DOWN ON THE STREET by Alec Cizak

There are many movies, especially the exploitation ones in the 70's, that present prostitution and pimps in a heightened way, whether it's glorifying a pimp's excess, or soaking us in the tragedy of it all, like on HBO's Hookers at the Point.

This noir does something different, showing us a less melodramatic transition that two people take into the business and letting us see how easy it can be to get caught up. We follow Lester Banks, a depressed loser who is barely making it by driving a cab, and his apartment neighbor Chelsea, a college student who has equally terrible money problems and finds solace in the arms of lovers every night. They decide to team up and go into business together, selling Chelsea's sex to horny men online while Lester provides transportation and protection. And as you can guess, it doesn't take long at all for this situation to go bad really fast.

Cizak double dares you to judge these characters. There were many times in the book where I was tempted to, but realized that it would be too easy and unfair to dismiss these two as simply: the loose girl who doesn't respect herself and the asshole that takes advantage of her. Cizak even has a chorus of bench ladies who live in their apartment building who judge berate the two constantly and I didn't want to be like them. We see everything through the lens of a man who's too broke and broken to care about much of anything. Because of this, the book's tone is very nihilistic and bitter and makes it challenging to empathize.

And it was tragic witnessing Lester and Chelsea's increasing resentment toward one another as they fell deeper into self-loathing. My main issue with the book is the conclusion and the fact that it feels like there wasn't as big of a consequence for Lester's actions as there were for Chelsea's. Books like this almost always end in destruction, and it's unfair that the woman in this situation bears the brunt of it more than the guy. But hell, I don't know, maybe life ain't fair...

In the end, it's a tricky book and not for everyone, but I enjoy books that challenge me in this way, daring me to follow unlikable characters, forcing me to see them and understand them in all their complexity.

GRADE: B+

THE PUNISHER: THE COMPLETE MAX COLLECTION VOL. 2 by Garth Ennis

This continues Garth Ennis's famous run on The Punisher, and saying he stepped his game up in this one is an understatement. I enjoyed the three story arcs in the first collection but this volume seems like it could've even been written by a different person. Frank Castle's personality and character shine brighter darker, I felt much more connected to him, the action is even crazier, and all of the stories are even more compelling. While at times the first book and it's character's and events felt a little cheeky, especially with some of the supporting characters, everything here seems way more genuine and confident and didn't feel like it was playing for jokes.

It begins with the "Mother Russia" story, which sees Castle on a rare mission to save a kidnapped little girl from a silo in Russia, a girl who happens to be carrying a deadly retrovirus in her bloodstream. It's like a blockbuster action movie that had me on the edge of my seat, with a lot of it due to it's breakneck pacing and the cutting of parallel action between Castle, the American generals, and the Russian generals. And it guest stars Nick Fury, who pretty much steals the whole show.

It then moves on to the insane "Up is Down, Black is White," which brings the return of crazed Mob guy Nicky Cavella, who has the dumb-as-nails idea to dig up The Punisher's dead family and piss on their skeletons just to draw him out. So you can obviously guess the violent insanity that happens subsequently. There are many returning characters here that really bring flavor to this one. Agent O'Brien and her relationship with Frank is one of the highlights of this story.

And finally we get to "The Slavers," the best story in the collection and considered by many to be one of the best Punisher stories ever written, where Frank stumbles onto a sex slave trade in New York and decides that he can''t stand around and do nothing about it. The story of the girls, the two well-meaning uniform cops, the nasty villains, and the morally-torn social worker are all richly-written and really make this story stand out. It's gripping stuff and very memorable, not only with the action but also with the reverence with which Ennis tackles the issue of sex slavery. And it's all topped off with a powerful ending.

This really impressed me and I hope the subsequent collections keep this same quality. And if not, both this volume and the first one (6 stories in total) will be collected in a complete omnibus which will be released this summer. If you're a fan of the well-received Netflix show, do yourself a favor and read this. This one's a stunner.

GRADE: A

THE BLACK HOOD VOL. 1: THE BULLET'S KISS by Duane Swierczynski

Over the years, there have been a number of iterations of the superhero vigilante The Black Hood, who was introduced during the Golden Age of comics as a corny-costumed crime fighter. But writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Michael Gaydos takes the Hood and grounds him in tough ultra-realism, using the story to touch on violence and crime in his native Philadelphia.

Greg Hettinger is a Philly cop who gets involved in an altercation that not only leaves the original Black Hood vigilante dead but also leaves Greg's face hideously scarred by a shotgun blast. While recuperating and struggling with speech therapy and a painkiller addiction, he finds a purpose when he dons a black hood and stalks the streets at night.

I'm a fan of Swierczynski's novel writing and I think it's pretty cool that he can jump back and forth so successfully between prose fiction and graphic fiction with his popularity on Marvel's Iron Fist and Cable, and DC's Birds of Prey. His sensibilities and talent is on display here to good effect, producing a graphic novel that turns the story of the Black Hood into something absolutely unrecognizable as a superhero story and much more of an urban crime noir about a man with serious issues and weaknesses finding the one way he feels he can redeem himself.

Gaydos's artwork really adds to the tone as well, feeling both painterly and rough around the edges, very similar to Alex Maleev's work, with the simple, unobtrusive panel layout work you can also find in Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's work.

I wish that the book ended with the great finale of the fifth issue because the last issue was awkward and felt totally out of place. It felt that it should have just been included in Volume 2. But it's still pretty good work overall!

GRADE: B+

BATMAN: THE COURT OF OWLS by Scott Snyder

With his first volume in the New 52 Batman rebranding, Scott Snyder brings the Caped Crusader back to the basics! I'm normally not a fan of the Batman stories that feature him going up against monsters, aliens, or other super fantasy bad guys. I gravitate towards the stories that are more grounded. So I really enjoyed Snyder's take here. In this story, Batman goes up against a secret society that has ruled Gotham from the shadows all the way throughout history. It's an organization that exists with the citizens as a myth, especially with Bruce Wayne, who seems to refuse to believe that there is a villain that has eluded him all these years, and still manages to rule his city.

I love that the story really focuses on Batman being what he started out as, a detective, going into deep investigation mode to track down the people responsible for a series of mysterious deaths in the city. I really enjoyed the focus on Gotham's history, the legacy of the Waynes, and their relationship with the Court, building more levels on the Gotham City mythology. The fact that the shadowy Court is, for the most part, grounded in reality but still feels like they could be a major threat to Batman, really sets a level of tension that really works. There are some cool ideas here and let's see what happens in the sequel!

GRADE: B+

LITTLE GIRL LOST by Richard Aleas

Richard Aleas's debut novel is a hard-boiled NY detective tale in the vein of Block's Scudder series but featuring one of the worst detectives out there. Seriously, it was kind of hilarious how this guy just couldn't get it together! He seemed to fail at even simple detective decision-making. But ultimately I think that was part of the point.

Our hero, John Blake is one half of a tiny detective agency and he is obsessed with solving the murder of his old high school sweetheart, a girl who went from pre-med studies to shaking her ass in a grimy titty bar called the Sin Factory. The story and its turns kept me fairly engaged throughout and Aleas keeps it all going at a smooth pace. But as a whole, the book never lived up to its potential, mostly due to the weak presentation of Blake's motivations. Despite a few flashbacks, I never really felt the connection between Blake and his deceased ex, a connection that's supposed to fuel Blake's dogged determination. If I really felt his emotional connection to Miranda, it could've made the events through the book and its ending much more affecting. But I still enjoyed it and it's another solid Hard Case Crime book!

GRADE: B-

BAR SCARS by Nik Korpon

My life is a crooked deck of cards: all varying slightly, but basically the same and repeated endlessly.

Nik Korpon's short story collection exists in its very own Baltimore, a tough and uncompromising place that always seems to be shrouded in the dark of night and filled with sadness and ruin. And Korpon is the perfect person to give you the tour. He has this very singular, bluesy, atmospheric prose style that sets the mood and really finds the beauty in emotional wreckage. It's sharp, to the point, and uncompromising, while still being stylish.

I loved the way Korpon constantly peeled back different layers and pieces of information as each story moved forward, setting up expectations on what you think the story might be about at first, but subverting them at every turn, keeping you guessing about the characters and their motivations, whether they be a bootleg backroom surgical assistant in "His Footsteps are Made of Soot," a bagman on his way to propose to his girl in "Intersections," or a man in love with an underage girl in "A Sparrow with White Scars." Great little collection of contemporary noir. I love the way Korpon writes.

Pulling her close, we started dancing. Her breasts pressing on my chest, curves filling in the shape of my body, her fingers kneading mine, I took a chorus-length inhale, took in all her begonia and saltwater, her soft skin and our 2 AM laughs, our rough sex and quiet nights and everything we'd ever talked about and planned for, I took it in and held my breath.

GRADE: A-

CRIMINAL VOL. 5: THE SINNERS by Ed Brubaker

This next installment of Criminal picks up once again following Tracy Lawless, the brooding AWOL soldier that showed up in Center City with vengeance on his mind back in Volume 2, Lawless, and got himself in a bit of trouble. He's still in trouble in this one, stuck under the thumb of the city's biggest crime lord. The story is a bit less personal here for Tracy, but just as dark and grimy, and with great writing, exactly the way I like it and with everything I've come to expect in the Criminal series. Brubaker has yet to disappoint!

GRADE: B 

JOKER by Brian Azzarello

Brian Azzarello's graphic novel tells a gang war story set in Gotham City and focuses on The Joker after some dumbass at Arkham Asylum granted him an early release and he just strolls out of there of his own accord. The story is told through the eyes of a two-bit, low-level hood named Jonny Frost, who's the only one with the balls and ambition to pick up The Joker on his release and join him on a rampage through the Gotham City underworld to re-stake his claim.

The stand-out element in this scuzzy, grungy little crime book is a now infamous depiction of the Crown Prince of Crime, with the longer hair, the wrinkled, scarred face, and the ragged Glasgow Smile cut through his cheeks. Reportedly, early drafts of this depiction were used as reference for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and it's Heath Ledger version of the villain, which popularized the look. And within these pages, backed by Lee Bermejo's artwork, it's pretty freaky to look at.

And the story is pretty good too, as we see Joker bumping heads with other baddies for a change and it's interesting to see him through the eyes of criminals rather than the good guys this time. And the tension really ramps up as Jonny begins to see just how unhinged and unpredictable and downright insane The Joker is, and how it's a huge mistake to believe that you can simply be "friends" with a man like that. The Joker is possibly one of the greatest villain characters ever created in any medium, and this book does him justice.

GRADE: B+

CRIMINAL VOL. 4: BAD NIGHT by Ed Brubaker

Not too long ago, I wrote a review of Brubaker and Phillips's The Dead and the Dying, gushing that it was my favorite volume in the Criminal series that I've read. Well I'll be damned, here I am saying it again! This volume is not only the best Criminal story so far and one of the best graphic novels I've read so far, but it takes this series to a whole new level, delivering a story of noir that's so ink-black and classic in it's development that Goodis, Brewer, Cain, Keene, and Thompson would all be impressed.

Bad Night focuses on Jacob Kurtz, the counterfeiter-turned-cartoonist who was a supporting character in Lawless, a loner and insomniac who's quiet life is upended when he meets a sexy, redheaded lush at a late night diner. To say more about the plot would spoil the unhinged, fascinating ways that this tale of murder, obsession, and sex evolves. Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips have always been partners in total sync, and Phillip's art here is a perfect fit for this grimy and brooding piece of graphic fiction. If you have any interest in noir or in any dark crime fiction in general, you owe it to yourself to check this out. It's like all your favorite books in the genres, but with pictures!

GRADE: A

CRIMINAL VOL. 3: THE DEAD AND THE DYING by Ed Brubaker

When I looked in the mirror, I saw a girl too old for her years. Saw a face with no joy. A smile that had nothing left in it but empty.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Criminal series is proving to be impressively consistent, getting better with each installment, and this third volume, The Dead and the Dying, is my favorite so far. This time we jump back to the 60's/70's and take a look at how some of sins of Center City's "fathers" led to where their "sons" are today. Mostly it revolves around Danica, a damaged woman who has returned to the city after leaving under controversial circumstances, and the three men caught up in her web. Brubaker tells the story from three different viewpoints, providing varying perspectives to this riveting noir tragedy.

What I came back for is dumb and dangerous and probably doomed. I feel that as sure as the sidewalk beneath my feet.

This volume had the most well-realized characters so far, a great structure, even more impressive writing, cool art, and a compelling story. In the crowded world of graphic fiction, Brubaker stands out above them all.

GRADE: A

BATMAN: ZERO YEAR - DARK CITY by Scott Snyder

While it's a bit uneven, silly and confusing at times (where the hell did the Bat-Blimp come from?), and doesn't flow as well as I would have liked, there are some really good ideas in this sequel to Zero Year - Secret City, which is Scott Snyder's take on the introduction of Batman to Gotham City. There's a nifty little Dark Knight Rises-style idea of Batman struggling to save a slightly dystopian Gotham taken over by The Riddler, all while in a soiled t-shirt, army pants, and cowl, riding a beat-up dirtbike.

While James Gordon was barely in the previous book, he has much more of a presence here, and Snyder has a great new take on his character, that might feel controversial to some. Not only is there a hint that Gordon's past as a cop might not be as straight and narrow and idealistic as you might think, there's also the idea that he and Bruce Wayne have a history dating back to the deaths of Bruce's parents, with Bruce growing up blaming him along with the other bent cops in the city for the violence that lead to his parent's deaths. It not only provides a past that Gordon has to overcome, but also a grudge that Bruce has to overcome as well. In Zero Year, Bruce is a cocky, angry 25-year-old who, throughout the two books, has to learn to put aside the anger, learn that the only way to really save the city is with the help of others, and become a true symbol of hope that Gotham needs.

GRADE: B-

CRIMINAL VOL. 2: LAWLESS by Ed Brubaker

I'm very excited about Ed Brubaker's Criminal series, so I was excited to quickly jump into the second installment, Lawless. Think of this series as a more grounded, realistic version of Sin City, where Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips tell a set of loosely interconnected noir tales that all center around the fictional Central City, the Undertow Bar, and the unfortunate losers that are stuck in this place. 

This new installment stars Tracy Lawless, a soldier who goes AWOL from his unit in the Middle East, after getting the news that his little brother has been murdered. He travels back home to Center City to find the person responsible and make it right.

This book was a great follow-up to the first volume and I began to see how the different stories would relate to one another. And this one had an even more morose atmosphere due to the constant snowing, and that mood provided an interesting contrast to the fact that it's Christmas in the story. Seems like Christmas is never merry in Center City. Although dead, Tracy's brother Ricky becomes an ever-present character because while Tracy is on the hunt for vengeance, he's also coming to terms with the regrets and missed opportunities that he feels with his relationship to his lost brother. The book has a slightly different feel than the first volume but it definitely exists not only in the same physical place, but also in the same thematic universe as well. And plus, any book that has a pistol packing nun should automatically earn it at least a B!

GRADE: B+

SAFE INSIDE THE VIOLENCE: CRIME STORIES by Christopher Irvin

This 2016 Anthony Award-nominated short story collection by Christopher Irvin focuses mainly on ordinary individuals that many people almost never notice, the disenfranchised people who live quietly on society's borders: garbage men, cleaning ladies, immigrants, and returning war veterans, factory workers. And rather than the standard crime stories that most people expect, many of these stories and characters mostly exist on the fringes of crime, sometimes before or after major violence. And Irvin, as with his novella Federales, the brooding Mexico-set noir I read earlier this year, shows a real sensitivity to character as he sketches (in only a few pages) people that feel totally real.

I appreciate that Irvin respects the reader's intelligence, never spoon-feeding or spelling everything out for you. All the stories have a "lived-in" feel, as if they exist in a bigger world beyond each tale, as if there's a novel or two lurking before or after the story takes place. This is what some people dislike about short stories, but it's what has always attracted me to them. I wouldn't mind if Irvin returned to any of these characters and fleshed them out even more in other books. And although each story feels like a part of a bigger narrative, they never feel incomplete.

Standout tales include: "Blind Spot," "Bitter Work," "Lupe's Lemon Elixir," and "Napoleon of the North End."

GRADE: B+

SACRIFICES by Roger Smith

Sacrifices follows two South African families of opposite social classes: the rich, white, and privileged Lanes and the less-privileged family of their black maid, Denise Solomons. We witness the disintegration of these families after Michael Lane and his wife witness their son commit a brutal crime in their home.

It's a grim, violent, and riveting piece of work where author Roger Smith uses his tale to not only comment on the prevalent crime in Cape Town but also the racial and socioeconomic conflicts that still cripple the area. I was really impressed with Smith's writing this time around too, the prose in this book (his 7th I believe) even more propulsive and assertive than in his first novel Mixed Blood. It's a real surprise that Smith isn't more popular in the mainstream; one could easily compare his writing to the likes of Lehane and Pelecanos.

There's a review that called Smith "the crime genre's greatest tragedian." Among the three books I've read by him so far, this one supports that claim the most, showing the fall of these desperate individuals and their families with a scope that is fully Shakespearean. And it's gripping to witness the characters, even though each is the cause of the other's destruction, gravitate to one another because they have nowhere else to go. That makes it even more tragic.

GRADE: A-

FREEDOM OF THE MASK by Robert McCammon

*Book 6 of the Matthew Corbett series*

Will Matthew Corbett ever make it back to his beloved home in the New York colony? It seems like it's been forever since he's walked along the Broad Way! And this time, Matthew has been kidnapped by an old nemesis and is transported across the sea to London to be handed over to the evil Professor Fell. Although his partner Hudson Greathouse and his scorned paramour Berry Grisby have embarked on a mission to rescue him, Matthew must rely only on his wits and cunning to navigate the dangerous city.

It's gotten to the point now that a new book in McCammon's Matthew Corbett series is guaranteed exciting entertainment and Freedom of the Mask is no different. And in this installment the danger to Matthew and his friends are greater than they've ever been! Throughout the novel I was constantly wondering how Matthew would get out of this one! As usual, McCammon's talent for plotting is one of the things that makes the book shine. Where other authors writing a new episode in a book series treat exposition from earlier books as "previously on" plot-dump summaries (one of my biggest pet peeves), McCammon always skillfully incorporates this exposition into the story in ways that never distract.And the way that he brings the many subplots together into one big web of intrigue is really cool. And the way that London is portrayed here and the atmosphere it creates is gothic and dangerous. McCammon is prone to being a little long-winded at times in his writing but because I expect that I prepare myself for it whenever I read his books.

And the heart of these books is still Matthew Corbett himself. Here, he's more world-weary than he's ever been, more adept to dealing with violence but just as smart and courageous as ever. Throughout all of his ordeals and the dire straits that he's in, he still can't control his curiosity and his desire to solve problems. Whether it's discovering the identity of the person writing the local tabloid rag, the whereabouts of a kidnapped opera singer, or who is the face behind the masked vigilante stalking London, he just can't resist a good mystery. That is the biggest strength in McCammon's character and what makes him so likable.

So if you are already a reader of the Matthew Corbett books, be prepared for another great tale where the stakes are even higher than ever by the end of the book. And if you're new to the series, don't start here, but hopefully this review piques your interest in what is possibly my favorite book series. Pure entertainment! Can't wait for the next one.

*Advanced Copy from Subterranean Press through NetGalley in exchange for honest review*

GRADE: A-

A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Lawrence Block

*Book 9 of the Matthew Scudder series* 

"Sometimes it's a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it's the other way around."

This year I've realized that I'm not that big of a fan of standard detective series. They get too repetitive and frankly boring after a while. It nearly broke my heart when I realized that I was starting to feel the same way about this book in Lawrence Block's Scudder series, arguably the top of the detective pack. As I read, I started to notice the formula and the trends. Once again, Scudder has to explain that he's not an official private detective, once again Scudder "struggles" with what to charge people for his services, even though he always seems to settle on the same price (somewhere between $2-3K), and once again Scudder has a moment where he's unsatisfied with his work and considers giving the client a refund, even though he's never actually gone through with it yet. I guess it's designed for the casual reader that might jump into the series at anytime, but for me it becomes a slog reading the same shit over and over. At least in this book we were spared him having to explain why he's not a cop anymore; I'm a little tired of hearing that story too.

This time around Scudder takes on two cases that somehow end up connected, determining whether or not a TV producer was responsible for the rape and murder of his wife, as well as tracking down the masked sex killers in a grisly smut film he stumbles onto in the middle of watching a VHS rental of The Dirty Dozen. This novel's plot developments were based on so many coincidences that the plotting seemed a bit lazy this time around. But even with these issues that I personally had and the fact that this book lacks the emotional weight of Eight Million Ways to Die, the freshness of When The Sacred Ginmill Closes, or the urgent danger of A Ticket to the Boneyard, it's still as thoughtful, readable, and well-written as any of the other novels in Block's Scudder series, with some cool characters and nasty villains.

"We are closer than close, you and I. We are brothers in blood and semen."

So although it suffers from the usual stale repetitiveness as other later novels in most mystery series, it's still a Block novel so it's still one of the better detective books out there. If you're going to read a repetitive detective series, this should be the one you read.

"Well it's a hell of a story," he said. "And I guess you could say it has a happy ending, because you didn't drink and you aren't going to jail."

GRADE: B-

GHOST OF THE FLEA by James Sallis

* Book 6 of the Lew Griffin series *

And finally we get to the grand finale of James Sallis's atypical, challenging, and elusive Lew Griffin

series. This novel has solidified the feeling that all six books are just part of one large story, a singular investigation into Lew Griffin's own life and purpose. No single book in the series can stand on its own without the others surrounding it. These novels probably shouldn't even be considered crime fiction, but if they are, they should definitely be seen collectively as one of the bravest pieces of crime fiction out there. I believe that not only was Sallis painting us a portrait of a complex man named Lew Griffin, but he was also painting a portrait of himself as a writer, with details for us to discover, or as he puts it many times in his books: he was sending us messages in code. Sallis is a superb writer, and this book is possibly the most impressive in the series in regards to pure prose. Sallis also provides a wonderful conclusion to the series, with a tone that fits perfectly in with the rest of the novels. But I want this review and the 5-star rating to not refer to this book alone, but to show big love to the series as a whole. These six novels might not be for everyone, and can be demanding and at times frustrating, but by its end, you'll know you experienced something special.

Out there in the window-world where a moth beat against glass, a man I knew both too well and not at all stood watching. A man dark and ill-defined, with the mark of lateness, of the autumnal, upon him too.

GRADE: A

WHITE JAZZ by James Ellroy

* Book 4 of the L.A. Quartet *

Every time I've finished an Ellroy book, I've had to sit back and process everything, climb up out of

his world, shake my brain free of his expert grasp. With White Jazz, he concludes his epic "L.A. Quartet," by narrowing his focus even more so than in The Black Dahlia, and miles away from the gargantuan L.A. Confidential. Returning to first-person narration and a single protagonist, Ellroy presents a portrait of racist and corrupt police lieutenant Dave Klein, who finds himself a pawn in a law enforcement political war when a Federal attorney mounts an investigation into LAPD malfeasance and its involvement in Southland vice.

Klein is a fascinating character, because he's not some hero or your everyday good guy caught up in a conspiracy and must be the one to bring it all to light. Instead he's a full-time criminal/part-time cop who finds himself in over his head, involved with individuals and systems that are even more corrupt than he is, and must fight through the whole book just to keep his head above water. And it was cool to witness as some semblance of justice (maybe goodness) starts to seep in to his motivations, once he gets a little love in his life and is forced to confront his actions in the past.

Style-wise, Ellroy takes the trimmed and slashed prose style he adopted for L.A. Confidential (by cutting out unnecessary words to cut the manuscript down by 100 pages per his editor) and ratchets it up to a thousand here! Paired with yet another complex plot, the clipped style makes White Jazz a very challenging read, as it's hard at times to follow, as major plot developments and twists can occur in just several well-chosen words, and if you blink (or skim), you miss it. It's not a casual read. But once I got settled in and used to it, I was along for the ride. And I began to realize how much this jazzy, bebop prose fits the confessional, stream-of-consciousness style that's used in the book. It's Dave Klein truly telling his story in his own words. And at times, it can be really poetic in it's own way. Here's what Ellroy himself had to say about his choice to continue the use of this technique for Klein in a Paris Review interview:
"I saw that if I eliminated words from his speech, I would develop a more convincing cadence for him: paranoid, jagged, enervated..."

This book, it's content, and it's writing style, as with most of Ellroy's work, definitely won't be to  everyone's taste, and I would suggest that people new to Ellroy not start with this one (probably start with the more accessible Dahlia). For a taste of what's in store in the book, here's a portion of the novel where Klein searches police records for a possible suspect:

Keyed up—glom the pervert file. Dog stuff/B&E/Peeping Tom, see what jumped:
  A German Shepherd-fucking Marine. Doctor "Dog": popped for shooting his daughter up with beagle pus. Dog killers—none fit my man's specs. Dog fuckers, dog suckers, dog beaters, dog worshipers, a geek who chopped his wife while dressed up as Pluto. Panty sniffers, sink shitters, masturbators—lingerie jackoffs only. Faggot burglars, transvestite break-ins, "Rita Hayworth"–Gilda gown, dyed bush hair, caught blowing a chloroformed toddler. The right age—but a jocker cut his dick off, he killed himself, a full-drag San Quentin burial.Peepers: windows, skylights, roofs—the roof clowns a chink brother act. No watchdog choppers, the geeks read passive, caught holding their puds with a whimper. Darryl Wishnick, a cute MO: peep, break, enter, rape, watchdogs subdued by goofball-laced meat—too bad he kicked from syph in '56. One flash: peepers played passive, my guy killed badass canines.

Although the style is more challenging than the previous books, making for a less smooth a read as I wanted, this novel is still an incredibly engaging crime saga, and skillfully ties in the events in the earlier novels, bringing the entire Quartet to a close in satisfying fashion (Ellroy's most poignant ending since Dahlia)! Ellroy and his work continues to fascinate me and he just climbed even higher in the ranks of my favorite authors.

To eclipse my guilt with the sheer weight of his evil. I'm going to kill him in the name of our victims, find Glenda and say:
  Tell me anything.
  Tell me everything.
  Revoke our time apart.
  Love me fierce in danger.

GRADE: A-

BLUEBOTTLE by James Sallis

* Book 5 of the Lew Griffin series *

That's what we're here for, Griffin. To bear witness, to

take notice. Ever doubt that, you just look into a child's eyes.

When jumping into a book by James Sallis, especially the ones in the Lew Griffin series, I've learned not to expect that he'll be interested in focusing very much on plot. I don't read them for action, but I do read them for Sallis's evocative writing, and for the characters themselves. I've mentioned before that one of the most fascinating things about the Griffin series is the malleable chronology, the blurring of history and the parallels (which essayist Richard Martin calls "echoes) in Lew's life. In Bluebottle, the fifth and penultimate novel in the series, time is at it's most malleable here than in any of the previous books as Lew remembers a time in the seventies, after he was shot and lost a year of his life and memory, and the subsequent search for the white woman he was with at the time of the shooting. 

Chekhov insists that once a story is written we cross out the end and beginning, since that's where we do most of our lying. What you have here, then, is all middle: all back and fill, my effort to reconstruct the year missing from my life, to hold on to it.

Sallis jumps back and forth and up and down through time as Lew recalls various aspects throughout his life, but it never felt too confusing. And there are many echoes of characters and situations from other parts of Lew's narrative, and sometimes it causes you to either doubt Lew's memory, or wonder at the significance. For example, the woman he's searching for, Dana Esmay, is eerily similar to Esmé Dupuy, the white journalist who was with Lew during the shooting in Black Hornet that is almost a straight parallel to the one here. There are more examples of this throughout all of these books and it makes for fascinating reading. There are some interesting plot elements this time around, like the missing writer that Lew ends up searching for, a man who begins to write his masterpiece by researching a white supremacist group, and might have ultimately began to commit fully to their cause.

I never found out exactly what it was that had hurt my friend so–something working in him a long time, that finally found purchase. In future years I'd come to recognize similar things scrabbling for footholds within myself. They were already there, of course, even then. Sometimes at night I heard them breathing.

GRADE: B

MURDER, D.C. by Neely Tucker

The big, life-changing discovery for me this year is that I'm not that big a fan of standard investigative books. For me to truly enjoy a mystery novel, there needs to be something more than just a detective (or in this

case, a journalist), walking around questioning people for 250 pages and then solving a mystery at the end. There needs to be something else to keep my interest. It seems like the only thing close to standard detective stories that I'm enjoying presently are Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder series. Books by him, as well as Lehane or Pelecanos or James Sallis, are about so much more.

Last year, I stumbled upon Neely Tucker's The Ways of the Dead and thought it was alright, so I requested this one as an Advanced Copy from NetGalley and thought I'd continue. It''s a follow-up novel about Tucker's character Sully Carter, an alcoholic D.C. Metro reporter who limps around the city for the whole book asking a bunch of questions to uninteresting people and eventually solves the complex mystery of: "Who Killed the Black Dude in the Sketchy Park?" The book does have an interesting conclusion though, I'll give it that. But there were many times while reading that I thought I wasn't going to make it there, and that's where the problems lie.

The sad thing is that I actually think that Tucker is a really good writer. I just think he needs better material. It's definitely a case of it's not the book, it's probably me. There are many people that will love this one if they like their mysteries relatively neat and familiar. This book is everything you expect and hope for and not much more. I fell asleep constantly while reading because the "not much more" is what I was missing. I need to be shaken up.

GRADE: C-