FFB-SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE-LIbby Fisher Hellmann

 (From the archives,
2010)

Set the Night on Fire by Libby Fischer Hellmann is one of the few books I’ve read in recent years that uses sixties’ radicalism in a crime fiction plot. And uses it to good avail. Hellmann tells an interesting story with just the right amount of attention to the climate of the sixties to anchor it. Her characters are fleshed out well, and we come to care about them in the past and in the present.

Dar Gartner is newly released from jail after serving a long prison sentence for an act of radicalism. In trying to put a new life together in Chicago, he also touches base with some members of his old group of friends. Friends who begin to die after his re-entry into their lives. His life seems in jeopardy as well.

One of the friends who dies is the father of Lila Hilliard. Hilliard, along with Lila's brother, perish in a house fire seemingly caused by faulty Christmas tree lights. Except Lila remembers unplugging the lights before she went out. As she investigates her father’s business affairs and the fire, her own life is threatened and she realizes there were things about her father and his tale of her long-dead mother that never quite added up.

So Lila and Dar begin circling each other, Lila wary at first, until in desperation they collectively put the puzzle together. Both are at risk and neither knows precisely where the threat is coming from, but both eventually conclude it's coming from past activities of the group of friends.

The reader travels back to the late sixties and watches the group of women and men living together, making the decisions that will effect the rest of their life. Through their circle, we're treated to insight into the types of young people drawn to radicalism and what price they were willing to pay to reform society. And also, what lengths they were willing to go to to cover their trail and how that history impacts the present.

The race of Lila and Dar to piece together the plot against them and act swiftly enough to save their lives makes this a thrilling read.

Short Story Wednesday: "Cranked, Bill Crider from DAMN NEAR DEAD

"Cranked" was from the first collection of geezer noir from Busted Flush Press. Bill was nominated for an Edgar Award (2007) for it in the best short story category. In "Cranked" we have a meeting of four individuals at a roadside convenience store about to be robbed. Karla has escaped a meth fire and is on the run, Royce and Burl, the two bumbling, giggling robbers, are hopped up on meth, and Lloyd has run away from a hospital while his daughter is getting him a cola. These are four tough characters and yet the story has a lot of humor and grace in it. Few writers can pull off humor and violence (and there is plenty of both) as well as Bill did. Bill went on to write another story about Karla, who he took a liking to. I think you can read both of them on kindle for a few bucks. This first collection was edited by Duane Swierczyncki, who was just starting out then. He did a great job of luring good writers in here.
 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Richard Robinson

Still Here

And two shots to boot. I am sick at heart at the long times some people are having to wait for them though. It was bound to roll out unevenly but it seems too unevenly. And other countries have an even harder time getting the vaccines.

Cannot say enough good things about NOMADLAND. It is really a character study although the reviews don't really say that. There are people who need to wander and suffer the vicissitudes that come with it. And this is Fern. It is a terribly hard life, but she just is meant for the road no matter the cost--as are many of the people she meets in the western states this takes place in. It is not a beautiful landscape to me-I like water, green, flowers. She likes the dusty, rocky desert. I so hope McDormand and the director win Oscars for this film. It is not a crowd-pleaser though.

It's A Sin (HBO-MAX) is even more depressing. It is the story of how AIDS came to the UK. But the acting and the story are terrific. These are good people who were shot down in their prime. Very sad but worth watching.

 

So sad to be finished Ted Lasso, which was pure pleasure on Apple-TV. The Morning Show was pretty dreadful despite great actors. 

 

Reading ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Frederick Backman, which is humorous and gentle and also THE LAST BUS TO WISDOM by Ivan Doig. This is Doig's last novel.

We are supposed to hit 40 this week. Hurrah!

What are you up to?

FFB-NO HUMAN INVOLVED, Barbara Serenella

RIP Andi Shechter. Andi died in January 2020. Covid pushed deaths like her out of the limelight. Here is her review from 2009.

Andi Shechter was a publicist, chat host, interviewer, convention-planner, essayist and reviewer. She lived in Seattle with far too many books.

NO HUMAN INVOLVED, Barbara Seranella

The other day, in a fit of rereading (I get this way after trying two or three new books and finding them wanting) I picked up DEADMAN'S SWITCH by Barbara Seranella. This is a book I've read at least three times and will, undoubtedly read again. It was the last book Barbara wrote and I got annoyed thinking about that. It was the first book in a new series that featured a fascinating and terrific new protagonist, a woman with an interesting job in crisis management and an interesting life. Charlotte Lyon has obsessive compulsive disorder , an at times seriously disabling condition and Seranella it brilliantly – she was the "un-Monk" to me. (I know people with OCD and cannot watch the overbearing neurotic "Monk" who simply refuses to deal with his illness but instead expects the world to deal around him. Rrrrr.)

Sorry, off track. But see, the thing is that Barbara Seranella died in January of 2007 and that really frosts me. I'm still mad. I wasn't ready to lose a friend and to lose the person who created Munch Mancini, one of mystery's best protagonists. Her first book was NO HUMAN INVOLVED and it featured a character few of us had ever met. Munch was a junkie, an addict and was in trouble. In this first book, it's Munch's last day as an addict. She's going to get clean and sober. Throughout the history of the series, we watch her learn about all the life she missed while she was on drugs, all the hell she left behind and watch her try to get beyond it – something that's hard to do. She has debts she'll never pay, but she is learning to join society , as she puts it. Munch takes on responsibilities, sobers up without being preachy, faces the world pretty squarely and is just great to spend time with.

A couple years after I read NO HUMAN INVOLVED, I was hosting a discussion about hard-boiled mystery at a convention on a Sunday morning, It was a casual thing, a bunch of us sitting around in a circle and chatting. One of the participants in the conversation was so interesting, had so much to say and yeah, that was Barbara Seranella. I valued her friendship and the chance to catch up with her when she came to town on a book tour, and I miss her still. She had talent and used it. Her books are well crafted, and her protagonists unforgettable. This week, I'm reading my way through the Mancini series and being impressed all over again. I don't want her to be gone. (Nor Andi)

Short Story Wednesday: "The Last Long Ride of El Canejo" from DAMN NEAR DEAD 2

 

Bill Crider put together this second DND anthology for Busted Flush Press. David Thompson was the publisher and he died from a sudden heart attack at a very young age, maybe even before this came out. It has some terrific stories in it. Bill really had sway in the crime fiction community. 

I chose a story by Ace Atkins. I have read one or two of his novels and should read more. He is a terrific writer.

A former detective, known as the rabbit, is on his last trip, outfitted with all the drugs and help he will need to get through the last weeks of throat cancer. He decides to spend the time at a hospice in Florida. So his wife and he drive down to Florida to spend a month appreciating sunsets. But old habits die hard and he immediately notices that something is off about the guy who runs the place. He decides he is mobbed up and there is something off also about all the  gorgeous eastern European women who serve as maids and his coterie. Fatmir dresses like a bad hombre and our detective watches him until he discovers just what his game is. 

Now what made this story great for me was that the protagonist was both a tough guy as far as policing went and yet he was a tender guy with his wife, kids and a friend who comes to visit him. Both parts of his personality are in full bloom in this story. And the ending is poignant and fitting to both. 

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

TracyK

Still Here

I saw THE PRINCESS BRIDE for the first time Saturday night and although in many ways it was delightful (supporting roles, in particular), overall I was a bit disappointed.  Buttercup was the most passive of princesses and there was an awful lot of torture and violence. Maybe all those fearsome and brave Disney princesses have taken the wind out of Buttercup's 1980s sails. There were scenes where she sat there mute for long passages. Also the romantic leads looked like twins, which I found troubling. I once dated a boy who claimed you should find a partner that looked as little like you as possible. Or maybe that was just his reason for dumping this brown-eyed girl. 

Also rewatched ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, where I got to see the good guys win. What a perfect movie that is. Still working on THE HANDMAID'S TALE, which keeps outdoing itself in the terrifying department.  Loving TED LASSO on Apple TV.

Reading an old Ross MacDonald, written before the Lew Archer books. He sure knows how to keep the story moving forward. I was also reading a contemporary mystery but Ross just blew this guy away so I won't finish it. 

So much snow and cold. I get my second shot Wednesday. Hope I can get there okay with this weather. No one has said what the procedure is if you can't get there.

How about you?

MY ONE AND ONLY VALENTINE

 

                                        Best wishes to you for a day spent with yours!

FFB-THE CHILL, Ross Macdonald

(from the archives) 

I found reviewing this book exceedingly difficult. The plot is very complicated and stopping at a point where not too many reveals have been mentioned is nearly impossible. So I will err here on the side of telling too little rather than too much.

Lew Archer is hired by the callow youth, Alex Kincaid, to find his new wife Dolly, who has suddenly disappeared. Archer takes the case when it is clear the police are uninterested and he finds Dolly quickly, but of course complications arise. 

A man from her past has shown up at their hotel. This and the death of her college advisor, Helen Haggerty, has sent her into flight. She claims, in fact, that she's caused Helen’s death. Archer puts Dolly into a rest home with a man who has treated her in the past for similar incidents. Kincaid hangs around to keep an eye on her.

It seems that Dolly is linked to a number of mysterious deaths over a long period. The dean of the college Dolly attends also figures into the story at multiple points. He is dominated by his mother although puts up less of a fuss than you might expect.

This is very much a story about family relationships and how children can be manipulated by adults. The past has the present in a stranglehold in this book. Try as they might, the characters in THE CHILL are helpless but to follow a path they sometimes had no hand in making. Although many characters in THE CHILL only appear on the page for a minute or two, they are each given the traits to be memorable. Archer himself is the least memorable and I think Macdonald planned it thusly. 

 

My favorite line, and one that sums up much of the plot, is "I'm beginning to hate old women."

 

"Listener" from The Expendables by Antonya Nelson

 

Averill and Julia have recently moved from a farm town to Chicago where she's been given a big promotion. Averill is blind and has been since birth and Julia is concerned about how he will navigate the city. He's a stay-at-home husband and we never really learn why, but he cooks, cleans and seems fairly satisfied with his new life. Julia reads to him often and in doing this, notices a man in the window across from them listening to her read too. She is alternately fearful and interested in this Black man. 

We expect Julia to be the stronger partner, she being the sole support and one who is out on the world. Their marriage has flourished under this understanding. But things begin to change when Julia is the one who cannot adjust to their new life. Averill quickly makes a friend who shares his interest in trains. And when Averill takes a train trip with his new friend, we understand that he is the bedrock and she is the fragile one. Sight does not confer strength. 

"Listener" won the Nelson Algren award from the Chicago Tribune. And the collection won the Flannery O'Connor Award. It was published in 1990 and Ms. Nelson has published several more books since. 

One of the many things I love about short stories is that if you think you missed something (like why Averill doesn't work) you can reread it and find out. (Or not). 

Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

TracyK 

George Kelley

Richard Robinson 

Still Here

 We are in a deep freeze here and I am sure George is too. Wow. Looks like it will be below zero several nights this week. It is only 4 degrees now. And it keeps doing that annoying lake effect snow so the ground beneath our feet is frozen. I was lucky enough to have some company this week including my son, Josh. Hadn't seen him since New Year's Day. 

Watching C.B. Strike, which I mostly like for the relationship between the two main characters. The cases are sort of ho-hum to me. But the leads have chemistry. 

Still working on The Handmaiden's Tale, which is terrifying. Elizabeth Moss is a terrific actor though and she is surrounded by other talented actors. Watched The Dig, which was fun and rewatched The Whole Wide World--the one about Robert Howard--which is a strange film. I guess because it is based on Novalyne Prices' diaries and then her book it is kind of a narrow look at the man. As my friend noted, it lacked an arc that would have made it more dynamic. Still it was very interesting and well done. 

Reading Elinor Oliphant for my book group. So many novels about quirky characters now--almost seems to have begun with A Man Called Ove of a few years ago. 

What about you?

Coming Soon: Bullets and Other Hurting Things: A Tribute to Bill Crider - Rick Ollerman, ed.

From the Down & Out Books website:

In a career spanning nearly four decades, Bill Crider published more than sixty crime fiction, westerns, horror, men’s adventure and YA novels. In this collection 20 of today’s best and brightest, all friends and fans of Bill’s, come together with original stories to pay tribute to his memory. Authors include: William Kent Krueger, Bill Pronzini, Joe R. Lansdale, Patricia Abbott, Ben Boulden, Michael Bracken, Jen Conley, Brendan DuBois, Charlaine Harris, David Housewright, Kasey Lansdale, Angela Crider Neary, James Reasoner, James Sallis, Terry Shames, S. A. Solomon, Sara Paretsky, Robert J. Randisi, SJ Rozan, and Eryk Pruitt.

William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace, the Cork O’Connor series) brings us a story of romance and grift. Bill Pronzini (the Nameless Detective and Carpenter & Quincannon series) offers a taut episode of a midnight raid. Joe R. Lansdale (The Bottoms, the Hap and Leonard series) tells a tale of two hit men working through their differences. James Sallis (Drive, the Lew Griffin series) shows us how a deadly figure once helped out a man called Bill. Charlaine Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse and Midnight, Texas series) reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski series) shows how truly deadly a terrible storm can be.

These and fourteen more stories are offered here in the appreciation of our friend and colleague, Bill Crider. These stories were written for him.

My story has a sheriff much like Bill's although it takes places in northern Michigan. Hope I don't let him down. 

This may be the best contributors I have ever been among.

FFB BLACK IS THE COLOR, John Brunner

 

 

As a young boy discovering a love of reading even as I was learning, John Brunner was an early find, third I believe, behind Heinlein and Norton. The early stuff was mostly from the Ace Doubles. Black Is The Color is a little bit different. From 1969, part spy novel, it has a plot line that would fit in in things happening today.

Mark Hanwell, a disillusioned young man returns home to London after six months in Spain where he’d met and worked for The Big Famous Writer he only ever refers to as Hairy Harry. It didn’t take long for him to realize his hero had feet of clay, making the bulk of his money selling pornography and weed. In fact, the last four pieces of writing under his name had been written by Mark.

Home, he goes looking for a woman who’d sent him a few letters early on, then stopped. A singer, he traced the bank d she’d been with falling into as different a world as he’d ever run into.

Sadism was part of it, voodoo, a plan to start a race war in England, Mark finds his work an and the man she’d taken up with, a South Africaner.

I’d never heard of this book before I came across it recently.

 *******************

Randy Johnson's blog is still up under NOT THE BASEBALL PITCHER-and if you look at his categories, you can learn a lot about his life under the heading Family. Some of it is sad, but much of it captures the same lively childhood we all shared. He seems to have had a close family. Hope that sustained him. 

Missing Randy, Bill Crider, Ed Gorman, Ron Scheer, Sandra Seamans and others no longer with  us.

First Wednesday: THE BOOKWOMAN OF TROUBLESOME CREEK

 

During the Depression, FDR established a library service that delivered books to people who lived in the hills of Kentucky and in other remote places. The (mostly) women rode mules up into the hills. It was a hard and sometimes dangerous job, but it brought in a paycheck plus it helped prevent illiteracy. Schooling in these places was also scarce. 

This is the fictional story of one of these librarians. Making it more interesting, Cussy Mary is Blue, coming from a small group, now disappeared, of people who intermarried their way into blueness with a recessive gene. (methemoglobinemia ) Her blueness made her an outcast, much as blackness did some of her neighbors. (There is a lot of racism on display here).

To really stand out for me though, this story would have had to have been more complex. Characters are either all good or all bad. It's straight -forward simplicity reminded me of a YA novel more than one for adults. I expected it to have more information about how this NRA system worked or at least more discussion of the books she gave out and how she secured them. For a book about books, there is not much about books in it. It was certainly worth reading, if only for its discussion of the Blue people. But I find the many great reviews it had received a bit puzzling. 

Apparently soon after this book was published, JoJo Moyes published a book on the packmule librarians too. (THE GIVER OF STARS). It would be interesting to see if that book offered a more nuanced and informative view than this one. 

Again, not a bad book at all but a trifle simplistic. 

For more reviews, see Barrie Summy's blog.

Short Story Wednesday-"The Visitor" Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen is a wonderful writer. Her novel A DEATH OF THE HEART is a masterpiece to me. She wrote many great stories as well as novels. 

"The Visitor" is the story of a nine-year old boy, who is staying with two spinster neighbors, waiting for his mother to die. Bowen describes the house he is staying in and everything about it in exquisite detail and you feel, like the boy, that these details are putting off the inevitable news that his mother is dead. He watches his father striding through the fields half-mad with grief; he remembers the wonderful hours just a year before that his mother and he had spent time together in this very place; he helps his hosts sort apples; he ruminates on his school life. And waits. Every detail seems to be preparing the ground for THE NEWS. This is a subtle story. The sense of dread though permeates every word. How wonderful to write like Bowen.
 

 

Novels

• The Hotel (1927)
• The Last September (1929)
• Friends and Relations (1931)
• To the North (1932)
• The House in Paris (1935)
• The Death of the Heart (1938)
• The Heat of the Day (1949)
• A World of Love (1955)
• The Little Girls (1964)
• Eva Trout (1968)

Short story collections

• Encounters (1923)
• Ann Lee's and Other Stories (1926)
• Joining Charles and Other Stories (1929)
• The Cat Jumps and Other Stories (1934)
• Look at All Those Roses (1941)
• The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945)
• Ivy Gripped the Steps and Other Stories (1946, USA)
• Stories by Elizabeth Bowen (1959)
• A Day in the Dark and Other Stories (1965)
• The Good Tiger (1965, children's book) - illustrated by M. Nebel (1965 edition) and Quentin Blake (1970 edition)
• Elizabeth Bowen’s Irish Stories (1978)
• The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (1980)
• The Bazaar and Other Stories (2008) - edited by Allan Hepburn

Nonfiction

• Bowen's Court (1942, 1964)
• Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood (1942)
• English Novelists (1942)
• Anthony Trollope: A New Judgement (1946)
• Why Do I Write?: An Exchange of Views between Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene and V.S. Pritchett (1948)
• Collected Impressions (1950)
• The Shelbourne (1951)
• A Time in Rome (1960)
• Afterthought: Pieces About Writing (1962)
• Pictures and Conversations (1975), edited by Spencer Curtis Brown
• The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen (1999), edited by Hermione Lee
• "Notes on Éire": Espionage Reports to Winston Churchill by Elizabeth Bowen, 1940–1942 (2008), edited by Jack Lane and Brendan Clifford
• People, Places, Things: Essays by Elizabeth Bowen (2008) - edited by Allan Hepburn
• Love's Civil War: Elizabeth Bowen and Charles Ritchie: Letters and Diaries, 1941–1973 (2009), edited by Victoria Glendinning and Judith Robertson
• Listening In: Broadcasts, Speeches, and Interviews by Elizabeth Bowen (2010), edited by Allan Hepburn
• Elizabeth Bowen's Selected Irish Writings (2011), edited by Éibhear Walshe
• The Weight of a World of Feeling: Reviews and Essays by Elizabeth Bowen (2016), edited by Allan Hepburn

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK

Jerry House 

George Kelley 

Richard Robinson 

Todd Mason 

Forgotten Movies: Back Street-1932

 Irene Dunne is absolutely effervescent in the first version of Back Street by Fannie Hurst.

Back Street is the story of a woman, who gives up what would have been a good life with a man  she very much liked, to instead follow a man she loved for 25 years. It is heart-breaking to watch her make the choices that would yield her so little in the end. And yet, a love like hers (and his too in the end) is not something to be scorned. John Boles played her lover.

Directed by John Stahl, this is one of his four movies on the Criterion Channel this month. The last fifteen minutes cannot be watched dry-eyed. Dunne never got an Oscar and yet made so many terrific movies and was by all accounts a good woman who lived outside Hollywood Babylon. Also love her in Love Affair, My Favorite Wife, The Awful Truth and I Remember Mama, among many many others.

Still Here

Sick of snow and at least two months to go! It seems like every Sunday I am worrying about whether my snow removal place will come. I pay them $600 a winter and so far they have come twice this year. They only come if we have over two inches. I think I said all of this last Sunday.

Watching False Flags on Hulu, which may be more needful of close attention than I can give it. Also watching C. B. Strike on HBO Max, based on the Galbraith books. Awfully good atmosphere and acting but the first plot was sort of so-so. Also All Creatures Great and Small, which is a pleasant show but not very compelling. I guess the original was much the same. Not sure how many times I want to watch a vet put his hand up a cow. 

Watched a play called Lung from the Old Vic, starring Matt Smith and Claire Foy. Also listened to the NYT Book Club session with Claire Messud discussing Edith Wharton's The Custom of the County. Wharton certainly made her living off of books with similar plots.

Just finished two very mediocre books, which I won't name because maybe it's me. 

All my walking has been around the house. It is too cold and icy outside. Hard to get a decent amount of steps in circling my kitchen island but what else can I do. I have a lot of things that make me feel guilty and not getting any exercise is one of them, However, my grandmother, who never walked more than a block in her life, lived to be 91.

I have had a headache for two weeks, off and on. Not a bad one but an annoyance. It could be from grinding my teeth. It could be sinuses. It could be my glasses need adjustment. The most likely thing is stress. Trying to get the second shot before I do anything about it. Schedule for the 17th.

Rewatched Gregory's Girl last night. But the great movie of the week was Tavernier's The Clockmaker of St. Paul. Just terrific.  

What about you?