Review: Kill Me in Shinjuku (Burns Bannion #5) by Earl Norman

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Burnsie's is still an accidental and unauthorized private detective but this 5th outing adds a few new twists. And yep, I'm still a Burnes Bannion devotee. Links to books 1-4 below.

For the first time we see Bannion with western clients. His buddy Hedges, who operates under the cover of a newspaper man but never files a story, gets him a meeting with an Australian stripper named Ginger Peachy. It seems that a very important letter was stolen from Ginger on the street and in broad daylight under very mysterious circumstances. She stopped to smell the flowers from a street vendor and lost 15 minutes and the letter.

Later Bannion is approached by Inspector Ezawa of the Criminal Investigation Section of Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He is, of course, aware of Bannion's job for Ginger but it seems like another western woman, a Mrs. Herge Harishiemer, has also had an important item stolen under the same circumstances. Her husband has government connections that keep Ezawa from pressing the wife on the issue.

Which leads to the second new development. Ezawa comes right out and asks Bannion to look into the matter. Ezawa says:

Bannion, with the trail you leave behind you in your bungling efforts to be a private detective, we are well aware of your activities. You have no license and none will be given you. However, speaking unofficially, I am willing to allow sleeping animals lie, for I will admin at times I find you helpful.

So, as long as Bannion remains useful, he probably won't be deported.

The third change for Bannion is that his rates have gone up. When he decided to become a PI he charged Philip Marlowe's daily rate of $25 plus expenses. Now he's up to $50 plus expenses.

There has to be a Japanese sex interest, right? Wanting to get out of the rain, Bannion heads to a little bar where he first saw karate in action. Also in the bar is a gang of teenage girls. Their leader, Obake, aka Ghost, is unusual in that her face is completely covered by her hair. Naturally she gets Bannion's attention and he is determined to see her face. She is able to resist Bannion's charms but becomes his accomplice in the investigations.

Complicating matters is that Bannion finds out that someone has a grudge against him and means to see him die painfully.

The story isn't bad, not one of my favorites, but not bad. As with all the Bannion books so far, everything is connected and the source of the grudge against Bannion is neatly done though it does fall into the arch villain overly elaborate plan trope. There is a little bit of kink at the end I thought a bit much but it certainly upped the drama. We also get a bit more backstory on how Bannion became fascinated with karate and a little more about Bannion's time in the army. Oh, and if you had any doubts, Bannion does get to exercise his karate skills in mortal combat. The fight scenes are well done with Bannion explaining his moves even while fighting for his life.

Reviews of the first four books in the series:

Kill Me in Tokyo

Kill Me in Shimbashi

Kill Me in Yokohama

Kill Me in Yoshiwara

Keywords: hardboiled detective, crime fiction, Japan, private investigator, action thriller, karate

Review: These Women by Ivy Pochoda

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2020, HarperCollins, 316 pages.

Rating (I don't do stars): Excellent, a top read for me. Enjoyed the characters and the plot. Very well executed. Highly recommended.

 

I was looking up descriptions of Edgar Award Nominees that I found on the CrimeReads blog and this book got my attention. It has a serial killer but as I discovered, it isn't the usual serial killer story. You know, a cat-and-mouse race to catch the killer before he kills again with the killer taunting the police.

I've linked below to several good reviews that go in-depth into the themes.

It is a slow burn that focuses on the victims —who are mostly sex workers —and those around them with one lone female detective who begins to see connections and patterns. These are the "these women" of the title. While a serial killer working South Central LA is the driving force, I see the novel more as speaking for women society discounts because of where they live and the work they do set against a backdrop of a killer preying on them.

Another character in the story is South Central Los Angeles itself, where these women live and work. As Feelia observers:

Want to know what's fucked up? South Central—everyone says it's ugly, that it's messed up. You ever take a step back and take a good look at it? A really good look. This is a nice fucking place.

The women are Feelia, Dorian, Kathy, Julianna, Essie, Marella, and Anneke. All are connected.

The story opens with Feelia, a prostitute. She bookends the story with the first and last chapters and her narrative is interspersed throughout the book separating each chapter. We meet her in 1999 when she has just survived a brutal attack by a john that left her with a slashed throat. She is brash and vulgar and wants someone to listen to her story. No one does for 15 years. Feelia is also convinced she is being stalked since she was attacked but, again, given her past, no one looks at her seriously. This is the major theme in the novel, not listening.

Dorian is the mother of Lecia a young woman who was a victim in an unsolved murder, her throat slashed and cast into the street. Because of where she lived, the police assumed she was a prostitute and didn't put any effort into finding the killer. Dorian wants justice for her daughter. Her nurturing nature extends to sex workers in her neighborhood, Kathy and Julianna. Kathy is a hardened, cynical veteran of the streets who Dorian feeds in her fish shack after hours despite the abuse Kathy heaps upon her. Kathy got Juliana into the life. Dorian is drawn to Julianna because Lecia babysat Julianna who was the last person to see her alive. Someone keeps leaving dead hummingbirds behind her restaurant which takes her to the police station.

Dorian is a well known nuisance about the station and she is passed on to a vice detective named Essie in a cruel reminder that her colleagues find both Essie and Dorian inconsequential. Essie is a Latina woman saddled with a white name, Esmerelda Perry. She is unusually short and there is a lot of doubt that she can actually do cop work Essie was demoted after an incident where she took the fall for another detective but no one believes she was innocent. She is also not heard and no one in homicide is interested in the connections and patterns she begins to unravel. I like the way the author portrays Essie. Most of the time people think she isn't paying attention when they talk and are often mystified by the out-of-the-blue questions she asks. I enjoyed the way Essie's seemingly aimless wandering though the cases comes together. If Pochoda writes more crime fiction, I hope she gives Essie a book.

 Julianna is a particularly intriguing character and her story is perhaps more tragic because of what she could have been. She is a drug abusing, hard partying, sex worker but she has an artist inside her and the CLICKS of her cell phone camera gives us frozen glimpses of the sex workers. CLICK. She resists the efforts of Dorian who want to take her out of the life.

I don't want to say anything about Marella and Anneke (mother and daughter) except that they, and father/husband Roger, lived next door to Julianna's family. There would be spoilerage.

I really liked the way the novel ends.

New Thriller Challenges Readers to Take Another Look at 'These Women' (NPR)

"These Women" Breaks the Crime Thriller Mold (bitchmedia)

Keywords: serial killer, sex workers, crime fiction, murder, crime thriller

Review: Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby

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2020, Flatiron Press, 285 pages

Loved this book, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland is terrific piece of noir fiction and the first one I've read in a while that I'd actually call noir. As I got into the book I became a pretty excited reader since noir is my true love in crime fiction.

Beauregard "Bug" Montage is a classic noir protagonist. I don't mean this in the sense that he is unoriginal or that the story is unsurprising. It's just that the reader knows they are in for a noir ride and that heightened my anticipation.

A black man living in Virginia, Beauregard had a previously life as a gangster. His speciality was driving and planning. He was— and still is, —a man capable of sudden violence. He was able to leave that life behind, open a garage, and provide for his family, but then a competitor opens another garage, he begins losing business ,and his mother's nursing home is demanding payment. 

With crushing bills due, he has no choice but to listen to low-life, untrustworthy, white trash Ronnie Sessions who comes to him with a sure-fire, no risk job that will have them rolling in money, enough to take care of Beauregard's problems. Ronnie has a girlfriend in a jewelry store who knows about a shipment of diamonds about to arrive. Beauregard reluctantly agrees and begins his usual meticulous planning and attempts to instill discipline among the crew so there is some possibility of success.  Unfortunately, the crew, Ronnie Sessions, his brother Reggie, and Quan are about as unprofessional a bunch if robbers as you can get. In true noir fashion, a simple job turns out to be anything but and Beauregard and his family are soon in the sights of some very bad people.

I appreciate the complexity the author gives Beauregard and he is a well drawn protagonist. A large, uneducated black man. he is underestimated by nearly everyone and some come to regret it.  While he is a devoted family man who thinks he has abandoned his bad life, it simmers under the surface and erupts all too easily. Despite appearances, he may be bad to the bone. He is also doomed from the start as he tries to resolves the two sides of his nature. He lives under the shadow of his father, also a bad man, who disappeared from the lives of his wife and son. His legacy is a Plymouth Duster that Beauregard refuses to part with even when it would help his financial situation.

Part of what drives Beauregard is to make sure his kid have choices, his two sons and his daughter from another marriage. He tries to give his oldest, Javon a lesson in reality:

Listen, when you're a black man in America you live with the weight of people's low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it's a race. Everybody has a head start and you dragging those low expectations around you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations.

This is the life he knows and wants to save his children from. You want to root for Beauregard but you can feel that a happy ending isn't what life has in store.

Beauregard's passion, after his family, is driving. He is a gifted driver and mechanic, both skills he will have to draw on to live. Blacktop Wasteland has the best driving action I've read. It's edge-of-your-seat, stomach clenching, adrenaline pumping stuff. The action in this book is very well done and it will be a true crime if someone doesn't turn it into a movie. Seriously. 

The setting is in Virginia and the author plays with the geography quite a bit like making up names of counties. I gave up trying to figure out how the characters get from one place to another as fast as they do. Fun for me, though, is that part of the action takes place near where I live, around Newport News and Beauregard drives I-64 and highway 60, roads I know very well. When he has Beauregard think about what a "clusterfuck" I-64 is around Newport News is and how it's about time the highway is expanded, he is spot on. Loved it.

I learned about this title from the blog Black Guys Do Read. This is an excellent book blog and you should check them out.

Loved this book, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Keywords: noir, southern noir, crime fiction, heists, thrillers, driving action, cars in crime. black characters

 

Some Thoughts: The Overstory by Richard Powers

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The Overstory might a Marmite book, you either love it or hate it. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration but opinions on this book are certainly strong on both sides. Personally, I can only give it a tepid recommendation. I'm not up for a full on review since the book is all over the place with interlocking stories — I'll leave real reviews to experts — so consider what follows to be some of my thoughts about what got in the way of me loving the book the way so many do. Keep in mind that despite what you read, I didn't hate the book, I just think it could have been better and more effective.

 There are great, even awesome descriptions and I really enjoyed the science bits that show how trees interact with each others and humans. The writing hits lyrical highs that make you want to go out and hug a tree. The story of what happens to the chestnut tree in America is heart wrenching and the descriptions of life in a dead is beautiful. But then you also get new age spiritualism crunchy granola philosophy, heavy handed preachy messages, and a strident indictment on over development. It's hard to argue with the basic point that we are destroying our plant biomass at an alarming rate and losing all the potential benefits that could be held in the plants but the way the message is delivered is numbing after a while. And how many times do we have to be told about tree rings and how trees outdate human civilization. There is one scene where a character is laying on an immense stump and we learn what was happening are various parts of his body. that is pretty neat.

It's also about 150-200 pages too long. I think it would have been better with some serious editing and several large chunks either removed or pruned or pollarded. Pollard means to cut off the top and branches of (a tree) to encourage new growth at the top. It is used in the book to describe one of the characters editing a manuscript. And please don't ascribe my complaint about the length of the book to having a short attention span. My attention span is fine it is just that there are many pages that do nothing for me the reader. 

The story focuses on 9 people. Five comprise a hardcore group of environmental activists/ecoterrorists who all feel that the trees have called out to them, leading them to be where they need to be, to take action. Honestly, if that is what was happening then then I'd say the trees have a black sense of humor and are having them on because things don't go all that well for them. Kind of like "Well we're doomed so let's find some susceptible humans to mess with along the way". The five are all given so much backstory that I wondered if they were padding to fill some pages. On one of my Facebook book groups the someone describes the character who goes by the name of Maidenhair as a manic pixie dream girl to which I appended and perhaps some Rima the Jungle Girl from Green Mansions. If you've read the book think about the part where she is living in a tree and see if you don't agree.

As to the other four characters, you have a botanist, Patricia who specializes in trees who writes a book that has a profound affect on everyone; a paraplegic software developer who created a best selling simulation game (think Second Life on steroids) after communing with trees who then comes to realize his world simulation is too much like the real world  where accumulation of more stuff is the goal (kind of letting the trees down and they don't talk to him anymore) and counters this with another project that will probably create Skynet; and a husband and wife on the brink of divorce who discover nature in their back yard. I'm still not sure about the point of the husband/wife story except maybe think locally then get ground down by the authorities.

Patricia has the most interesting story to me. She walks through nature and we see the world through her eyes. What she shows us is what makes the story soar. Her story is the one that resonates the most with me. She is the one who discovers how trees communicate and help each other. The book Patricia wrote, The Secret Forrest, is the one I want to read. Her book is also a thread that connects the characters; I  think I remember that everyone has read her book. 

In the end, I found the book depressing and without a ray of hope. For the five eco-terrorists, only one has anything like a positive outcome. The message seems to be we need to "unsuicide" in order to save the planet. The suicide being the devastation we are wrecking on the environment.

Most reactions to the book are glowing and it did get a Pulitzer and National Book award so I'm outside popular opinion. I promise I didn't pick up the book with a preconceived opinion and I don't intend to come across as slagging a popular book for the sake of being ornery. The review in The Guardian, "How could The Overstory be considered a book of the year" does a good job describing my issues. to be fair, the author of the critical review also praised it in the review "The Overstory's lofty view rises above mere polemic". He just didn't think it "book of the year" worthy. 

Keywords: activism, eco-terrorism. environmentalism, trees

Review: A Flash of Gold by Francis R. Bellamy (1922)

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A Flash of Gold is about as far from my usual reading fare as you can get. It was originally serialized in 1922 then published as a novel in 1923. This text came from the serial publication. When it got my attention (the cover), I couldn't figure out what the book is about. Google Books says This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. Using a phrase like civilization as we know it certainly got my attention. The Amazon summary isn't much more helpful: From those mysterious tides of emotion which underlie our lives, making mock of our wisdom and learning, there rises now and then a fine, high-crested wave. And on it rides a tragic soul, destined to laughter and tears and the anguish of the passionate drama. Intense in an instant, melting at a glance, carrying with them all the witchery of the passionate heart—of such are the Nancy Van Wycks of the world. Wow, a high-crested wave, how I not read this book. I can say that, while it isn't going on my list of favorite reads, I don't regret reading it. 

What we have here is your basic spoiled rich girl romance story set against a backdrop of labor unrest and America's entry into WWI. Our main protagonist is flighty rich girl Nancy Van Wyck from Clewesbury, NY who's father makes his money in pottery. Old money dismiss him as the sewer-pipe man . For Nancy, flirting is a blood sport. She takes up with David Carpenter, a young doctor who comes from old money. After a few relationship bumps becauseDavid doesn't play the game right, she agrees to marry him though her father says she won't get any money from him if she does.He doesn't think she can be serious about a relationship and is just like her mother who abandoned the family.

David is idealistic and takes her new home in the Brotherhood House, situated in the working class part of town where he runs a clinic that looks after the mainly immigrant laborers is the town's fabric industries. Nancy seems to adapt at first but then the need for her old social life surfaces. David is very busy with office and house calls and the desperate plight of the inhabitants of  Kerrigan Street so with David's blessings, Nancy goes off with her old friends, dining and dancing, . Then the "imps of conquest" that drive her flirting rise to the surface. Unfortunately her target isn't like any of the young men she usually toys with but one of her father's colleagues, a strong and decisive man used to taking what he wants, and she finds herself in over head and her marriage threatened.

Along with this romantic triangle, Bellamy examines the plight of the immigrants, how they came to the US seeking promised opportunity to better themselves but find the same oppression they experienced back home. Bellamy was very passionate about what America means and how the American Dream isn't being fulfilled. The author has David make a very pointed remark to Nancy when she says they will have to move if they have children: Slums are only for other people's children he says. 

The promise of America versus the reality, comes to a head when the clothing workers' union strikes for higher wages. The owners are set on destroying the union and Bellamy displays a decidedly anti-capitalist attitude. I haven't found much about Francis R. Bellamy but I suspect he was a socialist or sympathizer. At the same time all this is going on, the US has joined the Allies to fight Germany in WWI and the industrialists see an opportunity to make even more money with the need for uniforms.

I don't want to spoil the ending but it does wrap up in a nice Hallmark moment. I thought it was an interesting read as a romance in the rich-girl -out-of-her-element and will-she-find-the-meaning-of- happiness style. It is also interesting to look the style of writing which seems overblown at times but t the same time the sentences are more complex than we commonly see today. I had more than a few "what did what I just read" and I found myself having to back up several pages when I resumed reading the next day. Oh, and there are no chapters, those were added in the novel version. So it's a fairly standard love tested romance with pro-labor, anti-capitalist events running in the background. And a war. that actually clarifies things.

Keywords: romance, labor unrest,. class division

The Traveller and Other Stories by Stuart Neville

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I read the first of Stuart Neville's  Belfast novels, The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve in the UK) in 2016 and was stunned at how good it was. No doubt it still is. It was also Neville's first novel. I immediately read book 2, Collusion, but didn't keep up with the author after that, something for which I have no logical explanation. Jump ahead to 2021 and I see a mention of The Traveller in a 2020 Crime column of the NY Times Books section and I thought we should get reacquainted. 

This collection of twelve short stories and one novella show that Neville is as skilled with short form fiction as he is writing novels. There aren't any happy stories here and I'd say they run from light gray to deepest black in the mood they instill.

The book has two parts. Part I is called New Monsters. The first story, "Coming in on Time" sets the tone with a young boy watching for the ferry and it pretty much leaves the reader gutted. Following that story is the mildest of the seven in part one, "The Green Lady" which is a reworking of an Irish ghost legend. Story three, "Echo", has a young boy in a house that is trying to cope with a tragedy.I'm overusing this word but it is another that leaves the reader gutted. The other four are dark crime stories, practically noir.

Part II is called Old Friends and is a return to Northern Ireland during and after The Troubles which is when The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion are set. Several of the stories and the novella feature paramilitary killer, Gerry Fegan who we first meet in The Ghosts of Belfast. In fact, the story "Followers" was expanded into The Ghosts of Belfast. Fegan is haunted by people he killed. The novella, The Traveller, is particularly important for wrapping up some loose ends. The stories can be read as stand-alone but if you've read books one and two of the Belfast novels you'll recognize names and events. What these stories have done is to inspire me to go back and reread the first two books of the Belfast novels. There are six of these but I've only read the first two. I need to fix that. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and say it; if you haven't already done so, go read The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion. If you read them first, you'll see where the stories fit in. If you read these stories first, then the novels will explain the context. Either way, you won't regret it.

Keywords: Northern Ireland, The Troubles, killers, crime fiction, noir, short stories

 

Review: The Truants by Kate Weinberg

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I wasn't thinking about writing a review as I read until, at the end, I realized what an odd (for me) reading experience it had been. You see, I forgot I was reading. When I began the book, I was slightly puzzled why I selected it. Then, when nearly finished, I remembered that I had read about The Truants in the NY Times crime books column— a crime book, my favorite genre. Part of this I attribute to me being an oblivious reader but really I applaud Weinberg for a wonderfully, subtly, creatively put together crime story.

Jess Walker (the first person narrator) comes to an East Anglia university to study under Professor Lorna Clay, an expert on Agatha Christie and author of The Truants, a book that changed Jess' life. Jess becomes friends with two other students: Georgie, outgoing, no respecter of rules, from an aristocratic family, and a serious substance abuser; Nick handsome and as solid as the geology he studies. 

Bracketing the three friends are Prof. Clay is brilliant with a mesmerizing personality that makes everyone fall in love with her and hang on her every word. She is also doesn't respect teacher/student boundaries and encourages breaking rules. On the other side is Alec Van Zanten, a South African journalist, handsome and charismatic, who becomes a part of the group.

I got so caught up in the relationships between the characters that I forgot that there was a crime story in it. Jess, Georgie, and Nick are not very experienced in life and are easily influenced by Lorna and Alec. We have lies, deceit, disappearances, obsession, love, and betrayal playing out with Alec taking the trio off on alcohol fueled adventures in the hearse he uses as his personal automobile. 

Each chapter Lorna's book, The Truants, is

...a short biography of a debauched but brilliant life, mingled with some incisive analysis linking their foulest behavior with their most sublime output

These are people who lived life dangerously and left collateral damage in their wake, who broke rules and played truant from their lives. Influenced by Lorna and Alec, Jess, Georgie, and Nick become truants themselves though less extreme versions of the truants in Lorna's book.

Clues are found throughout the narrative, subtly woven in for the reader to put together. The most obvious alert is Agatha Christie, Lorna's speciality. Bits about her life and works are worked in mainly in the context of Jess' dissertation for her degree. Adding to the Christie element, the author drops more clues that add up to a shattering conclusion. Really, very neatly done. 

I've seen the book referred to as a thriller but I wouldn't use use that term to describe it; thrillers are more action oriented which isn't the case here. The reader is pulled along in the story which is why I read it in a day and a half. 

This is the author's debut novel and was first published in the UK in 2019. The US edition appeared in 2020. She's on my "what will she write next" watch list.

Keywords: Agatha Christie, crime novels, coming of age novels

Review: Kill Me in Yoshiwara (Burns Bannion #4) by Earl Norman

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Kill Me in Tokyo was my first Burns Bannion and thus will always hold a high place in my affection for this series but Kill Me in Yoshiwara is my favorite so far. Where Kill Me in Yokohama didn't measure up for me, number 4 in the series more than makes up for that.

Kill Me in Yoshiwara follows the usual pattern (so far) for the Bannion books with the exception that Burns doesn't meet his client in a bar. You won't be disappointed to lean that: a seemingly simple case quickly becomes more complicated and wider in scope; Bannion will have to bring his karate skills into play to stay alive; and a beautiful woman is involved. 

The story starts with Burns bouncing along a road in rural Japan on a rented motor scooter. He is traveling to Katsu village to meet his client, Mrs. Aoba, who contacted him via postal box 113. Her daughter has gone missing. He spots the ruins of a castle and decides to take a detour and investigate. Just Bannions's luck, he finds the nude body of a still warm dead woman on an upper floor, her luxurious garments spread out around her. She has died from an expert karate chop. He catches a glimpse of furtive movement but the person is nowhere to be found.

Not surprising, the dead woman is the missing daughter, Kazuko, and Bannion's assignment now become to find the killer. While his client thinks he has an honest face, the other daughter, Hiroko, isn't convinced; Kazuko was killed by a karate blow and Bannion is a karate man. Bannion learns that, years earlier, Kazuko had been sold into prostitution to a gang is Yoshiwra by her mother to finance a new husband. Bannion is a suspect due to footprints found at the scene but is allowed to return to Tokyo with the requirement that he check in with Inspector Ezawa who we met previously in earlier books. Armed only with the name of the gang that owned Kazuko's contract, Burns begins his investigation.

So what appealed to me about this book:

I like the way that the author describes Japan through the eyes of an American who appreciates the country. In just the first several chapters, we read about a Japanese castle, a rich description of the garments of the dead woman, the rural village, a hotel room, and the handling of the dead woman's body. These details are presented the way an outsider would register, consider them.

Norman works in a brief history of prostitution in Japan without making it an info dump. Bannion pumps Inspector Ezawa for information about the Yoshiwara district. Apparently it wasn't unusual for a daughter to be sold into prostitution and Yoshiwara was a major red light district back when prostitution was legal. Though prostitution in now illegal, Yoshiwara's reputation as a center for sin continues. Inspector Ezawa's opinions on legal vs illegal prostitution are interesting. I looked this up on wikipedia and the author fairly summarized the subject

. 

Kill Me in Yoshiwara gives us a strong female character. Hiroko is determined to find who murdered her sister and kill them herself. Hiroko is a good character and I hope she has a place in the next book in the series. Up to now, main female characters disappear between books.

As in the previous books, Inspector Ezawa seems set on getting Bannion deported but still gives him space to bang on things and see what comes out of the woodwork. Hie's a useful idiot to the authorities, as it were. Not much gets past Ezawa.

Some of the author's most skillful descriptions are the karate fights. He works in the moves and techniques Bannion is executing and that are being used against him. Bannion of course survives but it is never a sure thing and Norman continues to make karate a main feature of the stories without making is boringly repetitive.

In don't want to give away the entire plot but I found it plausible and satisfying. Here's a hint: Chinese agitators and a hidden cache of gold coins and all the plot elements starting in chapter one tie together by the end.

Keywords: hardboiled detectives, Japan, prostitution in fiction, karate, private detectives, thrillers, action adventure

 

Review: Understudy for Death by Charles Willeford

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At the first, I want to say that I enjoyed this book, a lot. Willeford was a wonderful writer and this is a good example of his abilities. Very satisfying. The book was published 1961 and I grew up in the 60s. I related to some of the descriptions of homelife described by Willeford.

I didn't know what I was getting with this book. Like a lot of you, I know Willeford's work from his crime novels, the Hoke Mosely series, for example. If you look at the title and cover, you would be justified to think you'd be getting a crime story. Not so. On the cover, the only element that directly relates to the story is the typewriter. The woman in a bikini with a gun, not so much.

In the small South Florida city of Lake Springs, a woman kills her son and daughter then herself. The Managing Editor of the Lake Springs Morning News and Evening Press assigns reporter Richard Hudson to find out what drove the woman, Marion Huneker, to commit murder and suicide. Hudson thinks it is worthless assignment, but, with the suggestion that perhaps he doesn't want his job anymore, reluctantly agrees.  You know he doesn't plan to put much effort into it.

Hudson, who sees himself as a playwright first, is lazy, cynical, rude, and abrasive, doing a job beneath him while he works on his play. He becomes emotionally and verbally abusive toward his wife if she dares ask him to do anything around the house; a man's a loser to make his own breakfast. For Hudson, nothing is more important than work on his play which, despite years of effort, hasn't progressed beyond the first act. 

Really, this is a snapshot of life in South Florida, the daily routine of a reporter on a minor newspaper, and  an examination of marriage. Marriage is always a presence in the story even if it isn't at the forefront. This is more like the marriages in Mad Men than those of Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver. Along the way we begin to see inside the soul of Richard Hudson as he talks to people who knew the deceased woman and react to his own marriage.

With Hudson driving around town doing his reporter interviews, Willeford is able to write in several interesting passages that, while not directly related to Hudson's reporting, work toward the atmosphere, sense of place, state of mind. 

The heat of Southern Florida in the summer is every bit as oppressive as Willeford describes. I have personal experience here and I can't imagine what it was like before everything was air conditioned. 

In one scene Hudson is approaching the residence of someone he wants to interview. He pauses and muses about Florida home construction and how there isn't much difference between a $10,000 house and one that costs $20,000. This may seen boring and out-of-place but is interesting and contributes the snapshot of Florida life I mentioned earlier. It also reminded me a little of John D. Macdonald who frequently inserted discussion about development and ecology into his novels.

Willeford also works in observations about the life of the freelance pulp writer. I expect it was a subject that Willeford knew more than a little about and meant a lot to him. It also has an affect on Hudson and allows an uncharacteristic bit of emotion toward a fellow human.

The story doesn't really resolve the "why" of the suicide. The note left Marion left behind gives the feeling that Marion slipped into an existential despair, the feeling that she and her children didn't belong in the world anymore. Being very devout, Marion felt she was sending her children to a better place and she was willing to sacrifice he place in eternity to ensure theirs.  She wrote that Television is more important than we are. Everything is nothing. If you do read this book — and I hope you do — note that television comes up more than once. But this doesn't really solve the riddle, what was missing in her existence.

I don't want to give a lot of detail about the ending bit I will say that the title, Understudy for Death has allegorical underpinnings. Actually, so would the original title, Understudy for Love. I wonder if the change was made to make it seem more like a crime novel.

Keywords: Florida fiction. newspaper reporters, suicide in fiction

 

Review: The Lady Upstairs by Halley Sutton

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Amazon

This is Sutton's debut work and she has she come out strong with this female centered, noir, crime thriller. She's an author I'm going to be watching.

It calls itself The Lady Upstairs Staffing Agency. All nice and legal and they even pay taxes. What they really do are run badger games, set up honeypots to seduce marks who can afford to pay for the images that caught them in flagrante delicto. The employees of the "agency" get an envelope with the name of the mark from The Lady herself who is never seen. I couldn't help but think of Charlie's Angels with The Lady as Charlie and Lou as The Lady's Bosley.

Jo was recruited to be one of the one of the Lady's girls by Lou who recognized someone who knows men are assholes and wouldn't have a problem taking them down. Jo has worked her way up to become a recruiter herself as well as training the girls and planning and executing cases, as they refer to their blackmailing operations. Working with Lou and Jo is Jackal, Jo's sometimes lover, who takes care of the technical side, wiring hotel rooms, recording the action.

Jo owes The Lady a lot of money for getting her out of a jam and the latest case should see the debt resolved. Unfortunately, the case doesn't go well, setting up a chain of events that will take the reader on a noir thrillfest.

Sutton has captured the essence of a noir character in Jo's first person narrative. The reader needs to be willing to accept the bleakness of noir; there are no good people in the story. Well, maybe one or two are less worse than the others. You might root for Jo but it isn't because there is anything redeeming about her. She is desperate to salvage the case, settle her debt, and, at the same time, keep her screw-ups from The Lady who has suggested that she could be "retired". But like a true noir protagonist, Jo has a self-destructive streak in her alcoholism and every action sinks her in deeper. With the police on one side and The Lady on the other, it looks like Jo has very few escape options.

The story is fast-paced and thrilling will well developed characters and flowing plot. The ending is excellent and a surprise. I did have a few inklings of the direction things might go but didn't find it had a telegraphed ending. If you like female centered stories and you like noir then this is the book for you because you get both. 

Keywords: honeypot, badger game, thriller, crime novel, noir

 

Review: Kill Me in Yokohama by Earl Norman (Burns Bannion #3)

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This is number three in the Burns Bannion series and the first one available for Kindle. All books in the series published to date are available at Google Books and B&N Nook. My reviews  of the first two books can be found here: Kill Me in Tokyo, Burns Bannion #1, Kill Me in Shimbashi, Burns Bannion #2.

My fondness of these books continues but I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous two. It is still a fun read but I'd rate it four stars rather than five.

Kill Me in Yokohama picks up after the events in book two, Kill Me in Shimbashi. Burnsie is getting serious about his illegal private detective business but has to fly under the notice of Inspector Ezawa of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police who threatens to have him deported if he steps out of line. Bannion's solution is an anonymous newspaper ad for his services:

Will Do Anything for Money —

Repeat—anything! Write to

Box 113 Tokyo Central Post Office

This is Burnsie's idea of avoiding notice.

The ad pays off and Burns gets a response inviting him to meet at the Phoenix Lounge Bar. About his potential client Bannion notes:

The stationary was of good quality. The penmanship indicated a woman, and the sandlewood scent meant a real woman.

Arriving at the bar, Bannion is accosted by a drunk German representative of a chemical company. Brushing him off, he spots a beautiful (naturally) woman he takes to be his client but also notes a man at a nearby table who is also watching her. ...he looked for all the world like Mr.Moto playing Peter Lorre playing Mr. Moto. You might not know that Peter Lorre actually played the Japanese detective Mr. Moto  in films. If you are a person of a certain age this gives you an immediate mental image of what this guy looks like. I thought this an amusing description given I'm that person of a certain age. The client is Mariko Melson, one of Japan's top fashion models. She has a younger brother who has fallen under the influence of an older man who has a scheme to capture the world. She wants the man to leave Japan though Bannion figures she really means she wants him gone, dead or alive. Bannion accepts and, with three key figures now identified, another thrilling adventure is locked in and the reader knows that a simple case will turn out to be bigger, more complicated, more deadly, and will have Bannion fighting for his life.

The first three books in the series have all had their jumping off point in bars. It will be interesting to see if that continues.

This series continues the non-PC style set in the first two books with sexist attitudes and asian stereotypes. Bannion has yet to meet a woman he cant spend paragraphs describing in lush detail. But, honestly, I think the author was playing up those aspects deliberately. I think a case can be made that the author is parodying the hardboiled detective and men' adventure thrillers. But as I point out in the reviews of books 1 and 2, the Japanese women hold their own against Bannion's advances which further make me think the author is playing with stereotypes. After all, Norman was an old Asian hand, living in Japan for many years and I'm sure knew his subjects well. The author does give Bannion a boost in maturity here. In the previous book, Kill Me in Shimbashi, Bannion's, pursuit of a teenage ponytail chick, Toni-chan, almost cost him his life. Here he muses to himself, I had decided to go back to being my age. A small step but it makes him less creepy.

Being a long time fan of the hardboiled detective, I love the way the author plays with Bannion's accidental detective. He frequently makes self-deprecating about his detecting. I don't know how his trench coat has survived three adventures. And like all good hardboiled detectives, Bannion has a white knight side; there is a woman who needs saving. There is some poignancy about that woman in this book. She's a side character but Norman uses her to make a point.

The karate action continues to be well done and for Bannion, ranks at least as high as his interest in women. He gets in trouble because of women and karate saves his life. Here Bannion gets to use a karate technique mentioned in the previous books.

The reason I dropped this book a star is that the big problem behind the simple case is weak. Burns didn't react when Mariko said that the older man influencing her brother had a scheme to capture the world which turns out to be mostly true though only a particular aspect of the world. It had me going Wait, how could you not pick up on that!. The way it is laid out doesn't seem like it would have much of a chance of succeeding much being sustainable. But perhaps that is just the way of scheming megalomaniacs. Also, the younger brother acts like a hip young western cat who's seen too many American movies. He speaks almost entirely in slang. Annoyance with the brother may just be a factor of the time span between when the book was written and reading it today but is a bit much and, I think, mostly played for laughs.

We're also getting a feel for the relationship between Bannion and Inspector Ezawa. While Ezawa threatens to have Bannion deported in every conversation, I'd say he also looks at Bannion as a useful idiot. Give him on a long leash and see what he stirs up. Then yell at him but claim credit for solving the case.

So, 50+ years later, I'm the Burns Bannion books are fun to read and a little subversive toward the hardboiled detective/men's adventure thriller genres.

Keywords: Keywords: private detectives, Japan, hardboiled detectives, pulp adventure stories, thrillers, action adventure

Review: The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

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The Honjin Murders was serialized in a Japanese magazine in 1946. My copy also has a 1973 copyright which I guess is when it was published as a book. The English translation by Louise Heal Kawai was published in 2019.

I usually read hardboiled detective and noir stories but this is an old school, golden age style, locked room mystery and I found it a fun book to read and a style I'll probably dip back into occasionally.

The "honjin" in the title refers to an inn that served only nobility and as descendants of the owners of such a honjn, the well-to-do Ichiyanagi family has a high social rank. The heir and eldest son, Kenzo, has insisted on marrying a schoolteacher, Katsuko, against the wishes of his family. On their wedding night, everyone is awakened by screams and wild music from a kobo, a traditional string instrument. 

Rushing to the estate Annex where the couple is staying, the building is found to be locked tight. After breaking a shutter, the men enter and discover Kenzo and Katsuko stabbed to death. No one is found in the building and with no footprints in the snow everyone is mystified at who could have killed the couple and escaped. To further confuse matters, the murder weapon, a katana, is found outside with the blade buried in the ground.

This is a high profile case and soon police officers and detectives are on site. Katsuko's uncle and father figure, Ginzo, thinks something funny is going on with the Ichiyanagi family and sends for a private detective he previously sponsored in America, put through college,  and helped get started with his detective agency in Japan. This detective is Kosuke Kindaichi who has been able to solve many complex cases and is something of a national figure. He considers Ginzo his uncle and comes right away. With Kosuke's arrival, the game is afoot.

This is a locked room mystery which makes it is not only a whodunnit but a howdunnit. Something I didn't expect but enjoyed is that the author has his narrator talking about classic detective novelists and the locked room mystery. John Dickson Carr is much appreciated by the narrator. This should not be a surprise because Yokomizo is known as the Japanese John Dickson Carr.  The author also mentions one of my favorite, if not well known outside of classic mystery fans, locked room stories, The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne. There is even a chapter titled A Conversation About Detective Novels.

Katsuko is nothing like anyone's expectations for a private detective. He is young, has a slight stammer, an untidy appearance, and a disheveled shock of hair. About his methods he is quoted:

The police investigate footprints and look for fingerprints. I take the results of these investigations and by piecing together all the available information logically, I am able to reach a conclusion. These are my methods of deduction.

As he told Ginzo, in an investigation he'd use his head rather than a tape measure and magnifying glasses. He's a little like Hercule Poirot, he solves crimes with his little grey cells. 

Unlike what you find with most hardboiled detectives, Katsuko is fully embraced by the detectives on the case and made part of the investigation. The police are not portrayed as fools but see the facts differently.

I didn't see the solution coming so I am reluctant to go into details about the investigation to avoid spoiling it for the reader. but I can say that Katsuko is an engaging character and great fun to watch work. The story is well plotted with interesting twists and turns and revelations. This is thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended especially if you like a good, solid, classic detective novel. Katsuko features in 76 more detective novels but I think only one other has been translated, The Inugami Curse.

The book is a translation from the Japanese and I think Louise Heal Kawai has given it a good smooth flow. I probably wouldn't have known that it was written in a different language just from reading. Making a book easily accessible outside of its native language is such a creative endeavor that the translator is rightly up there with the author.

Keywords: locked room mystery, detective stories, Japanese detective stories, private detectives

Review: The Kept Woman by Mack Reynolds

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on Amazon

The Kept Woman is also available in epub format from Google Books

 I grew up reading Mack Reynolds' science fiction and was intrigued when Fiction Hunter Press published The Kept Woman. Apparently Reynolds' publisher asked him for some sex books and this is one of the five he wrote. It was published in 1963.

I didn't know what to expect when reading this book but I think it holds up surprisingly well. In large part, this is due to Reynolds being a good writer and he doesn't dumb down his writing because the story has a sex theme.

 Joanne (Jo) Cotton and her fiancé, Jack, each inherit $5,000 from her godmother. Jack wants to use the money to put a downpayment on a house and start moving up the social ladder in Cuma Indiana. Jo wants to live, travel the world, have fun, be a bum. Jack reluctantly agrees that Jo should use her inheritance to travel Europe and get it out of her system while he will invest his half in the company he works for, Cuma Tabulators. He's convinced she'll return, take her old secretarial job, and they'll get their big house on Watson Hill.

Jo heads for Europe where she lives the expatriate life, hanging with jet setters, invited to Scottish castles and yachts. Then a year later, she wakes up and realizes that she's broke. Drowning her sorrows in the hotel bar, Jo meets Mike Lapine, a wealthy business man from Scranton PA, in Europe on doctor's orders to relax which he doesn't seem able to do. Mike makes Jo an offer. He'll support her lifestyle and she will teach him to relax and blend in with Europeans. And so she becomes a kept woman, enduring Mike's clumsy animalistic sex and in return she continues to have clothes, travel, and the society she loves.

I said above that Reynolds didn't dumb down his narrative just because he was writing a sex book. In other writing Reynolds had socioeconomic and sociological themes and that carries over here. Added to that is his own experience living outside the US.

Reynolds starts off with a sly nod to IBM. Jack works for Cuma Tabulating. IBM began as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company. If that is too subtle, the place to live in Cuma is Watson Hill. and Thomas J. Watson was chairman and CEO of IBM.

Businessman Mike Lapine is loud, boorish, insulting to everyone not an American, and believes that puling out a roll of bills will solve anything. He's the stereotypical ugly American, convinced America does everything better but actually pretty ignorant about everything. Jo has her work cut out trying to put at least a veneer of culture on Mike. At one point she schools on currency valuation when he begins a rant about the almighty dollar. This does two things: we see that Jo has a brain despite the impression you might have about someone willing to barter her body; and Reynolds inserts a bit of economic reality. 

Reynolds himself lived outside of the US for over ten years and so was familiar with the expatriate life. He supported himself with his writing which included articles about his travels. I think there is a little bit of Reynolds' in the struggling free lance travel writer, Bart McGivern, who Jo meets on Majorca Reynolds, like Bart, wrote travel pieces to support himself. Bart's writing becomes a fun little sub plot in the novel and take a poke at writers thinking that one day the will write The Great American Novel. And Reynolds being the kind of writer he is, we get a short lesson on the economics of being a freelance commercial writer.

Eventually Jo is confronted with her past, present, and future and needing to decide what will make her happy.

While The Kept Woman has a strong sexual theme, it is more than perky bosoms, bottoms, shapely legss, and  hot thrusting loins though those do figure into the story aplenty. Rather Reynolds has taken a sex book and infused it with intelligent observations and commentary and given us a female character who is a lot more than a gold digging bimbo. It holds up very well after 50+ years and would only require adding mobile phones and an increase in the amount of money needed to live the expatriate life to bring it up-to-date. It's a fun book and has inspired me to look up more of Reynolds' writing.

Keywords: expatriates, sex, pulps, erotic stories

Review: Kill Me in Shimbashi by Earl Norman (Burns Bannion #2)

Published by Fiction Hunter Press in epub format for Google Play and B&N Nook.

The Burns Bannion books are the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure. They aren't great examples of crime fiction and they are cringe-worthy toward women by todays standards but they are a lot of fun to read. They are unabashedly men's adventure thrillers from a different time and I look at them in that context and just go with the flow of sex and over-the-top karate action and enjoy them immensely. Besides, Burnsie and I go back around 50 years as I relate in my review of Kill Me in Tokyo.

This second outing for Bannion picks up picks up right after the events in Kill Me in Tokyo. Inspector Ezawa of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police gives Burns an ultimatum, get a permanent place to live, get registered with the local ward office, and get enrolled in university or get out of Japan. Bannion very much does not want to leave Japan:

I had my own good reasons for wanting to stay on in Japan—thousands of them, and cute ones, tripping up and down the Ginza any time of day—and I wanted to make a more intensive study of Karate, that deadly art which had also proved a lively and handy one during my career as a private eye.

One of the "cute ones" Bannion is pursuing mentions Harry's Bar before giving him the slip. Hoping for a reunion,  Bannion  heads to Harry's Bar where indeed he finds Tamiko or Tami as she likes to be called.  Apparently she "belongs" to a gangster named Kindo which promises to complicate Bannion's plans for Tami. This sets into motion one of the subplots, namely rescuing Tami from the clutches of Kindo. Burns also meets a Marine, Bill Barkentine, a former POW who was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942 when they attacked a train in China on which Barkentine was guarding a shipment.

Barkentine offers Bannion a much needed infusion of cash to find the shipment he was guarding, the bones of the Peking Man. Barkentine figures they are worth a fortune. By coincidence (Tami's grandfather is a renowned archeologist, anthropologist, and geologist) and research, Bannion is on the trail of the missing bones and having to deal with gangsters, their own karate men, and cultists who seem to have something to do with the bones, while hoping his karate skills will keep him alive.

I've been thinking about why the Burns Bannion books appeal to me. Certainly part of it has to do with me having encountered them for the first time as a young soldier in an Asian country. Reading them again after all these years I see an author who had a good time writing a particular type of book — male oriented adventure. Along the way he has his Bannion poking fun at the way he does and doesn't fit the role of hardboiled detective à la Philip Marlowe. While Bannion is an unrepentant horndog the women are no pushovers. For example:

Brother you sure got no polite custom, American man supposed to have some polite custom to woman!

...I began the usual Bannion approach. Toni-chan said sharply "Hey you can fool around second floor, but nobody home downstair!"

And when Bannion finally does score, after some bodily explorations there is a fade to black leavig what happened to the reader's imagination, no explicit sex.

Norman also writes some first rate karate fights. In fact, Bannion's musing about karate, practicing karate, using his karate in fights is actually a large part of the books.

So I guess we'll see if the Burns Bannion books continue to hold the same appeal for me and for now I can hardly wait for the next one. 

Keywords: private detectives, Japan, hardboiled detectives,, cults, action adventure, thrillers

Review: I Wish, I Wish by Zirk van den Berg

Available in print and ebook from The Cuba Press

I read my first book of 2021, today, 1 January, Zirk van den Berg's I Wish, I Wish. At 182 print pages it's actually a novella so don't be too impressed by my quick start to the year. It's available in English from The Cuba Press in print and the ebook epub and mobi formats. Books in mobi format can be imported into a Kindle.

Seb is a mortician for White Lilly Funerals. He's very good at his job  but his work doesn't make for entertaining 'how was work today' stories. To be honest, outside of work, he's more an observer than a participant in his personal life. He is distant from his teenaged son and daughter and his wife doesn't seem to like him very much.

One day a mother brings in her dying son, Gabe, who is matter-of-fact about wanting to know what will happen when he dies. Though their meeting is short, Seb feels a bond with this extraordinary boy. Though they met only once in life, Gabe has a magical impact on Seb that will eventually lead to new personal bonds and unexpected directions in his life.

I used the word 'magical' above but this is not at all a fantasy. It's more how a chance encounter can spark something is a person's life. The publisher's blurb calls it 'A darkly comic tale with a tender heart'.  I wouldn't emphasize the 'comic' as much, but tender hearted, it most definitely is.

I should warn any very squeamish readers that the author does go into detail about how bodies are prepared by the mortician. For me, this is necessary to give the reader a better sense of Seb as a person and, also, I found pretty interesting.

Zirk was born in Namibia, lived in South Africa, and emigrated to New Zealand with his family. He publishes in English and Afrikaans so I guess readers in both countries have a claim on him. He's an author I enjoy very much and Nobody Dies is still one of my favorite crime novels. If you read books in Afrikaans and crave a good read in that language, Zirk has you covered with six titles including I Wish, I Wish which was first published in Afrikaans as Ek Wens, Ek Wens. I have more of his books I want to do reviews of this year.

Keywords: loss, grieving, death, funerals, morticians

Reading States for 2020

 Here's a summary of my reading activity for 2020:

Books started            83

Books abandoned        3

Print

            Own        17

            Library    23

Ebooks

            Own        37

            Library     5

Genres

            Suspense/crime/thriller/mystery    42

            Science Fiction/Fantasy                  21

            Romance                                           2

            True crime                                         1

            Short story collections                       2

            General fiction                                   9

            Non Fiction                                        5

Keywords: reading, statistics