Forgotten Books: Markham – Lawrence Block

 Forgotten Books, Lawrence Block, mystery fiction, TV tie-ins  Comments Off
Apr 192013
 
This post originally appeared in slightly different form on April 20, 2007. My apologies for all the reruns. I just haven't had much time to read lately.


This is a book I’ve had on my shelves for many years, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. It’s a tie-in novel, based on a short-lived series that ran on NBC in 1959 and 1960, starring Ray Milland as New York-based private eye Roy Markham. Now, if Ray Milland isn’t exactly your idea of a hardboiled private eye, well, I feel pretty much the same way. Maybe a lot of other people did, too, and that’s why the series didn’t last long. This novel didn’t come out until 1961, after the TV series was over. I guess Belmont had it in inventory already and decided to go ahead and throw it out there. Lawrence Block wasn’t a big name at the time, so that wasn’t the reason (as it probably was a few years ago when this novel was reissued under the title YOU COULD CALL IT MURDER, with no mention of the TV series or its original Belmont edition).

As for the book itself, it’s pretty standard PI stuff. As a favor to a friend, Markham takes on a wandering daughter job. The girl has disappeared from the fancy private university she attends in New Hampshire. Markham starts investigating and then gets roped into what seems to be a completely different case – but you know the jobs will wind up being connected, and sure enough they are. There’s a lot of small-town college scenes, some late Fifties/early Sixties hipster stuff, a suicide that might be murder, some other deaths that are definitely murder, blackmail, gangsters, and lots of drinking and smoking. Everybody in this book spends a lot of time taking out cigarettes, lighting up cigarettes, putting out cigarettes, etc. Markham gets hit on the head and knocked out. Eventually he untangles everything and exposes the killer, of course.

Not surprisingly, despite the generic plot Block’s use of language is excellent, as always. Even though this book came early in his career, he could already put sentences together in a consistently interesting and entertaining fashion. I didn’t really see anything in this book that was a precursor for, say, the Matt Scudder books. (There is a minor character named Keller, however.) It’s worth reading, although it’s not on the same level as his other early books that have been reissued by Hard Case Crime.

Out the Window (Matt Scudder) by Lawrence Block

 Lawrence Block, Matt Scudder, Review  Comments Off
Mar 272013
 
It's really cool that Amazon.com gives us the chance to read short stories like these. Originally from 1977 I think this might be the first Matt Scudder short story published when it first came out.
In 1977 Scudder was still an unlicensed investigator, drinking his coffee mixed with booze and a real loner. He's hired to find out if Paula Wittlauer really jumped from her window, committing suicide or if it was murder.
We are treated to a compact little mystery that hits all the right notes. It's not a masterpiece or very original but it is very entertaining. It made me all nostalgic for this incarnation of Matt Scudder and ready for the movie adaption of A Walk Among the Tombstones.

“Crime fiction weaves its tale in the threshold between right and wrong, just and unjust, good and…”

 Crime Fiction, Faith, Lawrence Block, Lit, Religion  Comments Off
Mar 112013
 
“Crime fiction weaves its tale in the threshold between right and wrong, just and unjust, good and evil. It is because of its naked confrontation with philosophy and ethics, and its depiction of drifters, confidence men, femme fatales, petty criminals, serial killers, and agents of the law beset by iniquity and caught in the web of moral turpitude, that it is so effectively and naturally able to deal with doubt, faith, and the inner combat of spiritual warfare.”

- The Daily Beast finds much fodder for exploring religious faith in the crime genre, specifically citing Lawrence Block and Michael Connelly. Very interesting.

gq: For five decades, Lawrence Block has been writing about…

 Hit Me, Keller, Lawrence Block  Comments Off
Feb 122013
 


gq:

For five decades, Lawrence Block has been writing about underworlds. Wealthy back-stabbers, the brotherhood of the criminal class, and hard-living souls who somehow inhabit their middlegrounds. Gentlemanly criminals. Ex-cops who drink too much. Dubiously-employed private investigators. They sound like cliché detective novel characters only because Block has so masterfully shaped the genre over the last 50 years. His new novel “Hit Me” finds a New Orleans builder collecting stamps, playing Dad, and trying hard to forget a past he knows isn’t done with him. When work dries up and the call comes from New York …  well, look at the title. Out today. —COLE LOUISON

You heard the mag: Out today!

Grift Magazine interviews Lawrence Block

 Grift Magazine, Hit Me, Keller, Lawrence Block, philate, Stamp Collecting, Stamps  Comments Off
Feb 082013
 
Grift: With Hit Me, you focus much more on Keller’s philately than in previous books, using it to really drive large parts of the plot. Was there a conscious thought that you had brought readers along enough with the previous books that they would be ready for this full immersion?
Block: I haven’t had a conscious thought in years, John. It just seemed logical that stamps would become more and more of his life. Unconsciously, I was surely aware of the positive reception the books have been getting among philatelists, and the absence of objections to the stamp stuff from others. But I don’t know to what extent that was a factor.
Grift: I must admit, I had little knowledge or interest in stamp collecting before reading the Keller books, but now I’m at least intrigued. Is recruiting people to the hobby a fringe benefit to the series (or a detriment, as now you may have more competition for stamps)?
Block: Some readers have reported a return to a childhood passion for stamps after making Keller’s acquaintance, and like every collector, I’m happy to see our ranks increase. (I don’t think anybody worries about competition.) What has struck me is the overlap of stamp collectors and crime fiction fans. Who knew?

Review of Weasels Ripped My Flesh

 Harlan Ellison, Lawrence Block, Mario Puzo, men's mags, Robert F. Dorr, Robert Silverberg, short story anthologies, Walter Wager, Weasels Ripped My Flesh  Comments Off
Feb 072013
 
Or actually a review of half of it. I wrote a review of this collection of stories from vintage men's magazines for a Finnish cultural magazine and I asked the published if I could see a PDF of the book in advance, since I wouldn't have had time to buy the book via web and wait for the copy to arrive. And I haven't had time since to read the rest of the book, but I definitely will when I've got some extra money to order the print book.

Okay, to the book. I posted the table of contents earlier, now I read the first half of the book and some extra stories. My reaction to the stories was somewhat mixed: the concept of the stories is often better than the execution. (Well, who didn't know that already..?) The idea of half-crazed Nazis torturing gorgeous and half-naked women in the castles of Germany is always good fun, but as far as the stories go, I'm not sure whether I'd care to read lots of them. One here and there is passable, but dozens of these...?

There are some good writers and good stories in the bunch, make no mistake about that. Robert Silverberg's crazy "Trapped by Mau Mau" (Exotic Adventures 1959) is a very good hardboiled adventure story, even though it's racist as hell. Robert F. Dorr's "Bayonet Killer of Heartbreak Ridge" (Man's Magazine 1964) is very well told, a snappy true-war story set in the Korean War. Harlan Ellison's "Death Climb" (True Men Stories 1957) is just a crime story, there's nothing about it to claim it's a true story, but it's pretty good - noir set on a mountain!

There were some disappointments: Lawrence Block's "She Doesn't Want You" (Real Men 1958), which is a rather bland account of prostitutes who are really lesbians. This wouldn't do as journalism anymore, even though I'm willing to admit that today's journalism at times resembles the vintage men's magazines very much. They might only do it better today. Same goes for Walter Wager's "Please God, Help Me Break Out" (Male 1958), which just tells what happened to a famous soldier (forgot the name already, sorry!) during the WWII. Jim McDonald's (real identity unknown) story has a great title: "Grisly Rites of Hitler's Monster Flesh Stripper" (Man's Story 1965), but it's actually a quite bland "re"-telling of odd incidents. You would think a writer would want to pepper these stories with some narrative hooks, but that clearly wasn't the case. And it has not enough sadism! By 2013, the teasing element has somewhat worn out. (Someone might say of course that's sad, but that's the way it goes.)

There were also stories by Bruce Jay Friedman (oddly humorous piece about a tiger in a zoo trying to eat another tiger in another cage) and Walter Kaylin (weird story about an exotic dancer acting as a tribal chief in the darkest Africa) that were of interest. The book is also spiced up by interviews with Wager and Mario Puzo, but unfortunately no story by Puzo. Wager's interview is more interesting (albeit too short!) than his story.

There are more books coming out from New Texture and I'm all for it, though I was a bit critical on this. I'll be reading the rest of the book one of these days and I'll also blog about it. Meanwhile you can take a look here.

Hit Me – Lawrence Block

 Lawrence Block, mystery fiction  Comments Off
Feb 042013
 

If you were to ask me, I'd probably say that I don't care much for books about hitmen. But at the same time, I've read all of Lawrence Block's books about Keller and thoroughly enjoyed every one of them, including the latest, HIT ME, which will be out in a couple of weeks.

On the surface, Keller is retired, living in New Orleans with his wife and daughter, working at an honest job renovating houses, and enjoying his hobby of stamp collecting. Not surprisingly, though, his old profession lures him back in, and he finds himself taking assignments again from his former handler Dot. As usual, these jobs take him all over the country and sometimes out of it.

HIT ME is made up of four loosely connected novellas, "Keller in Dallas", "Keller's Homecoming" (which takes him back to New York City), "Keller at Sea" (his target is on a cruise ship), and "Keller's Sideline" (in which his stamp collecting hobby becomes an actual business of sorts), plus a short story, "Keller's Obligation", which is probably my favorite because it puts a very interesting new twist on the series. These stories are all smoothly plotted, of course, and as has been said before, nobody writes a better sentence than Lawrence Block. There's also a lot of stuff about stamp collecting in the stories, and even though I have zero interest in that subject, Block makes it fascinating anyway. The addition of Keller's wife Julia, who knows what he really does for a living, has made him a deeper and more sympathetic character, which if anything makes the contrast between his home life and his professional life even more interesting. You can't help but like Keller, even when you know maybe you shouldn't.

This is a fine book and I really enjoyed it. It's not necessary to have read the others in the series to appreciate this one, so if you haven't made Keller's acquaintance yet this is a good place to start. If you're read the other books, you'll certainly want to read this one, too. Highly recommended.

 Older Entries

Switch to our mobile site