Quick takes and capsule reviews from the dark suspense master himself, Ed Gorman!

If you’ll forgive me the vanity of quoting myself, I once noted that David Goodis didn’t write novels, he wrote suicide notes. I meant this metaphorically, of course. And then I opened up the new Hard Case Crime edition of THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN, and right there in the first paragraph, the protagonist plays “with the idea of doing away with himself.”

Jim Thompson’s books were peppy Broadway musicals compared to Goodis’. Except for a small group of French existentialists right after the big war, I can’t think of anybody who saw life as a bottomless cesspool more than Goodis.

This isn’t to belittle the novel at hand or his work in general. He’s a skilled, driven writer eager to take you on a tour of hell, with hell being the lives of his protagonists. The physical settings may change, but usually you have the same man – i.e., Goodis – trying to survive being himself for at least another 24 hours.

The hook here is a couple going to Jamaica in order to give their marriage one more chance. But this is Goodis and we know better. Though they’re very different writers, Goodis here reminds me somewhat of Tennessee Williams. But instead of the protagonist coming undone, Goodis surprises us with the plight of the wife trying to make some sense of her darker urges and compensate for a marriage she finds hopeless.

I read this in two sittings. The story is sound and interesting, but Goodis is at his best here, detailing the destruction of his people. As always, though, you hear in Goodis whispers of something better: an animal hope, an animal faith, that someday life will be better.

A very strong Goodis novel.

* * *

Max Allan Collins has written so many fine novels, it’s impossible to rank his books. That said, BLACK HATS – under the pseudonym Patrick Culhane – has to be at or near the top.

The premise is irresistible: Back in the days of Prohibition, a 70-year-old Wyatt Earp joins his old friend Bat Masterson in New York as they take on an even more legendary and dangerous force – one Al Capone.

This is a sleek, swift tale told with enormous skill and energy. And for all the action he gives us, Culhane provides the fascinating life stories of Earp and Masterton – now a newspaperman – and also of Capone. New York City in that era comes to vivid life here. And Culhane offers a subtle but deeply moving look at two human beings near the end of their lives.

Collins has long been able to give real life to historical characters. He achieves, this, I think, by letting them breathe – i.e., they have lives outside the plot. This lets us see them in their more relaxed moments, what they like to do, small everyday irritations and so on. Another major novel from a master.

* * *

There’s good dark and bad dark. Fiction, that is. To me, bad dark is fiction that tries too hard to be dark – fiction written with the express purpose of being dark.

Fortunately, there are writers like Barry Hoffman, who use material that is of necessity dark, as in his collection LOVE HURTS AND OTHER SHORT STORIES: A group of friends watching as one of their own is assaulted by a gang. The girl at the prom who had her baby in the bathroom, dumped it in the wastecan, and then returned to the dance. A husband who can’t quite deal with his wife’s cancer. And a stunning story about soldiers who get sent back to Iraq again and again and again…

In the ’60s, this type of fiction was described as having a “social conscience.” I supoose that’s true of these stories. But Hoffman isn’t a preacher. He’s an excellent storyteller and smooth stylist who lets the stories fend for themselves – no sermons.

And they’re true stories, too, in the way that fiction is sometimes true. You’ll recognize yourself and your friends in this fine collection. I sure did and I wasn’t always comfortable doing it, either.

* * *

F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted that Hemingway (then at his peak) wrote with the authority of success, while Fitzgerald (then in the dumps) wrote with the authority of failure.

The authority of failure is what animates virtually all of Gil Brewer’s work and certainly THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN – now out from Hard Case Crime – is no exception. In outline, it’s nothing new: a very James M. Cain-ian scenario in which a TV repairman gets involved with an 18-year-old temptress who is taking care of a dying old man (and one we don’t take to at all). He’s promised to leave her a fortune when he dies. The trouble is, he’s dying very slowly. It won’t surprise you that the temptress has thoughts of inviting the Reaper in a little ahead of schedule.

What makes this one of Brewer’s most successful novels is that a couple of the plot turns are truly shocking and that he is in complete control of his material. He paces this one well right up to the end. And the end is a powerhouse.

I mentioned the authority of failure. In Brewer’s case, it’s usually because his protagonists let their dissatisfaction with their lot become a kind of self-pity that lets them justify whatever they need to do to improve their lot. They generally learn too late that maybe the old TV repair gig wasn’t so bad at all.

Contrast this attitude with the reckless but doomed romantics of Charles Williams (whom I prefer). They’re smarter than Brewer’s men and there’s rarely any self-pity. They seem to be on some kind of quest, which is a twist on the Cain-style tale. Yes, they meet a bad girl. Yes, they do something stupid. But what gets them through is enormous energy and a sense of mission and an undertow of anger. They’re like Brewer’s men, too: failures. But they are the tarnished knights that Phillip Marlowe and all his imitators only pretended to be. –Ed Gorman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• BLACK HATS by Patrick Culhane
• BLINDSIDED by Barry Hoffman
• DICK TRACY by Max Allan Collins
• THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
• MY LOLITA COMPLEX AND OTHER TALES OF SEX AND VIOLENCE by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens
• NIGHT SQUAD by David Goodis
• NIGHTFALL by David Goodis
• QUARRY’S LIST by Max Allan Collins
• ROAD TO PARADISE by Max Allan Collins
• STREET OF NO RETURN by David Goodis
• THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer
• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS MURDER by Max Allan Collins
• WILD TO POSSESS / A TASTE FOR SIN by Gil Brewer