My Two-Cents is Invaluable, Right?

I've been busy book reviewing again, here's three posts you may have missed in the last week:
Stealing Ghosts by Lance Charnes, Trading Down by Stephen Norman, and Blood Run by Jamie Freveletti. My opening thoughts on Blood:

If Jamie Freveletti had arrived on the literary scene ahead of Raymond Chandler, the famous quote instead may have read, “When in doubt, come through the door with a grenade launcher.” In her latest novel, Blood Run, her biochemist protagonist, Emma Caldridge, is three hundred miles east of Dakar, Senegal, when the armored vehicle she and three others are riding in is ambushed.

The heavy car shuddered when a second grenade exploded near the roof, and another rain of bullets hit the driver's side window. It failed in a shower of tiny glass slivers and shrapnel. Emma watched in horror as a splash of red washed over the clear divider between the driver and the passenger area.
“The driver's been hit,” Emma said to the two others.
She pressed the button to lower the glass divider, like those found in limousines, to access the front seat. She was glad that it still moved. That meant that the car hadn't yet lost power. She knew that a car taking fire, even an armored car, had seconds to escape the first hit. A vehicle that didn't move while under attack would eventually be breached, no matter how extensive the armoring.

In the days ahead I will be reviewing The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 edited by John Sandford.

Loving The Savage

Frank Bill’s The Savage feels like the desperate now. It’s not just 21st-century geopolitical fears as two world leaders seem hellbent on taking us down a real Fury Road, it’s also families throughout the American landscape being gutted by the opioid crisis, facing anxieties over losing health care, and befalling the horror of psychotic cretins shooting up music concerts and halls of worship.

Into this nightmare, The Savage doesn’t have the luxury of a slow start with the Picasso poetic likes of “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Yeah, goodbye to all that. Frank Bill delves right into it, storming the ravaged, scorched fields with these opening lines...

Please click over to Macmillan's Criminal Element blog for my full review.

Robert Mitchum at 100

Mitch would have turned 100 today. I've written three articles for Criminal Element celebrating the actor's centennial. In the first, I take a look at his Westerns. A sample:

Innovative Western artfully directed by Raoul Walsh that noir historian Jake Hinkson (The Big Ugly, The Posthumous Man) calls, “… one of the premier examples of Neurosis In The West.” Controversial topics like repressed memory, hallucinations, and a passing hint of incest are broached in this cutting-edge production. 

Both Montgomery Cliff and Kirk Douglas were considered and rejected for the role. Mitchum, known as “the soul of film noir” for classics like Out of the Past (1947), took the dark, tortured outsider and easily adapted it to the Old West while hardly missing his fedora and trench coat.

Where The Breakers Are

I am putting together my next write-up on Stephen King's THE DARK TOWER VII that will appear on Macmillan's Criminal Element blog around noon tomorrow. For the most part a solid section that includes our heroes preparing their next move.

"We go through the door to Thunderclap station," Roland said, "and from the station to where the Breakers are kept. And there ..." He looked at each of his ka-tet in turn, then raised his finger and made a dryly expressive shooting gesture.
"There'll be guards," Eddie said. "Maybe a lot of them. What if we're outnumbered?"
"It won't be the first time," Roland said.

Our passages for the week included Part Two, I: The Devar-Tete – VII: Ka-Shume and I hope you will join us to discuss or just stop by and listen to our palaver. A lot transpired including the return of Randall Flagg, Mordred Deschain hunting Roland and company, and our team wandering through the eerie chamber where the now quieted remains of the wolves of the Calla are suspended. 

And the Tower looms...

Haruki Murakami: Hardboiled, Surreal, and Bewitching

My article: Hardboiled, Surreal, and Bewitching: 3 Haruki Murakami Short Stories

The Tower Looms

We begin our reread of The Dark Tower VII at Criminal Element. An excerpt:

The Dark Tower is very close, but our ka-tet is spread far and wide. Roland and Eddie are in 1977 where they have just finished meeting with the author Stephen King. In 1999, Father Callahan and Jake are about to storm The Dixie Pig lounge where Susannah is being held along with Mia, who is about to give birth to an unholy demon: this child has the DNA combo of Roland and Susannah and a “co-father” in the Crimson King. So, we are very close to our destination, the stakes are high, and it’s anybody’s guess who will live to see The Dark Tower. 

The Dark Tower looms on the horizon for both our ka-tet and you, our loyal readers, as we count down the days to the premiere of The Dark Tower film. The plan is to finish the series on the Tuesday before the premiere, so we'll be splitting The Dark Tower into four sections (about 200 pages each) and meeting here at our usual time (Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET) to discuss major themes, motifs, and reactions.

Lemon Scented

Without exception, the opening vignettes to American Gods are mini-masterpieces destined to be viewed time and again as inquiring minds seek to know more about these nearly forgotten fables—expect lots of YouTube hits.

In a compelling animated segment, the very first god comes to America circa 14,000 BC. A tribe of people crosses the land bridge from Siberia, following the wooly mammoths in hopes of finding food for their starving people. Atsula and her clan carry an effigy of their god, Nunyunnini, while they make the treacherous journey across the frozen, barren landscape. Her baby dies along the way, and when they finally arrive in the new land, she becomes the ultimate sacrifice to a bison-like spirit so her people can live—only to confront a tribe that had come before them. They defeat the newly encountered rivals and take their food, and then they leave behind Nunyunnini to be forgotten over time. The scene, like other Coming to America sections, was in variance from the novel.

My second article of the day posted at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog. Hope you click over to keep me in the freelance business. 

Ay, dios mio!

If there was one thing that stood out in this week’s episodes, it was those regurgitation scenes. Ay, dios mio! More than once as Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is passing from the Black Lodge back to the land of the living.

In what can only be described as a surreal trip for Coop, he gets sucked through an electrical outlet and rides the current until he switches bodies with a lookalike named Dougie Jones. The hapless Dougie was enjoying the company of a lady of the evening, Jade (Nafeesa Williams), who is washing up when Coop arrives and takes Dougie’s place. And there begins possibly the vilest puke scene ever delivered on camera (and if you can point to more disgusting exhibits, I’ll just take your word for it). Dougie is swept away to the Black Lodge, where the one-armed man, Gerard (Al Strobel), explains, “Someone manufactured you,” and bears witness as the doppelgänger disintegrates into nothing more than a little round ball.

Hope you click over here for my review of episodes 3 and 4 of Twin Peaks: The Return. 

Twin Peaks: The Return

Ahead of David Lynch’s revival, I went back and binged on the original series, interested to know if it would still capture me like it did 27 years ago. I was only a few years older than the fictional 17-year-old Laura Palmer when I sat with my mom and best friend Erik each week, religiously invested in Special Agent Cooper probing Laura’s grisly death. My mother didn’t laugh at the dark humor that Erik and I enjoyed over the slain girl’s mom wailing long past when other directors would have yelled “cut!” We had grown up on Lynch’s Blue Velvet and were more than prepared for the dramatic swings—after all, Dennis Hopper snuffing up oxygen through a mask is practically normal. Still, both generations were glued-fast to the intrigue.

My full review is at Criminal Element.

Head Full of Snow

American Gods is losing me and I try to explain some of the issues in my coverage of the third episode.

Lucy Ricardo is an American God

My review of American Gods 1:02 is posted at Criminal Element.

A Broken Interview

Today, I'm beginning an interview with author Court Merrigan ahead of THE BROKEN COUNTRY's release on May 16th—our back and forth will be posted on Macmillan's Criminal Element site. And the ebook pre-order is available now and print to follow soon.

Page to Screen: American Gods 1.01: “The Bone Orchard”

Page to Screen: American Gods 1.01: “The Bone Orchard”

Gods

I'm rereading Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS ahead of the April 30th television adaptation on Starz. I will be doing an analysis of novel vs. series for Macmillan's Criminal Element. 

That Brutal Unpredictability

A Free Soul (1931)

Renowned gamesman Barclay Cooke (1912-1981) called Backgammon “the cruelest game.” Memorable hyperbole? Perhaps. But vital skills are needed to play: intense concentration, clever strategy, and an ability to see ahead to possible traps—and still the probability of the roll can level the steel nerves of even the finest. That brutal unpredictability translates well to the mystery, crime, and thriller genres, and of course, with sport slang like post mortem, premature burial, under the gun, shot, hustler, and hit, backgammon is practically crying out for a spotlight with the criminal element.

Read more on my favorite game, by me, here.

Wolves At The Door

The ka-tet dine with their perspective employers, feeling out the sharecroppers and the mysterious Father Callahan and learning that Thunderclap is somewhat of a dead zone populated by the wolves. When Eddie excuses himself to take a dump in the woods, he discovers Andy is quite the stealthy robot. Startled while still squatting, the gunslinger has a couple of questions for the apologetic machine—the most troubling of which regards the wolves: “... how do you know when they’re coming?”

The normally genteel machine turns haughty, “What’s your password, sai Eddie?” Turns out the bot is restricted from divulging this information under directive nineteen (there’s that damn prime). So, I’m making the call early: Andy is in cahoots with the wolves. Agreed? Of course, I’ve come to not trust any machine with a North Central Positronics, LTD label.

Here's a link to follow for the rest of my article on Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla.

Come join me … before the world moves on.

My reread of The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole has been posted at Macmillan's Criminal Element.

“The Unquiet Dead” and More

I'm a Doctor Who fan from a long way back and was stoked that Macmillan's Criminal Element accepted my pitch for a Whovian piece. Hope you enjoy.

Communication Breakdown

I've had almost zero internet for two weeks, and after several days of junkie withdrawals I found myself reading more of the daily newspaper which was a '17 goal, but on the downside my television viewing spiked. Not quality TV, mind you, but binging on fatuous comedy shows. Biggest issue has been not connecting with all my fellow Bloggers, though hopefully by week's ends I will be able to make the rounds.

In the meantime, if you get a moment, here's my latest article on Stephen King's Wizard and Glass.

Latest...

I've been busy editing a book of poetry, having fun being dad which is the best job, right?, and continuing my trek to the Dark Tower. Here's my latest re-read at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog. As always, thank you.