Pulp Fiction discussion

Just finished The Watchman . Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and am a third of the way through Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal

I finished:


Beast in View by Margaret Millar
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I recently finished:


Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


The Axeman by Ray Celestin
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And I started reading:


In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes

Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion: New Stories about Cops, Criminals, and the Chase, 18 stories edited by Michael Connelly, was really good even if the description has an inaccuracy. It focuses on the cops rather than the criminals. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Half way through L.A. Outlaws . My first by this author. Quite enjoyable so far.

I finished:


In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started:


Nightfall by David Goodis

I finished:


Nightfall by David Goodis
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald (previously published as The Executioners)

I just finished The Bloomsday Dead, the last book in the Michael Forsythe trilogy. Highly recommended. Now it's onto the Sean Duffy series for me. Adrian McKinty is fast becoming my favorite crime writer.

Rocco wrote: "Paul wrote: "Rocco wrote: "Just started “A Drink Before the War” and I’m really liking it. It’s my first Dennis Lehane book so I wasn’t sure if I’d like it."

My least favourite Lehane book, but mo..."

The Kinzie/Gennaro series are enjoyable, and having read all of Chandler, Hammett and Ross Macdonald, it was nice to read something along those lines again.

I liked the Travis McGee series as well, fun, fast, beach reads.

I just finished Laura Lippman's Sunburn. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was a little hesitant at first, not having read her before, but she's a local author, so I gave it a shot and was not disappointed. I don't think I've ever been more invested in characters since I read Mystic River many moons ago. I'm looking forward to reading more of her works.

I started:


The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 edited by John Sandford

I finished:


Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started:


Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

Just finished This Storm . Very good follow up to 'Perfidia'.
Review here; https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Going to be starting Cape Fear pretty soon.

Cape Fear=Robert Mitchum. Another book I have to read.

I've just finished:


Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton


Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

Franky wrote: "Going to be starting Cape Fear pretty soon."

Good book. And i thought both the Robert Mitchum/Gregory Peck and the Robert DeNiro movies were great.

Nobody beats A menacing Robert Mitchum. I’ve got to get that book!

I finished:


The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 edited by John Sandford and Otto Penzler
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished:


Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

I'm reading The Blackhouse by Peter May, and It's going swell. Amazing atmosphere on Lewis Island and great use of flashbacks, combined with gristly details of recent murder.

I finished reading


Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash

I have been making my way throught the Victor; The Assassin srs with surprising results;The Final Hour
I recommend the series with a few reservations.

I finished:


This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver

I’m currently reading In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...

Currently reading Boot Tracks . Not as good as 'A Single Shot', but still enjoyable.

There are few authors who have never disappointed me. One of those is Mary Doria Russell. Her latest book, The Women of the Copper Country is as good, if not better, than what I have come to expect from this exceptional author. Not only is her prose as polished as it ever was but I suspect the that the current political climate has added a fire to her voice that I don't recall being there in her earlier works. I highly recommend it.

Just finished reading Killshot for the second time. Am working my way (slowly) through Elmore Leonard's novels, not being sure of those i last (maybe) read 20-30 years ago. Still, it's no hardship to read EL a second time, and remains a delight to discover one i haven't read.

Paul wrote: "Just finished reading Killshot for the second time. Am working my way (slowly) through Elmore Leonard's novels, not being sure of those i last (maybe) read 20..."

He was a great author. I recently read Raylan Goes to Detroit by his son, Peter Leonard. It wasn't quite as good, but still enjoyable.

I also watched Mr Majestyk which stars Charles Bronson in 1974. Definitely a 70s movie, but excellent. I thought it was neat that the movie followed the book so closely, but then found out Leonard wrote the screenplay, they made the movie, & then he wrote the novelization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Maj...

Jim wrote: "Paul wrote: "Just finished reading Killshot for the second time. Am working my way (slowly) through Elmore Leonard's novels, not being sure of those i last (m..."

Good to know Jim.

Am currently reading The Searchers . Have had this for sometime and am enjoying it so far.
Have Dopefiend on order from my local library, after reading and enjoying 'Daddy Cool' earlier this year. The latter is, i believe, the only Goines available as a Kindle e-book.

Jim wrote: ".I also watched Mr Majestyk which stars Charles Bronson in 1974. Definitely a 70s movie, but excellent. I thought it was neat that the movie followed the book so closely, but then found out Leonard wrote the screenplay, they made the movie, & then he wrote the novelization."

I've never forgotten all those poor watermelons being gunned down while still in their prime.

LOL!

Virgin Cay by a new author for me: Basil Heather. A pleasant surprise for a short holiday by the Black Sea. The author knows both his sailing lore and his pulp fiction rules: femme fatale, indolent gigolo, fresh faced ingenue, drunk sidekick, rugged hero, exotic locale. This ebook re-issue is one of the good things about the electronic market. I don't think I would have scored a second hand old paperback

I've recently read a bunch of dystopian science-fiction both books and comics, quite a bit of which overlaps with hardboiled crime fiction. Most notably William Gibson's "Virtual Light" and Judge Dredd omnibuses 3+4.

Here's the review I wrote for Gibson's "Virtual Light", which being set in the near future as opposed to a bizarre distant future, for the most part basically plays like a crime thriller set in the weirder subcultures of the US West Coast. Taken as that it's still interesting reading. 4/5
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Philip K. Dick's "Solar Lottery" was also halfways there, so I wrote a review of that one. Wasn't quite as good as it could have been, though, and certainly nowhere on the same level as PKD's books from the 1960s. 3/5
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I started reading:


The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 edited by Louise Penny and Otto Penzler

Just finished reading Wolf Tickets . Very enjoyable. Review here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I'm about a third through Hell Chose Me . Enjoying so far. A new author for me.

The Master Key _ I started reading this at the prompting of another group, and I like it very much. A collection of cameos from the lives of tenants in a house for single women in Tokyo, with a horrible murder to kick off the proceeds.

Spent last week reading the very first appearance of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet". Wrote a review as well.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Just finished reading The Devil In the Valley for the second time. Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Michael wrote: "What pulp/crime novel are you currently reading or just finished"

_The Hot Spot_, by Charles Williams. This novel is a terrific example of a person taking away his own freedom, because he does not manage his choices carefully, or assess what the people around him, even in a sultry southern small town, are capable of.
Williams’ first-person narrator, Madox, is fallible enough to empathize with. After all, he has pride and self-respect. Eventually, even his crusty boss and the sheriff come to like him. He’s a kind of Everyman, with an Everyman’s love of the peace he feels in the woods and streams outside of town.

His passion for Gloria makes us know her naivety, need for protection, and beauty through Madox’s own words, and need to be intimate with her. The scene where his boss’s “tough baby” femme fatale wife and Madox roll down a rocky hill with their arms around each other, and experience mutual arousal through danger, is reminiscent of the love scene in Postman where Cora and Frank make love after killing Nick.

Maddox is out of control despite his impressive independence. The bank robbery he pulls is certainly an example, as his beating up the vicious blackmailer, Sutton, is another. Our narrator-protagonist may be tough, but he has no idea of where his actions might lead.
The complexity of character, setting, and moral choices Williams puts into this tale make it another splendid paperback original (Gold Medal, 1953). Its original title, Hell Has No Fury, makes no sense. The femme fatale’s anger is not the source of Madox’s trouble. But he is in a hot spot, and he put himself in it, like many a reader might have done. And his sentence will be for a life much worse than in prison. Woolrich or Goodis could not have imagined a more painful one.

Just finished The Asphalt Jungle .
My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I was going through my Kindle books, oldest to newest (from 2012 to now), and found I had not read Fast One (can't link to the version I bought. It was based on the munseys.com version and is RIFE w/typos).

I think I've read it twice, or maybe only one-and-a-half times.

Call this the second time.

ETA: this is from a fairly early incident in the book:

Christopher wrote: "I was going through my Kindle books, oldest to newest (from 2012 to now), and found I had not read Fast One (can't link to the version I bought. It was based on the munseys.com versio..."

Surprisingly his only full length novel. A favorite of Raymond Chandler's apparently. Enjoyed this.
Appears in the The Paul Cain Omnibus: Every Crime Story and the Novel Fast One as Originally Published , along with several of his short stories. Also recommended.

I started reading


A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Although I tend to think of this book as Science Fiction, which is usually where dystopian fictions get shelved, it actually could be tagged as crime literature as well. The first few chapters are plenty violent - "ultra-violent" I might even say. Not for the faint of heart, and neither is the movie. Although I enjoy Kubrick's films and I don't usually have a problem with cinematic violence, I haven't been able to re-watch A Clockwork Orange in almost 30 years now and I probably never will.

RJ wrote: "I started reading


A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Although I tend to think of this book as Science Fiction, which is usuall..."

A good crime novel at that. I agree that the movie is hard to watch. I would say my favorite part is the music. Thank goodness I can throw the soundtrack on the turntable and listen.

The one other book that A Clockwork Orange actually has the most in common with for me is... Neuromancer. Both being written in a weird future slang that's at first completely impenetrable, not helped along by the author using as little exposition as possible, where the reader has to figure out everything on their own.

I am right now in the process of reading Maigret Has Scruples by Georges Simenon. The other Maigret novels I've read are much older - as in pre-WW2 - so this is a very different reading experience. Both because the writing has taken more inspiration from American detective novels in the Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett tradition, but also the fact that between the pre-war era and 1958 (when Simenon wrote "Maigret Has Scruples") France has changed A LOT culturally.

Just last night I started an ARC of When Old Midnight Comes Along


As far as I can recall it's the first book in the Amos Walker series I've ever read (it's #28!!!), but I've been meaning to check out author Loren D. Estleman for years... I'm already halfway through - loving it!

I read "A Purple Place for Dying" over one afternoon, and was both entertained by the plot and by the delivery and annoyed by the obvious sexism. I guess I will continue to read one or two episodes of the Travis McGee series each year. More than this, and I risk getting fed up with the tough scoundrel.

Despite having 'issues' with every Travis McGee I've read, I still keep picking them up because they sound enticing.

One friend from the old Amazon forums said Crimson Rain was the worst thing she'd EVER read.

Well, it was one of these two:

The Lonely Silver Rain or Free Fall in Crimson- get mixed up in my mind: