Crashed

When it comes to crime fiction, writers generally choose between telling their story through the eyes of either the criminal being pursued or the one primarily responsible for catching him.  Or occasionally, generally via alternating chapters, readers are offered both points of view - an approach that works remarkably well to create and maintain a high level of tension that peaks when pursuer and pursued finally come together.  Timothy Hallinan's new Junior Bender series, of which Crashed is book number one, takes the first approach.

Junior Bender is one damn fine burglar, a thirty-six-year-old man who has been successfully breaking into houses since he was fourteen without ever having been caught.  When it comes to breaking and entering, Junior is a pro's pro.  He only works two or three times a month, never gets greedy, and knows exactly what he will be able to move safely on the street.  So when a cop is waiting for him as he exits his latest job, Junior is truly and honestly surprised.  He is even more surprised to learn that he has been set up by criminals every bit as street smart as him, criminals willing to blackmail him into doing something for them he wants nothing to do with.

Trey Annunziato, a notorious Los Angeles mobster, wants Junior to work as a private investigator on the set of a pornographic movie the mob is bankrolling.  Someone wants badly to make sure that the film never happens, and each day lost is costing the mob boss almost $25,000 in sunk costs.  When Junior learns that the star of the film is the dope-addled, grown-up version of one of America's most beloved child television stars of the previous decade, he finds himself sympathizing with the aims of the saboteur he supposed to stop.  What is a decent criminal to do?

Timothy Hallinan

Readers familiar with Timothy Hallinan's Poke Rafferty thrillers (the Bangkok books) know that the author fills his thrillers with well-developed characters that are as much fun as the tight spots his heroes get themselves into and out of.  If Crashed is any indication, the Junior Bender series continues that Hallinan tradition.  Junior has a network of friends he can call upon when he needs a special skill or just another pair of hands, and unfortunately for him, he has at least one sworn enemy in the LAPD who would love nothing better than to put Junior away for a long, long time - if he cannot coerce Junior into sharing the wealth with him first.

Bottom Line:  Crashed is a fun way to begin what promises to be another great crime series from a trusted author.  This one is a wild ride that, despite the overall sadness of the story it tells, will keep the reader chuckling throughout.  Junior Bender is just that kind of guy - and, frankly, it's a lot of fun rooting for a bad guy with a heart.

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

The Book Thief - Movie Trailer

I'm excited about this one.  

Now I hope that my high hopes about the film's quality and loyalty to one of my favorite novels of the past few years is not just setting me up for a huge letdown.  




After watching the trailer, my biggest concern is the absence of the narrator's voice.  As fans of the book will remember, The Book Thief is narrated by Death himself. I hope that the film does not ignore this aspect of the story because that voice is one of the things that makes The Book Thief so special.

Big Brother

Big Brother is my first exposure to a Lionel Shriver novel.  My first impression, one that hardly changed for most of the book, was that Shriver is a good storyteller who populates her novels with a cast of interesting, well-developed characters.  Her characters, flawed human beings that they are, are all the more realistic because making them “likable” is not a goal - rather, Shriver wants the reader to understand and remember them. I had a feeling that I would be exploring Shriver’s earlier work soon.

And then it happened.  I reached the book’s final few pages and got a surprise that made me see Lionel Shriver and Big Brother very differently.  It was one of those “aha moments” that made me realize there was a lot more going on here than I thought.

Successful businesswoman Pandora Halfdanarson has made a nice life for herself in Iowa where she lives with her husband and his two teen-aged children.  Pandora, who spent summers in the area with her grandparents when she was a child, enjoys the relative simplicity of her lifestyle there.  Her big brother, however, has taken the opposite approach with his own life.  Edison, a talented jazz pianist, enthusiastically adopted his television-actor father’s screen-name, becoming Edison Appaloosa in the process, and moved to New York City to make his name.  And, especially to hear him tell it, Edison has done quite well there.

But, as Pandora learns when Edison pays her a long-delayed family visit, all is not as it seems.  The handsome brother she expects to collect at the airport is nowhere to be found.  Instead, Pandora finds a morbidly obese version of Edison she barely recognizes as her brother.  Edison is so big that, strictly for the convenience of complaining passengers, he has been carted to baggage claim in a wheelchair.  When she gets him home to her family, Pandora and her husband are dismayed to find that all of Edison’s numerous bad habits have grown in proportion to the rest of him.  He is the houseguest from hell.

Lionel Shriver

Big Brother is most obviously about the obese and how they are perceived and treated by others – despite the fact that obesity is so common in this country.  Shriver’s portrayal of their self-esteem problems and physical limitations is blunt; she does not shy away from any aspect of their daily lives, including cleanliness issues.  She is equally blunt about the callous reaction to the grotesquely overweight that so many of us do not even try to hide from “big” people when we see them.  But that is just the beginning of what Lionel Shriver wants to say.  Big Brother is also about family loyalty, bad parenting, personal courage, blind love, depression, dieting, and chasing fame for fame’s sake.

And then there’s that surprise that I can’t tell you about. 

Bottom Line:  This one, particularly because of one or two memorable scenes, might not be for everyone, but those who stay with it will most likely consider themselves to have been well rewarded for the effort.

Elmore Leonard Dead at 87

(Uncredited New York Times Photo)

Hearing of Elmore Leonard’s death this morning is another reminder of just how short life is – and how the older one gets, the quicker time seems to scream past.  Admittedly, the man’s output slowed down a bit when he reached his eighties, and some would argue that his best work was long behind him, but few could argue that Elmore Leonard was still a player, a solid presence, in the world of books, film, and television. 

I have been reading Elmore Leonard since the mid-seventies when 52 Pick-Up caught my eye in a little used-book store.  The dialogue in that book, and in every other Elmore Leonard novel I have ever read, was so realistic that I continued to jump on every new title of his I came across.  He became part of my small group of “go-to” authors; writers I trusted never to let me down no matter what direction their writing might take.  Sure, I enjoyed some Elmore Leonard books more than others, but I never felt cheated by one of them.

For years, I thought of Elmore Leonard as a paperback writer because I was fast accumulating a closet full of his novels in that format.  That image didn’t change for me until Leonard finally hit the national consciousness and his hardback titles began to sell in numbers equal to what he had been selling in the cheaper format.  I suppose, deep down, he will always be one of my paperback guys – those writers I could buy cheap during the years I could only dream of spending hardback money on anyone no matter how much I admired their writing.

But the two Elmore Leonard books I most prize today both turned out to be hardcovers.  One is called Dutch Treat and includes three relatively early novels of Leonard’s: The Hunted, Swag, and Mr. Majestyk.  The other is a self-explanatorily titled book called The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard.  There are thirty stories in the collection, the earliest of which were written at a time Leonard was selling his stories at the rate of two cents a word and netted him about $100 each.  One of the best things about the collection is that the endpapers are illustrated by the covers of all the 1950s magazines that published the stories, magazines such as: Argosy, The Saturday Evening Post, Western Story, Zane Grey’s Western, Dime Western, and Ten Story Western Magazine.

As happens when one grows older, I am fast losing all the heroes and positive influences of my youth.  Elmore “Dutch” Leonard was among those who made my short list and, while I will miss the anticipation of what he will write next, he will live on in my memory – and the lifetime of superb work he left behind will keep him alive forever. 

Thanks, “Dutch,” for the memories.

Sandra Boynton's Got Frog Trouble

Sandra Boynton is best known as the successful author of a long series of humorous books aimed at very young children such as the ones shown below: 

Boynton, however, has also just produced her fifth album of songs that are aimed at children of all ages - and as its cover indicates, this one is actually for "ages one to older than dirt."  And, a quick look at the list of recording artists who participated in this project leads me to believe that the claim is a true.  

This is the video that sold me (it doesn't hurt that it's the song by one of my favorite "country" singers in the world, Dwight Yoakam):

Frog Trouble, Boynton's first venture into the country music genre, is scheduled for a September 3 release.

The Other Typist

Suzanne Rindell’s The Other Typist, the author’s debut novel, is a highly atmospheric book set in New York City in the midst of the Roaring Twenties.  As seen through the eyes of Rose Baker, the book’s narrator, however, nothing much is really happening.  Certainly, for Rose, a young police stenographer who was raised by nuns in an orphanage, this is pretty much the case.

Rose sees herself as somewhat of a groundbreaker when it comes to women in the workplace.  As one of the few women working so directly with the NYPD, she takes pride in her ability to stomach even the goriest details contained in the confessions she transcribes for the official record each day. But at the end of the workday, she is content to haul herself back to her boardinghouse, where she shares a room with a rather unlikable young woman, for dinner and another evening of reading.  Rose Baker is a sober, responsible young woman vey much formed by her childhood. 

Everything, though, changes the day that Odalie, a beautiful and charismatic young typist, joins the office pool.  Be it for entirely different reasons, Rose is as taken with the new girl as are any of the men in the department, and she almost immediately begins plotting subtle ways to gain Odalie’s attention – and, ultimately, her friendship.  As the story progresses, and Rose, Rindell’s  narrator, reveals more about herself, what she is able to learn about Odalie’s past, and the unusual nature of their evolving friendship, it seems more and more likely that none of this can end well.  Now it becomes more a question of how badly damaged Rose will be by the process of reaching that end. 

Suzanne Rindell

But it is precisely at this point that The Other Typist becomes something other than what the reader has come to expect. Rindell shows us that she has more than one pitch in her arsenal.  She, as it turns out, also has a pretty decent changeup, and she saves it for exactly the moment she has her readers expecting just another fastball.

Bottom Line: This one, although it begins rather slowly, soon enough becomes enough of a mystery to keep readers turning the page.  Rindell’s writing is likely to remind readers of some of the genre’s masters – but this might be seen as a bit of a negative when the book’s ending leaves the reader with at least a sense of déjà vu.