I can't resist a good pirate tale, and Ed Gorman and Tom Piccirilli have written a dilly here. It's got sword fights, a pirate named Crimson (surely they're having a little fun with us Burt Lancaster fans here, since Crimson's a woman, who, in my opinion, looks like Geena Davis with red hair and not at all like Burt), storms, scurvy dogs, and . . . . well, let's put it this way: This might start off like a typical pirate tale, but it sure doesn't wind up that way. Originally published by Subterranean, it's now available as an e-book. Check it out here.
As I've mentioned many times, I read the first Spenser novel when it appeared, and I haven't missed one since. Sixkill is #39 in the series, and the final one written by Robert B. Parker.
Here we go again. I'd written and scheduled a post about this book, but Blogger has disappeared it. I'll give you the short version. 
Dove Season by Johnny Shaw has a great setting, right out of a Gold Medal novel, the Calexico/Mexicali border country. A dying man named Jack Veeder has one simple request of his son: find a Mexican prostitute named Yolanda. Jimmy and a guy named Bobby Maves discover that finding Yolanda isn't the hard part as they deal with just about all the violence that the Mexicali underworld can throw at them. Before it's all over, Jimmy's found out a lot of things he didn't know about his father, and about himself. This is a fast-moving story with great local color, told in smooth prose. Check it out.
How about a book-reading detective who believes that the decline of Western Civilization continues apace? Irresistible, right? If you feel that way, then it's time you made the acquaintance of Chess Hanrahan. Honors Due is his third case, I believe, and in it Hanrahan goes to a movie about Galileo. He's horrified to discover that Hollywood has turned the astronomer's life into something like a Will Ferrell film and even more horrified to see that the script is credited to a famous historian who, as it happens, has been recently murdered. Hanrahan sets out to find out the story behind all this, and he's the kind of a guy who won't stop until he finds what he's looking for.
Anybody who's read this blog for a while knows I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories. Here's another one.Hi everyone, If you haven't read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next bibliomysteries, then you're in for a real treat. Tom Nolan gives an introduction to the whimsical world of Thursday Next, literary detective in this issue. (Here's some advice for newbies, though: start with the first book in the series, The Eyre Affair.) Have you ever wondered about the loyal wife, silently standing by her disgraced husband, usually a politician, on the evening news? The Good Wife places that enigmatic figure at the center of one of the most enjoyable dramas on TV. It's full-bodied, nuanced storytelling - and possibly features the only time in history that a steamy sex scene has had National Public Radio's evening news as a soundtrack. Find out more in Matt Zoller Seitz's thoughtful article. Novelist Kelli Stanley is making a splash and her conversation with Oline Cogdill reveals why. It's not every woman who is equally comfortable discussing ancient Roman curse tablets, the second Sino-Japanese War, segregated 1970s Florida, and comics! Also, Art Taylor talks with Louis Bayard about his acclaimed literary-themed thrillers, the latest of which, The School of Night, focuses on a secret, possibly heretical, society of scientists and artists in Elizabethan England. Theatrical crime is running rampant across the country and Wm. F. Hirschman has tracked down some of the top perpetrators on Broadway and in regional theater for us. Don't miss his list of classic crime plays - they make good reading! There's lots more in the new issue. Hope you enjoy! Kate Stine Editor-in-Chief |
I've read and reviewed several of Chris Knopf's books in the past and enjoyed all of them. Two of those I reviewed were about Sam Aquillo, a carpenter in the Hamptons who was once a corporate trouble-shooter. This time time Aquillo's not in the Hamptons because he's (and his girlfriend, Amanda, and his dog, Eddie van Halen) delivering a boat when an October gale blows him off course and onto Fisher's Island, a sort of unattached scrap of Long Island, where the richest folks in the country spend their summers. The only hotel on the island is the Black Swan.
Those who've read Dave White's earlier novels and stories about private-eye Jackson Donne already know that White's one of the best of the younger generation of crime writers. Now he's stepped out in a new direction with a man-on-the run novel, the story of an ordinary guy who's suddenly tangled up in a mess not of his own making. Accused of multiple murders, John Brighton is on the run from cops and killers alike. The ending is a stunner.
You want to talk noir? I think this film is a fine example or being noir before noir was cool. Paul Muni plays a man who's asked by a friend to go for a hamburger. The next thing he knows, he's working on the chain gang. (Cue Sam Cooke.) He escapes, goes to Chicago, gets work, and marries. Badly. For reasons I won't go into here. The rest is best left undiscussed. Except that I'll mention that this one has an unforgettable last scene and final line. Check it out.
Steve Turner's The Band that Played On is an in-depth look at the lives of the musicians in the band that played on the Titanic. If you've ever wondered what kind of men would continue playing while the big ship sank, you'll find the answers here. Thorough research, lots of illustrations. Check it out if you're interested in the history of the Titanic or in the kind of story where you already know the ending but nothing else.
Amazon.com: Shooters eBook: Terrill Lee Lankford
Looking for a good p.i. novel? John Lantigua's On Hallowed Ground has what youre looking for: drug dealers, cocaine bosses, double crosses, big money, kidnapping, family vendettas, and a detective tough enough to see the case through. I've enjoyed John Lantigua's work in the past, and this looks like another good one. Check it out.
Yes, right here on your favorite blog, I'm giving away 3 copies of books by the wonderful Laura Lippman. Up for grabs are two copies of I'd Know You Anywhere and one copy of What the Dead Know. Just send me an e-mail at the address over on the right, put "Laura Lippman Giveaway" in the subject line, and say you'd like to be entered in the drawing. I'll give you a number, put the numbers in a random number generator, and three of you lucky persons will get the books. Such a deal! Don't delay, as I'm going to turn this for only four days.this letter to Norman Court is a novella consisting of 22 sections (each between 1000 and 1250 words) I am releasing by way of the following experiment: I am trying to serialize the piece across blogs, by reader request. If you read and enjoy the section below and have a blog the readers of which you think would enjoy a selection, as well, please get in touch with me to be an upcoming host. A little hub site is set up at www.normancourt.wordpress.com that has a listing of the blogs that have featured or will feature sections—please give it a look, get yourself all caught up if the below piques your interest.
It is my simple hope to use this as a casual, unobtrusive way to release this material to parties interested. There is some suspense, in that if a new host does not appear after each posting, the train comes to a halt (back tracking to previous hosts is not an option in this game). So, if you enjoy what you read and would like to host an upcoming selection, please get in touch with me via unburiedcomments@gmail.com. I welcome not only invitations, but any and all comments on the piece (positive, negative, or ambivalent) or general correspondence about matters literary.
Cheers,
Pablo D’Stair
this letter to Norman Court
Pablo D’Stair
six
I stepped from the car, duffle feeling a grip heavier for Klia’d withdrawn the money all in tens, maybe just my imagination. Leaned to the open window, I handed the letter, the original, toward her, but she kept in profile, not reaching, maybe thinking I’d tease it away from her hand up for it, didn’t want to go through anything else belittling. I placed it on the passenger seat I’d vacated, turned right up the block, not looking back till the crosswalk—her car was there lulling, window open still, face in profile.
Three blocks up I could tell I seemed edgy, legs all clunk with each step, so I purposefully let my pace get sluggish, more-than-casual, strolled with still some vague anxiety on me. I don’t know what I thought she’d do—if she called the police, what’d she say? Even if I was found with this money, I couldn’t be because I didn’t have to open my bag, anything.
I shook all thoughts like that off. Klia wouldn’t do a thing at all, didn’t for one single minute believe she’d seen the last of me, that I didn’t have the letter in duplicate, the replica just as much damning to her as the genuine she’d just bought off me. I did still have a duplicate, she was right, nothing I was gonna hold over her, but she wouldn’t believe that no matter if I’d told her.
I ducked into a fast food restaurant, ordered a burger, a shake, sat as much in the corner of the place as I could manage, waiting out the last of the feeling, for time to dull me out. I took the letter from my bag when I’d done eating, the photocopied pages still in the original envelope—I smiled at myself about that, what’d been the point?
Looking at Klia’s address, it struck me it wasn’t Herman’s, not where they lived now, was someplace Pennsylvania. I pictured an apartment, they’d moved down to Mill Creek, someplace hardly any different except a house, Herman’s job. It didn’t matter. Norman lived in Virginia, according to the envelope, I kind of thought that was close, but then put the letter away, nothing left to do with it but get it to Herman, put it in his hand he got back in at the office, next day.
Something in that thought lingered with me up a few more blocks, into a bar where I took a seat in a booth, ordered a bottle of decent wine for myself, sipped at it looking at the empty space across from me, the shallow brown of the high booth back.
Nothing left to do.
Didn’t seem Klia’d seen it that way.
What’d I said? Whatever, it’d been something to the tune of she didn’t pay I’d find another use for the letter and straight off her thoughts’d gone to Lawrence and not her husband. Why’d that be? Well, seemed I was after money to her, of course, and why’d Herman be a viable source for that from I have a letter his wife’d been going around in back of him?
She’d thought of Lawrence as someplace else I’d go for money’s what she’d thought.
I downed my bottle to halfway, looked at the envelope front, tapping this letter and that, little bugs, little crumbs.
It was she didn’t want Lawrence to know she’d been telling the long and short of their thing to anyone, maybe, either just she thought he’d go sour on her because of it or because it’d put Lawrence in some kind of spot.
She knew he’d’ve paid, that he’d have to for some reason or another.
She’d not been with him maybe in the two years since this letter’d gone missing, maybe further back than that—it was way past her caring Lawrence knew how he’d affected her, she’d want him to know that, probably, more than anything. If there was a chance it’d lead even to meeting face-to-face with him for an I’m sorry or a How could you do this, she’d want Lawrence to have the letter.
There was something else to it if she was trying to keep me away from him.
Away from him where?
I looked at the addresses—Klia from Pennsylvania, Norman somewhere Virginia.
Where’s Lawrence in all of that?
Bottle emptied, I made my way to the bar, asked could they leave a bourbon at my booth, break five dollars for coins and did they have a public phone. I was soft, head a heavy breeze, felt the coins grinding in my fingers, the phone just a wall mount in over by the toilets.
I dialed information, stammered through I was looking for a personal telephone number—really I wondered did they give those out, but they did, provided it was listed.
-I think it’s in Pennsylvania, in Sandbar Pennsylvania, that’s what I have, I said squinting at the envelope front.
-What listing?
-Lawrence Stephanie Glass.
-Lawrence or Stephanie Glass?
-Just Lawrence Stephanie, middle name’s Stephanie. Lawrence S. Glass.
There was a moment or two, I rubbed an itch on the side of my thigh sort of, leaned around the phone, head tip tap tip tap tip tap to the wall beneath a reproduction advertisement for Calvert Whisky. I was staring at the slogan—the Whiskey with the Happy Blend—when the operator said there was no listing in Sandbar, but she had four listing for Lawrence Glass in Pennsylvania and one L.S. Glass Plumbing in Horton.
–Is one of the Lawrence’s maybe in Horton?
She checked.
-I have a Lawrence Glass in Horton, hold for that number.
I heard a click as an automated voice started giving me digits, padded around myself for a pen, but worse thing was I’d call back I’d heard things wrong.
Hung up, dialed, woman answered almost immediately, hardly the purr of a single ring’d gone off before a kind of short breathed clip of Hello?
–I was looking to talk to Lawrence Glass, given this number for contact.
-Who’s this?
-I’m with Nyborg Realty, calling back off a message he’d left?
-I think maybe you were given the wrong information.
-It’s Lawrence Stephanie Glass, is it? Horton, Pennsylvania.
I could almost see her blink, shoulders up down, saw her whole expression in the elongation to her first word Ye-e-es, that’s him. There was some muffled sound, her saying something to someone, not Lawrence though, then half a beat later it was He’s out just now—another bit of her talking in another direction, not covering the phone this time, a bark of Pick that up, now—then she exasperated huff out her teeth said I’m sorry.
-No no, not a bit of it, I’m sorry. I can just try him later, you let him know Nyborg Realty rang back—or nevermind, I hear you’re busy, just I’ll try back.
Not even stopping long enough to enjoy my little victory, I was slipping coins back in the slot, got the number for some motel in Horton, placed a call, asked did they know were there buses, a train station anything, how I’d get to them from whichever station.
-You’re coming in on train? Commuter train?
-I am, I said, smiling dumbly like the guy was there to make a face at.
-We don’t have shuttles, but I’m sure a cab’d do it.
-Train stops in Horton?
-No, commuter trains in to Darcy, but cab’d be the best to get here, no buses really.
I chatted back and forth a bit before just hanging up midsentence, bored with the pointless make believe, certainly not going to reserve a room.
I was surprised to find the bourbon at my table, glanced around to see maybe who’d left it, my mind catching up with itself it’d been me as I sat, lifted it, let some of it press up against my lip, swallowing nothing, inhaling deeply, tongue out for the little taste left over the scruff under my nose when I set the glass back to the table.
Pablo D’Stair is a writer of novels, shorts stories, and essays. Founder of Brown Paper Publishing (which is closing its doors in 2012) and co-founder of KUBOA (an independent press launching July 2011) he also conducts the book-length dialogue series Predicate. His four existential noir novellas (Kaspar Traulhaine, approximate; i poisoned you; twelve ELEVEN thirteen; man standing behind) will be re-issued through KUBOA as individual novella and in the collection they say the owl was a baker’s daughter: four existential noirs.
