Genuinely juicy pulp noir from 60 years ago.
In a sinful city, an aspiring actress teams up with a crime columnist to clear her boyfriend of a murder charge.
At sleazy Carrol’s Bar & Grill on South Main Street, world-weary police detective Brady commiserates with Gazette columnist Ned Lowry—who writes a column called “The Seamy Side”—about the unsolved murder of Doris Blair, as they watch barfly bandleader Bob McKay, who’s recently fallen on hard times, get in a fight while bemoaning Doris' fate. Silverberg’s storyline veers in surprising directions, recalling the classic noir of Hammett and especially Chandler, with colorful, hard-bitten characters lurking in every dark cranny and plot detour. At the Dumas, a marginally classier nightspot, rugged, charming Jack Colin flirts with lovely B-girl Terry Stafford, who’s dancing with male customers while hoping for an acting career. Terry’s fallen hard for the wounded McKay, and a romance is blossoming. After McKay is arrested and aggressively questioned for the murder of Doris, who worked alongside Terry at the Dumas but kept to herself, Lowry returns, following the story to assess McKay’s guilt, and Brady returns as one of the cops on the case. When Terry reads Lowry’s column about the case, she senses a sympathetic ear and tells him about her subtle plan to investigate, and they decide to work together. Gathering pieces of the puzzle will require interviews and wrangles with a colorful collection of tenderloin lowlifes. Previously published in 1960 under a pseudonym, Silverberg’s novel isn’t a modern homage but the real thing; he brings the same vigor and imagination to noir that characterizes his award-winning science fiction. Bonus: three additional Silverberg detective stories from the same era.
Genuinely juicy pulp noir from 60 years ago.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78909-992-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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