Review by C.J. Bunce
Twenty years on and Charles Ardai’s Hard Case Crime imprint for Titan Books continues with even more of the best crime and mystery novels. To celebrate 20 years Ardai is releasing a collection of his own short stories. Death Comes Too Late (available for pre-order now here at Amazon) collects stories he has published in different journals and collections going back to 1990. From the really short to his near novella The Home Front, which earned Ardai a coveted Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America, these are twenty stories that span cultures and genres, all connected by that pulp noir title.
The best of these is the first, The Home Front, a story of change and swapped circumstance, following a federal worker in World War II policing gas rations in the States. When his own act causes his cushy existence to evaporate, he finds himself living in the most unlikely of places. My favorite Philip K. Dick novel is In Milton Lumky Territory, and The Home Front has a similar vibe, a story of impossible romance, one conjuring images of shadows and starkness of the Edward Hopper variety.
The final story, from 1991, The Investigation of Things, was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. It takes us back a few centuries to watch two Buddhist monks called in to investigate a murder. It’s early, early forensics as they sleuth out what happened, examining this strange method of murder involving a metal ball launched from a tool to put a hole in someone.
From 1992, Ardai’s story The Case is the kind of thriller you could see a producer discovering for the next Cellular or Phone Booth-type movie, a ticking clock story without a ticking clock (that’s just your pulse) as a guy with a bomb loses track of the bomb.
From China to a story during Carnival in Brazil in Masks from 1993 to many in New York City, the stories are a mix of Law & Order crimes and surprises you’d find in The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Like the short story collections of Ray Bradbury or Philip K. Dick or Arthur C. Clarke, these are a blend of stories as different as they are alike.
From 2022, Ardai’s Sleep! Sleep! Burning Bright reads like a deconstruction of Rear Window, a revenge story of murder and voyeurism. An even newer story from 2023, Game Over, is a modern day update to Angels with Dirty Faces, as two local kids end up in different places.
Smokes, drinks, women, guns, sex, diners, cops, and violence–everything you’d expect from crime novels and pulp noir threads its way into Death Comes Too Late. Available in paperback with a great Paul Mann painted cover, order it now here at Amazon, arriving Tuesday March 12, 2024, in bookstores everywhere.
