Pulp Fiction discussion

I started reading:


Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce


The Collector by John Fowles

I finished the book that inspired the film classic:


Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading a short story collection by the late great William Gay:


I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay

I finished two short story collections by the late William Gay:


I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Wittgenstein's Lolita and The Iceman by William Gay
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

"Breakheart Pass" by Alistair MacLean - a hardboiled western/thriller that reads like a movie novelization, probably because I saw the Charles Bronson movie a couple of times before reading the book

I finished an influential collection of Gothic horror stories that contains all of the stories from In a Glass Darkly and MORE:


Green Tea and Other Weird Stories by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading this doorstopper:


The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

I finished this grit-lit punch in the kisser:


Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading this light-hearted crime novel:


Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake

I finished my first by a noted crime author


Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And I started the first in the Rivers of London urban fantasy series


Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

and I also started a noteworthy Australian novel I've wanted to read for a long time


Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

I finished a classic "romantic suspense" novel by the author of Rebecca and The Birds


My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

but I admit I'm not completely sure why

I gave up on the hopelessly inadequate


Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

and started reading the third book in the Bosch series


The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly

I finished the Australian classic


Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading perhaps the most revered war novel ever


All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

I finished the third book (and best so far) in the LAPD Det. Harry Bosch series


The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading this collection of two stories that inspired the classic films


The Third Man / The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

I finished the greatest war novel ever


All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell

I finished the first "Bachman" book


Rage by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman
Rating: 3 stars (more like 3.5)
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Intensity by Dean Koontz

I finished the country-noir


The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Boom Town by Ben Rehder, part of the Blanco Country Mystery series. Try it you'll like it

Fascinating account of the introduction of a boy into a kind of manhood that may destroy his innocence and respect for loved ones. The blame for this is more subtle that it appears.

I finished


The Third Man / The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started


Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

I finished


A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Message 2870, not a comment on the above: I finished Glendon Swarthout’s _The Shootist_ (John Bernard Books) is in town to consult with a doctor about his aggressively panful cancer. Fearless, he wants to know how much time he has. He addresses God in words to his effect: "you better kill me quick, or I will kill you." He Knows God in no rival shootist. But he is maintaining his sense of self, his pride. He cannot live with the moral consensus of any community; its institutions and rituals require acceptance of interactions with others that are hypocritical, or at least insincere, because self-serving.
Swarthout shows this in having Books confront El Paso’s solid citizens: a minister, a former lover (who wants him to sign a contract for a ghost-written tell-all), a photographer, a pulp writer, and an undertaker: all trying to exploit Books’ shootist fame. Books has no compassion for mediocrity or venality. When he is waylaid by an old, desperate thief at gunpoint, Books shoots him and offers him only an easy death with a shot in the head.
Books alone has generosity, expressed toward those who face suffering alone, like his landlady, whose son is an incipient exploiter of whomever stands in his way. Can he help her make her son aware that gaining a reputation for being able to control the Shootist is really a self-demeaning lie? Can Books last day be a revelation of his ability as a man who needs dangerous confrontation with the wild and amoral to go out with anarchistic vitality?

Currently

Matter by Iain M. Banks

Midwinter Murder: Fireside Tales from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie

"Deadline at Dawn" by Cornell Woolrich (William Irish) - I loved the first half, with the recurring image of the clock and the Dance Hall routine. I also dig the way the Big City is painted as a godlike, malevolent adversary, with two young people from the countryside trying desperately to escape its clutches.

I'm now into the second half, where the story gets a little harder to believe, but I think the book is one of the best examples of the sort of mental torment Woolrich specializes in.

The Grave's in the Meadow
by Manning Lee Stokes

Found a copy online and just started

3.5/5 stars
Coming out: 2/7/23
Hatred roams these halls

Please read my review linked below:

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

I finished my first two books of the year this weekend, both in the Mystery/Crime/Thriller genre:


To Die in California by Newton Thornburg
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the second book in the Cartel series - I gave the first one (The Power of the Dog) five stars so hopefully this one is just as good:


The Cartel by Don Winslow

Currently reading Find a Victim by Ross MacDonald.

5/5 stars

Coming our March 21, 2023

A fantastic horror/Historical/Suspense piece of fiction from Victor LaValle.

Please read my review:

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

Capping off a relaxing weekend, I finished the thriller


Intensity by Dean Koontz
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I also finished the Soviet Sci-Fi classic, which I think would appeal to many in this group:


Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

RJ, I recently watched some of the movie based on this book. Have you seen this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalk...

Patty wrote: "RJ, I recently watched some of the movie based on this book. Have you seen this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalk..."

I have seen the Wikipedia article, but I haven't seen the film. I do want to watch it (the film, not the article) - some people love it while others hate it.

I started reading my first noir classic, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. I’ve read more contemporary crime and Chuck Palahniuk can be considered horror noir, but I’m excited to get into a classic crime noir. The goal is to finish all of Raymond Chandler’s Marlow series, but I don’t know when I’ll do that. I keep buying other books (crime, thriller, horror, and sometimes something light) and I have to get through that.

I finished Graham Greene's novel set in Vietnam in the early 1950s


The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

February's Son by Alan Parks
I started it in February, but I finished in March. That's all right, but I was a little bothered by my poor memory skills, because the start of the story references the first book in the series, and I was a little slow in catching up.

In the end, it was another very atmospheric and hard-boiled look at the Glasgow underworld, cca. 1973 with a cop that has a direct and troublesome relationship with one of the crime lords of that underworld. Personal baggage plays as much a role in the proceedings as the actual investigations, where we are presented with the identity of the criminal right form the start.

I finished the highly celebrated Hard-Boiled mystery


The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I finished my second 5-star read of the year, the middle book in Don Winslow's Cartel trilogy:


The Cartel by Don Winslow
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the deliciously trashy 50s pulp novel:


Tiger by the Tail by James Hadley Chase

I finished the trashy fun 1950s pulp crime novel


Tiger by the Tail by James Hadley Chase
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Father and Son by Larry Brown

I finished the Southern Noir/Grit Lit novel


Father and Son by Larry Brown
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading a 1950s thriller that was the basis for the Marilyn Monroe film Don't Bother to Knock


Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong

Forgot to post this a couple weeks ago, but I finished the domestic suspense classic


Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Since then, I also finished the French thriller


The 10:30 From Marseille (AKA The Sleeping Car Murders) by Sébastien Japrisot
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar

I finished another short novel, this one an update of - or response to - The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft:


The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Although The Horror at Red Hook is not one of Lovecraft's best stories, and it is brewing over with hateful xenophobia and racism, I would still recommend reading it first in order to fully appreciate La Valle's story.

I finished reading an excellent murder mystery


Vanish in an Instant by Margaret Millar
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the second installment in the City Blues Quartet


Dead Man's Blues by Ray Celestin

4/5 stars
Coming out: 6/6/2023


Rachel's memories may be as cloudy as a London sky.

Please read my review linked below:

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

I finished the second book in the City Blues Quartet (sequel to prior group read The Axeman)


Dead Man's Blues by Ray Celestin
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading (but I've never seen the film)


Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Recently finished A Halo for Nobody, the first in Henry Kane’s classic PI series about Peter Chambers. Very entertaining. Chambers is a snarky uber-confident fellow.

Just finished Hugh Munro’s Who Told Clutha (1958), the first in his series about a Glasgow shipyard detective. From “Glasgow” and “shipyard”, you know it will be flavorful, and it is! I look forward to spending more time with Clutha, who is tough-savvy.

Hugh Munro is not to be confused with Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) or Neil Munro (author of the Para Handy tales). More info here: https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2010/1...

I finished the classic suspense thriller


Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes

I honestly cannot remember any series of detective novels where the PI gets roughed up so much as the Mike Shayne novels. Concussions, sprains, broken bones, swollen eyes, nothing stops the guy.

Why fictional private detectives don’t work in duos to protect each other’s asses, I’ll never understand. Working solo leads to so many problems, like getting waylaid and beat up. I mean, it’s a wonder that Shayne survived even one book, he was conked on the head so much…

The bibliography of Davis Dresser (1904-1977), the creator of Mike Shayne, is intensely complicated. Like most pulp writers, he wrote under multiple names (including his own), famously as “Brett Halliday” for the Shayne series. But from at least 1958 on, the Shayne novels and stories were ghostwritten by others (prominently but not exclusively Robert Terrall). Figuring out who actually wrote what can take a little work.

“I don’t arouse passions like that. It’s my intellect women like. I inspire them to read good books, but I doubt if I could inspire even Lizzie Borden to murder.” - Archie Goodwin

Archie Goodwin is unquestionably the fictional character I most identify with and would fantasize myself as. Timothy Hutton was peerless in the role, and that wardrobe, be still my beating heart. *

I’m reading the Nero Wolfe corpus in order, currently on The Silent Speaker. A thought that always comes to me is that an actual Archie wouldn’t put up with an actual Wolfe for more than a week. Archie could have a thriving PI business on his own, maybe contracting for Wolfe as the ‘teers do, but Wolfe without Archie would need another Archie. Archie enables Wolfe to be MOBILE by acting as his projection into the real world. Wolfe seldom expresses any appreciation for this essentiality, which is one reason why he frequently annoys me. But hey, it’s fiction.

* Wolfe to Goodwin: “Because you are young and vain you spend too much for your clothes.” Yeah, baby! 🙂

I finished a good neo-noir debut novel, something the critics have tried to use to define a new sub-genre:white noir, aka bleak stories taking place in a snowy setting, , like the original Fargo movie.
Indeed, the author tries to emulate the black humour and the casual, absurdist bursts of violence of the Coen Bros.
It's Scott Phillips - The Ice Harvest, and I'm glad I finally got around to read, after keeping it on my TBR stack for years.

After this, I decided to go with a classic horror / detective story : The Lodger

Just noticed that the crime / noir novelist Russell H. Greenan passed away on July 22 at the age of 97. He is something of a cult writer, especially for his first novel, It Happened in Boston? (1968). He published about a dozen novels altogether, including a couple that appeared initially in French translation. He has been on my to-read list forever, so I just ordered a copy of It Happened in Boston?

This was a crime fiction morning at Chez Murtha. I read in the second of Jack O’Connell’s Quinsigamond Quintet, Wireless. These novels, set in a somewhat warped fictional version of Worcester, Massachusetts, are difficult to describe, but have a noir / borderline horror atmosphere and abound in eccentric characters. Although each volume is technically freestanding, I would start with the first, Box Nine.

As you can tell by looking by his Goodreads reviews, O’Connell is a love him or hate him kind of author. He hasn’t published in a while, but I hear through the grapevine that he might get back to it, and I hope he does. I sent him word through a mutual acquaintance that he has still has plenty of fans out here.

Then I continued with some chapters in Simenon’s Pietr the Latvian, having decided to start the Maigrets at the beginning. (I had previously read one of the romans durs, Dirty Snow.) Great stuff, of course.