Book Review – Three for the Chair

I finished a series of Nero Wolfe short stories today by Rex Stout. Three for the Chair is as good as any of the other Nero Wolfe mysteries. I like these, they're like books for the "fusion" restaurant lover. My favorite fusion restaurant is a blend of Southwest, Central American, and Asian foods. Reading Nero Wolf mysteries is the fusion food equivalent of reading an Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot mystery, a Lawrence Sanders, McNally mystery and a 1950's hard-boiled detective mystery. All of these were poignant, fun to read, and wrapped the puzzle up nicely by the end, just as I expected.

A made some notes, of course.

Archie Goodwin describing a lady he is watching says:

"She stood up. Of course nurses are expected rise from a chair without commotion, but she just floated up."

Later in the same story, Archie describes a suspect succinctly and in a way that helps the reader understand Archie's tone and voice.

"I sat with my back to my deisk and took him in as an object with assorted points of interest. He was a uranium millionaire, the very newest kind. He was a chronic jaw-puncher, no matter where. He knew a good-looking nurse when he saw one, and acted accordingly. And he had been nomictaed as a candidate for the electric, chair. Quite a character for one so young. He wasn't bad-looking himself, unless you insist on the kind they use for cigarette ads. His face and hands weren't as rough and weathered as I would have expected of a man who had spent five years in the wilderness pecking at rocks, but since finding Black Elbow he had had time to smooth up some."

Archie describing Nero Wolfe shocked and surprised. I love the approximation in the description.

"Wolfe's brows went up a sixteenth of an inch."

As so much of the book includes, Archie describing Wolfe, this time as Nero Wolfe deals with a female contemporary.

"He frowned at her. Sometimes he honestly tries to speak to a woman without frowning at her, but he seldom makes it."

There was one other feature I wanted to note, but this was a running description through a mystery. There is one official that the detectives must deal with, and Archie says of him:

"Then more district attorney, a bouncy bald guy named Jasper Colvin, with rimless spectacles that he had to shove them back on his nose every time he took a step."

Throughout the rest of the story, Archie says things like:

"Colvin answered. "I did. I'm Jasper Colvin, district attorney of this county." He pushed his specs back up on his nose."

"Colvin nodded at him and down came the specs."

"Colvin cleared his throat and had to push the specs."

"Colvin pushed the specs. I'll only mention it every fourth or fifth time."

Then every few sentences dealing with this character Stout just writes, "Specs." Nothing more.

I thought that was a cunning way to bring humor and describe a major character.

Only two interesting vocabulary words.

Chimera – (modern) - a chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes involved with sexual reproduction – (mythological) - a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that ended in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. (I knew this one, but I like to refresh my memory.)

Larrupe - give a spanking to; subject to a spanking

All in all, fun to read, as always.

Book Review – Over My Dead Body

Last week I finished Over My Dead Body by Nero Wolfe. At first I found myself in a deep funk, depressed by the similarities I found between Nero Wolfe's writing and that of one of my favorite authors, Lawrence Sanders. My depression turned to anger as I saw how closely so many of the similarities became. Flamboyant and smart main characters both with the name Archie, serious mysteries that are written with a fun loving (and more importantly, word loving) veil, and so many other facets. But, as I let the story sink in, I realized that Sander's might not have been copying Wolfe and his style so much as he may have been paying homage. Like a cover band that plays some of your favorite tunes, Steve Acho come to mind, but plays them as well or better than the originals.

Over My Dead Body is the first Nero Wolfe book I've ever read and I can guarantee you that it won't be my last. I was sad to learn of the passing of Sander if only cause I loved his writing so much. Any author who can have his character say "needless to say my flabber was gasted" while wearing a puce riding hat, has my esteem and interest. Wolfe does the same but with a slightly more serious tone.

Like Sanders, Wolfe enjoys talking about the food that surrounds his characters and ensures that they occupy a station in life that provides them with the best possible delicacies. I'm impressed with the proclivities with which he imbues his detective. His constant beer drinking, his never leaving the apartment to solve murders, his attention to detail and schedules. For some reason I found myself envisioning Wolfe in the form of Mr. Millet, my high school chemistry teacher.

As a huge fan of analogies, metaphors and similies, I found all of the following particularly fun.

The murder in the story takes place in a fencing gym, I thought the way he used lunge was apropos: "But he clipped off words and lunged with them . . ."

I love the way Archie describes this man and his suit, sums up perfectly the type of man Archie thinks he is, "He was about my age and size with a good pair of light-colored eyes, and a gray suit of a distinctive weave hung on him in a way that made it obvious that fit had not been managed by waving a piece of chalk at a stock job."

At one point Archie was asked by a lawyer to sign a statement. He did, with a nomme de plume, and left this post script. "I am writing to stipulate that a lawyer has a right to live, and I'm aware that even when he's dead no worm will enter his coffin because if it did, he'd make it sign some kind of paper."

Fabulous image in this one, "Twenty men went through that joint like molasses through cheese cloth."

It took me a second to figure out what he meant here, but when I did, I laughed, "I felt a lot like a hard morning at the alphabet piano, no I didn't."

The final confrontation leads with this image of Archie trying to catch the murderer, literally, "I gave it all I had then, but I couldn't catch lightning."

Secondly, I enjoyed the book for the abundance of interesting, and in some cases completely unknown words:

Persiflage - frivolous bantering talk : light raillery

Obloquy - a strongly condemnatory utterance : abusive language

Prate - to talk long and idly : chatter

Eructed - belch

Salver - a tray especially for serving food or beverages

Blatherskite - 1 : a person who blathers a lot 2 : nonsense, blather

In short, I loved the book, and I look forward to the next Nero Wolfe mystery I get to read.

 

It's the Second Line I Like

"Nero Wolfe, behind his desk, sat glaring at the caller in the red leather chair."

Rex Stout - Three for the Chair

Not a great first line. Not that surprising that Wolfe is glaring. It's the second line that makes the reader smile a bit and establishes the tone that fans of Nero Wolfe novels come to expect.

"I was swiveled with my back to my desk, ready with my notebook, not glaring."

Book Review - Under the Andes

I finished reading Under the Andes by Rex Stout. I won’t say that reading it was a complete waste of time, but it came pretty close.

I remember as a child, 1st grader I believe, I wrote a story about a boy who gets lost in a cave. The typical 1st grader pabulum. The kiddo in the story keeps referring to time in strange ways, ie. “it was one noon.” For some reason I thought that “noon” and “o’clock” were interchangeable. The plot was simplistic and plodding. The cave went on and on and never seemed to end. Then, BOOM, the kid finds the way out and the story is over.

Most of the above paragraph about my own story, would fit Under the Andes perfectly.

The only redeeming qualities of the book are that I downloaded it for free onto my Kindle. Apparently even the author knows it’s no good. Secondly, it provides a fun glimpse into the types of stories that must have been the foundation for action heroes of 1930’s film serials. The whole time I read it I couldn’t not think about Indiana Jones and Doc Savage.

Sadly, after the hero’s eighteenth chase through a darkened cave by crazed Incans, even the image of Indiana Jones would be tarnished. Unless you have a lot of time to kill, and don’t mind getting nothing in return for your investment, avoid Under the Andes at all costs. Thank goodness the Nero Wolfe books on the Kindle are $2.99. Seems to suggest they’ll be more worthwhile reads.

Back to an Old Favorite

The title is "Back to an Old Favorite" but can I really say that when it's the son of a favorite?

Whenever I'm casting about for something to read I will commonly go back to the old standards and favorite authors. Go look through this blog and you'll see some of those favorites quite easily. There's Lawrence Sanders (see here), Dick Francis (here), Fredrick Forsyth (here), even some Evanovich (here) and several others. They are safe, secure, you know what you're going to get and it's like walking into a party where you know everyone and there will be some, but not too many, surprises.

This time it's Dick Francis' Damage (buy it here) . . .but it's really by Felix Francis his son. Why is it "Dick Francis' Damage?" Did Dick Francis outline the novel and Felix just complete it? Is he just drawing off the fame and reputation of his father by using his name? (I know, I know . . . it's this . . . but bear with me). Before I continue, let me share with you the first line. I love compiling this list of first lines (see here) and going back and reading them all. This one may be one that I skip over.

I’ve had the test results and the news isn’t good.” 

I couldn’t get the words out of my head. 

I was sitting in the shadows at the back of a race-program kiosk near the north entrance to Cheltenham racetrack, scanning the faces of the crowd as they flooded through the turnstiles. 

I was looking out for any one of the fifty or so individuals who were banned from British racetracks, but my mind kept drifting back to the telephone conversation I’d had that morning with my sister. 

“I’ve had the test results and the news isn’t good.” 

“In what way?” I asked with rising dread.

“It’s cancer,” she said quietly.

Francis, Felix - Dick Francis's Damage

Now, one my suspect that whipping out a word like "cancer" would instantly make for a good first line, but for my money, that could be one of the more boring story openings in existence (that could be hyperbole . . . I still have quite a few more to read).

Now back to Felix. Nothing against my own pops, but I wouldn't want people coming to a train meet that I called "David Hannah's Train Meet" when in effect there was no trace of my father in it. Felix should break out on his own I say. I understand the need to make a living and the desire to continue the work of his father, but have some courage to just call it, Felix Francis' Damage.

Not to mention the fact that as far as books go, his aren't too bad. I don't think they're as solidly good as his father's but they're pretty close (see here). Also, there were some stinker Dick Francis books out there. Felix I hope will one day drop the Dick Francis banner at the top of his books and go fly free on his own.

This is an irksome to me in many ways, not least of which I find Felix not quite as good as his father, but also because of Vincent Lardo. I feel dismayed whenever I go out to read a new Lawrence Sanders book because there are no new ones. His Archy McNally character could be one of my favorite characters ever (despite being a blatant rip off of Archie Goodwin of the Nero Wolf series . . . see here), but there is old Vincent Lardo continuing the series in Sanders' absence.

On the one hand I think it's the height of patheticism to have to use someone else's characters and fame to create your own. On the other hand it sure is nice to have even the semblance of a growing library out there of some of my favorite authors. I'd love to know what others think about this as well.

Reddit vs NaNo Forums

A part of a writing reddit that I enjoy commenting and discussing on had an interesting question the other day. It's fun because the writers in this group are so young and inexperienced. The NaNo forum has experienced and serious writers. Reddit has youth and inexperience. 

One of the redditors asked if it's okay to steal ideas from other novels or authors. 

Book Review: Hard Rain or “Man This Guy is Good”

When I was younger, teenage years, one of my favorite authors was Pat Conroy. I loved reading the Prince of Tides, Lords of Discipline, The Water is Wide and The Great Santini. I thought that Conroy had a lyrical voice and style that was engaging and interesting to read. In college I found the same style in James Dickey of Deliverance fame. Serendipidous then that I have run across Barry Eisler and his John Rain series. Hard Rain in this the second book of Eisler's that I've read and this series of his is easily my favorite series of the moment. His prose, particularly in the first chapters, are incredibly rich and he uses a vocabulary that makes you think. Perfect to read on a Kindle with a dictionary application. The story and plot are gruesome, his main character is an anti-hero, an assassin who although a murderer and killer is out to do good, but the story is wide in scope and has a tight POV that keeps me wanting to read more.

First the vocabulary. A majority of these came in the first thirty pages. Makes me think about all those books on writing where-in they tell you to make the first few chapters as perfect as you can make them. Sadly, the twenty-five cent words trailed off throughout the book.

Demimonde - A class of women kept by wealthy lovers or protectors; women prostitutes considered as a group; a group whose respectability is dubious or whose success is marginal.

Antedeluvian - Of or relating to the period before the flood described in the Bible; made, evolved, or developed a long time ago; extremely primitive or outmoded an antediluvian prejudice.

Ambit - Circuit, compass; the bounds or limits of a place or district; a sphere of action, expression, or influence : scope.

Anodyne - Serving to alleviate pain; not likely to offend or arouse tensions : innocuous.

Solipsistic - A theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : extreme egocentrism.

Amanuensis - One employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript.

Quotidian - Occurring every day; belonging to each day; commonplace, ordinary.

Fulgent - Dazzlingly bright : radiant.

Soporific - Causing or tending to cause sleep, tending to dull awareness or alertness; of, relating to, or marked by sleepiness or lethargy.

Some lines that caught my eye.

First, despite the sometimes lowly descriptions, Eisler, a westerner, describes Tokyo in such a way that I can't wait to go visit it. Here is his description of a cemetery in Tokyo:

"I moved deeper into the comforting gloom, along a stone walkway covered in cherry blossoms that lay like tenebrous snow in the glow of lamplights to either side. Just days earlier, these same blossoms had been celebrated by living Tokyoites, who came here in their drunken thousands to see reflected in the blossom's brief and vital beauty the inherent pathos of their own lives. But now the blossoms were fallen, the revelers departed, even the garbage disgorged by their parties efficiently removed and discarded, and the area was once again given over only to the dead."

Then this:

"Everywhere were metastasizing telephone lines, riots of electric wires, laundry hanging from prefabricated apartment windows like tears from idiot eyes."

Finally, after he has used a disguise to kill someone, the hero, John Rain, gets rid of the elements of his disguise by leaving it for the homeless:

"Within days, perhaps hours, the discarded remnants of this last job would have been bleached of any trace of their origin, each just another nameless, colorless item among nameless colorless souls, the flotsam and jetsam of loneliness and despair that fall from time to time into Tokyo's collective blind spot and from there into oblivion."

I wrote about a Nero Wolfe story I read wherein Archie describes then watches a character continually replace his glasses ontop of his nose. Eventually Archie's narration boils down to nothing more than his saying, "specs again" or "glasses" and the reader knows exactly what the author is referring to. Eisler does a similar thing as Rain watches the people with whom he interacts, in this case catching someone lying, something I've always been intrigued by.

"He glanced to his left, which for most people is a neurolinguistic sign of recall rather than of construction. Had he looked in the opposite direction, I would have read it as a lie."

Then much later all Eisler has to write is the following, and the reader knows what he is referring to:

"He glanced to his right. The glance said, think of something."

Loved reading this book. Not quite as good as the first if only because the reader can tell that the first was meant as a singleton, and this is an expansion of a story that came to a nice tight end with book one. That being said, I look forward to reading the next in the series.

The Imaginary Blonde by Ross MacDonald or The Way Hard Boiled Should Be

I’ve never read a story by Ross MacDonald, but I’ve read one now, and I can guarantee it won’t be the last. As fun as a Nero Wolfe mystery, with just about the same style and aplomb, but with far more of the hard-boiled attitude. It typifies the genre. The Imaginary Blonde took all of one night (maybe two) to read but not because it was too short, it was hard to put down.

I must have dozed for a few minutes. A dream rushed by the threshold of my consciousness, making gentle noises. Death was in the dream. He drove a black Cadillac loaded with flowers. When I woke up, the cigarette was starting to burn my fingers. A thin man in a gray flannel shirt was standing over me with a doubtful look on his face.

I suppose I marked this one for two reasons. First, I really liked the fact that the dream rushed by the threshold of his consciousness and made gentle noises. That seems like an apropos way to describe a dream. Secondly, I like the rat-a-tat-tat way of describing the events of his waking up.

At one point, the protagonist is looking down at a man who has just been shot to death and he says to the reader, “He was rough looking in spite of his anemia.” What a terrific way to say that he was dead. Later on that same page when a lady sees him coming back he says, “Ellas’ welcome was a few degrees colder than absolute zero.” Both of these are so prototypical of the hard-boiled genre it seems to me.

Later the protagonist is being beaten up by the villain, he states:

“The men in the blue serge held me upright by the arms while Gino used my head as a punching bag. I rolled left and rights as well as I could but his timing improved and mine deteriorated.”

It’s the his improved mine deteriorated that caught my attention.

Finally, one last simile. He says:

“Thank God,” he echoed, shaking his fist at her. She retreated like a schooner under full sail, menaced by a gunboat.”

Just the one vocabulary word.

Circassian – Relating to or denoting a group of mainly Sunni Muslim peoples of the Northwest Causcasus.

This was recommended to me by a very good friend and I’m glad that she took the effort. I like hard-boiled mysteries particularly those that remind me of Alfred Hitchcock short stories, that don’t take themselves too seriously, and are quick, fun reads that offer a look into 1950’s era writing. I look forward to more.

Reddit vs NaNo Forums

A part of a writing reddit that I enjoy commenting and discussing on had an interesting question the other day. It's fun because the writers in this group are so young and inexperienced. The NaNo forum has experienced and serious writers. Reddit has youth and inexperience. 

One of the redditors asked if it's okay to steal ideas from other novels or authors. 

It's an intriguing question, and like I said, since it comes from Reddit it's not surprising. You'd never see this question in the NaNo forums. 

The answer is simple, . . . no. The answer is also complex, . . . it depends on what you mean by "steal."

As I read this latest Archy McNally I see so many tie-ins to any Nero Wolff novel (see HERE). The "detectives" in both series are similar, even down to their names. It's obvious that Lawrence Sanders "stole" some of these ideas, but he also made them his own. To what degree is that stealing?

Personally, I'd feel quite flattered if someone took my idea for Vapor Trail and made it their own, maybe put their own twist on it. It happens. It's better to be completely original, but how about taking a good idea and making it more, or making it your own. 

So much of writing is "stealing." The themes are all the same, just retold. Stephen King even talked about this. . . . The Shining is "stealing" a story about a haunted house. Christine is stealing a story about possession. etc etc. Romeo and Juliet's is about star crossed lovers. If I writes something similar is that stealing? 

Silly ole redditors.

Book Review: The Fourth Deadly Sin or Makes Me Wish I Was Older in '86

I just finished Lawrence Sanders' The Fourth Deadly Sin, and basically I loved it as much or more than his other works. I enjoy talking and writing about the books I've read and have a whole series of em on this site (see here), but this one takes a bit of a different turn in that the cover design plays a significant part.

 I've never hidden my love for Sanders' writing (see here). I'm a McNally fanatic (though I don't do Lardo), and I'm really enjoying going back and reading Sanders' older stuff (see here and here). The Fourth Deadly Sin was published in 1986 which makes me with I'd been a better reader when he was producing these things.

The first I heard about Sanders was back in the early 2000's when my Uncle told me about him. I started reading the McNally series, if only because it was the easiest to find at the half price book place. I still remember that first McNally book I read and how I thought Archie was such a fun character. Sure, I've since found out he's a bit of a rip off from Rex Stout's Archie Goodwin from the Nero Wolf books, but Sanders brings his own flair to Archy McNally. Who can't love a fellow who wears a puce beret to go investigate.

Still, as much as I liked the McNally books, I think I like this earlier stuff first. After my first, and so far only trip to New York City this past fall, reading bout 1970's and early 80's New York is fun. Secondly I enjoy the fact that each book has a new character and a new angle. Recently so many authors and series are only considered if there's a viable character for multiple books. I enjoy the fact that Dick Francis and Sanders didn't conform in that way. Naturally I'm trying to emulate them with my books (see here and here).

The Fourth Deadly Sin was just as good as Sanders' other earlier works and makes me want to read more. That being said I did have one difficulty. Why is this cover decorated with a claw hammer? The murder takes place, Sanders makes a big point of this, with a ball-peen hammer, not a claw hammer. Having just finished a foray into cover design, successfully I believe (see here and above), didn't the cover designer care about accuracy? Or is a claw hammer just a bit more murderous looking than a ball-peen? Then again are covers that feature a couple of people running particularly murderous looking?

Regardless, if that's my primary complaints, Sanders should be quite happy.