Noir fiction for the modern reader.

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in the Bald-Faced Liar thing that was spinning around the crime fiction community. I posted six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie about my secret, sordid past. A few people commented on what they thought the lie was, and a few more emailed me with their selections. But now…now it is time…time for the final, official truth to be revealed.

The seven claims I made were:

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

And yes, the lie is #7. Only Deborah Sharp was sharp enough to make the correct call. Everyone else, without exception selected #5, which I’m afraid actually happened, along with #s 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.

Okay, now that that’s done with, anybody got anything they’d like to sound off about? On any subject at all? Come in, please. Over.

While surfing the blogosphere today, I came upon Rob Kitchin’s blogspot. Rob is an Irish author who’s in search of pre-1970 crime fiction classics to read. Okay, Rob, here’s my list, in no particular order.

1. The Grifters, Jim Thompson, 1963

2. Double Indemnity, James M Cain, 1936

3. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett, 1929

4. The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler, 1953

5. The Asphalt Jungle, W R Burnett, 1949

6. Street Of No Return, David Goodis, 1954

7. The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson, 1952

8. 13 French Street, Gil Brewer, 1951

9. His Name Was Death, Fredric Brown, 1951

10. Branded Woman, Wade Miller, 1952 (back in print, thanks to Hard Case Crime)

Rob is looking for an introduction into pre-1970 crime fiction, so these are my recommendations. They all lean heavily toward noir and away from traditional whodunits, so no Sherlock Holmes or Nero Wolfe here. Holmes and Wolfe are fine, as are other much older novels, like The Woman In White. But these 10 books are what I feel would be a good intro to the darkside.

I’ve included two novels by Jim Thompson. The Grifters is a much more “standard” crime novel, but only as compared to everything else that went through Thompson’s twisted mind, while The Killer Inside Me is a sheer trip on the fast train to hell.

Anybody else got any good ideas?  Any good additions to this list?

THE COLDEST MILE by Tom Piccirilli

Review Copyright 2009 by Mike Dennis

How would you like to take a job where your employer cuts your predecessor’s stomach open before your very eyes?  Well, that’s what’s offered to the central character in the opening of this blow-‘em-out hardboiled tale by Tom Piccirilli.

He’s called Chase, and we learn that he was raised as a grifter by his grandfather, Jonah, who pulled him out of a foster home and straight into a life of crime.  Now, as a twentysomething adult, he’s on his own.  Jonah, now in his sixties, and who is one hardass dude, has plenty of blood on his hands.  But he’s still deep inside Chase’s head, for more reasons than one.

Immediately after Chase takes the job as chauffeur for a disintegrating New Jersey crime family, he runs into problems, all of his own making.  He’s not given to following orders too closely, he talks back, shows no respect, and pushes the family’s gunmen around.  The reader can’t help but think he’s going to get whacked any second.

Referring to a previous Piccirilli novel, The Cold Spot, a dense backstory is cleverly revealed in bits and pieces, letting the reader in on the complex relationship between Chase and Jonah.  In The Coldest Mile, Chase wants to find him again, but for very different reasons.

Piccirilli, an award-winning author of some twenty novels, knows how to write this stuff.  He keeps the reader’s eyes on the page with lots of stinging prose and tough dialogue.  He takes us with Chase to Florida, where the criminals are decidedly minor league, and gives us a finely-tuned feel of the messiness of their organizations.

He also draws a clear connection between Chase and Jonah.  It’s an ambivalent one, filled with both resentment and respect, but most of all, it is riveting, and forms the emotional core of the novel.

Through Chase’s memories, Jonah’s character is well-drawn before he ever actually walks onto the page.  When he finally does appear, he steals every scene he’s in, whether Piccirilli wants him to or not, and he very nearly steals the entire novel.  By then, however, the reader is totally ready for one of the most hardened, uncompromising characters he will ever encounter.

I’m currently sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for my connection back to Las Vegas.  There are remnants of activity still going on at Bouchercon today, but all the serious stuff wrapped up last night.

Overall, I’d have to rate the conference with a “C” grade.  A big part of my negative feeling toward it stems from the fact that yesterday, I started coming down with a cold, so I left the Hyatt at around 1:30 to return to the Omni, where I was staying, and never returned to the conference. Colds really piss me off, so that becomes my problem.

And speaking of the Omni, I wasn’t crazy about it. Everything about it was way overpriced, including $10/day for wi-fi access, and I was told the building went up in 1913!  Granted, the Omni company spent a lot of money on renovations, but my room was tiny. It was also two blocks from the Hyatt, making it unbelievably inconvenient, especially in the terrible weather that blanketed Indianapolis.

As far as Indianapolis goes, this was my first time there, and if I never go there again (which is clearly possible), I don’t think I’ll be missing anything. There are some cities that just beg you to return, to see and experience that which you missed on your first visit. Cities like New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans fall into this category. Indianapolis falls way outside of it.

Another obstacle I couldn’t quite overcome was the fact that I didn’t know a soul there. All the published authors tended to stick together before they vanished, while everyone else seemed to know each other or seemed to be part of a group, and based on other early reports of conference attendees who were well-acquainted with large groups of people, I’m not too far wrong. At times, it felt like I was the lone Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium. As with the cold, I suppose this is my problem.

But it wasn’t all bad. The conference itself was very well-run. I liked the idea of the “continuous conversations”. Even though there were no jaw-dropping moments at the ones I attended, they were a harmless, comfortable way to pass the down time. The panels, of which there was no shortage, generally started and ended on time, and they usually stayed on topic, with plenty of time allotted for Q and A from the audience.

The guests were well-chosen, for the most part, and most of them had something to say. Michael Connelly would be the major exception to this, as he appeared to be on automatic pilot. He does a lot of these events, though, so I’ll cut him slack.  Anyway, his presence alone seemed to satisfy the large crowd, which ran upwards of 1500 people.

By far, however, my biggest beef was with the panel moderators, who generally would not make the panelists speak directly into the microphone. Some of the panelists had a natural projection, and didn’t need to “eat” the microphone, but far too many tended to mumble, and when they were asked to speak into the microphone, they leaned forward about two inches. Then, before their sentence was completed, they had relaxed back into their original inaudible position. Michelle Gagnon was an exception to this. At her panel, she repeatedly asked the panelists to hold the microphone closer, and they all did.  Memo to Bouchercon organizers: it’s no fun to have to strain to hear someone. We shouldn’t have to do it, especially when they have a microphone that the conference paid for.

The bookstore area was sensational. A great selection of new titles mixed with older ones, as well as a few first editions and other collector’s items were displayed in a sensible, accessible manner.

I’ll be going to San Francisco next year, and I’m definitely booking a room in the host hotel.

Well, I just bought the new James Ellroy novel, Blood’s A Rover.  Lindsey Losnedahl of the Las Vegas Review-Journal liked it, and I have to admit, I’ve been looking forward to it for some time, as I do all of his novels.  In my opinion, his LA Quartet ranks as one of the greatest achievements in all of crime fiction.  I’m even going to get him to sign this new book when he appears here in Las Vegas in a few weeks.  But things are just a little different this time around.

His last effort, The Cold Six Thousand, was the second installment in his current trilogy.  The first, American Tabloid, was, in my opinion, a masterpiece.  It stood to reason that Six Thousand, which began literally on the very day of the finale of Tabloid, would carry me through more wonderful reading sessions.  I saw myself being enveloped in Ellroy’s machine-gun writing style, swiftly transported into his cynical world of killers, drug dealers, hookers, and high-level political intrigue.

All those elements were there, all right, but about halfway through the 600+ page book, I started to lose interest.  The characters started to repeat themselves, the story bogged down in its own multiplicity of plots, and worst of all, I knew where it was all headed. Nevertheless, I plowed on, turning page after page, hoping the whole thing would resuscitate itself.  It never did, and so, I did something I have never done in all my reading life.

I put the book down seven pages before the end.

Wracked with guilt, I stuck the book in a drawer and never looked at it again until I moved a few years ago, at which time I donated it, along with many other books, to the local library.

I might add at this point that I’ve never spoken to anyone about this, and in the years since, have heard only outstanding things about The Cold Six Thousand.

Without question, I’m going to read Blood’s A Rover as though none of the above had ever happened.  I’m sure it will pick up precisely where Six Thousand left off, and I know I’m going to love it.

Aren’t I?

Welcome to my website, mikedennisnoir.com.  This is my first post, and I’m very excited to finally get this site up and running.  A boatload of thanks to Leslie Michaelis of Las Vegas, who built it from the ground up.

I’m a crime fiction writer, living in Las Vegas, who’s been toiling in the vineyards for years until L&L Dreamspell Publishing picked up one of my novels, The Take.  It’s a fast-paced little noir effort that will be out sometime in 2010.   Thanks go to Morgan St James for her energetic efforts in helping me with the preliminary editing.  You can read an excerpt of it here on this site. 

I’ve always admired the best of the crime novelists.  I’m talking about hardboiled fiction guys like Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, Gil Brewer, and Raymond Chandler, among others, who between them, managed to kick the door open a crack or two, all the while operating under the stigma of  “pulp” writer.  They made it ”respectable” to write crime fiction, elitist public opinion notwithstanding.  Later, you had Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, and so many others who shoved the door all the way open so guys like me could just walk right through it.  Speaking only for myself, I owe these men a serious debt of gratitude.