Quentin Tarantino sparked the resurgence of the pulp crime novel with his 1990s homage movies. The Internet, and especially eBay, found new homes for basements and attics full of the paperback novels. Digital ebooks made out-of-print books accessible to nearly anyone across the planet. And the Hard Case Crime imprint combined new talent with the best of the old, reprinting lost novels and publishing shelved novels from crime writers of the past, many for the first time. Rio Youers’ new crime novel, No Second Chances, now available for pre-order here from publisher William Morrow, is the latest in a trend of authors mixing echoes of Hollywood’s past with its grimy, ugly corners in the pulp crime niche.
Dr. Kay Scarpetta is having the worst day at work. Newly back on the job as Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Virginia, she’s juggling a potential serial killing, a winter storm, uncooperative colleagues, intrusive reporters, family drama, a missing cat—and, oh, yes, a poisoning attempt. And that’s just the first 50 pages of Patricia Cornwell’s latest mystery, Autopsy. It stars her tough, street-smart, and experienced forensics expert—the 25th in the long-running Scarpetta series, which began in 1990. It will satisfy longtime series fans, maybe even woo over a few new readers, and it will have you ready for the forthcoming TV series, slated to star Jamie Lee Curtis as Scarpetta.
The first thing to know about Raymond Chandler’s 1939 novel The Big Sleep is that it was published three years after James M. Cain published the serialized Double Indemnity. If your only knowledge of The Big Sleep is the big-screen adaptation directed by Howard Hawks starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with a screenplay written by the likes of Leigh Brackett and William Faulkner, you should go back and read the novel to see how wrong Bogart is for the lead detective Philip Marlowe. Both the novel and significantly modified movie version are convoluted tales of murder and mayhem, but the novel is better than the film in many ways. Its value is in its shocking subject matter for the 1930s and being an early entrant helping to establish hardboiled crime novels as a genre. Readers were first put inside the brain of Marlowe in this story, which reads like an effort to adapt Cain. Chandler also was a reader of Cain’s work and along with Billy Wilder, Chandler would adapt Cain’s Double Indemnity for the screen. Still in print, The Big Sleep is available in trade paperback here at Amazon.
Eight decades after its first publication, how does Chandler’s novel hold up?
The Sting and The Color of Money collide in a new edition of Max Allan Collins’ 1973 pulp novel, Bait Money. Hard Case Crime goes back to where it all started for the Collins’ Lee Van Cleef lookalike known only as Nolan in this first novel in his series. Nolan appeared to readers first as a 48-year-old hardened thief ready to retire a year after being shot at the direction of a man whose brother Nolan killed. Compare Skim Deep, written 50 years later (reviewed in January here at borg) to Bait Money and you’ll see Collins didn’t lose track of his character any over the decades–Nolan is a character for the ages and these novels feel like they could have been written a year apart. Bait Money is one of two novels in a new edition of Hard Case Crime’s classic reprint of the first two Nolan novels called Two for the Money, now available here at Amazon.
For Mike Hammer fans, every new story is worth the wait. Kiss Her Goodbye finds Hammer pal Captain Pat Chambers calling the old gumshoe out of his retirement in Florida to investigate whether a common friend really committed suicide. We meet Old Man Mike Hammer, not fully recovered from getting caught in the crossfire in his last big show. He’s ragged around the edges, but refuses to let a shelf full of pills and his loss of girth prevent him from pushing anyone out of his way. No matter how many guns they have drawn.
Max Allan Collins is back, taking notes left by Mickey Spillane and drawing them together into one of the most fun, and most down-to-earth, adventures of Hammer in New York City. This time he’s left to work his way through a Studio 54-inspired club, as he trips over dead bodies to learn the truth. But can Hammer really be Hammer without the lovable Velda? Originally published in 2011 in hardcover, Kiss Her Goodbyeis now out in paperback, and with an all-new ending.
In many ways Stephen King’s new supernatural crime novel Later is a natural follow-on to his two earlier Hard Case Crime novels, Joyland, which I loved, and The Colorado Kid, which will have me revisiting it for years to identify what I am sure is a hidden story beneath the obvious one. Joyland follows a coming of age vibe for an older character and King pulls from a similar quiver of creepiness in Later as he did for The Colorado Kid. Yes,Laterwill get the obvious comparison to the “I see dead people” kid from The Sixth Sense–a few updates and this could be its sequel, one as good or better than that great M. Night Shyamalan shocker (a character even calls out the comparison, and King doesn’t try to shy away from it). But even more than that, this story is a perfect launch pad for a television series, a series that should be written and directed by Shawn Piller as a natural follow-up to the King-Piller partnership’s successful series Haven and The Dead Zone. The slow-simmering pacing reflects the perfect make-ready four season series centering on a boy burdened with an ability he cannot walk away from. Later easily could be the next Medium, Prodigal Son, orTru Calling—just as dark, with a bit of Fallen thrown in. It’s a highly recommended read, available for pre-order now here at Amazon, scheduled for release March 2.
Fifty years after author Max Allan Collins wrote his first novel while in college at the University of Iowa, titled Bait Money. The novel featured Nolan, a 48-year-old thief tied in with the mob toward the end of his career in crime, inspired by Donald Westlake’s popular character Parker. Collins would write eight more Nolan stories, but now 33 years after the last he’s released an all-new Nolan sequel through the Hard Case Crime imprint, the cleverly titled Skim Deep. In 1987 Nolan is 55 now and thinking about tying the knot with long-time girlfriend Sherry, who he saved from Coleman Comfort, the villain in earlier novels, years ago. But can someone like Nolan ever quit the business? Will his past let him settle down in his house with Sherry in the Quad Cities on the Iowa-Illinois border? Count Skim Deep as another in the win column for author Collins, and a great read that will usher in coming reprints of all his Nolan novels.
If you’d happened to watched last year’s crime noir film Motherless Brooklyn and not known the screenwriter or director, I wouldn’t fault you if you expected to see Francis Ford Coppola’s name in the credits, or you figured Martin Scorsese finally made the perfect New York picture. But that’s not what you’ll find, because it not only stars Edward Norton, but he wrote and directed the film–his first director effort. And it’s an exciting, stunning, gritty film. The fact that Motherless Brooklyn is even worthy of comparison might be praise enough for the film and its creator, but it goes a step further and surpasses a film it’s frequently been compared to–Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. The fact that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and The Irishman were nominated for best film at the Oscars this year, but this wasn’t? That’s a real head-scratcher–or that Norton’s performance as a Tourette’s syndrome-affected private detective trying to find the guys that killed his boss wasn’t even nominated for best actor? Movie lovers and fans of crime noir who missed it should catch its home release. It’s as good as it gets.
The next detective-mystery crime series from HBO is going to be a bit different for fans of the 1950s-60s television series and even the original novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Moodier, darker, and grimier, HBO’s Perry Mason is coming to the cable network with an eight-episode season in only 60 days from now. The first trailer has arrived with the look of The Untouchables and LA Confidential, and the lead lawyer looking more like Columbo than Raymond Burr’s neat and pressed professional.
Forty-three years after author Max Allan Collins published his novel Quarry’s Deal in 1976, he has penned the sequel, Killing Quarry, what he calls the last of a sub-series of his famous anti-hero Quarry’s exploits selling his hitman services to targets of other hitmen. Killing Quarryis available now from Hard Case Crime, the 15th novel of the Vietnam vet whose return from the service wasn’t at all what he expected, and the subject of his own Cinemax series, Quarry, reviewed here at borg last year. Collins has finished or co-authored nearly as many crime novels with crime writer Mickey Spillane posthumously, reflecting the prolific nature of Collins’ crime writing and expertise, plus Collins’ noteworthy Road to Perdition, five other book series and countless tie-in novels. Killing Quarry is great fun, a solid retro fix, and true throwback to those action-packed, guns and sex pulp novels of the 1970s.
Collins catches up with Quarry as he’s pulled another name from the Broker’s hit list, acquired after the Broker’s death more than a decade ago. The Broker was the man who first tapped Quarry for a life of murder for money when he returned from the war with few prospects and a cheating wife. Quarry takes on both roles as hitman this time, both planning and monitoring the target in a town a few hours away, ultimately to make the hit himself, an enterprise usually split between two partners to the job. But it doesn’t take long for Quarry to realize the hitman he is after is pursuing his own target, right back to Quarry’s own neighborhood, right across the street in direct eyeshot to Quarry’s own retreat. The killing life is wearing on Quarry after all these years, but at least he is prepared and knows what is coming for him. He’ll be ready, so long as he doesn’t fall asleep on the job.
Cinemax’s Quarry television series.
Quarry is joined in the 1980s this time by Lu, the blonde Asian-American woman who became his lover in Quarry’s Deal in the 1970s. She’s a killer in her own right, and enmeshed with the system of brokers and hitmen that have now become a regional game of hitmen and agents beginning to trip over each other’s territories. Both Quarry and Lu deserve each other–they are both getting too old for killing and want to stack up their funds and retire to some tropical paradise. They walked away from each other years ago. Maybe this time it will work out for them?
The next detective-mystery crime series from HBO is going to be a bit different for fans of the 1950s-60s television series and even the original novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Moodier, darker, and grimier, HBO’s Perry Mason is coming to the cable network with an eight-episode season in only 60 days from now. The first trailer has arrived with the look of The Untouchables and LA Confidential, and the lead lawyer looking more like Columbo than Raymond Burr’s neat and pressed professional.
