Friday, October 26, 2007

Movie: The Good German (2006)


Where's Claude Raines when you really need him?

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Killer Back Copy

(Click on image to enlarge)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

This Is The Stuff

I just finished reading Jason Starr’s most recent novel, The Follower.

The past decade has seen a great groundswell, a great revitalization, of the noir/pulp/dark crime tale – call it what you like – and, for me, Jason Starr was, and is, at the forefront of it.

His third novel, Hard Feelings, was the first contemporary novel published by Black Lizard (as an imprint of Vintage).

I was working in a bookstore the day it was released, and I carried a copy around the store with me, just so I could sneak glances at the cover.

It was a dangerous-looking motherfucker.

Black Lizard was where I turned when I gave myself a break from being that guy at the bookstore who dutifully read Infinite Jest, Lorrie Moore, and that hot new translation of The Man Without Qualities.

When that guy finally gets around to writing something, that guy told himself, how could it help but be an important doorstop of American Lit?

But, privately, I really wanted to write like Patricia Highsmith.

It was too bad nobody published books like hers anymore.

The mystery section was filled with historical mysteries and techno-thrillers. Black Lizards were the exception, but they were all reprints, thirty years old, older.

Until now.

Not that it would matter, if Starr didn’t have the stuff.

Jason Starr has the stuff. He’s Highsmith with a Blackberry.

And with Lights Out and The Follower, he’s now in hardcover, smuggling his noir sensibilities into mainstream suspense fiction.

--to be cont.--

Monday, October 15, 2007

More Books

Here is another book list [with apologies to Nick Hornby]

BOUGHT:

Firebug Robert Bloch
Sleepeasy T.M. Wright
Shooters Terrill Lankford
The Brass Cupcake John D. MacDonald
Sweet Reason Robert Littell
Michigan Roll Tom Kakonis (replacement copy)
Murdaland Issue 2

READ:

Chasing The Dead Joe Schreiber
Dust Devils James Reasoner
The Follower Jason Starr

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Two Things

Paperback Buying Spree

Slide Ken Bruen & Jason Starr
Kill Now, Pay Later Robert Terrall
Fright Cornell Woolrich
Chasing The Dead Joe Schreiber
Swamp Sister Robert Edmond Alter (Creative Arts Ed.)
Death’s Dark Abyss Massimo Carlotto
Dead Sea Brian Keene
A Simple Plan Scott Smith (replacement copy)
Home Is The Hangman/We Roger Zelazny/Samuel Delaney (Tor Dbl., 1990)


Q&A

The contributor interviews are underway at the Detroit Noir blog.
I am first in the dunk tank.

http://everybodyscrooked.blogspot.com/2007/09/q-with-detroit-noir-contributor-joe.html