Hard Case Crime; Great Voices, Great Stories

I have read about 50 of the Hard Case Crime titles. This independent publisher started out by bringing back stories and authors from the heyday of noir fiction and pulp paperbacks. As they grew as a publisher they also grew in reputation, and were able to start offering brand new books by new authors as well as unpublished gems by bigger names.

Donald Westlake was one of the bigger names. His 1969 copyrighted "Somebody Owes Me Money" is a screwball comedy of a crime novel. It's also a great time-capsule picture of life in New York City as lived by the natives back in the old days.The copyright says 1969, but the only touch of the '60's is in the character of a woman who has moved from New York to Las Vegas where she lives as a single woman and works as a blackjack dealer. I'll leave it up to you to decide if this is a product of '60's feminism.

This cabbie and hos friends all gamble, too. In fact, in the early part of the book he wins $900, which he needs to collect from his bookie. He goes to his bookie's apartment and finds the man's dead body. He gets embroiled in the murder investigation and a case of mistaken identity. A number of parties are convinced he is the murderer and they all want to know why. As madness swirls all around him, he never forgets the central fact: somebody still owes him $900!

This is a great comic novel by a great storyteller. There is plenty of action, there are some great characters, and there is an ending worthy of Agatha Christie, as the murderer is revealed. The revelation takes place in a room where the suspects are gathered, all members of a twice-weekly poker game, with our hero the cabbie explaining everything to his amazed poker buddies.

The book is a madcap cab ride through a New York City that is long gone, in an epic freezing winter. There is a shootout on a train, on a fire escape, a chase scene in the snowy suburbs and several cases of mistaken identity. While the book contains almost no pop-culture reference it feels like the early '60's. All the same, it could be made into a movie today, set in present time. Seth Rogen would be great in it.

Another Hard case Crime novel I re-read recently is "Money Shot" by Christa Faust. This book could not be further away from the Westlake novel mentioned above, but it is a great story by another natural storyteller. It is set in our own time, in our world as seen by a former porn star who now runs a talent agency for porn actresses. Again, there is a strong theme of mistaken identity but this book is no comedy. An unusual set of circumstances plunges Angel Dare, the protagonist, into the world of organized crime. They are convinced Angel has a suitcase of their money and the cops are convinced she is a murderess. She must race against time and her pursuers to find the suitcase and clear her name. And get revenge. Things do not turn oput as expected and the final twists and turns make for a story that will stay with you long after the reading is done.

Hard Case Crime produces paperbacks and they are proud of their lurid painted covers, as they should be. Each cover is a work of pulp fiction art, and they grace the covers of some of the best genre titles being written and published today.

Review of "Gunsights" by Elmore Leonard

I have never read a bad Elmore Leonard book. First published in 1979, this is one of his Westerns. Leonard started out on Westerns; when he was a fledgling novelist the Western was the leading genre for several media. He distingquished himself early and often.

The title of Gunsights is pretty lame. This book could have had any number of titles that would have served it better, but that doesn't seem to mattter in the long run. This is still a good book, the characterizations, plotting and settings perfectly and economically depicted. Leonard does everything he can to keep the story from getting too exciting or action-packed. He opts instead for a naturalistic tone and while there are shootouts and romances and adventures, he keeps knocking the pace down into an everyday reality of American life in the 1880's. It is one of the most amazing things about the book; he knows when to build and when to tamp it down.

The last one-third of the book focuses on the main events, a showdown that excites the media. The media, represented here by newspapermen, photographers and even a Wild West showman, are busy mythologizing the Wild West as fast as it happens. The protagonists of the book started out as tough honbres, resourceful, brave and deadly good shots. They are larger than life. By the time the final scenes are getting underway they come across as relics of a previous time. Larry McMurtry has mentioned that the Old West and the epic cattle drives and buffalo hunts all happened within a couple of generations and that one long life could have encompassed all of the Old West time period. Many of those who lived through it also saw it fade away in front of their eyes. That's really what this book is about, and it turns a genre book into a history lesson and leaves us with a couple of vivid characters that we wish we could have spent more time with.