Grave Descend -- John Lange

Twenty years ago I wrote a short essay on John Lange's Easy Go for 1001 Midnights. I said something like "The critics don't like Lange much, but this is a very entertaining book."

When I wrote that, I also mentioned that Lange was actually a pen name. That's not mentioned anywhere on the Hard Case Crime book I just read, however, so I won't mention it, either.

So what's Grave Descend like? It's like those great old paperbacks they don't write any more. Short (my guess: 50K words), and it gets the job done. The setting's Jamaica. MacGregor is a diver living more or less hand-to-mouth. He's hired to do a seemingly straightforward job, except that everybody who talks to him has a different story, and there are all sorts of little things that bother him. He's right to be bothered. There's more plot in this book than in most of the doorstop-sized thrillers published today. Not much character development. Hardly any, in fact, but there's action, color, movement to spare. Sharks. Femme fatales. Smart cops. Spear guns. And crocodiles, a huge plus here at Chez Crider. Pure paperback storytelling and fine local color, too. There's even this quotation from Samuel Johnson: "Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young." What's not to like? Check it out.