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Archive for Hardboiled

Already Dead

Dec13

Title: Already Dead

Author: Charlie Huston

Genre: Hardboiled Vampire

Length: 288 pages

Read: Dec 1 – Dec 9, 2011

Summary: Good hardboiled fun

_

Already dead is a contemporary New York take on the vampire myth, mated with, and steeped in the tradition of hardboiled crime fiction. Crucial to the hardboiled style, established by such masters as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, is the voice. Huston may be writing decades later but from the first few pages it’s obvious that he’s highly adept at the hardboiled voice. The novel is written in a lean mean first person present, unsentimental, even stripped of all dialog tagging (this last goes too far and it’s sometimes hard to tell who is speaking).

The protagonist is a vampyre (I don’t normally use the ‘y’ but this book does), and he’s also a sort of private dick for the seedy supernatural side of the Manhattan underworld. Huston’s vampires are not obviously supernatural, but the product of a Vyrus (his spelling). The narrator is very specific on the pros, cons, and lifestyle choices required to “live” with the Vyrus. This is no small part of the story’s appeal. The plot, is modeled after the hardboiled classics. He protag is hired to find someone. Several forces all have a steak in the outcome. The protag gets beat up a lot. There’s twisted sex wound up in the reveal.

This may be formula, but the execution is top notch and the ride well worth it.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Dead Beautiful
  2. Better Off Dead
  3. The Postman Always Rings Twice
  4. Storm Front
  5. The Big Sleep
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Already dead, Book Review, Charlie Huston, Fiction, Hardboiled, New York, Novel, Vyrus

Storm Front

Aug08

Title: Storm Front

Author: Jim Butcher

Genre: Paranormal Noir

Length: 384 pages, 87,100 words

Read: July 5-7, 2011

Summary: Fun read, decent noir redux.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This novel has the amusing premise of taking the straight up traditional noir detective novel, like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep, and giving it a modern paranormal spin. Now it isn’t the first book to do this, Laurell K. Hamilton‘s Anita Blake series is more or less on this model, but Butcher clearly read his source material.

It begins with the detective (ahem… wizard) in his office, and the case initiated by the lip chewing lady. Lets first address the success of this book as a piece of entertainment, then we’ll get into it’s loyalty to it’s sources. The book works. It’s a very fun read, catches you early on with the voice, and moves along at a good clip. I’d have sworn it was 250 pages and not 384. It has it’s flaws, but it’s fundamentally a good piece of entertainment. Compare to the somewhat similar Dead Witch Walking which I started recently but stopped halfway.

The voice is fun. Hardboiled, but not nearly as much as Dashiell Hammett‘s masterpiece upon which it seems loosely modeled. Harry Dresden (the wizard/detective protagonist) is observant and engaging, but he lets you know through interior monologue what he thinks about the situation. True hard boiled only implies or tells just a little. They remain much more oblique in terms of the character’s inner life, despite being first person. Now given that there’s a lot of magic and supernature creatures in Storm Front, being upfront probably helped the clarity. Even if it did occasionally leave me with a tiny feeling of too much TELL. The prose is pretty witty too — again not Hammett witty — but good, and very clear.

The characters varied from excellent (Harry, Bob, the mob boss) to just fine. The villain was kind of weak. Actually more than kind of weak. Fairly cardboard. Morgan (the memory of the White Wizard’s council who watches our hero) was a paper thin twerp too. The plot had plenty of good elements, and moved like lightning, although at times it felt contrived to keep Harry in maximum jeopardy. There seemed no reason he shouldn’t have trusted his police partner a bit more, as the only thing doing so would have cost him is a lot of worry and a whole lot of bruises.

The magic system and supernatural creatures were good too. Handled with a deft brevity as this book has plenty of creatures: vampires, fairies, wizards, etc. but they didn’t bother me — and I’m picky here. Although only the amusing little fairy stood out. A lot (like the vampire) were used jump because. The feel of many elements, like the potions and the fairies, was a bit tongue and cheek, but fit.

True to it’s noir roots, the book is pretty dark, with grisly murders and (off screen) sex. But by being supernatural, and more importantly campy, it looses that black edged moral ambiguity that the best classic noir had, making it just a fun read, free of any real comment on the human condition.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. The Big Sleep
  2. The Postman Always Rings Twice
  3. The Maltese Falcon
  4. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  5. Before I Fall
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Anita Blake, Big Sleep, Book Review, Book Reviews, Dashiell Hammett, Dead Witch Walking, Fiction, Hardboiled, Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Maltese Falcon, Novel, Raymond Chandler, Storm Front, Storm Front (novel)

The Big Sleep

Jun09

Title: The Big Sleep

Author: Raymond Chandler

Genre: Crime Noir

Length: 234 pages

Read: May 27-31, 2011

Summary: Slick and stylish.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Continuing my between the wars “hard-boiled” novel kick, I followed up on The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon with The Big Sleep.

The novel is very much influenced by Dashiell Hammett‘s classic. It shares the atmospheric quality, complex plot, moral ambiguity, and dark wit.  Stylistically The Big Sleep has slightly more straightforward and less quirky prose. It’s a little more wry, a little less over the top than the earlier novel. Both have extremely compelling voices and stark style. The lean irony of the narrator in the The Maltese Falcon gives way to the dark cynicism of Sleep‘s Marlowe and his first person voice. “If you can weigh one hundred and ninety pounds and look like a fairy, I was doing my best,” is a typical zinger. The dialog is fantastic, although not as oblique and contrary as in Falcon. It’s a little more natural.

Marlowe is more likable and less belligerent than Sam Spade, although they’re both minted from the same cool-cucumber tough guy template. The plot is involved, and to tell the truth even having seen the movie twice, I had no idea until the end what Marlowe was digging at with his investigation of Vivian’s missing husband. Occasionally some bits of action took me for a loop too, requiring that I reread them to find out exactly what happened. But these are minor complaints. The book really is great. Marlowe’s compelling voice pulling you through at breakneck pace. But at the backbone for me was the sinister portrait of pre-war L.A. While visually tame by today’s jaded standards, this is a dark book, with realistic characters. The movie is forced by 40s standards to gloss or smooth over many of these darker elements, but the novel exposes them for what they are.

I do have to say that these hard boiled detectives are awfully confident in their ability to read dangerous situations!

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. The Maltese Falcon
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Big Sleep, Book Review, Crime Noir, Dashiell Hammett, Fiction, Film noir, Hardboiled, Maltese Falcon, Novel Review, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler, Sam Spade, The Big Sleep

The Postman Always Rings Twice

May18

Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice

Author: James M. Cain

Genre: Crime Noir

Length: 116 pages

Read: May 15-16, 2011

Summary: Taut.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

For my second novel I’ve been trying to adopt a sort of hardboiled style, even though it isn’t a crime or a noir. So I figured I go back to the beginning and read some of the classics.

This 1934 novella just breezes on by. The first half (act I) is like watching a train wreck unfold. I greedily devoured the setup. Seedy drifter, sexy unhappy wife, and loser older husband. Plus it’s a crime novel. You know things aren’t going to end up good. The style here is lean and mean. It feels fully modern, dated perhaps only by certain phrases and actually it’s utter bare bones quality, devoid of really deliberate voice. My only complaint here was that it’s so sparse on dialogue tags that I often got confused as to who said what and had to back up and count. That’s too few tags.

Not that it detracted much. So then mid book, the crime itself happens (not counting the aborted first attempt) and the gears shift a bit into legal territory. This middle section I found had a bit too much “tell.” It breezed along, but it reminded me of the second half of The Magician. Then we get to the third act. This was back more to the mater-a-fact what happens, but it did feel a little fast, perhaps resorting to a bit too much forced plotting.

Still, I enjoyed the book immensely, and it seems best as I can tell the blueprint for countless crime stories where greed/lust/whatever drives everyone to an inevitable bad end. Some great movie entries in this genre would be Body Heat, A Simple Plan, or the very recent The Square.

Another interesting thing about this story is not only could you set it in any era, but the exact text could pretty much serve from 1920 through to present day. The only difference now would be cell phones and better police investigatory techniques.

By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Body Heat, Book Review, Book Reviews, books, Crime fiction, Fiction, Hardboiled, James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce, Novel, Postman Always Rings Twice
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