VERY MERCENARY by Rayo Casablanca

My review of Very Mercenary by Rayo Casablanca is up over at Bookspotcentral.

To link to that shit, click right HERE.

Reminds me a lot of Victor Gischler's Shotgun Opera. In other words, you should probably check this shit out.

Catching Up #28: The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips

Okay so fucking sue me: I've only just read The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips. Yeah, I fucking know, all right? Get off my fucking nuts. That is why I have the Catching Up series, you douche: so I can CATCH THE FUCK UP.

It's not like I didn't want to for a long ass time. Thing is, I saw the movie first and I have kind of a crazy memory for movie details. Shit, I have a crazy memory in general but especially for movies. Name me a title and I can tell you when and where I saw it, even shit I saw when I was like five or six (whether what I tell you is truth or not is another matter, but that's the fucking rub, right?) So naturally it's kind of hard for me read a book after watching the film because the plot sticks in my mind no matter how hard I try to drink it away.

And though even when I picked up the fucking book the whole story came racing back to me, I forged ahead because, dammit, I want to know what the cult of Phillips is all about (also, the sequel, The Walkaway, looked pretty cool and I couldn't very well pick that up without reading the first book now could I?)

Well, lo and behold, the book is better than the movie. A lot better. But that ain't exactly blowing your fucking hair back in the new information department, now is it?

And the movie does spoil some shit quite a lot because for the most part the movie is pretty faithful (well, until we get to the ending which I won't get into but jesus fucking christ, the original book ending would have guaranteed the move - flaws and all - something like cult classic status instead of "remember that time Harold Ramis made a crime movie?" status), but the book tells the story in a much more involving way. Shit, until about half way through the book there are only sly hints at the crime story that is going down, we're mainly just hanging out with Charlie Arglist as he takes us on a hilarious tour of the sad-ass bar scene in Wichita on Christmas Eve 1979 (and why not make it a period piece, Hollywood? Way to miss the fucking boat over and over and...okay. I'm over it. Deep breath.).

And really, if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, that's all you should really know about the Ice Harvest going into it. It's about Charlie Arglist, mob lawyer and divorcee, spending his last night in Wichita doing little errands and tying up certain loose ends - but mainly just getting fucking drunk off his ass. Eventually, the noir shit raises its ugly head and things get brutal and the whys and whats are made clear.

You should also know this: I envy the shit out of you, Ice Harvest Virgin. I envy the living motherfucking shit out of you something fierce. But I saw the movie and it didn't hurt the experience enough that I would deter anyone at all from picking up the book toot-fucking-sweet.

The Ice Harvest is a fucking dark, nasty hoot and if you don't dig it, there's really nothing that can be said for you other than that you're culturally retarded and probably should quit life and talk about Susan Boyle till someone with half a brain stabs you in the throat (I really hope that in six months someone reading this article will have trouble remembering who Susan fucking Boyle is).

That's pretty much what I got, dear reader. I could have just read The Ice Harvest and kept it to myself, let my secret shame as a ignorant noir fan eat me up inside. But I'm trying to keep up with the rest of my generation by telling complete strangers on the internet everything - no matter how disturbing or shameful - about myself. So consider yourself confessed to, dear readers, and I'll consider myself cleansed. Or not. It's up to you as unofficial internet-priests, I suppose.

But enough with this apologetic bullshit, I've got more catching up to do with my sharp-looking copy of The Walkaway.

Catching Up #27: Tom Epperon's THE KIND ONE

The Kind One is not gonna blow your hair back with its bad-assery, nor is it going to register on your pretentious douche-meter with any wild stylistic choices, but it is a solid story solidly told. Tom Epperson's novel is comfortable and fun to read. That's really all that can be said about it.

Okay, that's bullshit. The Nerd always has more shit to say than that.

The Kind One is the story of Danny Landon, a hood under the employ of vicious gangland boss Bud Seitz. It is the 1930's in Los Angeles. Prohibition has just been repealed and gangs like Seitz's have to find another way to stay in power other than bootlegging. Danny Landon is one of Seitz's most vicious enforcers, known as Two-Gun Danny following an incident where he took down a ship full of innocents with a gun in each hand.

At least that's what he's told.

See, Danny can't remember anything before almost a year ago when he was said to have gotten his ass beat by some rival gangsters. He's got the scars to prove it, but other than that he has no idea who the hell he is. The weird part is, sometimes it seems even his fellow hoods are sketchy on the details of his past. Worst part is, if he was a violent thug before the accident, he sure doesn't feel that way now, a fact that makes him a weak link in Seitz's organization.

Regardless of Danny's worthlessness as a thug, Seitz seems to have a soft spot for the kid and asks him to serve as a bodyguard to his beautiful girlfriend Darla. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Danny fell for Darla and began to question who he was before the head injury...

There's nothing fatally wrong with The Kind One - in fact, it is pretty enjoyable most of the time. Epperson - the co-screenwriter of the great crime film One False Move - knows how to keep a story moving. Thing is, there are so many cliches throughout the novel you can't help but roll your eyes sometimes. Even from the brief description I've given you, there's no doubt some of you smart-asses that think you can already foresee how shit wraps up - and you're probably right.

But there are plenty of crime novels that play it close to the cliches and are fucking awesome regardless. For the most part, that shit wasn't what bothered me so much about The Kind Ones as the bizarre shifts in tone. When Danny is doing mob shit in the novel, things are brutal and twisted (which means, you know, I liked that part of the book). But when he's at his bungalow hanging with his neighbors, the book gets about as sappy as can fucking be.

See, Danny's two best non-underworld friends are Sophie, a plucky-yet-abused twelve-year-old and Dulwich, a kindly old Englishman who lives with his adorable cat Tink (short for fucking Tinkerbell, naturally). Of course, these two are supposed to figure into Danny's final shot at redemption (if you didn't see it going there, you're not much of a reader), but I don't really see why Epperson had to make them so goddamn fucking cheesey!

I mean, I could almost understand the sentimentality used in these passages if Danny were a heartless killer when he's not at the bungalow, but he's not. He's skittish about violence and blood and doesn't really do anything badass until the end. Therefore, why does the author insist on making him so goddamn fucking likeable all the time by having him pal around with an old duffer and cute kid? Yeah, for sure the violence and mob shit is often fucking brutal stuff - murders committed over nothing, teeth flying out of mouths, brains spattered on dresses kind of shit - but Danny is just a mild accomplice at best in this mayhem. I'd still feel sympathy for him regardless of whether or not he has a cute kid and fuzzy kitty hanging around his fucking ankle. But maybe Epperson has a different kind of audience in mind than the NoN (jesus, let's hope I'm no one's ideal audience!).

But despite the rampant cliches and occasionally cloying cutesiness, I burned through The Kind One. Like I said, it's not gonna fucking "wow" you, but I can't say you won't be entertained. The best thing I can say is that it is certainly a comfortable read. I'm definitely interested to see where Epperson goes from here. I feel like he could go either way, either be a badass noir dude or a general audience historical thriller guy. Naturally, the Nerd of Noir hopes he'll come to the dark side....

Catching Up #26: The Song Is You by Megan Abbott

The Song is You is not just a great Old Hollywood novel but a great journalism novel. Megan Abbott captures a time when studios would bend over backward to keep even the slightest indiscretion by their contract talent under wraps - and the great yellow journalists of yore were trying their damnedest to uncover every last slip-up. To keep said journalists from succeeding, the studios had smooth-talkers like publicity man Gil "Hop" Hopkins on the payroll, men with the magical ability to spin every shameful event into a glowing piece of positive press.

As our story begins, Hop is in some hot water. It is 1951 and it has been two years since B-girl Jean Spangler mysteriously disappeared. Thing is, Hop was with Spangler that night and knows for a fact that she went to a shady sex club with the song-and-dance movie duo Marv and Gene, men who are infamous for their violent sexual proclivities. Other thing is, Hop jump-started his publicity career that night by helping to erase the connection between Marv and Gene and the Spangler disappearance. Now that career high(low)point is coming back to haunt him in the form of the beautiful Iolene, a beauty who is asking the wrong questions about what happened that night.

And so begins Hop's journey to uncover what really happened to Jean Spangler. Whether he'll use what he finds out to cover his and certain studio players' asses or to bury all their asses is another matter...

Because that is really what is at the center of Abbott's novel - Hop's final shot at redemption. Sure, you've got a tight mystery plot and tons of great lore about fifties Hollywood, but what it all comes down to is Hop's very soul. He's a great fucking character. A man so pretty and smooth he can get his joint copped by a gorgeous starlet with a wink and a smile, but who is tortured by the many horrible mistakes he has made in the past. Shit, he makes plenty of them in the present, too.

And if that ain't the stuff of classic noir, I couldn't tell you what the fuck is.

But shit, if you've read this site even a little bit, you know how enamored (Wow, I just typed "enamored." I am king of the douches) I am with Abbott's work already. She is one of the true originals kicking ass in the crime fiction world today, an author whose work is both wonderfully classic and soberly modern at the same time. This Song Is You is an old Hollywood/yellow journalism novel to set on the shelf next to Ellroy's LA Confidential.

Yeah, I just said that shit. Fuck, I would even shout it into James Ellroy's crazy brilliant face.

Okay, no I wouldn't. Dude scares the shit out of me.

SAFER by Sean Doolittle

My review of Sean Doolittle's Safer is up over at Bookspotcentral. Where's the link, you ask?

Right HERE, dear reader.

Remember that movie from last year with Samuel L. Jackson where he's the crazy cop neighbor? Lakeview Terrace? Safer is like that movie - only it's a book! And it doesn't suck! And it's not a heavy-handed story about racism!

I guess that was a shitty example.

Catching Up #25: Ryu Murakami' In The Miso Soup

If you ever wanted to know what Jason Starr would be like if he was born and raised in Tokyo instead of New York City (and you know you've wondered, dear reader, you can't fool my ass), Ryu Murakami is about as close as you're gonna get. Murakami has a style as simple and direct as Starr's and is just as willing to take his heroes all the fucking way. Not only that, Murakami also has Starr's sly, sick way with satire to boot.

Don't believe me? Well, then fuck yourself, I guess. Nobody's forcing you to read this shit, after all.

Now that I've lost the nay-sayers, we can get down to brass fucking tacks, faithful reader.

In The Miso Soup is the story of Kenji, a young unlicensed tour guide of Tokyo's sex-for-sale districts. Kenji hires out to English-speaking tourists who want his assistance while navigating the Kabuki-cho, a place where anything you desire is available, but where the locals are often wary of gei-jin (white folks). As the book starts out, a weird lard-ass American named Frank has hired him for three nights - December 29-31 of 1996.

From the get-go, Frank is one weird fucking dude. He lies all the time and he just plain looks fucking spooky, but money is money and Frank seems to have a fair amount of it. But the weirdest thing is, there has been some brutal murders as of late, and Kenji gets the sneaking suspicion that maybe this strange American might have something to do with them. But that's just Kenji being paranoid, right?

What makes this novel move - before the sex gets titillating and the violence gets crazy fucking brutal, that is - is Murakami's deft way with the travelogue shit. He enlightens the reader and explains a lot of shit about Japanese culture/sex culture via Kenji's first-person perspective, but it never bogs down the story, never fucks up the freight train pace. There all kinds of insights tossed off, customs of different types of sex clubs revealed, but it is always completely fascinating. It's not like those shitty historical novels you've read where the author insists on explaining boring-ass shit like why they tie the robe this way and not that way for five fucking pages. No, the info you get here is fucking gold, but you assumed that already didn't you? I mean, come on, it's about sex clubs so why wouldn't you be interested?

And not only do we get insight into how all this sex club shit works, but we get a wonderful peek into why modern Japan is what it is and why everyone is just so damned lonely. And that's really what the book is about, Japan's culture of loneliness, this loneliness that has lead to a booming sex industry. And Murakami both satirizes and sympathizes with this culture in equal measure, if you can believe that. Also, Murakami is not a sensationalist or a damning moralist - he does not blame the sex industry for the violence and horror that happens in this novel. Or well, maybe at the.... never mind.

But you're thinking to yourself, "Never mind all the hoidy-toidy shit about Japanese culture and travelogue bullshit and themes and satire and whatever the fuck, Nerd. You're not impressing anyone, here. Tell me about the crime goods, tell me if this shit delivers or not."

Well, impatient reader, I can tell you whole-fucking-heartedly that In The Miso Soup delivers like a motherfucker. There is a scene in this book that was so brutal I could not believe I was reading it. Murakami does not practice restraint in the slightest and thank the fucking stars for that. Rarely do I ever want to look away from a good macabre scene of violence, but the big one in Miso? Jesus. Guy's like a Japanese Allan Guthrie for fuck's sake.

So I really don't know what the fuck you're waiting for, dear reader. The pace is quick, the violence is sick, there's a ton of sex stuff, it's an easy-to-read introduction to a foreign culture, there's sly satire and hoidy-toidy themes, and did I mention that this thing is super short? It's honestly like a one-sitting read - and I never say shit like that. So for fuck's sake, you can't fucking lose with In The Miso Soup. It will shove a fist full of wasabi up your ass and gut you with a samurai sword, but you'll love every dark, fucked up minute of it.