Catching Up #35: Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

This is yet another edition of "diluting the brand with the Nerd of Noir," where I review something that is only very loosely noir fiction. That said, going into Crooked Little Vein I was under the impression that it was very much up this site's alley, what from the way all-a youse dorks out there in internet-land had talked about it. I'd basically heard it was a fucked-up take on the PI-genre filled with dark, perv-y shit. I'll take it.

Well, dear reader, after burning through this motherfucker, I can say that that shit was fucked-up and it was definitely perv-y, but dark? Not so much. Essentially Warren Ellis' novel is a celebration of the American Freak Flag and the Information Age - and a love story to boot! By using the private eye novel structure (hero going around interviewing various characters to solve the case) Ellis has found an entertaining way to talk about what makes the current generation the truly greatest generation. It's a weirdly positive novel about the aspects of modern culture that the shittier members of society would think of as not so positive - but then that discourse alone is positive in itself and...

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's do the whole plot description thing and then I'll show you how fucking smart I am or whatever.

Private eye Mike McGill gets a break from being shit on when the White House chief of staff drops by his office offering him a major case: find the "real" constitution of the United States. You know, that one that Nixon traded for sex back in the fifties? The one that - when you're in the presence of it - turns you into a straight, upright, non-degenerate? Yeah, that one.

Why does McGill, the losingest of losers, get this case (and a half million untaxed dollars) you ask? Well, precisely because he has such epically rotten luck. No one but God's-Favorite-Toilet Mike would possibly be able to find such an object seeing how it no doubt is in possession of one of the very perverts it could potentially un-perv.

So McGill follows the trail with a sexually adventurous grad student doing her thesis on underground sex culture in tow named Trix who he quickly falls for. The search for the book (or is it McGill's shit luck?) leads them to all kinds of weirdoes with all kinds of crazy kinks stretching across America. Trix is as open to each odd experience as McGill is mortified by it.

Will these two crazy kids fall in love? Will McGill find the book? And if so, will he really give it to the White House so they can blast us all back to the Mad Men days? And just how much saline can one man fill his sack with before his balls pop out?

So it's obviously a fucking looney-ass book and totally ridiculous, but like some sort of cock-eyed optimist Vonnegut, there's a method and a message to Ellis' madness. Yeah, there's lots of funny and gross scenes of weirdoes doing sick shit rarely seen outside of the Savage Love column, but the laughs come with sharp commentary. He brings up great points about the greatness of our sick society, this place we live in where anybody can find whatever they want and where anybody with internet access can be part of the media.

Thankfully, the preachifying isn't as simple and boring as what I just typed. There are many much more interesting and challenging observations made in Crooked Little Vein, making for a highly enteraining romp (dear god) through the underground-that-isn't-really-underground-because-it's-on-the-internet-right?-so-it's-obviously-gotta-be-mainstream of America.

In other words, it's a lot of fun. But dark? Nah. If you disagree with the sentiments (and if you do, realize that you're reading a fucking BLOG from some nobody right now on the INTERWEB with somebody with a CURSING problem), then maybe it'd be kind of considered dark, but mainly it's a comedic satire with little danger and a sweet, atypical romance at the center of it. Not complaining or anything, but still. The Nerd can't help but dilute the brand these days.

I-5 by Summer Brenner

My review of I-5 by Summer Brenner is up over at Bookspotcentral.

Give 'er a glance right over here.

I mean, just one little glance can't hurt...

Right?

Catching Up #34: Craig Davidson's The Fighter

Yeah, that's right, dear reader: The Nerd is doing yet another catching up post on some shit that ain't quite noir/crime. Right now you're no doubt thinking, What the fuck, Nerd? You're diluting the brand! A short story collection and now whatever the fuck this book is? What next? Are you gonna start reviewing fucking cat mysteries or some such bullshit?

Well, irate-as-all-hell reader, let me well-fucking-assure you that I will never post any shit up here that isn't dark as fuck. I mean, my poop-mouthing and ranting wouldn't make any sense if I were reviewing a Lillian Jackson Braun classic ("KoKo's badass clue-sniffing skills will have you licking your filthy fucking paws while Yum Yum is one hot-ass piece of feline tail!") or some other tame piece of shit. I would also never throw away your trust by pontificating on the latest Philip Roth novel I've read (love the shit out of his books though I do) or any other similarly non-violent novel. I mean shit, have a little faith in the Nerd, dear reader.

Especially when it comes to The Fighter, Craig Davidson's Canadian Fight Club for Generation Y. Shit, that should be all I have to say about this mofo, but I'll go on. The Nerd's got time to bloggify and he's gonna use it up thusly.

The Fighter is the story of twenty-something Ontario rich boy Paul Harris and working class upstate New York amateur boxing teen sensation Rob Tulley. Rob wants out of the life but he's too much of a born natural (and his uncle and father have invested too much time in his training) to shit on his ticket out of blue collar-dom. Paul has been coasting through life working for his old man's winery business until he gets the shit kicked out of him one night, an event that makes him want to see just how much punishment he can stand. Rob trains and looks for excuses not to fight while Paul gets more and more masochistic (and 'roid-filled) until the two come together in The Barn, a place for modern day gladiators on the Canadian-American border.

As with Fight Club, there's plenty of angry-young-man-who-fights-to-feel-something stuff in The Fighter. Paul's life gains a purpose once he discovers fighting. He figures he can never out-do his father's more traditional masculine achievements - building a successful wine business from the ground-up, wife-and-kids and all that - but he must know if he could thrive in a more primitive masculine way - taking and giving out punishment with his bare-fucking-hands (Speaking of Fight Club, there's a sly reference to the earlier classic in the form of a rich kid who Paul himself beats up who then becomes a radical animal rights activist who lives on Paper Street...).

But enough with the masculinity discussion bullshit. I mean, what next? The Nerd's gonna start pontificating about James Dickey and Cormac McCarthy or some such hoidy-toidy douchery? What stands out in this ass-kicker is the violence, which is plentiful and painful. If you find better descriptions of carnage, send that shit the Nerd's way. On second thought, I'm not sure I could handle shit much rougher than The Fighter. Yeah, I just said that shit. This shit hurts that fucking much.

Plus, this shit is funny, moving and full of awesome lore. There's shit in here about the good old days of traveling fighters going town-to-town betting they can take any man in the county along with shit about modern underground fighting circuits where they douse their wrapped fists in lye or worse. I mean, there's enough awesome fighting lore in this bitch to fill a hundred books. Then there's shit about steroids and boxing training and...goddamn this fucker Davidson has a ton of fucking cool ideas.

Crime novel or not, the Nerd guarantees that The Fighter will give you your sick noir jollies from page one onward. It's violent, it's challenging, it's sick, it's sad, and it's a fucking fast-as-all-hell read. Trust the Nerd, dear readers. It's not like he's asking you to pick up a quilting mystery here, for fuck's sake.

THE JOOK by GARY PHILLIPS

There’s only one word for Gary Phillips’ The Jook and that word is fucking cool (you had to believe the Nerd would spice up said word with some Grade-A poop-mouth, am I right?). This fucking beast is just oozing with cool. I haven’t read any other shit from Gary Phillips yet, but if his other books are half as cool as The Jook, you can bet the fucking farm the Nerd’s gonna be on top of that shit toot-sweet.

The Jook tells the story of Zelmont Raines, a Super Bowl-winning wide receiver that’s fallen on hard times. He’s just been sent home to L.A. after getting the boot from the European leagues following his hip getting out of whack for the umpteenth time. Dude’s got bills and no money to pay them with, what with blowing all his NFL coin on drugs, alimony and lawyers (He swears she said she was legal). But Los Angeles is getting a new franchise called the Barons and nobody - not even the devoutly Christian NFL commissioner that hates the shit out of him - can stop Zelmont from trying out.

Surely he can make the team and start living the high life once again, fucked up hip or no.

But then a pretty little thing working for the owner of the Barons named Wilma Wells starts whispering in ol’ Zelmont’s ear, saying that there’s an easier way to gain the green. Namely, by ripping off some mobbed up NFL big wigs for cool millions…

So you have this classic femme fatale noir story with the neat twist of the main character being an ex-bad boy (well, not so “ex-“ I suppose) football player. That’s enough for me to recc this shit right there, but Phillips also loads this motherfucker up with tons of crazy sex scenes and gloriously violent, cinematic action sequences. Then there’s the fucking nutso heist shit towards the end and…

So yeah, you could say the Nerd dug this shit.

But what really makes it all work is Zelmont Raines himself. He’s telling his own story in a voice that is tres fucking cool, every other line dripping with distilled badassery. Zelmont’s a cocky motherfucker with flaws out the ass, but he’s so fucking enviably awesome (only a God like Jim Brown or Fred Williamson in the seventies could truly do him justice on the big screen) that you’re totally with him to the bitter end.

Like a double of Maker’s on the rocks, The Jook goes down easy then rocks your shit something fierce right afterward. It’s straight up hot sex, blazing action, and classic noir told in a bracingly modern, unabashedly cool way (I wish there were more words capable of expressing “cool”-ness, but there just fucking isn’t, dear reader).

So trust the Nerd, dear reader: your ass wants some of this shit right here. Your ass wants it in the right fucking now.

Catching Up #33: KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock

I dunno if this is every english major's experience, but it seemed like every young man in my college workshop classes was trying to be the next Bukowski. Every other class we'd be going over some douchebag's story about a down-and-out young man who gets fucked up, fights some guy and then cheats on his girlfriend. That'd be all well and good if any of the fuckers could write worth a good goddamn, but shit, you know how it is (or you don't in which case the Nerd envies you).

So you'll forgive the Nerd if he was a bit skeptical of Knockemstiff, a collection of stories about down-and-out losers in the down-and-out town of Knockemstiff, Ohio by a first time writer named Donald Ray Pollock.

Well sir, the Nerd fully admits that he was wrong to doubt. There's a reason everyone and their mom is talking about this Pollock's debut. That reason is that it is fan-fucking-tastic.

Unlike the poor saps in my writing classes (love you guys!), the stories of pain and debauchery in Knockemstiff feel like they were written by a survivor of such times. Now I don't know if Pollock has ever fucked a retarded girl and hated himself for it or smoked shitty weed that made his mouth bleed, but if you told me he did I would believe it, dear reader. I'd believe that shit in a fucking heart beat. Knockemstiff may be juicy and lurid and bleak but it always feels real, no matter how fucked up the story is.

And this shit is fucked up, dear reader, very much so. You're probably wonderin what the Nerd is doing reviewing some "literary"-sounding short story collection, thinking I've gone NPR on your collective asses or some shit.

Let me assure you of this: if you dig noir, you're gonna dig Knockemstiff.

The language of Pollock's stories is occasionally poetic but never unnecessarily so. It's the poetry of the down-trodden, the losers, the...fuck, I got all literary on your asses, didn't I? Sorry about that. Pollock's language is always about character (and his characters are always wonderfully scuzzy and grotesquely tragic) and never about wowing the eggheads.

And these stories aren't subtle character sketches where jack-shit happens, either. No they're violent, cathartic and horrifying stories, like a godless paint-huffing Flannery O'Connor or some shit.

But what especially makes Knockemstiff work for the Nerd is that it feels like you're reading a novel. I mean, yeah, I like a good short story as much as the next guy (Plots with Guns, Thuglit - that stuff consistently rocks my shit), but more often than not I'm not gonna pick up a book unless it is a novel (though I did love Expletive Deleted which was...goddamn it, what is the Nerd without hard and fast fucking rules!?) and Knockemstiff works both as something you dip into at your leisure or read in a fury like a kick ass novel.

And you better believe the Nerd tore through this beast like it was great fucking pulp.

So don't fear Knockemstiff, my dear crime junkies. Sure, it's a change of pace, but I guarantee you'll read it as fast as you would a fucking Huston novel.

FAKE I.D. by JASON STARR

Jason Starr’s Fake I.D. was just released in the U.S. by Hardcase Crime after nearly a decade of only being available in the U.K. The wait has been hard on the old Nerd, but the timing of its release is kind of fucking perfect, really.

You see, dear reader, I’m scared for where Jason Starr appears to be heading. His last book (sans Ken Bruen, that is) was The Follower, no doubt a good book but way too “mainstream thriller” for the Nerd’s taste. Starr’s biting brand of yuppie douchedom peppered many of the main characters and the suspense was top-notch, but in the end it was a very traditional stalker novel, a plea for a new, less fucked-up readership.

Shit, The Follower even got a mass market paperback deal after long runs in hardcover and trade form. Obviously, somebody in the publishing world thinks Starr’s on the right track.

I wish the dude all the success in the world and everything, but I can’t seem to get excited about his new one, Panic Attack which is coming in August. I’ll fucking read it, for sure (no doubt it’ll be suspenseful as all hell, it’s what the dude does, for fuck’s sake), but I no longer have that raging nerd boner for his work like I used to, that old faith that his shit will go all the fucking way.

Fake I.D. is the old Starr doing what made me love him in the first place. It’s dark, nasty, hilarious, and undeniably hard-fucking-core.

It’s the story of bouncer, degenerate gambler and wannabe actor Tommy Russo, a cocky son of a bitch who thinks he’s got the world coming to him. One day at the track he gets an offer to join a horse-owning syndicate from a fellow degenerate gambler. Thing is, his stake in the ownership would be ten large, a lot of money for a New York bouncer to cough up. Then he remembers that the safe at the bar he works at has to have at least that much sitting in it…

Nobody writes asshole protagonists quite like Starr. He could really give a fuck whether you like Tommy Russo, just knows that the dude’s actions and general scumbaggery are going to draw you into the story regardless.

And that’s because, like I’ve said all along, the guy is a master at suspense. Fake I.D. is one of those rare books where you’re saying Oh fuck! and Oh shit! aloud through the whole thing, your heart just fucking racing from the tension. Goddamn it felt good to read some of the old nasty shit again.

I knew that Starr couldn’t do these types of books forever. There’s only so many ways to do his brand of updated yuppie James M. Cain novels before any self-respecting author would want to move on to something different. Personally, the Nerd could read this shit till the fucking cows come home and never give a shit about the same-y-ness in the fucking least.

But that’s, you know, just me in all my fucked-up glory, I suppose.

So pick this shit up toot-fucking-sweet, dear reader. Fake I.D. is a pleasant (in a nasty and sick sort of way) trip through Jason Starr’s old stomping ground: Noir York (Jesus fucking Christ - did I just type that lame shit?). And oh yeah: fingers well-fucking-crossed that Panic Attack is more Fake I.D. than it is The Follower.

DOPE THIEF by DENNIS TAFOYA

Dennis Tafoya manages to have his cake and eat the shit out of it too with his debut novel Dope Thief. What starts out at as an ass-kicking noir actioner eventually turns into a thoughtful, honest and Pelecanos-esque (Pelecanish?) search for redemption. The real fucking kicker of it is, dear reader, is that Tafoya is able to pull that shit off in fucking spades.

Dope Thief is the story of Ray, a thirty year old ex-con who rips-and-runs a la Omar Little with his junkie pal Manny. The pair try to keep it light, never killing, and stealing only from small-time players around Pennsylvania who won’t be out for some get back. The beauty of their operation – and what keeps dealers from acting stupid – is that they dress as DEA agents while they rob (echoes of the cult classic blaxploitation flick Across 110th Street). Naturally, the two eventually rip off the wrong drug dealer and bodies happen while mucho dinero is scored. Next thing the boys know there’s a vicious motorcycle club after their stolen money and Manny and Ray’s blood.

First off, let the Nerd say that Tafoya is top-fucking-notch at writing action sequences. The violence in this beast is fucking cinematic as all hell and there are some set-pieces in here that bring to mind Charlie Fucking Huston – no joke, dear reader. There’s a scene where it’s Manny and Ray versus two pissed off bikers that just fucking rocked my shit – almost as hard as the molester house shoot-out in Gone Baby Gone did (the book, not the film, hands-down the best action sequence I’ve ever read).

Now you’re thinking, Silly Nerd, a novel cannot thrive on violence alone. What of the other elements of the text? Well, hoidy-toidy-pretentious-douche reader, here we fucking go:

Naturally, all this extremely well-done violence wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on if it weren’t for the reader caring about those that are affected by it, and Tafoya’s hero Ray is one hell of a complex protagonist. He’s smarter and wiser than the career he’s chosen for himself, where the most common retirement options are death or imprisonment. He’s also racked with guilt over a lover who died because of him back in his high school days, the pain of the loss fucking up all his present female relationships. Then his imprisoned father comes back into his life due to the old bastard being diagnosed with a terminal illness. And then there’s the bookstore girl that Ray falls hard for despite worrying that his father’s abuse of his mother means that he himself will be a piece of shit wife-beater…

So yeah, there’s a lot of shit outside of Ray’s crime life that is covered in the novel and that’s what makes the book really fucking sing. We grow to really care about him and become heavily invested in his efforts to leave his lawless days behind him. Thankfully, all that shit is handled with a sobriety that keeps shit from getting too touchy-feely lame on your ass. Like I said up top, dude’s Pelecanistic or whatever the fuck the term should be.


In case you’re just not fucking getting me, dear reader, I’m fucking well saying that you should check this shit out. Dope Thief is emotionally involving and bloody-as-hell to boot. What the fuck more could a crime fan ask for?

HOGDOGGIN' by ANTHONY NEIL SMITH

My review of Hogdoggin' by Anthony Neil Smith is up over at bookspotcentral.

If you're a regular reader here at the site, you already know my pro- stance on Hogdoggin' (the book, not the "sport"), but check that shit out regardless.
Where is it, you ask? Why right HERE, dear reader.
It's fucking Hogdoggin' Monday, motherfuckers!

Catching Up #32: THE DRUMMER by ANTHONY NEIL SMITH

Anthony Neil Smith's The Drummer is a fucking strange-ass crime novel, but it somehow never crosses into the "wacky" crime novel sub-genre. I mean, it's about eighties hair metal (the stupidest of all the metals) but The Drummer resists the urge go all Spinal Tap on your ass. It's got a classic crime plot (guy disappears only to be discovered years later by those he was trying to escape from) but for a lot of the book Smith is giving us flashbacks that are mainly meant just to develop our narrator and his relationships to the other characters. There are mysteries to be solved, and there's a bit of ticking clock shit going on and the big secret is revealed at the end and all that, but for the most part The Drummer feels more like an acutely observed character piece than a crime thriller. And our hero is involved in murders and beat downs (receiving and giving) and all that good pulpy stuff, but there's also this cool New-Orleans-right-before-the-flood portrait being painted steadily throughout the book.

In other words, The Drummer is a fucking crazy original noir in the Goodis-ian sense (the best of the senses).

The Drummer tells the story of Calvin Christopher, drummer for the band Savage Night (fellow nerds: note the Jim Thompson nod), a successful hair metal band in the late eighties (you know, when hair metal was dying fast). Seeing the end in sight and getting word that the band owes tons of money to the IRS and others, Cal decides it's better to burn out than to fade away. He torches his mansion - cool vintage cars still in the garage - and changes his name to Merle Johnson, hoping that people will figure he's dead even without a body for proof. He eventually ends up in New Orleans, makes a nice life for himself with a girlfriend named Beth and a gay best friend named Justin, just drinking away the nights in cool bars listening to good music on the stage.

Then the grade-A douchebag lead singer (is there any other kind?) of the band shows up after fifteen years. Todd Delacroix has never left Hollywood (though Hollywood wishes he'd leave) and figures resurrecting Calvin Christopher would be a hell of a way to give all of their careers a good shot in the arm. Merle/Calvin has no interest in coming out of hiding but tells Todd they'll work something out the next day, stalling for time to make another escape. Then when he does go to Todd's hotel, he finds the singer with a belly full of booze and a suicide note detailing Merle's whereabouts, saying the proof is in the car.

But somebody has fucking stolen the car...

So begins the big chase with cops, band members, and mysterious thugs all coming after Merle's ass while Merle has to either salvage his nice hidden life in New Orleans or decide to light out for the territories again. But like I said, it's not as nutso as you would think. The story kicks the most ass when it's just about Merle's fucked up relationships with women and how he's hurt his friends past and present with his evasion and lies. It should be said that of all the noir authors working today, few match Anthony Neil Smith for sheer emotional pain. And not in a sentimental "woe is me" bullshit sort of way, no fucking sir. Smith makes you hurt along with the characters in a sobering, stark way that never veers into sentimentality.

But don't let all my high-minded bullshit talk keep you from picking up The Drummer. Like any great noir, it's got the sex, drugs and violence to pull your through it, but has the smarts and emotional impact to make that shit stick in the mind after ward. The Drummer is unlike anything Smith has yet written, and sure as fuck different from anything else on the current shelf that we call modern noir fiction. You better believe The Nerd well fucking approves of that shit.

Catching Up #31: KILLSHOT by JOHN MADDEN

Yeah, I know - it's been fucking ages since the Nerd did a movie review on the site. No, it's not that I don't watch movies anymore because I've become a pretentious books-only douche (I usually watch a movie a day), it's just that I've been doing tiny 140 character reviews on my twitter account instead. That's usually enough to express how I feel about a movie and besides, there are hardly any crime movies coming out these days anyhow. That said, you should go see Next Day Air if it's still playing in your town. Surprisingly fun little crime flick.

But back to the topic at hand, watching Killshot last night and then afterward trying to form a decent tweet, I realized that that shit just wasn't going to work out. It was too complicated of an experience to really condense like that. So now that I got the backstory out of the way, let's get to meat, the blood, the fucking review already.

John Madden, the director of Shakespeare in Love and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, decided to branch out with this violent, fast-paced adaptation of the classic Elmore Leonard novel Killshot. His take on the material is kind of fucked up because he doesn't exactly get why people like Elmore Leonard, but he doesn't completely not get it, either. Its closest cousin would be John Frankenheimer's Fifty-Two Pickup starring Roy Scheider, a film that was primarily a dark thriller, but with enough funny moments thrown in so as not to completely piss off the Elmore Leonard fanatics. That's the approach Madden has gone with here.

But first, for those of you who haven't read it (which you should, like, fucking now because it is one of Leonard's best), a quick plot description. Retired hitman Armand "Blackbird" Degas (Mickey Rourke) takes up with dumbass punk Ricky Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to shake down a real estate agent for $20K. When they go to confront the real estate guy they confuse their target with Wayne Colson (Thomas Jane), a construction worker looking to get a job alongside his wife Carmen (Diane Lane). Wayne fights the two off without correcting them and the two criminals flee. But Carmen and Wayne have seen the Blackbird's face, and he never lets that shit go...

So the movie gets some important shit right. The Michigan locations are great, the entire "plot" is intact and handled well, the performances are all very good (with one exception I'll talk about later), and it is entertaining and involving, wrapping up in an hour and a half very nicely. All in all an agreeable movie, something that certainly deserved more of a theatrical run, that's for fucking sure. Plus, it's still pretty fucking funny in some spots, thankfully.

But if you have seen Out of Sight or Jackie Brown you know there's a better way to handle Leonard. And I'm not even saying that Killshot is as relaxed a book as Out of Sight and Rum Punch either. It's sure as shit more of a straight-forward thriller than those two books, but if Madden had just let certain character moments breathe a little more, let the story wander a few more minutes, he could have really had something special here. He gets it pretty much right when it comes to the interaction between Degas and Nix, letting them play off of each other nicely and letting them carry most of the movie even though they're the bad guys.

But when it comes to Wayne and Carmen's relationship, there is no reason we should really care about either of them. They get a couple of scenes together to explain the crisis that their marriage is facing, but that's it. We know next to nothing about the two characters, and they're our good guys! In the book, Carmen was pretty fun and cool, not just the scared wife with some hidden grit. She was our heroine and we wanted her to win. In the movie we only want her to win because she's not a bad person and the two fun characters most definitely fucking are bad people.

And don't get me started on Thomas fucking Jane. That guy is one of the worst actors working today. He is the biggest fucking ham we have. I remember seeing him as Todd Parker in Boogie Nights, the fucked up friend of Dirk and Reed's that fucks up the drug deal at Alfred Molina's house, and thinking that he was going to be the next big thing. He was exciting and funny and cool and alive, man.

But everything I've seen him in since has just made me fucking cringe.

He almost single-handedly ruined The Mist for me, a pretty good, very ballsy horror movie. Time and time again Jane straight up fucking fails to do the most basic job of movie acting - make me believe that he is a character in a story, not an actor playing a character. Most movies - even really shitty ones - you can just accept that the people in the movie are "the sheriff" or "the wife" right when they come on screen. Thomas Jane is often incapable of even that fucking level of acting. That's just fucking sheer incompetence. There are so many little scenes just completely ruined with his mugging. YOU'RE JUST PLAYING AN AVERAGE FUCKING JOE, DUDE! IT'S NOT THAT TOUGH OF A FUCKING JOB!

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah: What doesn't fucking work about Killshot. So there's the fact that they don't let character moments happen often enough, the pace should have been more chill, Thomas fucking Jane is in it, and then there's the fucking thriller music throughout the piece. Just constant fucking shitty soundtrack music. The dark, indistinguishable soundtrack that you hear on network cop shows all the time. Just fucking boring-ass music. And that would have been all right with me if the boring cop show soundtrack showed up every now and then, like during the suspense sequences or something, but all the fucking time? Just lazy and generic, man. Again, I'm not saying they should have been all source music like a Tarantino film on this bitch, or had a really cool and sexy soundtrack like Soderberg's Out of Sight but still, something other than the lazy fucking mess that's in my ears throughout.

So yeah, let's wrap this shit up. Killshot is a good movie that deserved to be seen in theatres. It's not one of the great Leonard adaptations that it so deserved to be, but it's not a travesty by any means. I'll bet there's a two hour cut somewhere that just fucking kicks ass, that allows the characters to hang out and distinguish themselves. That said, there's probably not a cut that doesn't have Thomas Jane in it...

Ruminating In My Pants #8: The REAL Crime Summer Reads

While pissing away the evening on twitter, I found out from the always informative Sarah Weinman that NPR has put up a summer reading list on their website. How nice of them, right? I checked that shit out, found that they had a section for mystery/crime novels.

A quick peek at that list and you can tell that the Nerd's blood was no doubt angried up toot-fucking-sweet.

After voicing my disappointment via the sad soapbox that is twitter, short story wunderkind Keith Rawson suggested that I do my own anti-NPR summer reading list. I, you know, fucking concurred and lo, here is the fucking list.

The Nerd Pimpeth Thusly:

1. FAKE ID by JASON STARR (Hardcase Crime, May 26. 2009)

Now you're thinking, Nerd, doesn't Jason Starr have a book coming out in August called PANIC ATTACK? Why isn't that one on your list? Well, dear reader, I'm sort of excited about that one, but Fake ID is one from Starr's early period where he was just letting it rip. After The Follower I have begun to fear that Starr has moved too far into the main stream with his fiction. I mean, The Follower had some great frat boy douchebag characters in it, but the overall story was much more pf a traditional thriller than noir ass-kicker. I've been waiting for Fake ID to hit America for years now, and thanks to Charles Ardai and the Hardcase crew, the dream is fucking well realized at last.

2. HOGDOGGIN' by ANTHONY NEIL SMITH (Bleak House Books, June 1, 2009)

Unlike everything else on this list, I've read Hogdoggin' already. Hell, as you well know I've fucking pimped for it already by participating in Smith's kick ass HOGDOGGIN' VIRTUAL MOTORCYCLE RALLY. My review of the book will be up on Bookspot Central on June the fucking first, also known as HOGDOGGIN' MONDAY. In other words, I've supported the shit out of this beast of a book. Well, dear reader, I've said it before and I'll say it a-fucking-gain: I don't pimp for shit I don't fucking straight-up love. Order that shit now, thank the Nerd later.

3. BURY ME DEEP by MEGAN ABBOTT (Simon & Schuster, July 7, 2009)

I've reviewed all three of Megan Abbott's books here at the site and she started out super fucking strong and has only gotten better as she goes along. Not to put the pressure on, but hopes are sky-fucking-high for her latest. Abbott's one of the true originals working today, and her take on the forties and fifties that has been covered in countless films is unlike any Widmark or Mitchum black-and-white classic you'll ever see.

4. THE DEPUTY by VICTOR GISCHLER (Bleak House Books, August 2009)

Gischler's Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse sure as shit kicked my ass and I'm definitely pumped as all hell for Vampire A Go-Go to drop on September 1st, but I'm even more excited for Gischler's return to crime with The Deputy. Expectations are high, but fuck, this is the dude that wrote The Pistol Poets. You better believe his ass is gonna deliver the goods like fucking John Holmes...before coke and AIDS and all that shit did him in, that is.

5. STAIRWAY TO HELL by CHARLIE WILLIAMS (Serpent's Tail Press, August 20, 2009)

Charlie Williams hasn't given us a book since 2006 when he wrapped up the Mangel Trilogy, one of the most fucked up and hilarious series in recent years. Stairway to Hell marks his triumphant return. It's got soul-swapping and David Bowie and Jimmy Page and...it sounds fucking insane is what I'm trying to say. Here's hoping it kicks more ass than Royston Blake on a crazy night bouncing at Hopper's.

So there you go, dear readers, my list to cancel out the lame-fest that is the NPR list. Granted, that won't hold your noir-craving junkie ass for the three whole fucking months of summer, but it's a damned good start. Expect reviews of all of the above as I catch 'em, dear reader.

Expect it like death and fucking taxes. And pledge drives.

THE WAY HOME by GEORGE PELECANOS

George Pelecanos has his shit down fucking cold. He is simply fucking incapable of writing a bad book. His prose is tight, his characters sharp, his sense of place unmatched, his plots organic. Thing is, I’ve read all of his shit and now the Nerd has the dude’s formula down cold.

It wasn’t always this way, dear readers. Remember all those great series that he did in his early and middle periods? The Nick Stefanos PI shit? The Karras and Clay revenge series (my personal favorite)? The Quinn and Strange PI stuff? Fucking Shoedog? Exciting-ass fucking books all.

And don’t get me wrong - I like all his late period standalones that he’s rocking now, like them something fierce. Shit, I think that The Night Gardener is one of his best and most strikingly different novels to date. It’s just that after Drama City and The Turnaround I fucking knew what was going to happen in The Way Home just from the plot description. I didn’t know the specifics and was still wrapped up in the story, all that shit, but it seems like he’s just repeating the same lessons over and over.  You know which character will be sacrificed and which will be redeemed and who will make the right choice to fit Pelecanos’s positive yet sober outlook on the struggles of inner city life in Washington D.C.

And I fucking love his seemingly authentic D.C., think it’s one of the most fascinating places to go in modern fiction. It’s just that I wish that he would shock and upset me again like he used to - like with Soul Circus or The Sweet Forever, books that were brilliant but had some fire to them, some danger, a sense that anything could happen at any moment to any character. Now Pelecanos won’t even allow random tragedy to enter his universe. If you do the right thing and work hard you’ll have some sort of redemption, mean streets and other obstacles be damned. He’s lost his sense of noir and just become the social realist crime novelist. I mean, he’s got the market cornered and everything but come on.

The Way Home’s basic plot is an old standby for crime readers: Dudes find dirty money, consequences ensue. Naturally, because Pelecanos is given free reign these days, the first third of the book is straight-up fucking prologue. We meet a bunch of kids in the same juvie cell block, the focus of the group being the sole white inmate, Chris Flynn. He comes from a good family and - unlike some others in the kiddie clink with him - is able to move on with his life and be a better person following his incarceration.

The book then picks up several years later where we find Chris and his old juvie buddy Ben working as carpet layers for Chris’s father Tom. Chris and Ben find fifty grand stashed in a gym bag while pulling up some old carpet in a house a real estate agent has acquired with the intention of flipping it. Chris, who has apparently learned the living shit out of his lesson, directs Ben to put it back where they found it, figuring it would just get the two of them in trouble somehow. Ben later gets drunk with another old cellblock pal of theirs named Lawrence and spills the beans on their discovery. Naturally, Lawrence goes and steals it where the other two boys just let it be. The two friends start to feel like suckers - Chris feels particularly bad for Ben since Ben doesn’t have the luxury of well-to-do white parents to fall back on in life - until a pair of motorcycle club boys come looking for the money they stashed before serving a sentence…

So yeah, obviously this time out Pelecanos is trying to shed light on the failures of youth offender reform and as always, the facts and preachifying parts are relatively painless and usually pretty interesting. The characters are all strong and feel very real. And, as with everything Pelecanos has ever written, the violence isn’t constant, but what’s there is fucking astoundingly well done and intense.

But Jesus fucking Christ, could there at least be a fucking twist somewhere in this beast? I mean, I’m not asking for it to end in a Mexican stand-off where everybody dies (on second thought, that would be hilariously fucking awesome) but shit, give me something to throw me off. And I’m not saying I want it to be like it turns out the butler did it mystery bullshit, just like anything noir-ish to happen. Like: the main character makes an ambiguous choice, a character I thought would never die dies, a decision by the main character gets his mom fucking killed - something exciting like the old days, something for the folks who liked it better when Pelecanos’s shit was a little bit fucking crazier.

Obviously the dude is trying to appeal to a more literary crowd, to yuppies who caught on to him from watching The Wire. That’s all well and good, but The Wire had the ability to shock, to be tragic on a grand scale. Pelecanos’s fiction has for a while now been decidedly more upbeat than that show, less bleak. I guess some would say his fiction has become more mature, more humane and positive, like one of the Curtis Mayfield songs Pelecanos likes to quote in seemingly every novel. Maybe the fact is that the Nerd just isn’t mature enough to appreciate what he’s doing these days, that the Nerd is too caught up with the more dark and badass elements of crime fiction to appreciate Pelecanos’s more Dickensian approach to the genre.


That very well could be, dear reader, but that doesn’t mean the Nerd can’t pray old George loosens up and has some unadulterated-low-brow-nasty-fucking fun next book around.