tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16146642915480652432024-02-02T00:10:17.494-05:00Zero-Sum Worldby small-time writer Joe BolandJoe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-75403878586910304412011-08-13T19:00:00.004-04:002011-08-13T19:05:16.503-04:00I Say This As A FriendIf you review <span style="font-style:italic;">fiction</span>, as a professional or as a hobbyist, and the word "implausible" turns up frequently in your writing...you might consider finding a more worthwhile use of your time, please.
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<br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-24423304303092480342011-04-04T18:22:00.001-04:002011-04-04T18:33:56.744-04:00Been Away. Back Now.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_cd7E12RCLg__mHEcLmEdbZ39z4lAb_iYBAFiBPBHu9kf91H4MU_004QvCx3Y0UqwyoDNN8ORjFOttwTozExZS3-p62KFGq0i_PQjRwYBRa7VHuJycMI4JHlekrm-zLM0VkZ1HaLtcFqy/s1600/203.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_cd7E12RCLg__mHEcLmEdbZ39z4lAb_iYBAFiBPBHu9kf91H4MU_004QvCx3Y0UqwyoDNN8ORjFOttwTozExZS3-p62KFGq0i_PQjRwYBRa7VHuJycMI4JHlekrm-zLM0VkZ1HaLtcFqy/s400/203.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591858037479028706" /></a><br /><br />Spent most of March in Florida, Costa Rica and Panama. <br /><br />Very little non-guidebook/phrasebook/magazine reading, but here's the box scores:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Read</span>:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Djibouti</span>, Elmore Leonard<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Re-Read</span>:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Pagan Babies</span>, Elmore Leonard<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Reading</span>:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Zeitoun</span>, Dave Eggers<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Re-Reading</span>:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Gringos</span>, Charles Portis<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Bought</span>:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Wordy Shipmates</span>, Sarah Vowell<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Buck Passes Flynn</span>, Gregory McDonald<br /><br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-62980388833136092222011-03-02T08:56:00.000-05:002011-03-02T08:57:40.725-05:00Mosley Again<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Long Fall</span>, Walter Mosley<br /><br /><br />This is the first book in a new series by Walter Mosley. His Easy Rawlins is a complex character; Leonid McGill, the new guy here, leads a complex life—too complex: I kept expecting his back story or his unsettled domestic arrangement or even the story threads involving his children to double back into the case he was working on. Nope; he just leads a very complex life.<br /><br />There’s already a second book in this series. Maybe Mosley settles in a little there…<br /><br /><br />*Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-46363358793318439622011-02-18T12:22:00.001-05:002011-02-18T12:25:58.524-05:00Last Car<strong>Last Car To Elysian Fields</strong>, James Lee Burke<br /><br />James Lee Burke’s admirable Dave Robicheaux series, set in and around New Orleans, always does a convincing job with those moments when Southern charm reaches its limit and the natural temperament of crooked folk living in extreme humidity comes to the fore.<br /><br />As with many genre series, though, the impact has been lessened, I think, as publishers have insisted on higher word counts. Read an early book in any long-running series of the past couple decades and you will find a tighter, tenser piece of work than a more-recent entry.<br /><br />There’s often an almost-Biblical quality to the violence <em>threatened</em> in a Robicheaux story, but as altercation after altercation ends in a draw (because we have hundreds of pages to go!), a reader can begin to feel like an onlooker at a schoolyard fight -- one of the jerks (speaking for myself) egging on the combatants when it looks like both are, sensibly, going to back down.<br /><br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-17368688765308573402011-02-15T10:41:00.000-05:002011-02-15T10:42:23.331-05:00A Time OutHe left the hotel and walked to a cinema where <em>She Wore A Yellow Ribbon</em> was playing. He had already seen it but that made no difference – he had probably seen every Western ever made. The afternoon was the worst part of the day and a movie swallowed up a good part of it in one gulp. At the same time he didn’t want to spend the afternoon in the dark watching movies set at night, gangster movies or horror films. In Westerns it was always afternoon, so he was able to avoid the afternoon and get a nice helping of it at the same time. He liked to get high and let the images float before his eyes like the nonsense they were…He couldn’t have made it through the day without Westerns but all the time he was watching them he was eager for them to end, impatient for the whole charade of settled scores to be over with so that he could emerge into the fading daylight.<br /><br />(from <strong>But Beautiful: a book about jazz</strong>, by Geoff Dyer)<br /><br />****Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-39730752415350378462011-02-14T13:12:00.002-05:002011-02-14T13:15:42.841-05:00The Heckler<strong>The Heckler</strong>, Ed McBain<br /><br />I’ve enjoyed a couple 87th Precinct novels, but more often I don’t finish them. <br /><br />This entry in the series, which introduces the arch-nemesis The Deaf Man, <em>purported</em> criminal genius, felt like one of the odder books I’ve read lately, with a couple of very diffuse storylines and way too much badly-aged (Borscht Belt?) humor. Both these elements are pretty standard in the series, and largely the reason I seldom finish one of the books.<br /><br />I have a banker’s box filled with 87th Precinct novels, though, so odds are I’ll keep trying ‘em....<br /><br />****Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-38593287182753661772011-02-12T10:46:00.002-05:002011-02-12T10:49:47.184-05:00The Night GardenerI read all my George Pelecanos a decade ago, in one binge, from <strong>The Big Blowdown</strong> through <strong>Hell To Pay</strong>. In recent years, I tried his earliest books, the Nick Stefanos series, but couldn’t get into them: All the weaknesses of the later books I had read -- the cataloguing of music played and substances abused; character revealed through preference for this or that vintage soul tune (which the reader might or might not have knowledge of/access to); the strain to be hip, I think, when what he was really writing, urban westerns, could not help but be, at heart, pretty square -- were too much out in front of any story he had to tell in his youth.<br /><br />He’s all grown up in <strong>The Night Gardener</strong>, and if I confess to missing a certain energy that may have come from the same place as the worries over hipness, he has nevertheless embraced his own squareness, which makes for a better novel. <br /><br />Still, when I want to turn a friend on to his stuff, I’ve got to admit: I’ll hand over a copy of <strong>The Sweet Forever</strong>, or <strong>Right As Rain</strong>.<br /><br />****Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-76204436875247150672011-02-10T14:18:00.001-05:002011-02-10T14:20:39.310-05:00Evidence<strong>E Is For Evidence</strong>, Sue Grafton<br /><br />I’ve meant to try a female private eye novel for a long time now, and I decided far in advance that when I did I’d try Sue Grafton first, because I’ve read such good notices for her work all these years. <br /><br />(I have no solid reasoning for passing on the female private eye novel all this time-- I’ve often been attracted, in life, to women who were hard-bitten, hard-drinking loners – but I suspect the last decade-plus of Janet Evanovich might have caused me some additional hesitation, even though I would not mistake those novels for the work of Grafton or any other of the female PI originators of the ‘80s.)<br /><br />I enjoyed <strong>E Is For Evidence</strong>. Kinsey Millhone works in the oceanside southern California hamlet where she grew up, not one of the rich inhabitants, before becoming a cop for a time. Well-acquainted with local mores and local family histories, she has something of the small-town sheriff about her, and leverages her life-long knowledge of the people in the course of her investigation. <br /><br />This is the type of mystery novel where milieu and character dominate, and Grafton does a very good job on both counts; I’ll have to try another book in the series….<br /><br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-21075101081185203382011-02-03T16:04:00.001-05:002011-02-03T16:08:19.852-05:00Life's Work<strong>Life’s Work</strong>, Jonathan Valin<br /><br />I read one or two of Valin’s mysteries featuring Cincinnati PI Harry Stoner back in the eighties. Stoner wasn’t enough of a wiseass for me, at the time, and I settled on Amos Walker and Thomas Kyd for my contemporary-PI fix (and on Travis McGee, for escape from the Michigan winters.) <br /><br />I’m glad I second-guessed myself decades later and picked up <strong>Life’s Work</strong>. The only thing wrong with Valin was this twenty-something reader.<br /><br />First thing about Stoner: He’s on the job from Page One, meaning there’s no time for any nonsense about his office locale, or his wacky uncle, or his colorful friends. Whatever the reader will divine about the character will come from Stoner’s interactions with the people he meets on the case.<br /><br />Second thing about Stoner, and this is one I really like: He’s in it for the trouble. He likes trouble. In <strong>Life’s Work</strong> he binge drinks with professional football players and sleeps with a prostitute and drives a Pinto. <br /><br />Trouble diverts the mind from thoughts of failure, and failure haunts this story and its characters.(The plot involves steroid abuse in professional sports…in 1986, the year the book was published. Nothing has changed.)<br /><br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-75773304144904566662011-01-31T12:25:00.005-05:002011-02-04T15:07:21.446-05:00A Little Yellow DogWalter Mosley came to the bookstore where I worked for a reading and signing in the mid-‘90s. It was an unusual event, beginning with the scheduling: It took place, as best I can remember, at one o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. There’ll be no one here, I remember thinking, but I was wrong. <br /><br />Mosley is always dressed to the nines in photographs, and, on that Wednesday afternoon, dozens and dozens of fans arrived at the bookstore, every black man and woman and child among them also dressed to the nines. Mosley at the time was the favorite writer of record of our country’s President, and as they waited for his appearance, everyone’s pride in his work and accomplishment was plain. <br /><br />It was quite an unusual sight and an impressive showing in the middle of a weekday afternoon, on a midwestern college campus, where casual and ironic was the typical style.<br /><br />Then Mosley took the podium and read the raunchiest pages of his current hardcover with great relish, while the crowd sucked in its breath and giggled and shouted approval.<br /><br />***<br /><br />I'm not positive now, but I think he may have read the first chapter of <strong>A Little Yellow Dog</strong> -- the material fits the bill, and the pub date (1996) sounds about right.<br /><br />I'm embarassed to admit that this is only my second Easy Rawlins novel (after <strong>Devil in a Blue Dress</strong>)and only my third Walter Mosley (after<strong>Fearless Jones</strong>)but I plan to make up for lost time.<br /><br />My two small complaints remain the same. First, there's that Mouse; every series character of the last couple decades has a "Mouse" (or "Hawk" or "Bubba")to handle the real dirty work. These characters feel(to me) more like a work-around for the writer -- so that their protagonist can remain sympathetic to the (apparently) increasingly-genteel readers out there -- than full-fledged characters.<br /><br />Second, Mosley has a tendency to barnstorm -- once the end of the novel is in sight, his prose can sometimes read more like itinerary, as Easy crisscrosses L.A. wrapping up plot points while the period detail and sociohistorical insight that inform the earlier portion of the tale drops from sight.<br /><br />These amount to only small complaints, though, because the writing on a whole is rich and textured and extremely enjoyable. I'm eager now to try out his newest, contemporary series as well, but the Easy Rawlins books are a singular take on the private eye genre; after reading one, the next private eye you read, when he complains of being behind the eight ball and unable to trust the police, may just strike you as a crybaby.<br /><br />****Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-39727977212123578362011-01-31T12:20:00.003-05:002011-01-31T12:25:04.327-05:00Reading 2011Previously, I’ve posted lists of books I’ve purchased and/or read, with little or no comment; this year, I’ll try to write something about most of the books I read.<br /><br />But first – a list! 2011, joined in-progress:<br /><br /><strong>A Little Yellow Dog</strong>, Walter Mosley<br /><strong>Life’s Work</strong>, Jonathan Valin<br /><strong>E Is For Evidence</strong>, Sue Grafton<br /><strong>The Night Gardener</strong>, George Pelecanos<br /><strong>The Heckler</strong>, Ed McBain<br /><strong>Last Car To Elysian Fields</strong>, James Lee Burke<br /><br /><br />…and the stack of mass markets on-deck:<br /><br /><strong>Little Scarlet</strong>, Walter Mosley<br /><strong>Hollywood Nocturnes</strong>, James Ellroy<br /><strong>A Shoot in Cleveland</strong>, Les Roberts<br /><strong>Darkness, Take My Hand</strong>, Dennis Lehane<br /><strong>Think Fast, Mr. Peters</strong>, Stuart Kaminsky<br /><strong>The Murderer Vine</strong>, Shepard Rifkin<br /><strong>The Case of the Borrowed Brunette</strong>, Erle Stanley Gardner<br /><strong>The Trail To Buddha’s Mirror</strong>, Don Winslow<br /><strong>The Deceived</strong>, Brett Battles<br /><br />****Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-44120391054672392372011-01-26T12:49:00.010-05:002011-01-26T13:20:33.367-05:00Reading, 2010, Part 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjwrVNA35q0NGcRICv2b5WimRlvrdeBUfkiLP5lfxTXnMdmBA1QWlkLJN_NQZOmERXaQIqz5qRwaq9Khtwn6pZtyxE1DuQ0GMKFwMK_MTyAle4vYrq5N5sHPnIHFHj4WnVjzeSaX56lep/s1600/spies.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 132px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566558611671103202" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjwrVNA35q0NGcRICv2b5WimRlvrdeBUfkiLP5lfxTXnMdmBA1QWlkLJN_NQZOmERXaQIqz5qRwaq9Khtwn6pZtyxE1DuQ0GMKFwMK_MTyAle4vYrq5N5sHPnIHFHj4WnVjzeSaX56lep/s200/spies.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMNagvFlX_0seE7Lyk7uiHc-YUQcvC_Tu6-bqtAAHlDvF23_qXTwmA9a7AoF412v0I9D1hFGWYyanDM4fa9Co6mSVBqanzQDYl8cNqDNLpP7OrNJttg8qOfsF5cJKUT-Y3C4Lf8LQr0Xr/s1600/BK-Michael_Connelly-Angels_Flight.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 134px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566557531934253234" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMNagvFlX_0seE7Lyk7uiHc-YUQcvC_Tu6-bqtAAHlDvF23_qXTwmA9a7AoF412v0I9D1hFGWYyanDM4fa9Co6mSVBqanzQDYl8cNqDNLpP7OrNJttg8qOfsF5cJKUT-Y3C4Lf8LQr0Xr/s200/BK-Michael_Connelly-Angels_Flight.jpg" /></a><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>I was given an entire shelf of Michael Connelly novels back around 2003. I'd never read anything by him. I chose to try <strong>Chasing The Dime</strong>. I judged it a bad book by a good writer, and boxed all his books up until this past year, when I decided to finally try the Harry Bosch novels, beginning (arbitrarily) with <strong>Angels Flight</strong>.<br /></div><div>Is anyone reading this still awake?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I found Angels Flight ridiculously well-made and exciting, and went on to read another 7 or 8 Michael Connelly novels in 2010. <strong>Void Moon,</strong> a standalone thriller like <strong>Chasing The Dime,</strong> is marginally better than that book. The earliest books in the Bosch series are a bit clumsy; <strong>Trunk Music</strong>, of the ones I've read so far, comes closest to replicating the quality of <strong>Angels Flight</strong>. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I haven't been able to bring myself to try one of the books narrated in the first-person by Bosch, nor any of the books wherein Bosch meets up with the heroes of other Connelly novels: That last gambit never lived up to the front-cover hype in my Marvel Comics years, and I distrust it and resent it a little, even now.</div><div><br /></div><div>****</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>Another writer I've meant to read for years, and finally read in 2010, is Alan Furst, who has already produced a shelf of WWII-era espionage novels. As with Connelly, I felt compelled to break a usual rule, and read a handful of his books nearly back-to-back.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I'm reminded of Ross McDonald's Lew Archer novels, in that McDonald and Furst both seem to be writing the same novel over and over again -- not so much working to a formula (although they are) as trying to perfect a single work, to get that perfect version of the novel in their head down on the page.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>I'm also reminded again, by comparison, of how little feels at stake in most thrillers.... </div><div><br /></div><div>*****</div>Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-46488861926153685342011-01-05T13:50:00.002-05:002011-01-05T13:56:17.646-05:00Nice Paragraph<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7j44B5uv7qWFU2GVDeD4LJrKfVnXvAbcZzfzTEsIO9t2OPuUvNrpma2QYcLs1NGFNv1jBm1wEjyUSocf458JjhepkZoIaGalqgTPDiYOUy59TtMa28eeEs2XJFswEMvSt-rdjhaKhY353/s1600/n58140.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 217px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558777567513565106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7j44B5uv7qWFU2GVDeD4LJrKfVnXvAbcZzfzTEsIO9t2OPuUvNrpma2QYcLs1NGFNv1jBm1wEjyUSocf458JjhepkZoIaGalqgTPDiYOUy59TtMa28eeEs2XJFswEMvSt-rdjhaKhY353/s320/n58140.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Granville Oliver sat at the defense table, wearing an expensive blue suit. He wore non-prescription eyeglasses, a nice touch suggested by <em>(his attorney)</em> Ives, to give him a look of thoughtfulness and intelligence. Underneath the suit he wore a stun-belt, by decree of the court.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>---George Pelecanos, <strong>Soul Circus</strong></div><br /><div></div>Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-77165297862189401962010-12-16T11:59:00.003-05:002010-12-16T12:14:09.545-05:00Last-Minute<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGerID9wmefi6Lxbl9wR7vRcw6sLdmhOfkpLn6BJbDYunqaR9gZGUsJ0R9IfjaBeMsH9TYS-sxdSl9HWYoi2MdP5_Frpr51yja5zq35sq8VvMVFYI318GzXDc_YFmems1Jl5ajGOPiQBe/s1600/n60402.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 129px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551326000751055042" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGerID9wmefi6Lxbl9wR7vRcw6sLdmhOfkpLn6BJbDYunqaR9gZGUsJ0R9IfjaBeMsH9TYS-sxdSl9HWYoi2MdP5_Frpr51yja5zq35sq8VvMVFYI318GzXDc_YFmems1Jl5ajGOPiQBe/s200/n60402.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5kbEdgoEst0cGsKV8MNoN0dbLs0IoD0fkDItRyoVZHLrE1FAv3LWf7mtRG-8z3-4DTR6zF_175ruwC7fgIlDVjGAq4pwoBVA_DkgqpqXP1tgHd50RupFT3K9jT4T7i2upY_zF206HbcD/s1600/51j0KeLJj4L__SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551325995566791522" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5kbEdgoEst0cGsKV8MNoN0dbLs0IoD0fkDItRyoVZHLrE1FAv3LWf7mtRG-8z3-4DTR6zF_175ruwC7fgIlDVjGAq4pwoBVA_DkgqpqXP1tgHd50RupFT3K9jT4T7i2upY_zF206HbcD/s200/51j0KeLJj4L__SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a> Snagged off a bookstore shelf yesterday: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard has begun reprinting non-Lew Archer titles by Ross MacDonald for the first time.</div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div>A perfect last-minute gift or two for the fan with a complete shelf of Lew Archer...</div><div></div><div></div><br /><div>It's <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/blacklizard/catalog/results2.pperl?authorid=54007"><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>not listed at the publisher's site yet,</strong></span><br /></div></a><div>but hopefully they'll get around to <em>The Dark Tunnel, </em><a href="http://www.detnovel.com/Macdonald.html"><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">his first novel, written while MacDonald was a teaching assistant at the University of Michigan in the forties. </span></strong></a>The setting is a fictionalized Ann Arbor, the hero a professor battling Nazi agents on campus! </div><div> </div><div></div><div>A reprint of this title would make happy at last several U of M grad students and PhD candidates I've known, who confessed, after a few pints, to an obsession with the novels of Ross MacDonald of such a degree that they could no longer, in good conscience, write him off as a guilty pleasure; this book would seem to be their lodestone...</div><div> </div><div></div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;">And yes, that's all I have, after these many months...for now...</span></em></div><div></div><div>****</div>Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-54617331862473411002010-08-20T13:07:00.002-04:002010-08-20T13:10:39.184-04:00Double Feature<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTzjK0xTio60sAeJw8Ca7niAm-9OWx1BgxBua2LGrAAJbsIZeAd4gkYTaPB91S7a3umBFfE69xIxgpRygcwcQU67Ks0jXdKSB5mMjZqCW6t_Vkf3Rc_CKIJpBxzigCbOotmqrofefob8H/s1600/mother-title-still.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507540117250643666" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTzjK0xTio60sAeJw8Ca7niAm-9OWx1BgxBua2LGrAAJbsIZeAd4gkYTaPB91S7a3umBFfE69xIxgpRygcwcQU67Ks0jXdKSB5mMjZqCW6t_Vkf3Rc_CKIJpBxzigCbOotmqrofefob8H/s400/mother-title-still.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br />Bong Joon-Ho’s latest film, <strong>Mother</strong>, begins with a lovely medium shot of the title character dancing a strange dance by herself in an empty field. Given what follows, I was grateful to him for allowing the character a reprieve right up front. The writer/director was also behind <strong>Memories of Murder</strong> and <strong>The Host</strong>, and all three films pull off a neat trick: the characters are a constant surprise but do not derail the story. See all three. They are among the best movies of the past decade.<br /><br />I used to find the private lives and public misdeeds of artists fascinating. Then, I grew up. A lot of the writers, musicians and filmmakers whose work I admired were miserable jerks who ruined the lives of people around them. Who cares? I can still enjoy the work. The private lives and public misdeeds of people with genuine power, on the other hand, are far more pertinent to the quality of innumerable lives, and fairer game. To get to the point: Roman Polanski’s <strong>The Ghost Writer</strong> is fantastic, and if you stay away, the loss is yours.<br /><br />***Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-64854288913429905632010-08-10T12:29:00.001-04:002010-08-10T12:32:20.990-04:00McBain Successor Found!<em>No word yet on whether they'll only be available as e-books...</em><br /><em></em><br />The author <a class="meta-per" title="More articles about Richard Price." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/richard_price/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Richard Price</a> (“Clockers,” “Lush Life”) has signed a deal with Henry Holt & Company for a new series of detective thrillers set in New York, according to the blog Galleycat at <a href="http://mediabistro.com/" target="_">Mediabistro.com</a>. The first book in the series, as yet untitled, about a 40-year-old New York City police detective turned night-watch sergeant whose career was ruined after a controversial shooting, will be released in the fall of 2011 under Mr. Price’s pen name Jay Morris.<br /><br />....Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-79844866396428703442010-07-19T14:14:00.002-04:002010-07-19T14:29:10.402-04:00ColdHere's a passage from <strong>Kahawa</strong>, by Donald Westlake, to chill your blood in the middle of this nationwide heatwave:<br /><br /> <em>Juba and the major were dumped by the first two</em> (corpses). <em>Then Chase said, “Give me your coat, Captain.”<br /> “Oh, sir,” the captain said. “I did what you wished. Let me go home now. Far away from here, not even Uganda. Near Adi, sir,” he said, naming a Zairian town just a few miles from both the Ugandan and Sudanese borders. “I go there, sir, I never come back.”<br /> “Give me your coat.”<br /> “All my family is there, sir. I go live with them, I never bother you again, sir.”<br /> In the end, Chase had to strip the coat off the body himself.</em><br /><br />....Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-23272290254618192212010-07-08T16:14:00.002-04:002010-07-08T16:18:38.362-04:00Double Feature: Unfilmable Edition<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjabV7MjNlf0A4Z0a-RjXv3aDrMr6m453oSa6jHgy48AlRzjLokLel6h0ncTWlfdJMwISETGXKQMuPWprEU90FTjcmTn-XzTiZzK4eVUs7Eb-hMmE8PWpN8mW-Gu_G6n4vPG4KM1a35hHlR/s1600/cry+owl.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491631752826580466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 270px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjabV7MjNlf0A4Z0a-RjXv3aDrMr6m453oSa6jHgy48AlRzjLokLel6h0ncTWlfdJMwISETGXKQMuPWprEU90FTjcmTn-XzTiZzK4eVUs7Eb-hMmE8PWpN8mW-Gu_G6n4vPG4KM1a35hHlR/s400/cry+owl.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXwscQqZx9jiyf4EQmOvpte-Dzpx95QPUvS2CkSWmg7QYwonOft_J6tWqSBnKbzCcwZ58dnPjyjDkutm4q4_jwO6AxZwagwUK00f387kayQefA3qW56f6S_izw9AajgVRNzt7ko85Wzbea/s1600/012610_killerinside_main.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491631739969645810" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXwscQqZx9jiyf4EQmOvpte-Dzpx95QPUvS2CkSWmg7QYwonOft_J6tWqSBnKbzCcwZ58dnPjyjDkutm4q4_jwO6AxZwagwUK00f387kayQefA3qW56f6S_izw9AajgVRNzt7ko85Wzbea/s400/012610_killerinside_main.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Once the clues have begun to accumulate, and you understand that a novel’s narrator is unreliable, you have to combine your readerly pleasures with other, more writerly duties: You have to pick through the details he offers (“All women find me attractive”) and decide which ones to believe (um, not that one.) </div><div><br />When a film gets made of this type of narrative, though, a genre that’s pretty nimble on the page gets hamstrung in the visual medium, and James Mason or Jeremy Irons wind up cast as Humbert Humbert -- a narrator who, three separate times, tells the reader that he is considered quite handsome; striking, even. </div><div><br />I’ve never believed him, and I never believed Lou Ford, narrator of Jim Thompson’s <strong>The Killer Inside Me</strong>, when he insists that the women he beats up enjoy it, but the new film version (which gets the setting and the bit players just right) takes him at his word, and so trips right out of the gate. </div><div><br />** </div><div><br />Patricia Highsmith’s sociopaths are more childlike than Jim Thompson’s, more likely to kill someone and then pretend it didn’t happen, until they’ve convinced themselves it didn’t and move on to other things, if the world will let them, which it won’t. </div><div><br />Given that description, you can guess that her novels depend on a lot of interior monologue, but the recent film of <strong>The Cry of the Owl</strong> works pretty well without any voiceover narrative. It veers close to a Lifetime Network production at times, but the inherent strangeness of the material, and a good, weird performance by Julia Stiles, keeps it on track. Best of all, nobody pounds Jessica Alba’s face into hamburger.</div><div></div><div>***</div>Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-73740860917507615922010-05-27T14:22:00.003-04:002010-05-27T14:26:38.499-04:00Bought | ReadingBOUGHT:<br /><br /><em>Memory</em>, Donald E. Westlake<br /><em>I Was Looking For A Street</em>, Charles Willeford<br /><em>A Long Line of Dead Men</em>, Lawrence Block<br /><em>Eye of the Beholder</em>, Marc Behm<br /><em>Safer</em>, Sean Doolittle<br /><em>The Spies of Warsaw</em>, Alan Furst<br /><em>The Given Day</em>, Dennis Lehane<br /><em>The Turnaround</em>, George Pelecanos<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JuI_doYwcMrjfkSD-SB0Z4c3Fug0Y3NoHiedaucKf-NIS7Bn-sk07P-janNMlPuhtBFr3wvICllBdn0Z2SNi3WK2hyHf1YyGVldylzdtYuEXA0qGrVpVuf3aEQFSP0E2PRIW4UtzX7S8/s1600/safer.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476017337759935570" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JuI_doYwcMrjfkSD-SB0Z4c3Fug0Y3NoHiedaucKf-NIS7Bn-sk07P-janNMlPuhtBFr3wvICllBdn0Z2SNi3WK2hyHf1YyGVldylzdtYuEXA0qGrVpVuf3aEQFSP0E2PRIW4UtzX7S8/s400/safer.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />READING: <em>Safer</em><br /><br /><em><br /></em>I wondered -- briefly, long ago -- what one’s life would be like if John Walsh were one’s neighbor. And here it is.Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-58544316225770387292010-05-11T16:11:00.001-04:002010-05-11T16:14:40.245-04:00A Quick Nod<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhWtr3YXr6_Kp0bJ71tmuMkSkYX5n83ail79fZcx4qtC824SFJdf-gHI8_IAlN6Kz8jxSs_mj0yVcCeakyfMdFIDafZW7qPwNay23hGWb0noMpRD26wAxMVPREfIyzk05ftSqvsFmwqIM/s1600/untitled.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470107780685471906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 248px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhWtr3YXr6_Kp0bJ71tmuMkSkYX5n83ail79fZcx4qtC824SFJdf-gHI8_IAlN6Kz8jxSs_mj0yVcCeakyfMdFIDafZW7qPwNay23hGWb0noMpRD26wAxMVPREfIyzk05ftSqvsFmwqIM/s400/untitled.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Begin your tale with your hero being dragooned into a job -- one for which he, at first glance, appears perilously outmatched -- and this reader is on your side, if not already won over. </div><div><br />The narrator’s voice in Roger Zelazney’s <strong>The Dead Man’s Brother</strong> is kinda florid for my taste, but it doesn’t matter: Thirty pages in, the confident pull of the narrative completed the job of winning me over.</div>Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-63118971228519439162010-04-27T12:39:00.007-04:002010-05-03T16:04:34.004-04:00Double Feature: AdaptationsI’m no great fan of voice-over narration, but how else to adapt a novel for the screen if its greatest strengths are ruminative? If you’re Jason Reitman, you add a new character, or two, and have the protagonist hector them with his formerly-interior monologues. In <em>Thank You for Smoking</em>, he conjured up a child to travel with the hero, so the hero could explain the job of a lobbyist to (by extension) us dumb hick moviegoers, and he conjures up another youth to tag after George Clooney in <strong>Up in the Air</strong>.<br />In <a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://joeboland.blogspot.com/2008/06/fridays-forgotten-book-up-in-air.html”"><em><strong>the novel</strong></em></a>, our hero is in deep denial, and fashions a weirdly-enticing alternate reality out of his business-travel existence as he heads for a breakdown; in the film, Clooney plays a cool guy whose priorities are out of whack. His job is firing people, and the painful scenes of people being terminated from their jobs arrive with the regularity of the murders in a slasher flick, but to what end? So that Clooney and his apprentice can learn some small thing about themselves, yawn. If you don’t want the camera to follow J.K. Simmons when he leaves that office, and stick with him for at least five minutes, if not the remainder of the movie, I don’t know what to tell you. As it stands, Reitman has no idea how to end the movie. I wonder if he knows why he made it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaD4_yKgWY7COqIk3egwd7l9aGKLYhIVLeO3OGdt4_tw2DjWP9vKEelHhVonC-fEAizE2tdSiuwOrKWtEpkmJ3rjtj2cEMNp3VNtoSAn_RT7FtXLdjh_4GqU8anXc5b_D1j0czkBQWAV9C/s1600/Mamet.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464859895215387234" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 243px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 348px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaD4_yKgWY7COqIk3egwd7l9aGKLYhIVLeO3OGdt4_tw2DjWP9vKEelHhVonC-fEAizE2tdSiuwOrKWtEpkmJ3rjtj2cEMNp3VNtoSAn_RT7FtXLdjh_4GqU8anXc5b_D1j0czkBQWAV9C/s400/Mamet.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Watching <strong>Edmond</strong>, on the other hand, it’s easy to feel that everyone involved knew exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and why they wanted to. Directed by Stuart Gordon (maker of some of the most entertaining horror films of the past thirty years, and of the recent Zero-Sum World favorite, <strong>Stuck</strong>) from a script by David Mamet (adapting his own play) and featuring Mamet players Bill Macy, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Joe Mantegna, Edmond is simply the best Mamet on film thus far. More importantly, for readers of this blog, it is a very pure example of the One-Way Ticket to Hell story, bracingly fearless, with as devastating an ending as any film I can remember recommending wholeheartedly to my loved ones! Seek it out! (Currently offered as a Free Movie on Comcast OnDemand in the Detroit area.)Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-7767209116064897662010-04-15T10:21:00.001-04:002010-04-15T10:23:14.387-04:00Read | Re-read | ReadingRead:<br /><em>The Hot Kid</em>, Elmore Leonard<br /><em>Echo Park</em>, Michael Connelly<br /><em>The Ask</em>, Sam Lipsyte<br /><br />Re-Read:<br /><em>If You Can’t Be Good</em>, Ross Thomas<br /><br />Reading:<br /><em>When The Sacred Ginmill Closes</em>, Lawrence Block<br /><em>Dark Age Ahead</em>, Jane JacobsJoe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-69900128574263897952010-04-05T14:40:00.004-04:002010-04-05T14:46:34.437-04:00The Follow-up | The Letdown<em>Criminal Paradise</em>, Michael Connelly, <strong>Justified</strong><br /><strong><br /></strong>I stand by my assessment of <em>Criminal Paradise</em>, but want to note I wrote it before I finished the book -- before the author throws his careful build-up out the window, and resolves things in pedestrian ‘80s -action-movie fashion. (One late chapter even ends with someone racking a shotgun and saying, “It’s showtime.”)<br /><br />I read a second Harry Bosch novel, <em>Trunk Music,</em> directly after finishing <em>Angels Flight</em>. (Reverse chronological order. Unintentional, but I do have a problem with series.) It was also fantastic. Then I decided to try a non-series book by Connelly. Chose <em>Void Moon</em>. A thriller, a cat-and-mouse story, well-drawn Vegas setting, interesting villain. Also, unfortunately, “surprising” twists created by withholding information from the reader for an unconscionable amount of time. I think I’ll stick to the Bosch novels.<br /><br />The drop-off in quality between the pilot of <strong>Justified</strong> and the first episode was stunning. Did the producers throw some work to hard-up friends they met back on “Jake and the Fatman”? Raylan Givens deserves better.<br /><br />....Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-44908367314795455452010-03-31T11:30:00.004-04:002010-03-31T12:35:15.782-04:00Akashic Noir Event!<em>This Friday Afternoon in </em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJEwe6j1o4atytfxN_HEYdJTKQijeZIF_7SunqkddKc06WWY7ytKYkcM2vLbIOZrJ5WFsvHZit8qzPGoVbdWxIuJj6Ktdb2ZVoJtBKgZ_7GC_LEPZez_P_8Tj7e8tDG_HDNApg2lvKLLh/s1600/delhi-noir.jpg"><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454820860154279890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 254px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJEwe6j1o4atytfxN_HEYdJTKQijeZIF_7SunqkddKc06WWY7ytKYkcM2vLbIOZrJ5WFsvHZit8qzPGoVbdWxIuJj6Ktdb2ZVoJtBKgZ_7GC_LEPZez_P_8Tj7e8tDG_HDNApg2lvKLLh/s400/delhi-noir.jpg" border="0" /></em></a><em> Ann Arbor, on the University of Michigan Campus:</em><br /><br />Hirsh Sawhney<br />A Reading and Conversation<br />Friday, April 2, 4:00pm<br />1636 School of Social Work Building<br />Free and Open to the Public<br /><br />Hirsh Sawhney is an editor and contributor to Delhi Noir, a critically-acclaimed anthology of brand-new fiction published by Akashic Books and HarperCollins India.<br />While based in Delhi, Sawhney wrote for publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Outlook, the Indian Express, and Helsinki's Vihrea Lanka. Sawhney currently lives in New York, where he is working on his first novel. He is an Associate Editor at Wasafiri Magazine, a Contributing Editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and an adjunct professor at the City University of New York.<br /><br />Praise for Delhi Noir:<br />"For those whose view of India is shaped by The Jewel in the Crown, conversations with a call-in center or even Slumdog Millionaire, this anthology in Akashic's noir series will register simultaneously as a shock, an education and entertainment. All 14 stories are briskly paced, beautifully written and populated by vivid, original characters... Few books can alter one's perception about the state of society, but this does, while delivering noir that's first class in any light." -- Publishers Weekly<br /><br />Kitabmandal (South Asia Reading Group) is an interdisciplinary group open to faculty, students, and members of the public that meets for critical discussions of work that furthers our understanding of South Asian cultures and societies in the past and present. Please visit our website at <a href="http://kitabmandal.weebly.com/" target="_blank">http://kitabmandal.weebly.com/</a> for more information.<br /><br />...Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614664291548065243.post-21009592834471367762010-03-25T14:42:00.001-04:002010-03-25T14:46:32.993-04:00JustifiedFavorite scene in the premier of <strong>Justified</strong>: a lowlife halfwit in short pants, sporting the worst mullet to ever appear on television, walks through the front door of the house of a woman he means to kidnap: he calls out her name, then notices U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant, excellent) standing in the front hall. You don’t walk into a person’s house uninvited, Raylan tells him. Now go back out on the porch and knock. If Ava wants to see you, I’ll let you in.<br /><br />I’ll go out, the halfwit says. But I’m comin’ back in.<br /><br />He runs the length of the long front walk to his car. Raylan follows, watches him fumble a pistol-grip shotgun out of the car and start pushing in shells. Raylan continues to walk straight at him.<br /><br />What are you doin? I got a scattergun pointed straight at you!<br /><br />Think you can rack it before I put a hole in you? Raylan asks.<br /><br />And we see the halfwit <em>try </em>to think about it. He’s still frozen there when Raylan grabs the barrel of the shotgun and pushes, popping him in the nose with the stock. Bloodied and thrown up against the car, the halfwit protests, his voice breaking and betraying a lifetime worth of frustration and humiliation: “I don’t <em><strong>git</strong></em> you!”<br /><br />....Joe Bolandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10008843373798248009noreply@blogger.com3