Congratulations to Terry Parrish,

winner of a signed copy of Under the Dog Star

by Sandra Parshall!

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Hard Spell
Justin Gustainis
Angry Robot Books, July 2011
ISBN 9780857661159
Mass Market Paperback

Detective Stan Markowski and his partner, Karl Renfer, have been called out to a crime scene but it’s not your run of the mill crime scene. These cops are part of the Scranton, PA, Occult Crimes Unit which was set up to handle crimes involving the local supernatural community, folks known to Stan and Karl as “supes”. In this case, a wizard has been tortured to death to make him give up a crucial artifact and then vampires begin to be murdered—yes, the undead can be murdered. They discover that these crimes are not limited to Scranton and that a very, very bad wizard with evil intentions may be involved.

Amongst all this are meth head goblins, white and black and gray witches and assorted demons of the hungry sort.

Adding to the problem is the fact that Stan has a personal attachment to the supernatural world, an attachment caused by a deliberate and extremely difficult choice he made in the past, and the wrong move could prove to be devastating. Stan and Karl (who has a penchant for all things James Bond), with a little help from some friends and more than a bit of hindrance from a pair of distinctly unpleasant witchfinders, have to pull out their usual weapons—crosses, silver bullets, wooden stakes and holy water—and get into some heavyduty detecting. The final outcome will almost certainly be deadly but to whom?

There was one thing I didn’t particularly care for in this story and that’s the fairly lightweight roles given to the females (although they don’t need to be kickbutt, a little more self-reliance would be nice) . Having said that, Hard Spell was really enjoyable for its blend of humor and horror. I also appreciated the characterization of the supes as being generally badass with an occasional sense of honor, none of this cutesy stuff so prevalent these days in urban fantasy. Gustainis also has developed the characters of Stan and Karl enough so I really liked them and cared what happened to them but he hasn’t overdone it—there is more to be learned in the next book.

There is some strong language and the violence is not for the faint of heart but neither of those elements bothered me, probably because I expect them in a noirish novel. When all is said and done, I strongly recommend Hard Spell and I’m looking forward to the next book. After all, who can resist a SWAT (Sacred Weapons and Tactics) team hellhound named Daisy?

By the way, don’t call 911 for a supe emergency—dial 666.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, September 2011.

Originally published in 1943, this first entry in the Doan and Carstairs series is unexpected in the world of the hardboiled PI novel. As the new publishers explained in their foreword, Norbert Davis introduced humor into this subgenre at a time when authors and readers took their hardboiled mysteries seriously.

Doan, a California private investigator who seems to operate somewhere on the edge of the law, has gone to Mexico to meet with a fugitive.  Accompanying him is Carstairs, an enormous Great Dane, “won” by Doan in a crap game. The truth is, Carstairs calls the shots and no one argues with him, including Doan.

Doan and Carstairs take a rickety tour bus to Los Altos, a remote mountain village. Along with them is a motley collection of other guests from their hotel, including naive teacher Janet, rich girl Patricia, her gigolo, Gregor, her maid, Maria, and the Henshaws with their dreadful son Mortimer. Janet is in search of romance and adventure and is fascinated with the story of Cortez’s associate, Lt. Emile Perona.

After a nail-biting journey, they arrive in Los Altos and land right in the middle of a gunfight between police and bad guy Garcia. More bodies begin to appear, including some of the hotel tourists. Doan seems to be in the thick of all of it and is the nemesis of the military secret police, headed up by Captain Emile Perona, descendant of Janet’s hero. Why are the secret police in Los Altos? Is there a connection between the gunfight and the murders of the hotel guests? Will Carstairs put the fear of death into the horrible Mortimer?

Davis does indeed inject humor into this classic PI story, so much so as to be almost farcical. For those mystery readers who don’t generally like hardboiled, this is the ideal exception and you’ll be looking forward to reading the next in the series.  If you have any difficulty finding it, go directly to the re-publisher, Rue Morgue Press.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, 2001.  Slightly revised 2010.
Review first published on murderexpress.net in 2001.

Every great company has an origin story, and here is Ben and Chonny’s:

They’re hanging out at the beach, Chon on extended leave between his two hitches, and they’re playing volleyball on the court next to the Hotel Laguna.

Ben and Chon are the kings of the court, and why not? Two tall, lanky, athletic guys who make a great team. Ben is the setter who thinks of the game as chess, Chon is the spiker who goes for the kill. They win a lot more often than they lose, they have a good time, and tanned chicks in bikins and suntan oil stop and watch them do it.

It’s a good life.

Savages consists of 290 chapters in just over 300 pages. The writing is staccato, aggressive, punchy, with abbreviated sentences that frequently fall into

staggered breaks

like this;

the occasional scene rendered in screenplay format as though the POV character were imagining it as a movie; the liberal use of em-dashes, acronyms and a weirdly compelling southern California version of Cockney rhyming slang; and more pop-culture references and brand-name dropping than you can swing a dead cat at.

The story is thus: Ben and Chon run a very lucrative marijuana growing and distribution business. Ben, the only child of two East Coast-born quasi-hippie therapists, oversees the horticultural part of the business and channels his energy and fortune into improving lives in the Third World. Chon, son of a drug dealer, SEAL, and PTSD-immune veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, provides the muscle. There’s a girl too, Ophelia (“O” for short, sometimes revised to “Multiple O” for reasons made all too wink-wink-nudge-nudge clear), whose mother (“Paqu,” or “Passive Aggressive Queen of the Universe”) might have walked off the set of “Real Housewives of Orange County,” but Ophelia’s part in this is as slight as her characterization: she smokes pot, has sex with both Ben and Chon (separately and together), and gets kidnapped by the bad guys.

(Part of me wants to go off on a tear about the misogyny oozing out of practically every page of this book, but I’m not sure I could rein myself back in once I got started. Suffice it to say that I was thoroughly disgusted with the short shrift given women characters – made even worse when compared to how superficial the male characters are – and I’m not one who usually gets riled up over representations of women in fiction. That’s how bad it is.)

Back to the topic at hand, said bad guys are the Baja Cartel, who’ve decided they want in on Ben and Chon’s business and the money it will bring in. Their proposal to take over distribution comes in the form of a video of several decapitated drug dealers. Ben and Chon consider the offer carefully, but in the end turn it down. Unfortunately for Ben and Chon, the cartel’s offer wasn’t a yes-or-no proposition, and so Ophelia is taken hostage to force their compliance.

The complimentary blurb from James Ellroy on the cover hints that Savages tries to emulate Ellroy’s style, but its lack of depth means it falls far short. The bulletpoint paragraphs and writing style(s) could have served as visual and textual representations of the shallow, superficial, attention span-deficient lives the characters lead, thereby infusing them with dimension and nuance, style thereby serving as an instrument of substance. Instead, the characters come across even more devoid of depth and personality. It’s not a good sign when tertiary characters are more interesting than those in the first and second rank.

The set-up takes up more than a third of the book. This is largely because it seems to take about 10 pages of interrupted sentences and rapid-fire, cascading asides to convey one single nugget of relevant information. The remainder of the book is about Ben and Chon’s efforts to get Ophelia back and get back at the cartel for coercing them into this partnership. Once this part gets going, it actually progresses at a reasonable pace–not that the story or characters acquire any depth, it’s just that the dearth of substance is less obvious when the pace picks up.

Predictably, things don’t end well. Call it a Mexican standoff, call it a Shakespearian ending on the scale of “Hamlet” (might as well get some mileage out of Ophelia), but by the ending the stage is littered with bodies, wrecked cars and empty guns. The real tragedy, however, is that by the time I’d waded through 300 pages of style-without-substance, I couldn’t be bothered to care who lived or died.

Oliver Stone reportedly plans to direct a film version of Savages. Although it strikes me as more of a Quentin Tarantino vehicle, I think it might convert well to the big screen. Take that as you will.

Reviewed by Laura Taylor, June 2010.

Pet psychic Mary Catherine is a widow with panache and a successful radio show.  Then, one day, she hears the thoughts of an animal in distress and discovers a turtle with the body of his murdered owner.  Unfortunately, turtles don’t have a good grasp on communication skills so Mary Catherine will need to do some sleuthing to figure out what has happened, especially since the police don’t exactly have faith in her psychic abilities.

I’m not sure if this is a standalone or the first in a series—no new titles have been listed yet—but I enjoyed it.  It’s entertaining in a lighthearted way and quite amusing to “read” the thoughts of the animals.

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Hollywood Cemetery: A Tour
James E. DuPriest, Jr.
Richmond Discoveries, 1989
ISBN 0941087018
Trade Paperback

This is a small (28 pages) booklet that would be of little interest to anyone other than a resident of Richmond, Virginia, or someone who likes to explore old cemeteries.  Hollywood Cemetery, dedicated in 1849, is an especially beautiful resting place for people from all walks of life, including U.S. presidents, Confederate soldiers and generals, and Supreme Court justices.  Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Hollywood is a place where locals and tourists go to enjoy incredible beauty and peace while immersing themselves in history.

This treatise offers descriptions of the burial sites of some of the more prominent “citizens” as well as many photographs and the history of the cemetery and is a must-have for anyone with an interest in cemeteries in general and this one in particular.

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The Unscratchables
Cornelius Kane
Scribner Book Company
ISBN 1416596410
Trade Paperback

San Bernardo police dog detective Max “Crusher” McNash finds that he must ignore his misgivings and work with special agent Cassius Lap of the Feline Bureau of Investigation when a serial killer cat begins targeting dogs, starting with two Rottweiler goons for hire and progressing through movie star Jack Russell Crowe and other victims.  Along the way, they are offered help by an incarcerated psycho cat, convicted of murder.

Seemingly just another entry in the collection of animal-driven mysteries, this one is different.  Most of the books in this subgenre are naturally very cozy in nature and involve humans but this is a classic hardboiled story with a great deal of satirical humor set in a completely human-free world (although all the accoutrements of humans–clothing, bars, divorce, etc.–are present).   Anyone who likes the Raymond Chandlers of the mystery world and who can place tongue firmly in cheek will enjoy this book.  I really hope there will be more stories of Crusher and Cass.