Davidson

27.   “Faun” by Joe Hill

So that’s 27 short stories in February, leaving me still slightly behind for the year so far. (February 28th was the 59th day of 2019.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 0 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  27 read; YTD: 52 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 6 read; TYD: 10 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 18 read; YTD: 29 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 02; YTD: 02 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

SUNDAY SHORTS: A Time to Scatter Stones

The “Sunday Shorts” feature is dedicated to reviewing short stories and novellas, two forms I absolutely love.

TITLE: A Time to Scatter Stones (A Matthew Scudder novella)

AUTHOR: Lawrence Block

153 pages, Subterranean Press, ISBN 971596068933 (Hardcover)

Disclaimer: Although I bought the Subterranean Press edition, the author also sent me a free e-ARC in exchange for a fair review.

DESCRIPTION: (from the cover flap): More than 40 years after his debut and nearly a decade since his last appearance, one of the most renowned characters in all of crime fiction is back on the case in this new novella by Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block.  Well past retirement age and feeling his years – but still staying sober one day at a time – Matthew Scudder learns that alcoholics aren’t the only ones who count the days since their last slip. Matt’s longtime partner, Elaine, tells him of a group of former sex workers who do something similar, helping each other stay out of the life. Burt when one young woman describes an abusive client who’s refusing to let her quit, Elaine encourages her to get help of a different sort. The sort only Scudder can deliver.

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: It is not usually a good idea to too closely conflate a series character with the author who created them. But I’m going to do it: Lawrence Block and Matthew Scudder are both, in my opinion, living proof that getting old doesn’t necessarily have to suck. Block’s regular Facebook posts and newsletters about jaunts around his beloved New York City and new international publishing endeavors give me hope that maybe I’ll be as physically mobile and mentally sharp at that age. And based on this novella, his possibly most-famous character, Matthew Scudder, has aged just as well alongside him.

Scudder is Block’s only series character to age in real-time, since debuting in The Sins of the Fathers in 1976. He’s grown older, he’s grown wiser … and he’s grown more sedate. He’s happily ensconced (and at this point, probably common-law-married) to his longtime companion Elaine in a nice NYC apartment. They have dinner visits with friends, take slow walks around the neighborhood, enjoy local restaurants, don’t grudge each other time apart pursing their own hobbies and twelve-step-group participation, and banter like an old married couple. Oh, do they banter. One of the things I love about Block’s writing is his ear for conversational dialogue that sounds authentic without being quite as awkward as real life, including the tangents we all go off on where we kind of lose track of what our original point was. Only Block’s characters’ conversational tangents are almost always more pertinent to the plot than they at first seem.

The plot is as straight-forward as it sounds: happily retired PI comes out of mothballs to help a friend of his friend. The difficulty comes in how little the endangered woman knows about the man stalking her; Scudder’s rusty (by his own admission), not sure that his investigative skills are still up to the task of finding a man whose name he doesn’t know and face he’s never seen. Of course, he’s back to Classic Scudder by the end of the book, because how could it be otherwise and have the story feel satisfactory – but he’s also feeling the physical toll in a way we haven’t seen him feel it before. Getting older doesn’t have to suck, but it’s still not easy to accept that we can’t do all the things we used to do with the same ease.

I would say the book is only half about this latest case, and half about how easily we lose track of people as we get older. There’s a very nostalgia-heavy tone to this novella; conversationally, Scudder and Elaine bring up just about every major supporting character in the 40-ish year history of the 18-book series. Some of those characters actually appear in the flesh, but most are mentioned in passing. I enjoyed the tone of these reminiscences because it mirrored conversations I’m having even now, in my early 50s, with the people who have been in my life since elementary school about the people who haven’t stayed in our lives.  But don’t let this scare you out of picking the book up: I haven’t read most of the Scudder books (when it comes to Block’s series output, I’m more of a Bernie Rhondenbarr man than a Scudder or Keller man), and I never felt like these conversations about old friends threw me out of the story. Rather, they made me interested in reading the rest of the series to find out more about the characters I didn’t already know.

The hardcover edition from Subterranean Press might be close to sold out at this writing, but Block has self-published it in ebook, audio, and paperback formats.

SINNER MAN - Book Review

Book: Sinner Man

Author: Lawrence Block

ISBN: 9781785650017

Price: $9.95 (paperback) (also available in hardcover, e-book and audio)

Publisher: Hard Case Crime

Synopsis: To escape punishment for a murderhe didn’t mean to commit, insurance man Don Barshter has to take on a new identity: Nathaniel Crowley, ferocious up-and-comer in the Buffalo, New York mob. But can he find safety in the skin of another man … a worse man … a sinner man?

My Rating: FOUR out of FIVE STARS

My Thoughts:  The story behind the novel is as interesting as the novel itself: this was the first crime novel Block wrote. It was published under a pseudonym and then forgotten for fifty years. The author conducted an extensive search for the book he vaguely remembered writing but not publishing, and now that it’s found Hard Case Crime has brought it out in a handsome hardcover as well as affordable paperback and ebook editions.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Block’s work, whether he’s writing hard-boiled crime / noir, as here or the more cozy mysteries featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr or anything in between. This book has everything the fans of Block’s noir work have come to expect: a lead character you want to like but can’t approve of; a female lead who is more than capable of holding her own despite, or perhaps because of, the men who use her; and dialogue that’s rich in patter and short on soliloquies.

Also as expected of Block when he’s written full-on noir like this: the book gets off to a hot, fast start (with the accidental murder the synopsis describes), slows down for some character building in the middle (as Barshter/Crowley becomes a part of the mob scene), then punches into high gear in the final pages with an intensity that really leaves you wondering who, if anyone, will come out of this thing alive.

I’ll be clear: Donald Barshter isn’t likeable even before he accidentally murders his wife and decides to go on the run rather than face justice. He’s even less likeable as he worms his way into a situation in which the reader knows, if not Don/Nate himself, that he’s in over his head. But that doesn’t stop you from wanting to know how it all turns out, wanting to know if in fact the law from back home will catch up to our “sinner man” or not. There were a few times throughout the book when I thought “Block could end it here, and I’d be satisfied.” But the author teases out the exact moment the other shoe will drop several times, and never in exactly the same way — building the suspense to a low rolling boil.

This is one of Block’s books that I could easily see Alfred Hitchcock adapting back in the day, if he’d been aware of the story. I pictured Tippi Hedren as Anne several times while reading.

And of course, because it’s a Hard Case Crime book, there’s a cover by Michael Koelsch that would be equally at home on Double Indemnity.

I’m definitely glad this lost early novel of Block’s was found and brought back into print. It’s a fun, suspenseful ride even if you don’t like the main character.

LAWRENCE BLOCK RETURNS - Interview

I’m always happy to welcome previous interview subjects back to ramble on with me, but it’s always an honor when someone really well known agrees to be interviewed or re-interviewed. Today I get to welcome back the great Lawrence Block. You know him at the author of the Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matthew Scudder mysteries, among many others. He’s got a new short story collection out, so we chatted via email about it.

ANTHONY: Hard Case Crime just released the hardcover edition of CATCH AND RELEASE through special arrangement with Subterranean Press.  How closely did HCC publisher Charles Ardai work with you to choose the contents of the book?

LAWRENCE: Not at all, actually. I proposed the book to Bill Schafer, and made up a list of contents. Charles was good enough to offer his support and co-sponsorship for the book.

ANTHONY: The advertising copy for CATCH AND RELEASE says the contents are all short works that have not appeared in previous collections. When did the oldest story in the book last see print?

LAWRENCE: Well, remarkably enough, “Part of the Job” was published in Dapper in 1967—but I didn’t learn about it for over 40 years! The whole story of its publication and re-discovery is included with the story itself.

With that curious exception, these are all recent stories, all written in the present century. Thus they weren’t included in my omnibus collection, Enough Rope.

ANTHONY: What is the newest piece in the book?

LAWRENCE: Probably “See the Woman,” written a couple of years ago for the L.A. Noire anthology.

ANTHONY: CATCH AND RELEASE includes stories featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matthew Scudder, correct?

LAWRENCE: Bernie’s here in “A Burglar’s-Eye View of Greed,” a newspaper op-ed piece I did for New York Newsday in 2002. Mark Lavendier published it as a deluxe limited-edition broadside, but it’s never appeared anywhere else. Matthew Scudder’s here twice, with “Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen” and “One Last Night at Grogan’s.” These are the last two stories in the Scudder collection, The Night and the Music.

ANTHONY: The volume also includes a play script. Was the script ever produced? (And if so, can you tell us a bit about the production?)

LAWRENCE: It’s the adaptation of a short story, and I believe it was performed a couple of times in Australia. And there have been a couple of Stateside nibbles, but so far nothing has happened—as is not unusual in the theater. It’s a natural for an amateur production—two characters, one set—so if anyone wants to stage it, all they have to do is get in touch.

ANTHONY: Are there any other Block (or pseudonymous) stories out there left to be collected, or have they finally all been un-earthed?

LAWRENCE: Well, only “Part of the Job” was unearthed; the others are all pretty recent. It would surprise me mightily if any more stories turned up from way back when, but the possibility’s hard to rule out.

ANTHONY: This is the second time Hard Case Crime has partnered with Subterranean to release a limited edition hardcover collection of yours. The STRANGE EMBRACE / 69 BARROW STREET collection is out of print now?

LAWRENCE: I believe so. The two individual titles are eVailable as eBooks from Open Road.

ANTHONY: Most of the Hard Case Crime line is mass market or trade paperback editions. Will we be seeing paperback releases for either of the Subterranean titles?

LAWRENCE: No plans that I know of for PB editions of Strange Embrace or 69 Barrow Street. As far as CATCH AND RELEASE is concerned, I retained both eBook and paperback rights, and have already self-published the eBook edition; it’s on sale even as we speak, and here’s a Kindle link.

I’ll also be bringing out a trade paperback edition any day now; it’s coming from CreateSpace, and will be widely available at Amazon and other online booksellers as well. Same format as the SubPress hardcover, same great cover art—and, since the hardcover’s essentially sold out on publication, a chance for readers to get the printed book at a reasonable price.

There an audiobook coming, too, and Dreamscape is already taking preorders in advance of a November release date. I did the narration, with an assistant from the beautiful and talented Lynne Wood Block; the play, “How Far,” needed two voices, one male, one female. And while she was at it she also voiced “Without a Body,” a brief monologue with a woman narrator.

ANTHONY: Since there’s a Scudder story in the new collection, I have to ask how filming for “A Walk Among The Tombstones” has progressed. Are they still filming, or are they in post-production now?

LAWRENCE: It’s in post-production, and I don’t know if they’ve set a release date, but I’m sure it’ll be sometime in the first half of 2014.

ANTHONY: You got to spend some time on the set. How was that?

LAWRENCE: It was fun. Liam Neeson was absolutely brilliant in the scenes I saw, and I think fans will love him as Scudder.

ANTHONY: I’m looking forward to that. Final question: What’s coming down the pike in the next few months?

LAWRENCE: A brand-new novel, the one I wrote this summer on a Holland America cruise. Don’t ask me where we went, as I barely got out of my cabin. I’m very excited about the book, and couldn’t bear to wait a year and a half for a traditional publisher to bring it out. So I’m publishing it myself, and we’ve settled on Christmas as  our release date.

Yeah, this Christmas. Christmas of 2013, which is like 90 days from now.

And, for the moment, that’s all I can tell you about it…

You can find more of Lawrence Block’s discussions of his writing on his website, his blog, his facebook and his goodreads discussion group. You can also follow him on Twitter as @LawrenceBlock.

LAWRENCE BLOCK, Author - Interview

This week I get to interview one of my heroes. What can I say about Lawrence Block that hasn’t already been said elsewhere?

In his own words: “Lawrence Block’s novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder (A Drop of the Hard Stuff) to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar on the Prowl), while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner (Tanner on Ice) and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit and Run). He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times, and 84 of his short stories have been collected in Enough Rope. In 2004, he became executive story editor for the TV series TILT. Several of his novels have been filmed, though not terribly well. His newest bestsellers are Hit Parade, his third Keller novel (July 2006 in hardcover), and All the Flowers are Dying (April 2006 in paperback), the sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel. Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of both MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and, most recently, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain, and, as if that were not enough, was presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. Larry and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.”

Lawrence Block

ANTHONY: I have to admit I’ve been dragging my heels on this interview because I’ve been a bit daunted. Everyone has those folks they’re just star-struck around. I’d be equally as tongue-tied if I had the chance to interview John Glover (even after having met him twice), or Neil Gaiman, or Michael Emerson. So that got me to wondering: who gets Lawrence Block star-struck?

LAWRENCE: Hmmm. There must be someone, but I can’t come up with anyone offhand. I think age is a factor here, along with life experience. You reach a point where you don’t have heroes anymore, and no longer get star-struck. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it happens.

ANTHONY: Part of my problem was in trying to come up with questions you’ve never been asked before. And then I realized with a career like yours there probably aren’t any questions you’ve never been asked. I don’t have to be original, I just have to be interesting! Is there any single interview question you just dread hearing? And am I about to ask that question in this interview?

LAWRENCE: I don’t like hypothetical questions about my characters. “What would Bernie do if he met a werewolf?” That kind of crap. I also don’t like to be asked what I’m going to write next, because I don’t know.

ANTHONY: You’ve covered a lot of genres in your career: the light, comedic mysteries of Bernie Rhodenbarr, the more noir-ish Scudder books, Jill Emerson’s lesbian erotica and literary novels. I’d even go so far as to categorize Killing Castro as alternate history. Is there any genre you haven’t tried yet that you’d like to take a crack at?

LAWRENCE: No, I’m not really looking for new worlds to conquer—or to be conquered by.

ANTHONY: In Afterthoughts, you talk extensively about the reasons for using pen names and how your career has really moved beyond that now. Last month, you brought the “Jill Emerson” name back for Getting Off. Any chance that your other pseudonyms will make similar comebacks?

LAWRENCE: I wouldn’t think so. The others were just names of convenience. Jill has been something rather more than that, though I’m not sure I can put my finger on it. (And if this were one of those LB/JE dialogues, she wouldn’t let that last line pass without a comment.)

ANTHONY: Do you think there’s more of your early pseudonymous work still out there “undiscovered?”

LAWRENCE: Well, not undiscovered. In fact, people are forever discovering books that weren’t mine at all, convinced they’ve unearthed a previously unacknowledged pen name. Lots of luck.

But there’s old work I haven’t brought back yet, and probably will sooner or later, avarice and ego being such powerful motivators. In fact, two old books of mine, 69 Barrow Street (as Sheldon Lord) and Strange Embrace (as Ben Christopher) will be Hard Case Crime’s #69 sometime next year, produced in hard cover by Subterranean Press as a double volume, bound back to back or belly to belly, as you prefer.

ANTHONY: Getting Off is the first hardcover book from Charles Ardai’s Hard Case Crime imprint, and along with new work by Christa Faust and Max Allan Collins the book is the face of the HCC relaunch. Was there any extra pressure associated with that?

LAWRENCE: No, hardly that. Charles really got Getting Off, and his unqualified enthusiasm was a key factor in my decision to do the book with Hard Case. If there was pressure, it was temporal; I had to hurry it in order to be done in time for his fall list.

ANTHONY: What is it like working with Charles? How does the relationship differ when you’re re-issuing an old title versus publishing something completely new?

LAWRENCE: It’s a pure pleasure. I’ve had good luck with editors over the years, esp. in that the right editors have often been linked to just the right books. Joe Pittman edited the Burglar books at Dutton, and had such a feel for them that I wasn’t surprised when he went on to write London Frog. Many fine folks have edited the Scudder novels, and John Schoenfelder was a joy to work with on A Drop of the Hard Stuff. I worked particularly closely with Charles, and showed him work as I went along, which is something I never do; it would seem to indicate a high level of trust, and it was in this instance justified.

ANTHONY: Okay, last HCC question, I promise: If Charles ever decides to bring Gabriel Hunt back for another set of books, would you consider writing one? I’d enjoy seeing your take on Gabe’s womanizing, globe-trotting, modern Indiana Jones ways.

LAWRENCE: No, I don’t think so. I like the books but I don’t want to write one.

ANTHONY: You make it clear in Afterwords that you’re not really a fan of going back and rereading your early work to prepare it for re-issue. Between HCC and the e-books, there’s a lot of older material available again, but certainly not everything. Has there been, or will there be, any kind of organized “roll-out” of older titles? You’ve come close to refusing re-issues for a few titles, I know — are there any that are on the “absolutely not” list?

LAWRENCE: The only books I know I don’t want reissued are ones I didn’t write in the first place, books that were ghostwritten under a pen name of mine. With that exception, my feeling is a paraphrase of an old T-shirt: “Publish ’em all and let the readers sort ’em out.”

ANTHONY: Okay, time for some questions about craft. (Maybe I can learn a thing or two?) You’ve said that you rarely know what you’re going to write next, hence not being able to predict when a new Rhodenbarr or Scudder or Keller book is going to come out. Does that mean you’re also a “seat of your pants” writer once you’re into a project, or do you outline heavily before beginning?

LAWRENCE: Haven’t outlined in years. How much I know about a book before I begin is variable. Sometimes quite a bit, sometimes next to nothing. And I’ve always liked a maxim I’ve heard attributed to Theodore Sturgeon: “If the writer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, he needn’t fear that the reader will know what’s going to happen next.”

ANTHONY: Have your writing habits changed over the years, other than changing writing locales?

LAWRENCE: Oh, probably, but I’m not sure how. Very early on I’d put on a stack of records, jazz or classical, and have music playing while I wrote. Now I cannot imagine why anyone would do something like that.

ANTHONY: Do you approach the creation of a short story differently than that of a novel?

LAWRENCE: I don’t think so.

ANTHONY: What’s your self-editing procedure? Do you edit as you write, or do you put out a full draft and then go back and tear it apart?

LAWRENCE: Well, I try to get it right the first time. And when I type THE END, I mean it.

ANTHONY: Okay, this one’s a little morbid, but I have to ask. Mickey Spillane left instructions for Max Allan Collins to complete his unfinished manuscripts. You once put the finishing touches on an incomplete Cornell Woolrich mystery. How do you feel about other authors completing any work you leave behind?

LAWRENCE: Well, if I keeled over fifteen words from the end of something, I wouldn’t mind if someone supplied the fifteen words. But I would hope that any old crap lurking in the corner of my office or some back room on my hard drive will be allowed to decompose.

And I certainly hope no one comes along and writes about any of my series characters. Just because readers would like to have another book about this one or that one is no reason to pander to them. Fuck ’em, I say.

I’m quite certain Bob Parker would find a continuation of his series by other hands perfectly appalling, but the man’s dead, and the living can almost always find ways to rationalize acts that bring them money.

OTOH, who cares what the dead want? Being dead means it’s no longer any of your business. Personally, if there’s no afterlife, what do I care? And if there is, am I really going to spend it giving a rat’s ass what happens to some moldering old books down here on this godforsaken planet? What kind of an afterlife would that be?

ANTHONY: Getting Off is out in hardcover. The Matt Scudder short story collection is available. What releases do we have to look forward to in the near future?

LAWRENCE: There’ll be a new novel from Mulholland sometime next year if I ever finish the damn thing. I told you about HCC #69. I’ve got 20+ sex-fact books by John Warren Wells waiting in the wings, and might bring them out as eBooks. I’ve got two years worth of my monthly column for Linns Stamp News, enough material for a book if I think anybody might want to read it. What else? Beats me.

ANTHONY: And my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

LAWRENCE: I don’t know that I have a favorite. For many years I’ve acknowledged John O’Hara as my favorite author—so many years in fact, that I have to wonder if the statement’s still true. But all I’d suggest to anyone is that they pick up one of the books and read a few pages. Either they’ll like it or they won’t—which, come to think of it, is true of just about anything, isn’t it?

ANTHONY: Thanks again, sir!

LAWRENCE: You’re welcome!

You can find more of Lawrence Block’s discussions of his writing on his website, his blog, his facebook and his goodreads discussion group. You can also follow him on Twitter as @LawrenceBlock.