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

The only series I read regularly are those that offer worlds I want to visit. This may be because before I began reading mysteries regularly, I read science fiction. World-building is critical in sci-fi and fantasy.

And it is in mystery fiction, too. Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie. John Dickson Carr. Indelible worlds. Or Mr. and Mrs. North. Craig Rice’s various detectives working out of Chicago. Hammett, Chandler, Chester Himes’ Harlem novels.

And Bill Crider’s small-town Texas series, the latest of which is MURDER AMONG THE OWLS. This time, Sheriff Dan Rhodes has to decide whether Helen Harris’ death was accidental or criminal. At certain points in his investigation, his deputies are his biggest hindrance to solving what is now clearly a crime. Wizards they’re not.

Any novel that references the Warner Bros. cartoon icon Pepé Le Pew on the third page is a can’t-miss reading experience for me. And Crider does this as he does everything else: nice and easy. The sentences and the scenes flow so gracefully, you might overlook the difficulty of keeping the writing so spot-on.

If you think Andy Griffith of Mayberry with an edge and a tart tongue, you’ll have a good sense of the world Crider creates in these fine books. He’s admirably unsentimental about his town and its people, seeing them for what they are. The good ones are good without being saints, the bad ones are bad without being Hannibal Lecter. Real people doing real people things.

Two highlights: the dog who’s scared of the cat and a hilarious chainsaw chase between a lunatic and his 70-something would-be prey. I’ve never read this scene in any form anywhere else before. It is pure Crider and the essence of his best work.

You’ll like Rhodes and his town. And for sure you’ll want to come back for more.

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One of the many great bits in Donald Bain’s autobiography EVERY MIDGET HAS AN UNCLE SAM COSTUME: WRITING FOR A LIVING is his brief description of the days when he used to go up to a publishing company waiting room for a chance to pitch an editor some ideas for stories of the Real Balls Adventure variety. He describes some of the competition in that same room, including Mickey Spillane and Mario Puzo. How’s that for competition?

Most writers who practice their craft full-time end up writing all sorts of things to make a living. Yes, they see themselves primarily as novelists, but novels don’t always keep the bank account out of the red.

What’s so much fun about this book is Bain’s witty observations about the various worlds of fiction, advertising, public relations and ghostwriting he’s encountered over several decades. This is real life for many, many writers, especially since the days of B-movie-type publishing has pretty much vanished.

Bain’s currently writing all the MURDER, SHE WROTE books, stories I’ve expressed admiration for before. They’re clever, fast air-clue mysteries that show Bain’s writing and humor at their best. Urban legend has it that he’s also authored of most of the Margaret Truman bestsellers, though he continues to deny this.

If you really want to know about the writing life, this is the book for you. True, most of us don’t get to dine Gina Lollobrigida as part of our assignment … but Bain took the job on like the man he is. With no complaints.

One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time.

* * *

Ed Lynskey has published a number of notable short stories over the past several years, so I was interested in reading one of his novels. If the landscape of Wildside’s THE BLUE CHEER is somewhat familiar – backwoods (in this case, West Virginia; a homegrown terrorist group; a number of physical confrontations – the writing itself demonstrates that there are truly no old ideas, just old treatments.

Lynskey is both a skilled stylist and a wise reporter of human madness. His storytelling is smooth, realistic and full of large and small surprises. This manages to be in equal parts a novel of action and a novel of character. Hopefully, THE BLUE CHEER will bring Lynskey the larger audience he’s deserved for some time now.

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Millepede Press, which thus far has not made a single mistake in the way it has selected, packaged and marketed its books, now has issued two David Goodis novels just in time to join in the attempt by two or three different groups to repair Goodis’ reputation and make it equal to that of Jim Thompson’s. There recently was a David Goodis convention. Not many writers, living or dead, get a tribute like that.

The two novels here are NIGHTFALL and STREET OF NO RETURN. I prefer the former because it’s a damned good story and because Goodis controls it throughout. And, if I might be allowed to sound suburban here, because it features a protagonist I don’t mind identifying with. There’s an excellent introduction by Bill Pronzini with key biographical information about Goodis.

STREET OF NO RETURN is more typical of Goodis’ work for Lion and Gold Medal: the jinxed protagonist, the almost Lovecraftian darkness.

I’ve always felt that if Goodis’ books lacked that quintessential incandescent moment you find in the best of Thompson, he compensated by being a better craftsman. He turns Philadelphia into a city Dante would have appreciated. Robert Polito, in his fine introduction, also points out how Goodis varied his style and language, using in STREET, a “snaky diction” (nifty phrase) to create this particular take on his helltown.

Important books, and eminently readable ones. Millipede scores again.

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For 18 years I edited Mystery Scene magazine. By the end of my tenure, I was completely out of ideas on how to improve it and thus take it up a notch or two.

Fortunately, Kate Stine bought the magazine and – along with her husband, Brian Skupin – proceeded to make it the pre-eminent news and feature magazine of the mystery field. Hard-boiled or cozy, old novels or new, movies, audio, TV … whatever aspect of mystery fiction interests you, you’ll find it in Mystery Scene. And presented in a package that’s professional, easy to read and worthy of design and layout awards.

If you read only one magazine for mystery news and views, this should be the one. Accept no substitutes or imitators. Mystery Scene is the real deal. –Ed Gorman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE DIRT-BROWN DERBY by Ed Lynskey