2.5 – 3 stars (I hope Dan and Kemper don’t throw me out of the noir club before I even get in!)
I feel as though I ought to have liked _Red Harvest_ mo2.5 – 3 stars (I hope Dan and Kemper don’t throw me out of the noir club before I even get in!)
I feel as though I ought to have liked _Red Harvest_ more than I did. After all it was written by Dashiell Hammett, one of the fathers of noir fiction (perhaps more famous for The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man) and, like many of his books, became the source for numerous (often excellent) film adaptations. It has an interestingly conflicted protagonist and is chock full of killing, double crosses, deception, and shoot-outs, but somehow it didn’t fully hold together for me. Our story details the entanglements entered into by the character known only as “the Continental Op” (due to the fact that he is an operative working for the Continental Detective Agency out of San Francisco, a veiled nod to Hammett’s own days working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency). The Op was a character featured in many of Hammett’s short stories, but I believe this was the only novel featuring him (though it was originally published in serial form). The Op himself is in many ways the prototypical noir protagonist: hard-boiled, not averse to violence, and ready with a quip when the occasion warrants; on the other hand he is no dashing detective able to make the dames swoon, for he’s described as overweight, middle-aged, and generally ugly in appearance. He’s a man who will do what it takes to get the job done, whether that means manhandling his clients into agreeing with his methods, lying to all and sundry in order to get the information he needs, or joining in on some endeavours not strictly legal in their methods and intentions if it will get him in good with the people he needs to bamboozle. All in all, the Op is a real piece of work…though he’s someone you’d probably rather have on your side than against it (the trick is knowing when he’s genuine about his partnership, even some of his compatriots from the Agency aren’t sure of this).
In this tale the Op finds himself in the town of Personville, aptly named Poisonville by all and sundry, one of those little burgs that got itself under the thumb of a domineering and greedy ‘patriarch’ who subsequently had to relinquish some control to various crooked cops, gamblers and boozerunners in order to keep things going. Now the patriarch’s son (who for reasons unknown had asked the Op to come to town) has been murdered and his pop wants revenge. Enter the Op who decides this town needs a change of management and upgrades his assignment from finding a murderer to cleaning out the sewer that is Poisonville. The Op proceeds to get the lay of the land and inveigle himself into every criminal nook and cranny he can, cannily playing off each faction against the other, planting seeds of doubt (both true and manufactured) in the right ears and hoping to be able to simply step back and watch the fireworks. Things turn out to be a little more complicated for the Op than he had hoped and start to look very bleak indeed for our “hero” up until the very end.
This tale of a stranger coming to a corrupt town and proceeding to clean up by playing one side against the other is a great set-up (perhaps most effectively portrayed in film in Kurasawa’s Yojimbo, but also used in A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing to name but a few), but I just wasn’t totally sucked in by the book. I think D_Davis nailed it in his review with the observation that this book was just longer than it needed to be (not surprising considering it was originally published serially). The twisted plot of lying and deception could probably have been pared down, and tightened up as a result, and I therefore found that some points sagged a bit. The Op is an interesting character though, someone who is world-weary and damaged enough to be willing to do whatever is deemed pragmatically ‘necessary’ regardless of how dirty it might be, and yet at the same time you can tell that he wishes the world wasn’t thus and he wants to be the 'good guy'…whatever that might ultimately mean to him. I plan on eventually checking out his further adventures as well as some of Hammett’s other more famous noir tales. I just wish I had been blown away by this one....more
Wouldn’t it be great to be a cop in Gotham City? I mean the Bat would pretty much take down anything serious leaving you more time with y3 – 3.5 stars
Wouldn’t it be great to be a cop in Gotham City? I mean the Bat would pretty much take down anything serious leaving you more time with your coffee and doughnuts, right? Well, as this comic series from Ed Brubaker shows: not so much. It appears that Bats is a whacko-magnet and given that he’s only human (despite what editorial fiat from the DC offices may pretend in the storylines they approve) that means that there are a ton of crazy psychopaths with either superpowers or the military hardware of an advanced alien civilization who have a point to prove or score to settle who mark Gotham as stop #1 on their magical mystery tour and even if the caped crusader nabs half of them before they commit too many lethal crimes it still leaves more than any three police forces can handle running rampant in the city.
This comic had a pretty cool vibe, sort of Law and Order meets the DC Universe as we follow the trials and travails of some of the cops on the beat in the city of the Bat. All of the members of the unit we are following were hand-picked by Jim Gordon, former police commissioner and good buddy of the man in black. Not all of these officers share his love for the vigilante, though, especially when the kind of crime he seems to attract means that friends and co-workers are getting terminated after they fall into situations the police academy did not prepare them for. This first story arc covers the fallout from the death of a detective who thought he was on a routine check on info from a snitch, only to fall into the hands of Mr. Freeze. Add on to that a kidnapping case going nowhere and an arsonist displaying the costume and arsenal of Batman’s old foe “the Firebug” and things are getting difficult for the cops at Gotham Central.
I enjoyed this comic and thought it was probably one of the more effective ones I’ve read when it comes to displaying the ways in which having a costumed superhero in something approaching our world might not be such an awesome thing. By centring not so much on Joe Schmoe in the street who may be able to avoid much interaction with any of the craziness of the metahuman world and thus retain his sense of hero-worship, but on the cops who can’t help but deal with events and people they are in no way trained or equipped to handle it gave an interesting perspective to things. In some ways it could be considered similar to Brian Michael Bendis’ Powers, but I have to admit that _Gotham Central_ seems to approach the issues from a much more realistic perspective. All in all a good read and, at least from my perspective, something that covered new ground which is not what I generally expect from DC comics....more
Amongst the sinks and dens of the Paris backstreets a mysterious figure lurks. The criminals whisper in hushed tones. There is a darOur story so far….
Amongst the sinks and dens of the Paris backstreets a mysterious figure lurks. The criminals whisper in hushed tones. There is a dark avenger on the streets. Even the great amongst the fallen are subject to his heavy hand and rough justice. Those who see the errors of their ways, those who are victims dragged down to the gutter and yet still retain their hope, those who have not given up on their fellow man, these may see the fair face of mercy and be given a new chance at life, but those who remain immured in their sin, wallowing in their own filth and degrading those around them, these will feel the iron hand and swift justice of the avenger.
In public he is Rodolph, Grand Duke of Gerolstein in Paris for the purposes of amusement and the fulfillment of his diplomatic obligations. In reality he is a man haunted by his own past and convinced of his mission of atonement: to punish the wicked as the very hand of God and equally to reward the just who are oppressed. His enemies are legion, yet his allies are also numerous: the noble Sir William Murphy, mentor, right-hand man and courageous bodyguard, David the former slave from the Americas and now medical doctor and aide to the Grand Duke’s plans, Madame Georges the keeper of sanctuary and victim of a tragic past. Thrill as Rodolph faces le Chourineur and must either awaken his better nature or fell this giant with his fists! Cheer as Rodolph rescues the beautiful la Goualeuse, a prostitute with a heart of gold! Gasp as Rodolph metes out rough justice to the frightful and deformed master villain the Schoolmaster! Be confounded as we hear the debased story of the Schoolmaster’s twisted one-eyed lover la Chouette! But wait! Our hero’s adventures have only begun. How will he weather the storm when his haunted past meets his dangerous present? Shrink as we hear of the depravity of the duplicitous Doctor César Polidori! Gasp at the audacity of the venal Sarah Seyton of Halsbury and her brother Thomas! Wonder at the mysterious sorrow of the beautiful Marquise d'Harville! What lies in store for Rodolph’s uncertain future?
Yup, that’s really not much of an overstatement of this book so far. Eugene Sue, a former physician and sailor, took up the pen at the same time as Dumas, Stendhal, Balzac and Hugo. Unlike these eminent confrères he is largely forgotten today, though in his own day he was enormously popular and _The Mysteries of Paris_ has apparently even been given some credit in laying the groundwork for the 1848 revolution (this fact comes from wikipedia, so I cannot speak to its veracity). It’s a great potboiler of a tale, reminiscent in some ways of elements of Dumas (esp. some aspects of The Count of Monte Cristo) and I imagine it may have been an influence on later writers who created such figures as Batman, the Shadow, and Doc Savage…though there are obvious differences. The justice Rodolph dispenses is definitely a very harsh one when viewed with modern eyes, and while it is likely to come across as little more than revenge it appears that Sue actually considered it a valid way in which to encourage repentance and rehabilitation (no spoilers!)The novel even spawned its own genre: the “City Mystery”, a species of crime fiction which depicted the seedy underbellies of great cities and was continued by such writers as George W. M. Reynolds, Émile Zola, Paul Féval, and others.
It’s very pulpy and very fun and it’s interesting to see the roots of some of the elements of later genres at their birth. If you like 19th century serial fiction this is a good bet. There are a few unfortunate examples of info-dump chapters that come across (or did to me) as a bit heavy-handed in technique, and one bizarre example of Sue spoilering a mystery with an authorial aside that seemed completely unnecessary to me. I’m reading the series in a six volume set and while I am not planning to continue immediately I do look forward to following the further adventures of Rodolph in the streets of Paris.
Stay tuned! Same bat-time! Same bat-channel! ...more
I think I may have come to this book with excessive expectations given the consistently high ratings and voluminous praise in GR friends’3 – 3.5 stars
I think I may have come to this book with excessive expectations given the consistently high ratings and voluminous praise in GR friends’ reviews. That’s not to say that this was a bad book, or that I didn’t enjoy it, but for me this book didn’t hit the sweet spot that it seemed to reach for most others.
Ree Dolly is a tough-as-nails adolescent living a hand-to-mouth existence in perhaps the worst possible conditions in the backwoods of the Ozarks, forced to care for her two younger brothers and mentally ill mother. Her father, a meth cook who’s gone missing and who has put up their house as part of his bond, provides the impetus for the plot and propels Ree into a world of suspicious kin, underworld honour, and ever-present danger. She’s got gumption, this girl, that’s for sure, but I don’t know if I’d say she “kicks ass” the way most reviewers do. I’d say she knows how to take a licking and keep on ticking. She’s also headstrong as a bull and won’t let anything, or anyone, stand in her way, no matter how intimidating. There’s a lot to love about Ree: her undying love for her family and fierce devotion to them regardless of her dreams to escape from what she knows is a dead-end life; her refusal to let others tell her when she needs to give up and let ‘what has to be’ shut her down; her willingness to make any personal sacrifice when it will better the case of others in her life. Other characters are also vividly drawn even if they only appear briefly in the story: Uncle Teardrop springs to mind, a man who is both exactly what he seems and something more; Sherriff Baskin, a lawman who straddles the uncomfortable line between the official and criminal worlds that seems to be endemic of places like the Ozark backwoods of tightly-knit outlaw families; the vicious loyalty and twisted sense of honour of Merab Milton and her sisters; the playful, but tragic innocence of Ree’s brothers Sonny and Harold.
Still, all that said I found myself not really finding myself fully pulled into the story until the final third of the book. Prior to that there’s a lot of wandering amongst the backwoods and remembering of times past mingled with fears of times to come as Ree searches for her father, but it’s not until things start coming to a head that I really found myself compelled by the story. Add to that Woodrell’s over-wrought prose and things stayed at a ‘good but not great’ level for the most part for me. I mean, I’m as much of a fan of poetic prose as the next guy (probably even more so given who the next guy is likely to be), but I still winced at a fair number of Woodrell’s metaphors, and his overblown (and sometimes confusing) descriptions of nature sort of reminded me of some of the Romantics at their most over-heated and excessive. Woodrell is by no means a bad writer, but I do think his prose would have benefitted by being turned down a notch or two from time to time, if only to let those high-flown metaphors that did work shine all the more.
Still, a very good read. Hick-lit noir that generally delivers on its promise. ...more
The Garrett series were a heck of a lot of fun. Sort of a Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin in the land of D&D with a bit of Magnum P.I. thrown in for good The Garrett series were a heck of a lot of fun. Sort of a Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin in the land of D&D with a bit of Magnum P.I. thrown in for good measure. This one is the first, and probably the best, wherein we are introduced to all of the main players (esp. Garrett himself, the Deadman, and suave bar owner Morley Dotes) and Garrett must look into the disappearance of an old war buddy for his family. Great intro to the characters and the world....more
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