Sanctuary by Ken Bruen

Truth be told, I will probably never miss a Ken Bruen novel as long as I live. I mean, the guy writes short-ass books with lean-ass prose that take just a couple of hours to plow right the fuck through. Also, his books always have enough despair, humor, violence, and cussing to keep my interest piqued like a teenager at his first titty bar. But Jesus H Fucking Christ the Third: the Jack Taylor series is getting pretty fucking old.

If you don’t know who Jack Taylor is, get caught up like fucking immediately. He’s an ex-cop and unlicensed PI in Galway, Ireland with the rottenest luck of any PI in the history of a genre made up of dudes with rotten-ass luck. He gets clean from coke and booze only to plummet off the wagon with the speed of a skydiver sans a fucking parachute. Over and over again he manages to kill the wrong suspect or get his few loved ones hurt or killed from his own drunkenness or incompetence. Jack Taylor is a great twist on the hard-boiled PI genre…at least he used to be.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only way this series could shock me now is if Taylor married a good woman, won a billion dollars in the lottery, had a beautiful baby and then they all moved the Cayman Islands and lived out their days on the beach in peaceful tranquility (department of redundancy department?). I mean, the dude just keeps fucking up to the point that it is becoming old hat.

Also, it seems every fucking book the dude runs afoul of some crazy ritualistic killer. It seems like Taylor’s Galway is made up of nothing but serial killers who want to get Taylor’s goat. Shit, every Bruen novel in the last five or six years features at least one serial killer. There are other crimes and other types of criminals to fuck around with - and Bruen has dealt with other kinds of villains in his earlier works - but lately it seems Taylor’s Galway is worse than Dexter’s fucking Miami - just fucking lousy with serial killers. And don’t get the Nerd wrong here, dear reader, I love me some psycho killer shit as much as the next man (Bruen’s own standalone American Skin is arguably one of the best crime novels of the decade and that has a great psycho running through its pages), but it’s getting to be too much.

But now you’re thinking, Nerd, for fuck’s sake, I get it. Get onto the new novel already you douche.
I hear you, Reader-with-an-inner-monologue-as-profane-as-the-Nerd’s-own-inner-monologue-for-some-fucking-reason, and I’ll do just that fucking thusly.

With Sanctuary we find Taylor still hanging onto sobriety and dreaming of leaving the New Ireland for the States. The only thing holding him back: his lesbian cop friend Ridge’s slow, drunken recovery following the removal of her breast due to cancer. Well, that and someone calling themselves Benedictus is sending him letters assuring him that certain deaths he’s been reading about in the newspaper are indeed, connected. And he may be next on the next name on the list…

But it’s not all Zodiac bullshit, dear reader, not at all. The most interesting plot thread in Sanctuary is that it turns out that Jack may not be responsible for little Serena Mae’s death after all. Jack Taylor’s old drug-dealer-turned-Zen-master friend Stewart gives him a heads up that Serena May’s mother Cathy admitted in rehab that she was the one who pushed her daughter out the window (because she couldn’t handle the fact that the child was born with Down’s Syndrome) and placed the blame on Jack. So now Jack is free from his soul-crushing guilt for once in a long-time, but the guilt is obviously (and rightfully) replaced with pure rage. Either one can get a man back on the Jame-o, naturally.


So it’s a pretty substantial installment in the series, with events that actually move the overall arc of the series as a whole forward quite a bit and makes the Nerd wonder if maybe the end is in sight. I’d be sure as shit be happy if it were so, if only so Bruen could give Jack (and his fans) a fucking rest already. But like I said up top, it seems I’ve got a couple hours to spare for a Bruen no matter how many fucking serial killers I have to put up with.

Catching Up #30: COTTONWOOD by SCOTT PHILLIPS

Scott Phillips is a writer that you have to trust. When you crack one of his books, he only gives you hints as to what the story is going to be about. You can't read thirty pages and then be able to guess what the structure of the novel is going to be. Phillips is too sneaky for that, too confident that he can keep you reading without laying all his cards out on the table a few minutes into the game.

The thing is, dear reader, that the guy's confidence is well fucking warranted. I defy you to read the first few pages of Cottonwood and then toss it to the side, never to be read again. It ain't gonna fucking happen. The voice is too sharp, too hilarious, and too fresh to resist. You're gonna want to know what Bill Odgen, your humble narrator, is all about. You're gonna want to know just where this fucking freight train of a book is exactly fucking headed.

I'm not gonna shit on the Cottonwood virgins by spoiling the surprises that happen along the way. You'll notice that all my Scott Phillips reviews have thus far been pretty fucking spare on the plot details and heavy on the fucking priase. Well, that shit ain't changing any time soon, dear reader. Cottonwood is even better than The Walkaway which was even better than The Ice Harvest - which kicked plenty of fucking ass to begin with. Dude had a hell of a run in the first half of the 00's and we can only hope his next effort outdoes even what's come before. Not to set the bar ridiculously high or anything...

I will tell you that Bill Ogden is a bartender living in the newly formed town of Cottonwood, Kansas in the 1870's. The modest hamlet blows up big and it blows up fucking fast upon the arrival of a rich yankee name of Marc Leval, a guy with a plan to turn Cottonwood into a major cattle town with the arrival of the rail road just around the corner. Marc likes Ogden, sees ambition and smarts in the young man and offers to let him in on the ground floor, a chance to make it rich with him in the coming months and years. Now if only Marc's wife wasn't so damned sexy...and always giving Bill these little sideways glances...

So as with the previous novels set in Phillips' little world (you'll recognize that Bill shares the same surname with a character from The Walkaway), that little description doesn't hardly give you a clue as to the arc of the story and that's a good thing. The little secrets, the small revelations and connections - that's the shit that makes Cottonwood rock your shit. Well, that and the great violence and Ogden's pitch-perfect voice as a narrator. And of course, some fucking hilarious dialogue:

"Hey, killer," Lowry called. "I brought you some company."

After a moment's silence a dry croak came from the cell. "You go to hell."

"You'll see it before me," Lowry said with a chuckle as he unlocked the cell opposite.

"If that's so," came the voice from inside, "I'll give your ma a good kiss right on the cunt when I get there, for old time's sake."

If that shit doesn't make you read Cottonwood, I don't know what the fuck will. There's just no hope for you, I guess (either that or you can't spot a great 19th Century 'yo mama' joke when you see it).

So now I'm all caught up with Scott Phillips. It feels both great and horribly depressing. Hopefully his latest work will come out toot-fucking-sweet. And you better fucking believe this: It will sure as shit NOT be "Catching Up" post because my ass will there the fucking day it comes out.

HOGDOGGIN' Virtual Motorcycle Rally, DAY ONE, #2

Today we have special guest blogger ANTHONY NEIL FUCKIN' SMITH rocking his Virtual Motorcycle Rally book tour. Enjoy the shit out of it, dear readers. And oh yeah: order Hogdoggin' already because that shit is tits. I mean, fuck, I wouldn't pimp it if I didn't love it.

Also, if you wanna read some shit by yours truly, check out this post.

Let's get this shit started:

In the Last Episode, The BBQ Revelators rolled into town with mystery meat and a giant-ass smoker.

When Steel God had enough of the muttering and shouting and rock-throwing from the guy who kept poking his head out of the basement a few blocks down, he sent Lafitte to check it out. It was hard for Lafitte to concentrate with the smell of smoked brisket and Cajun sausage in the air, but he managed. Hoped it wouldn’t turn into something requiring the heavy artillery.
Shoved his Glock into the back of jeans, just in case.
The stairs into the place looked as if they’d been carved with teeth. As he descended, Lafitte’s arm-hairs stood on end, cold as a Minnesota winter all the sudden. Yes, indeed, maybe Dante was right about the ninth circle of Hell after all--already froze over.
He couldn’t recognize the tinny music seeping out of the torn speakers, but that was due to the guy inside on a beat-to-hell recliner cursing like he’d just killed a nun.
The hand drawn sign above the door said “Nerd o’ Noir’s Bar” beside a thick, Sharpied-in arrow pointing down. It meant at the door, but Lafitte took a quick peek at the ground, just to be sure. He pushed open the screen door, big N.O.N. striped across in electrical tape, and stepped inside.
Was it a bar? A slum? There was certainly a bar feel, but it was in spite of the fact that the rest of the place looked like a meth addict’s apartment--too clean and too dirty, all at once. The bar itself was untreated lumber, sawed rough on the ends and nailed together badly. The choices were all randomly scattered bottles, most three-fourths empty. The beer tap appeared to be an old Igloo cooler with a tap shoved through a hole in its side.
But more than anything else were the books. Stacked waist high all over the joint. Film noir posters on the walls. It smelled like stale beer and ambition.
The guy in the recliner shouted, “Motherfucker!”
Shocked Lafitte into reaching around for his pistol, but then he saw that the guy wasn’t even aware Lafitte was there. He was busy reading a paperback--something about a guy waking up. Bright red and blues on the cover flashed as the guy turned the page and curled it like a scroll.
Lafitte walked over, read over his shoulder a few seconds. The guy--presumably the Nerd--was still cursing under his breath. “Fucking shit. Goddamnit, you piece of shit.”
“Don’t like it?” Lafitte said.
The Nerd looked up, squinted, then went back to the book. “No. Shit. I’m loving it.”
“Didn’t sound like it.”
“Shows what the fuck you know.”
Lafitte checked the pile of books at chairside, as if they had been read and then tossed, left for months. Names Lafitte didn’t recognize--Casablanca, Doolittle, Abbott, Phillips. That last one, wait, maybe he saw the movie version. And then a couple by some cat named Smith. Sounded familiar, and for a moment Lafitte had a weird flashback to the scene in Frankenstein where the doctor shouts “It’s alive! Alive!”
But then again, the last time Lafitte tried to read a book, it was one he found at a truck stop in Nebraska while on the run last year, before he hooked up with Steel God’s crew. Couldn’t even get past the first few chapters. It was about some secret agent or MacGyver-type guy called Reacharound or some shit.
Lafitte said, “What do you do when you don’t like a book?”
Without looking up, The Nerd pointed to an old wood-burning stove, unlit this time of year, but it was surrounded by ashes and half-burned pages.
Lafitte though, That’ll show them.
The Nerd mumbled, “You fucker. You pig-fucking asshat, you.” Turned the page.
Time to get on back. Lafitte pulled a rock from his pocket, one The Nerd had thrown earlier. He set it on the stack of books by the chair--those yet to be read, Lafitte figured--and said, “I think you lost this. You know, when you threw it at me.”
That got The Nerd to dogear his page, lay the book on his knee, and sigh. Then, “I was here first.”
“Just a couple of weeks, then we’re gone.”
“I don’t have a motorcycle.”
“So? Neither did I until I met this bunch. Come on down. Have some barbecue.”
The Nerd nodded. Looked like he was thinking about it. Lafitte imagined he’d have to come back here by himself once the party was in full swing, sit off in the coldest corner and drink until his frayed nerves go the message and went numb.
He reached out a hand to help The Nerd up so they could go back to the Dive Bar, get some ribs or something.
The Nerd picked up his novel, flipped back to the bent page, and said, “Soon as I’m done with this awesome fucking chapter.”

I don’t know how he came to call himself The Nerd of Noir, but I do now know that noir nerds can kick other categories of nerds’ asses severely. And I don’t mean metaphorically--if you start throwing down on Battlestar Galactica trivia or some quantum mechanics or Magic: The Gathering, a Noir Nerd will literally kick you in the nuts…and he may even like all of those things.

You have to admire a guy who writes book reviews without any sort of social filter. Polite? Academic? Audience friendly? Fuck you. This is just pure id. Stream of fucking consciousness. The Nerd of Noir appreciates the pure visceral thrill of these books that so many people are sorely missing with their video games and their YouTubes (“Get off my lawn, you lousy kids!”). Not that those things are bad. Shit, I’m trolling the YouTube all the time, trying to find videos for my First Offenders gig. I’m just saying that the part of culture that embraced dangerously subversive pulp fiction has shrunk terribly…and maybe it’s not coming back.

Maybe it would if more reviewers could give you the thrill again. Check out Nerd’s review of Nate Flexer’s The Disassembled Man (from Bookspot Central):

The story of a nasty fucker who only gets more pit-bull-snarling-fucking mean as the story progresses, this shit ain’t for the casual crime fans. No sir, dear readers, The Disassembled Man is for the folks who want their pulp served rare, as in still pumping steaming hot fucking blood. So yeah, you could say I dug the holy fuck out of Nate Flexer’s debut.

Or Scott Phillips’s The Ice Harvest:

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.

Or, modestly, my own Psychosomatic:

It's one of those books where after you put it down, you feel both disturbed and assured by the knowledge that yes, there is someone out there who likes their escapism just as sick and wrong as you yourself do.

I can dig that. Someone who thinks about books on the page the way I do when talking to friends in bars. No quarter given. He’s a monster, and I hope he turns a lot of those fantasy dorks over at BSC (love you folks!) on to the Technicolor horror show that is contemporary neo-Noir.

I’m looking forward to his review of Hogdoggin’, which I hear is scheduled for Bookspot Central on June 1st (which is also HOGDOGGIN’ MONDAY, so help us knock it out of the park that day. Get an order in, or come find the trail of debris left along in the wake of my book tour.

And even if he hated one of my books, that’s okay. I’m sure I’d still be entertained as fuck by the review.

Not too far away from the Nerd’s Bar you’ll find Central Crime Zone Bookstore. But be warned--while they may look like an indie genre bookstore on the outside, they’ve got some big ass surprises awaiting you.

On Stage Tonight:

The Detroit Cobras, “I Wanna Holler (But the Town’s Too Small)”

Jack Wakes Up by Seth Harwood

I review Seth Harwood's debut thriller Jack Wakes Up over at Bookspotcentral.

If you weren't aware of this book's release, then I'm glad you made it out of the coma, the Nerd was pulling for ya.

Read the full review right....fucking....HERE.

The Disassembled Man by Nate Flexer

Nate Flexer’s The Disassembled Man is one strictly for the purists, the basement crazies, the inmates that are so fucked up that they don’t even know they’re in the asylum - much less able to run the fucking thing. The story of a nasty fucker who only gets more pit-bull-snarling-fucking mean as the story progresses, this shit ain’t for the casual crime fans. No sir, dear readers, The Disassembled Man is for the folks who want their pulp served rare, as in still pumping steaming hot fucking blood.

So yeah, you could say I dug the holy fuck out of Nate Flexer’s debut.

Our narrator is Frankie Avicious, the dude in charge of cutting the throats of the cows as they come down the disassembly line at “Sunshine Foods.” You’d think he’d have caught a better job at the fucking place, seeing how his father-in-law owns the joint, but that’s just the story of Frankie’s life. His old man is dead, his ma’s in prison for making him that way, and his wife is a dumpy waste of space whose father wants jack shit to do with her, hence why they live in shitty shack in the shittiest town in Arizona.

The only joy in Frankie’s life - other than slamming booze until he pukes - is watching Scarlett Acres shake her ass on stage. His life is one sad cycle of killing cow after cow, drinking beer after beer, and dropping buck after buck on the stage, until a watch salesman shows up at his front door at a curious hour, whispering nefarious ideas in his ear. Soon enough, Frankie’s got a nasty plan and a basement full of bodies.

What makes The Disassembled Man stand out is just how fucking ugly and skuzzy the whole affair is. I mean, there is absolutely zero fucking glamour to be found in Frankie’s life or crimes. Fuck, even Frankie would admit that Scarlett is no fucking prize in the looks or personality department. It’s like killing old man Dietrichson for someone who looks like Linda Hunt instead of Barbara Stanwyck. Yes sir, this shit takes it up to eleven, dear readers.

But what makes it all hum is Frankie’s hilarious voice. The guy tells his story with more funny, disgusting metaphors and similes than Joe R. Lansdale, for fuck’s sake. Plus, Avicious is so gleefully nihilistic and self-destructive you can’t help but follow along with him, even after he does unspeakable acts you wouldn’t accept from even your most badass and beloved antiheroes. But then again, there’s no mistaking a code-less piece of shit psychopath like Avicious for Stark’s Parker, that’s for fucking sure.


So if you think you have the stones and the stomach for Nate Flexer’s The Disassembled Man, pick that shit up toot-fucking-sweet. If you like your pulp to kick you in the balls and shit on your face, then consider this foaming-at-the-mouth beast a fucking gift, dear reader. There’s hard-boiled and then there’s stomping on the egg as the cute little chick’s beak starts to peek through, and you best believe The Disassembled Man leans toward the fucking latter.

Catching Up #29: The Walkaway by Scott Phillips

The Walkaway, Scott Phillips's sequel to his kick-ass debut The Ice Harvest, somehow manages to be both fucking epic and intensely intimate at the very same time. It's a huge, sprawling book with a large cast of characters, many viewpoints, and two timelines running parallel to each other, but it's really only about three hundred pages long and the action within covers only a few days in both of said timelines. It seems to have a shit ton of exposition and charcter backstory, but somehow you don't notice any of that shit as you're blasting through the fucker. The crime story itself isn't fully revealed until you're almost done with the book, but you could give a shit because you're having so much fun watching it all unfold, hanging out with all the different characters.

In other words, Scott Phillips is a fucking born storyteller and The Walkaway is a great fucking story.

As with my review of The Ice Harvest, I'm not gonna get too deep into the plot because the joy in reading the novel is discovering just what the fuck the plot is exactly, to make guesses based on the little bits of information Phillips drops throughout the text only to find out later you were dead fucking wrong.

So. Fucking briefly: It's 1989 and Gunther Fahnsteil has wandered away from the dementia wing of his nursing home in search of...well, he can't really remember. Something about misplacing something at a quarry years ago, something like that. Meanwhile, his family and friends are also looking for him, some of them in hopes of nabbing the twelve grand reward Gunther's son-in-law Sidney has posted with flyers across Wichita.

While all this is going on, Phillips is also telling the story of Wayne Ogden's return from occupied Japan to Wichita in 1952. Wayne is an out-and-out bastard who was involved in some shady gangster shit back in Japan before stealing the identity of one of his superiors and lamming it back to Wichita to make some dough and settle some scores. That is, if officers Gunther Fahnsteil and Ed Dieterle don't fuck up his plans too much.

Everybody in Phillips's Wichita seems to either be on the take or burdened by huge secrets, and finding out what those schemes and secrets are over the course of the novel is a major part of the story's charm. Not until the end do you fully know the connection between the two separate timelines - a neat trick that most storytellers would have neither the patience nor the confidence to pull off so fucking masterfully.

Oh shit! Did I mention that on top of all that, The Walkaway is fucking hilarious? I was - no shit - that douche at the coffee shop who couldn't help but laugh out loud while reading silently to himself. Unlike your average "that douche" though, I wasn't holding a Pynchon novel at face level so that everyone could see that I totally "get" the humor in V. One of my favorite exchanges is this shit right here:


"You ever go out to the dog track?" he asked the counterman.
"Nope. In my church we don't believe in games of chance."
"Dog racing's not a game of chance. It's who the fastest dog is. Nothing random about it."
"It's gambling."
"Yeah, but you're betting on your own handicapping skills."


I should just let that shit speak for itself but in case you didn't notice, the dialogue in The Walkaway is pretty fucking sharp as well.

So don't be like the old Nerd of Noir, that lame-ass who had never read Scott Phillips before. Be like the new and improved Nerd, the one who is now admittedly a little sad (Haha! What a pussy!) that he has only one more book, Cottonwood, to go before he's officially caught the fuck up with Scott Phillips.

VERY MERCENARY by Rayo Casablanca

Very Mercenary, the latest from Rayo Casablanca, has a little bit of something for everyone. Art students, Palahniuk fans, early period Carl Hiaasen fans, late period Elmore Leonard fans, Victor Gischler fans, hipsters, hipster-haters, douches in Che Guevara T-shirts, people who laugh at douches in Che Guevara T-shirts - you know: everyone.

Okay, looking at that list I now see that that ain’t exactly everyone but still, Rayo Casablanca is hell of a lot of fun. You know that phrase every fucking region in America likes to call their own for some retarded reason: Don’t like weather, just wait ten minutes? Well, if you don’t like what’s cracking in Very Mercenary, just read for ten more minutes - there’s bound to be some character you dig the shit out of.

It’s the story of the kidnapping of heiress Leigh Tiller, the beautiful hipster New York socialite - think Paris Hilton but smart and cool.. She’s abducted by a bunch of escaped mental patients dressed in “furry” costumes who keep her in an abandoned building. That is until Laser Mechanic spots her by chance in the window.

Laser Mechanic is the leader of Strategic Art Defense, a guerilla art collective made up hundreds of people across the US who are out to fuck up the corporate world, man, like, with their art and shit. Laser figures rescuing Leigh and making her part of the SAD - Patty Hearst-style - would be a major coup for the collective. So a major rescue mission is put into action.

But now not only are the cops after Laser and his crew, but Leigh’s Trump-ish father has been commissioning various insane groups of killers to pursue them. Thing is, dude’s not looking to save Leigh from the SAD, but to have her and Laser killed…

So there’s a lot to like in Very Mercenary. Being the violence junkie that I apparently am, I especially liked all the different gun-toting crazies in the book. There’s a character called the Serologist who is hands-down one of the coolest, most bug-fuck crazy killers I’ve read lately. His introduction is just fucking hilarious and sick - and he only gets better as the book goes on.

But the shit of it is, on the back of the book, the fucking plot description gives you the names and descriptions of all the various gangs that go after Leigh and Laser and that ruins a lot of surprises. I won’t tell you what the various crazy-ass killer gangs are in the book (shit, if you want to know what they are a couple clicks on google will satisfy the curiosity toot-fucking-sweet) because I think the book is better served by their details being a surprise.

I mean, one of the gangs doesn’t even get mentioned until the last quarter of the book for fuck’s sake! Yeah, mentioning some of the crazy shit that goes down in the book helps sell it to certain readers, for sure, but because I read the fucking back of the book I was fucking waiting for certain characters to show up already! So if you’re smart, you’ll avoid reading anything further about this beast before picking up Very Mercenary. If not, don’t say I didn’t warn your ass.

All right so this next bit is going to sound fucking vague, but I’m not one to spoil shit so deal with it. My main issue with Very Mercenary is how much the tone shifts depending on what characters you’re following. Shit is always pretty wild and crazy, but when you compare the cute-sy romance/daddy issue stuff in the Laser and Leigh storyline to the darker, more painful places you go with the Serologist character in his back story, it’s kind of jarring, comparatively uninteresting. But like I said, just wait ten minutes, I suppose.


But no matter what floats your boat, you’ll probably dig Very Mercenary. Well, that is, if you liked any of that shit I mentioned up top and… Jesus, you know what I mean, right?

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

Sean Doolittle’s Safer is one agonizingly intense motherfucker of a crime novel. To give you an idea of what kind of sack-shrinking scariness is in store for you should you pick up this novel, you just have to read the first chapter. What happens in the first chapter, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you because, you know, I’m such a swell fucking guy.

Paul Callaway, the English professor hero of Safer, is arrested on kiddie porn and stat rape charges by the Clark Falls, Iowa police department in the middle of a faculty party. It’s such a ball-breaker of a scene, so direly embarrassing and quietly horrifying. Not to mention a ballsy-ass way to open a book.

When Safer is really getting it right (and for the most part, it gets shit really fucking right), it plays like an “urban yuppies move to the scary countryside” horror novel more than anything else. Thing is, instead of being harassed by hillbillies who like to rape and maim, they are harassed by a security obsessed neighbor with major police ties.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. Safer is the story of Paul and Sara Callaway, two Boston academics who move to the Midwest when Sara takes a major administration job at a large public university. Due to a run-in with an intruder in their house their first night in town, the two join the neighborhood watch patrol run by security consultant neighbor Roger Mallory. But as they settle into their new neighborhood, they start to learn that Mallory, an ex-cop whose son went missing ten years previous, may be taking neighborhood security a little too seriously…

Now you’re thinking, What the fuck Nerd? You have a fucking vague-ass plot description after the big kiddie porn reveal up at the top? Well, impatient fucking reader, I did not fuck shit up because you see Safer is not told strictly in chronological order. Doolittle has Callaway tell the story (who is more up to the task than an English professor, after all) and Callaway has a tendency to show off his storytelling skills – fucking with chronology, pointing out literary tricks to the “class” from time to time, shit like that. But don’t let that worry you – the po-mo shit in Safer is an extremely low-key. You won’t get “smugged-out” by it like in most self-reflexive novels.

So anyway it’s a simple story told in a complex way and that really tends to work for the novel. Things are always tense and generally organic and Doolittle’s prose style is always tight and flows well. Everything about this book is just kicking your ass until towards then when….

!!!!SPOILERS!!!!

I had some problems with how big the conspiracy gets in Safer. I mean, it makes sense and everything and it is pretty clever but this is Sean Fucking Doolittle, a guy up there with Pelecanos when it comes to making “believable” crime novels. For him to have the neighborhood conspiracy get so big and even do the traditional “connecting the crime from the past to the present events” thing? It was kind of discouraging, honestly, but only kind of because it is handled really assuredly. It just seems a little obvious when coming from the guy who did Rain Dogs and other incredibly original crime novels.

!!!!END SPOILERS!!!!


But like I said earlier, what makes Safer work is when it plays like a brilliant horror novel of small relatable fears. The fear of being watched, of being accused of a horrid crime you didn’t commit – it’s all handled in a way that makes sense, a way that makes you think it could happen to you. There is no doubt that this is Sean Doolittle’s most intense and suspenseful novel to date. No matter what my problems with the wrap up towards the end are, I for sure fucking got there in record fucking time, with sweat down my back and my nerves fried to shit.

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.