Book Review: Revenge is a Redhead by Phil Beloin Jr

March 27, 2015March 27, 2015 bryancyr Book, Noir, Pulp All Do Respect, Noir, Phil Beloin Jr, pulp, Revenge is a Redhead

I recently read a blog that was talking about how pulp literature has become back in favor. This is good news for noir fans! Pulp was popular with the working man, because it was short, cheap and talked to the downtrodden. We had magazines like Black Mask and The Strand and they published their issues on cheap pulp paper, hence the name. The literary world used slick glossy paper for there publications causing them to be to expensive for some. Today we have the internet, and especially E-readers. This makes it easy for independent publications to put out pulp like stories on the cheap. I also read somewhere that noir stories don’t sell, people want happy ending and likable characters(I guess nobody told Gillian Flynn that?). Anyway some noir authors had no outlet to get there work out to the public, but now thanks to small independent publishers and E-readers we can get great stories that may never of had a home 10 years ago.

One of these publishers was kind enough to send me 6 books to read and see what I thought. All Due Respect is a small publisher specializing in pulp and noir books and I thank them for letting me check out there library of work. Of course I grabbed the slimmest volume first to read.

That book is Phil Beloin Jr’s Revenge is a Redhead and it is only 90 pages, but I could not put it down and read it in one night. We have two main characters in this short but sweet read. We have a homeless man with 70 cents in his pocket and a gorgeous femme fatale hooker that moonlights as a stripper when they need somebody to fill in.

Our protagonist is named Rich, but he is far from rich. We find him in a strip club enjoying the scenery and find out he is flat broke. He was just kicked out of his father’s house and took off in his beat up Olds and plans on going until the fuel runs out. He changes his mind and stops at the club instead. He spends what little money he has on a beautiful redhead stripper named Cherry. Rich leaves the club and goes to the nearest homeless shelter for a meal and a cot. Soon our hero wakes up in an unusual situation and it just keeps getting worse from there. This short book is packed with great dialog and some amazing character development.

This book is pure pulp with a shocking scene on every other page. Some might find this book a bit offensive…so if your easily offended don’t read it. If your not…buy this for a quick read of pure entertainment. I look forward to reading the rest of the books from All Due Respect and look forward to what else they publish in the future.

Here is a link so you can see what else they offer and check back here for more reviews in the near future.

http://allduerespectbooks.com/

Book Review: Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

March 26, 2015March 26, 2015 bryancyr Book, series Adrian McKinty, Cold Cold Ground, Irish Noir, Noir, Sean Duffy

Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty is an Irish noir that takes place in the early 1980’s. McKinty grow up in Northern Ireland during this harsh time, so the background in which our story takes place is from somebody that lived it. I had very little knowledge of the climate in the early 1980’s in Northern Ireland, but this book gave me some real historic insight of that turbulent time.

Some of the real life history that is happening during this novel is the Princes Di and Prince Charles wedding, something I do remember, because even though I was young this was on every magazine cover and newspaper headline at the time as well as live coverage on every television channel, all two of them! So if you where home on that day watching television, you got to see the wedding whether you wanted to or not.

Unfortunately I did not know much about the real news of the time with the hunger strikes, the riots, and the fighting among the Protestants and the Catholics. As well as England’s attempts to stop all this without siding with terrorists in any way and Margret Thatcher being the head of that balancing act.

A review I recently read, didn’t like the historic facts going on in the background of this story. I actually learned some from this and didn’t mind the background facts, but did find this made the book a little long and took me longer to get through it than normal. This was the same way with James Ellroy’s American Tabloid and the first two Coughlin books by Dennis Lehane. All these books I felt like “When will this book end?!?” but after I was done, I felt like “I sure am glad I read that!”

This is the first of the Sean Duffy books and there are 4 books in the series with the 4th just being released. After reading all the great reviews on like-minded blogs and on goodreads, I had to jump in and start the series.

The story is Sean Duffy is Catholic and has recently started working in a small Northern Irish town with a mostly Protestant police force. A dead body is found in an abandon car with a gunshot wound and the hand cut off. It is soon found out that the hand they found with this body is not from the same person. They soon find the other body the hand belongs to. The pattern shows homosexuals are being targeted by a serial killer. Our detective is also given a second case of a young women that appears to have committed suicide in the forest. Duffy just doesn’t feel right about the suicide, and starts asking questions. Where has she been for the last 6 months? Is her ex-husbands incarceration and announcement he is starting a hunger strike have something to do with it? As our story goes on and the more we learn the more questions we have.

This is a very good book and I look forward to reading the rest of the series. I do have to take a break from Duffy for now, this is not a light read, but I will be back soon.

An Interesting Article From Dave Zeltserman

March 16, 2015March 16, 2015 bryancyr Book Dave Zeltserman, Dennis Lehane, Noir

This is an interesting article on what Zeltserman considers noir. He has some good points, and some interesting reading recommendations.

http://artery.wbur.org/2015/03/16/dave-zeltserman-noir

Zeltserman is making a counterpoint to Dennis Lehane’s view of noir in this article:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/02/24/hey-author-dennis-lehane-misses-boston-snow/6ipzoCj3JggLgOMQHBGoMK/story.html

I like both there takes, but Hammett and Chandler will always be noir heroes to me, no matter how good an argument Zeltserman has.

Review: Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes

March 9, 2015March 9, 2015 bryancyr Book Dorothy B. Hughes, Dread Journey, Mysterious Press

Dorothy B. Hughes is a well-known hardboiled and noir writer from the 1940’s. Thanks to Mysterious Press for keeping these books in print and available. She had 3 films made from her books: The Fallen Sparrow, Ride the Pink Horse and In a Lonely Place where all made in the classic film noir era. I hope to review all three of these films at some point on this site.

Dread Journey is not as well-known as some of her other work and I actually choose this as my first Hughes book simply because it was on sale for little to nothing on my Nook when I was looking at her books. This book is short, only 140 pages, but very dense, this is not an easy read.

This book is original in a lot of ways, the structure is not your typical murder mystery by any means. This story takes place on a train called the Chief that is going from Los Angeles east to New York. The train is full of entertainment types traveling for work.

The motley crew of characters include:

James Cobbett is a service man for the train and is there for everybody’s beck and call.

Les Augustin an orchestra leader, maybe to smart for his own good.

Hank Cavahaugh an alcoholic newspaper man who still has some pull.

Sidney Pringle was a tie salesman that wrote a book, and it has done fairly well.

Gratia is the beautiful fresh face that everybody is falling in love with and is innocent to the entertainment business.

Viv Spender, the rich and powerful film mogul.

Kitten Agnew is the famous starlet that is also Viv’s current girlfriend and muse.

Mike is Viv’s personal secretary and has been in love with Viv for years, though she is a plain-looking girl and does not catch Viv’s eye.

The interesting part of this story is we don’t have a murder towards the beginning of the story like most who done its. This story revolves around Kitten, who know’s Viv has destroyed or killed his last muses when he was done with them. She knows she is being replaced by Gratia, the new face that Viv has fallen in love with, though Gratia does not know this yet. Kitten is smart and has used lawyers and contracts to make sure she will not be easily fired by Viv and his company. She now realizes that the only way Viv is getting rid of her is killing her. She is scared for her life so she surrounds herself with Hank, Sidney, and Les for protection on the trip. Mike knows that Viv has killed his muses before, but because she has been loyal to him for years, she doesn’t know what to do in this situation. James is our outside perspective of this whole situation.

Will Viv or Kitten win this battle of smarts and murder. Will they all make it to New York, who will not make it? This starts out a little slow as we learn about our characters and how they interact. It’s a slow burn that turns into an inferno in the last third of the book. I liked the originality of the book and think this would have made a great moody film noir in its day, but its first 100 pages of slow build up was a little too much for me. Worth checking out for Hughes fans and I wish I would have went with one of her more popular books first instead of this one.

Review: Frank Sinatra in a Blender by Matthew McBride

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 bryancyr Book A Swollen Red Sun, Frank Sinatra in a Blender, Ken Bruen, Matthew McBride, New Pulp Press

Frank Sinatra in a Blender may be the best title for a novel in a while. Frank Sinatra is Matthew McBride’s first novel and was published by New Pulp Press. NPP is a great source for some new inventive noir and pulp books and I look forward to reading more from this publisher in the future.

This book’s protagonist is Nick Valentine, an ex-cop that was really good at his job, but had substance abuse problems. Nick is not drinking coffee anymore, because when he has a cup of coffee he wants a cigarette too and he’s quite smoking. Well that’s a good start, unfortunately he has no desire to quite alcohol…or cocaine….or oxy or etc, etc. Nick has a small Yorkie named Frank Sinatra, named for his fathers love of old blue eyes. Nick’s father was a police officer as well, so Nick followed in his father’s footsteps. Now that he is an ex-cop he has many contacts on the wrong side of the law. He usually hangs out with them at a strip club and isn’t afraid to ride the fence and work both sides of the law for his personal gain.

We have Nick, down on his luck financially and is staying at his office with his dog. He is called by the police to help with an apparent suicide that doesn’t look quite right. Soon a credit union is robbed and one of the robbers is shot in the back and left for dead during the escape. Nick puts 2 and 2 together and thinks both cases are connected. He gets his underworld contacts to help him, while he is appearing to help the police on the case. All this seems to be a plot to end up with some of the cash from the robbery. This is where the story takes off and we have strippers, thugs from England, tweekers, fat thieves with a pension for them same strippers, an Amish cop, and of course our hero and his dog. Who will get away with the money? Who will get away alive?

This story is very dark, but has quite a bit of humor in it as well. This is showcased in the blurbs on the book. One is from Charlie Sheen on the cover telling us he loved it and the other is the forward from Ken Bruen, who feel in love with the book. I think that sums up the book very well: “For fans of Charlie Sheen and/or Ken Bruen”

The movie rights for this book have been sold so we may see a movie version of this someday! I think this would be a great film if done right.

I’ve read Matthew McBride’s other book as well, A Swollen Red Sun. This book was even darker and I didn’t find any humor in it. It is beautifully written with a more literary feel to it. I read it a few months ago so I don’t want to give a review of that book with out a fresh look.

I think both books are very good and feel McBride has a bright future. I look forward to reading more from him. I would also love to see more Nick Valentine and Frank Sinatra in the future as well.

Review: The Drop Movie vs Book

February 25, 2015February 25, 2015 bryancyr Book, Movie Dennis Lehane, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael R. Roskam, Noomi Rapace, The Drop, Tom Hardy

So I finally got to see The Drop! One of the bad things about living in small town Montana is we don’t get every movie that comes out in the theaters, in our theaters. I am a huge Dennis Lehane fan and have read almost all of his work and seen every movie based on his novels. This story started as a novel, that didn’t get finished, that got turned into a short story, that got picked up as a movie and turned into a screenplay, movie gets made and the novel finally gets finished. The good news is Lehane is the one that wrote all the material. I read the book months ago when it first came out and thought it was a great little book. Since the book was actually written after the screenplay and movie, it doesn’t vary from the movie but may give a little more insight into the characters. Compared to Leahane’s current series, the Coughlin books, this is a short pulpy book, but no less fun.

I then was ready to see the movie, but had to wait for the DVD release and for Netflix to send it to my house. I know this film was a small film, but could have been a lot bigger at the box office in my opinion. Maybe we were spoiled in 2014 with so many great neo-noir films coming to theaters, maybe this got lost in the shuffle between Gone Girl and Nightcrawler. No, I would not put this movie in a class with those two, but it isn’t that far behind.

This film may be best known and go down in history as the last film of James Gandolfini. Gandolfini does his normal, but no less memorable New York baddy. This is also the first American film for director, Michaël R. Roskam. Roskam previous work Bullhead is a cool little country noir from Belgium and is worth searching out if you haven’t already seen it. Matthias Schoenaerts, who also worked with Roskam on Bullhead, does a great job as a street thug. Original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Noomi Rapace plays the slightly broken girl our protagonist falls for. Our protagonist is played by Tom Hardy, whom I feel is a very underrated actor. He always choices interesting roles and with the exception of “This Means War,” I’ve loved him in everything I’ve seen.

So a quick non-spoiler preview that works for both book and movie. We have a bar called Cousin Marv’s run by Bob and his Cousin Marv. The bar is a drop bar for the mob. A drop bar is where all the money owed the mafia is dropped at every night. There are many drop bars and the bars are picked at random each night. Our hero Bob is walking home one night and finds a puppy pit bull in a trash can, beaten and left for dead. The lady whose trash can the dog is found in, work together to bring the dog back to health. From this the story takes off on a wild ride of crime in a hard neighborhood.

So what wins in this book verses movie? I can’t decide, I really liked them both. Do this dynamic duo in whatever way you normally like to do them. Book then Movie, Movie then Book, I don’t think it matters, if you enjoy anything Lehane grab the one easiest for you to find and enjoy.

Review: The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block

February 23, 2015February 23, 2015 bryancyr Book 8 Million Ways to Die, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Lawrence Block, Matthew Scudder, The Sins of the Fathers

I have never read a Lawrence Block book and decided it was time to jump into the world of Block. The Sins of the Fathers came up on my Nook one day for $0.99, it was a sign, time to start reading Block. This is the book I always wanted to start with because the is the first in a series around the character Matthew Scudder. This book was first published in 1976 and Scudder has been part of popular culture ever since, well maybe not popular culture but with the noir fanbase for sure. 17 books later and Scudder is still going strong. Scudder has even appeared in two movies, 8 Million Ways to Die based on the 5th book in the series and A Walk Among the Tombstones based on the 10th book in the series. I plan on watching Tombstone sometime soon and giving a review on this site. I also plan to read the rest of these books and review them as I go.

Block is an amazing writer who has written over 100 books in his career and still going strong! I look foreword to reading more from Block in the near future.

Scudder as a character is not all that original, Ex-cop who has a problem with alcohol and becomes a private detective. Well Scudder isn’t exactly a private dick, he just does favors and gets tipped for those favors, who needs to get a licence and report income to the tax man. He’s a hardboiled detective that has lost his family and has seen and done things that have scared him for life. Though the profile of Scudder isn’t an original idea, he is well crafted and I love him.

This first story is about a young lady that was brutally murdered, and her male roommate is found outside the building covered in her blood, half-dressed and screaming obscenities. The male roommate is later found in his cell, dead from hanging himself. It’s an open and shut case as far as the police are concerned.

The parents of our dead young lady have lost track of their daughter and didn’t even know she was living in New York for sure. With over 3 years of no communication with their daughter, they want to know what she was doing in that time period and turn to Scudder for help.

This book shows Scudder as a fairly religious man, and lent itself nicely to this story. I hope this aspect is continued throughout this series.

Scudder isn’t investigation a murder mystery here, he is looking into this girls history and takes us along for the ride. We have some dark stuff here, it is a very gritty and twisted adventure that you will enjoy.

Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 201, James Ellroy

February 22, 2015February 22, 2015 bryancyr Book James Ellroy

Here is a great interview with James Ellory over at Paris Review.

Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 201, James Ellroy.

Review: Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon, Book vs Television

February 20, 2015 bryancyr Book, series, Television Backstrom, Beatrice Rosen, Dennis Haysbert, Genevieve Angelson, He Who Kills the Dragon, Leif GW Persson, Rain Wilson, Sarah Chalke, Thomas Dekker

I was given a copy of this book from Goodreads and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard publishing in exchange for this review. I entered to get this book, because I saw the first few episodes of the Fox Television series by the same name starring Rain Wilson. Backstrom is the main character of author Leif GW Persson. Persson was a professor of Criminology at the Swedish National Police Board from 1992 to 2012. This may give him an edge on how things work from the inside of the police force. This is interesting to me, I thought this book was OK, but it was 360 pages long to tell a story that I would think one of the current noir masters could have told in 200 to 250 pages. I guess I would rather have a great story that is well written, rather than all the details of how the police have to operate. The other problem with this book could be a culture issue. Since this was originally written in Swedish and maybe it looses something when translated. I’m not saying this book is a bad book, and I can see a lot of people who tend toward the more real and procedural type books will like this.

So how does this compare to the T.V. series? There is not much the same between the two. The similarities are few, first is the main character, Backstrom himself. Backstrom is an overweight, out of shape, alcoholic, that tends to be a racist and sexist. He is forced by his doctors to start changing his life or he isn’t going to live very long. There is also a character named Nadia too.

Now the multiple differences, these are the ones I think would take away from a fans experience of either the T.V. series or the book series. Only the one book is available in the U.S.A. right now, and it is the second book in the series. This series only has 3 books so far, so I don’t know why this is the one they published first. There are a few references in this book that I assume is referring to the first book. I bring this up because maybe some of the characters I really like in the TV series are missing in this book, but may be in the other two. Back to our main character, Backstrom, though physically he seems about the same, but on the TV series he is a brilliant detective that can get into the heads of his suspects and figure out how and why they did the crime. Because he is so brilliant the rest of the team lives with his short comings. It seems in the book, he is more lucky than good. He becomes a media darling, more because he is in the right spots at the right times, and his team under him is very skilled and he steals their credit. This difference along makes the two very different in tone and feel.

The TV series takes place in Portland where the books take place in Sweden, that of course will give you a different feel. The characters are very diverse in both book and series, but only one is the same, Nadia. In the book Nadia is a character that understands Backstrom, she is an overweight Russian that works on Backstrom’s team, on the series she is a gorgeous blond that is a computer specialist played by Beatrice Rosen. Over all I like the series characters as they develop over the course of time. Nicole Gravely played by Genevieve Angelson is the young detective that goes by the book, she was my favorite character in the first few episodes. John Almond played by Dennis Haysbert is interesting as he is a pastor of a small church on the weekend and has conflict within his professional life because of his beliefs. Thomas Dekker plays Valentine, Backstrom’s roommate and not always legit antique dealer. We got other supporting characters like Backstrom’s ex played by Sarah Chalke. I do wish the TV series would do 4-5 episode story arcs rather than one and done episode cases. I wasn’t sure if I really liked the TV series at first, I will make a final verdict after the full season. I seem to be liking it more and more each episode.

The only thing I really miss from the book that isn’t in the TV show is Annika Carlsson. She is a bi-sexual that Backstrom warms to throughout the book. I would like to see more of this character, but maybe not enough to read anymore of the books.

In this battle I’m going to take the TV series over the book. If you only watched the first few episodes to make your decision, you may want to watch a few more and see if it grows on you like it is me.

Review: A Scanner Darkly: Movie versus Book

February 19, 2015December 16, 2015 bryancyr Book, Movie, Neo-Noir A Scanner Darkly, Keanu Reeves, Philip K. Dick, Richard Linklater, Robert Downey Jr., Rory Cochrane, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson

Scanner Darkly is a book by Philip K. Dick, a SciFi legend in literature. Dick may be one of the earliest writers to combine the science fiction genre with noir style. If you are not familiar with Dick as an author you are familiar with his work. His most famous work is probably “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” but you will recognize its big screen neo-noir adoption “Blade Runner.” I hope to review both that movie and book on this blog at a later time. Scanner Darkly may be less science fiction and more noir then his other works. It is also his most personal and autobiographical book. This book may disguise itself in a fictional world, but it is very close to Dick’s personal life under the influence of drugs. Him and his friends are paranoid of everything and don’t know who to trust in their everyday lives. Substance D is the drug in the world of Scanner Darkly and our protagonist Bob Arctor is an undercover cop in this world. This book, written in 1977 won many awards in the science fiction literary world.

I watched this movie back when it came out, recently read the book and then re-watched the movie to compare the two. I can see why most thought this book would not be film-able. The scramble suits would have been my main concern if I was a fan of this book in the 70’s and found out someone was going to try to put it to film.

Then enters one of the best directors in modern film, Richard Linklater. Though Linklater doesn’t typically do much noir type films, he has made some of the best independent films of the last 25 years. Linklater takes some risks, but I really liked the final product. The biggest one is taking one of the biggest, most talented casts around, shots the film with them over the course of 23 days, then spends 18 months animating it. This gives the film a very cool look, almost in the way black and white transformed the real world in the classic era of film-noir the animation transforms the modern world of southern California.

The cast of this doesn’t get much better. Robert Downey Jr. may be the biggest star in this film, but when it was made he was still doing little movies while he worked through his own drug issues. This is great casting and if you like Downey you will like him in this part. Our lead is played by Keanu Reeves, playing the undercover cop that maybe to undercover for his own good. He is in love with Donna, played by Winona Ryder, unfortunately she may not feel the same way. Woody Harrelson plays a friend of Bob, that is also addicted to substance D. Rory Cochrane, a Linklater favorite also plays a key role.

So should you read the book or watch the movie? I will say if I had to choose one, I would go with the movie. The book and movie are both great and if you can, I would look at reading the book and then watching the movie. This is an interesting take on the underground drug world of the 1970’s, and a neo-noir classic.

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