Fiction: Better by John O’Brien

Better is what it sounds like inside the head of a man drinking himself to death. Overconsumption is a common theme in the work of John O’Brien (who also gave us Leaving Las Vegas) and, sadly, in his foreshortened life as well. In Better (Akashic Books), O’Brien’s final novel, he tells part of his tale within the surreal confines of a mansion owned by a man known only as “Double Felix.” William is a slacker who drifted into Felix’s orbit, and wound up staying. His only duties are to drink Morning Vodka and share an evening libation with Felix. The rest of his day consists of imbibing gin, watching Love Boat reruns and bedding the various female guests of the mansion, including partygoer Maggie and one-time call-girl Zipper. When he’s not doing those things, he sleeps a booze-induced sleep on the back deck.

But then another girl named Lisa arrives and upsets Felix’s perfect little world of hedonism. Felix is obsessed with her, and her presence alarms the other women (and one other man). She even drives Zipper to try and get William to quit drinking.

Better is a bizarre story written in a jarring style. O’Brien seems to be invoking F. Scott Fitzgerald, another writer who battled demon rum and lost. However, this novel, with its aimless pursuit of pleasure, also suggests influences from another literary heavyweight, Jack Kerouac, in its abandonment of the real world in exchange for meaningless sex and endless booze. The cracks are showing at the beginning, however, when Felix declares that things are not entirely well with his source of income. Lisa seems to be at the center of it all, her connection to Felix eroding his control over the house. She even causes a rift between Felix and William. By the end of the story, William is pondering running off with Zipper, the whore who ironically loves him, and drinking himself to death.

I don’t think Better is an appropriate title for O’Brien’s last novel. The destruction of Double Felix’s private pleasure dome over the course of a day invokes yet one more literary masterpiece.

Paradise Lost.

READ MORE: “John O’Brien’s Better,” by Devin Tanchum
(Book Soup Blog).

Crime Fiction: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan

In Harry Dolan’s Bad Things Happen (Putnam), a man who calls himself David Loogan settles into Ann Arbor, Michigan, to live a quiet life. Bored, he writes a short story that he tosses over the transom of a local crime-fiction magazine called Gray Stories, a clever publication sure to make the denizens of Rara-Avis giddy with visions of fresh noir. Rather than being published, though, he is hired by Tom Kristoll to edit Gray Stories. Before long, Loogan becomes a favorite drinking companion for Tom and a lover for Tom’s wife, Laura. So it’s no surprise who Tom calls when there’s a dead body in his den. He calls the man who calls himself David Loogan. Loogan helps bury the corpse and then ditch the car used to transport it.

That, supposedly, is that.

Until Tom suddenly ends up face-first on the pavement in front of the offices of Gray Stories. Then an intern smitten with Laura apparently shoots himself. Police believe the intern committed suicide in a fit of remorse for having slain Tom Kristoll. Only whatever triggered this series of deaths is far from finished. While Loogan is enigmatic, admittedly behaving like a character one might read about in Gray Stories, he is not considered a suspect, having always been somewhere among people--witnesses--when the killings occurred. But as local police Detective Elizabeth Waishkey digs into the expanding homicide case, Loogan’s past comes back to complicate matters.

Author Dolan starts Bad Things Happen with the feel of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, maybe Strangers on a Train. Loogan is no Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, however--he’s far too brooding. Still, one can certainly picture Ray Milland or James Mason playing the part of Tom Kristoll, oozing charm as he lures Loogan into a bizarre web of intrigue. The one thing that strains credibility is Gray Stories itself, a profitable print version of Plots With Guns. Oh, were it a real magazine ... but I digress.

Throughout the yarn, Loogan lightens the mood by juggling for various people. It’s rather appropriate, since Dolan himself is juggling at least four subplots in these pages, as well as a cast of characters likely to inhabit the bar at any writers’ convention. His complex tale has to shift quickly from one thread to the next in the book’s short length, thus helping to ratchet up the suspense. It doesn’t hurt, either, that almost everyone is lying in this story, even when they’re telling the truth.

Bad Things Happen is a clever debut novel mixing wishful thinking with a morally ambiguous cast. Just the kind of tale you would expect to read in Gray Stories.

Review: Liars Anonymous by Louise Ure

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews Liars Anonymous by Louise Ure. Says Winter:

“I got away with murder once, but it looks like that’s not going to happen again.”

That is how Jessie Dancing begins the tale of her former life coming back to haunt her in Liars Anonymous. Jessie works for HandsOn, an OnStar-type service for motorists in distress. The trouble begins when real-estate developer Darren Markson is involved in a collision out in the Arizona desert, and Jessie fields his call. At first, it seems like nothing, a late-night accident; but then Jessie hears sounds of fighting over the phone. By morning, Markson is reported missing, and Jessie is summoned from Phoenix to go to Tucson, where she’s to talk with police and meet Markson’s wife, Emily.

Tucson is the worst place for Jessie to go. It’s been three years since she stood trial there for the murder of abusive Walter Racine, only to be acquitted of the crime. She has since changed her name, her look and her life. But her mother has shunned her from their family’s life. Only Detective Deke Treadwell of the Tucson PD and Jessie’s father believe she’s innocent.

The full review is here.

Crime Fiction: Back to the Coast by Saskia Noort

Life is rough for Maria Vos, a Dutch soul singer from Amsterdam, in Saskia Noort’s Back to the Coast (Bitter Lemon Press). Realizing that her boyfriend Geert is exactly the kind of irresponsible man she doesn’t want fathering her children, she aborts their second child together. The ensuing argument leads them to break up. A rough patch in this young woman’s life? That’s all it seems, until someone begins sending Maria threatening letters in the mail, condemning her decision to have an abortion.

Geert is the obvious suspect, at least as far as everybody but Maria is concerned. She doesn’t believe he would ever threaten her like that, not given what it would mean to their son Wolf, or to Merel, the daughter Maria already had when they became a couple. Maria thinks the person responsible might instead be Merel’s father, Steve, a vain and irresponsible man who has suddenly reappeared in their lives, apparently tired of residing abroad in America. The threats escalate, with Maria receiving a dead rat after a band gig. So Maria flees to The Netherlands’ coast and her childhood home there, now kept by her sister, Ans. Instead of finding it a safe haven, however, Maria finds herself driven literally insane the longer she stays on the coast, to the point where she no longer trusts her sister.

Back to the Coast, the second Bitter Lemon Press book by Dutch author and journalist Noort (following 2007’s The Dinner Club), is noir in the classic sense, harking back to the famous 1944 film Gaslight. But whereas that movie’s audience knows that Charles Boyer is “gaslighting” Ingrid Bergman, we have no idea who is trying to destroy Maria and take her children away from her. The stalker, who follows Maria to the seashore, is clearly filled with a rage for which the police cannot seem to find justification. If anything, the cops think Maria is slowly losing it. Why shouldn’t she? Her mother was certified psychotic and took her own life. There is no shortage of suspects here, either. Geert is everyone’s favorite, of course, though Maria dismisses his culpability out of hand. She favors Merel’s father, but once at the coast, she also learns that Ans’ husband, Martin, has disappeared. Or has he?

Noort writes her story in first-person from Maria’s point of view, allowing her to immerse the reader in her protagonist’s growing confusion and fear. It also allows Noort to tell snatches of the story through Wolf and Merel’s eyes, mostly through their reactions to Maria’s increasing blackouts. It’s a tricky line to walk for a writer. Noort carefully leaves enough semblance of a story for readers to follow, while the world around Maria makes less and less sense. It’s almost like reading James M. Cain through singer Syd Barrett’s eyes.

Back to the Coast is two parts noir, one part horror fiction, and very well done indeed.

Review: Cape Disappointment by Earl Emerson

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews Cape Disappointment by Earl Emerson. Says Winter:

If reading and reviewing books over the past couple of months has shown me anything, it’s that we’re ready for change. Three out of the last four books I have reviewed had an undercurrent of anger toward the American government as run by George W. Bush. Thomas Lakeman’s Broken Wing barely disguises the author’s rage at military contractors such as Blackwater. Olen Steinhauer’s The Tourist does no favors for the CIA. And then there’s Earl Emerson’s first private eye Thomas Black novel in 10 years, Cape Disappointment.

Emerson starts this novel off with a bang. Literally. Black, a Seattle sleuth (last seen in 1998’s Catfish Café), recounts his too-close-for-comfort experience with a bomb explosion inside a school gymnasium, where a political candidate had been speaking. Since he was smacked against the wall and impaled, Black’s description is naturally surreal, disjointed and horrifyingly graphic. The story lurches and halts between the recent past, where Black recalls talking to his wife on the phone as he watched her plane suddenly crash, and the present, while he’s trying to recover in a hospital bed. Black’s tale becomes coherent when he’s able to focus on the beginning of his latest adventure.

The full review is here.

Review: The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer. Says Winter:

Olen Steinhauer takes on the reality of James Bond’s world in his latest novel, The Tourist. His story doesn’t involve tuxedoes, fancy gadgets or gorgeous femmes fatales. What it does involve is lying.

A lot of lying.

This tale opens on September 10, 2001, and a CIA operative using the name “Charles Alexander” has just botched a mission in The Netherlands. The pill-popping field agent did manage to stop an assassin known as “The Tiger” from killing a Dutch politician friendly to U.S. interests. However, he failed to take the bullet in his quest to end his “tourism,” the Central Intelligence Agency’s euphemism for working undercover in the field.

The full review is here.

Review: Skin and Bones by Tom Bale

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews Skin and Bones by Tom Bale. Says Winter:

It starts off quietly enough. Julia Trent ventures to the tiny hamlet of Chilton, north of London, to clean out her recently deceased parents’ home. On a quiet January morning, Julia finds herself stalked by a man with a gun. He’s already murdered several people in the village. She runs, hoping to get away, and is saved by Philip Walker, the hamlet’s anti-development crusader. Walker’s been shot already, but he stares down the killer, a local man named Carl Forester, known for being a bit mental as it is. Walker threatens Forester and is shot again, this time fatally. Just when Julie thinks all is lost, a man in a motorcycle helmet arrives. She’s saved.

The full review is here.

Review: Good People by Marcus Sakey

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews Good People by Marcus Sakey. Says Winter:

If you suddenly had half a million dollars, what would you do with it? In Marcus Sakey’s latest thriller, Good People, Tom and Anna Reed find out. After a fire alarm goes off in the ground-floor unit of their Chicago duplex, they discover their tenant dead in his bed from a drug overdose and a stash of cash in his kitchen. Perhaps they should have asked themselves where it came from before they claimed those riches as a windfall.

Their renter, who called himself Bill Samuelson, seems to have secreted more than $300,000 in flour sacks, cereal boxes and other receptacles. The Reeds don’t miss their tenant so much. Samuelson wasn’t the friendliest neighbor, but at least he paid his rent on time and minded his own business. And his demise looks like a blessing.

The full review is here.

Review: Angel’s Tip by Alafair Burke

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews Angel’s Tip by Alafair Burke. Says Winter:

“In a city full of victims, it’s hard to choose just one.”

So goes the tag line to Alafair Burke’s second Detective Ellie Hatcher novel, Angel’s Tip. The story begins with wild Chelsea Hart from Indiana becoming Manhattan’s latest victim. She spends the first chapter dragging two friends from one party to the next on their last night of spring break.

The following morning, Hatcher finds Chelsea’s hacked-up body during a morning jog through East River Park. Hatcher is not even on duty, but she and her new partner, J.J. Rogan, catch the case. Their boss, Lieutenant Dan Eckels, would prefer to give it to someone other than Hatcher, but he nonetheless puts the pair to work.

The full review is here.

Review: The Turnaround by George Pelecanos

Today in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor Jim Winter reviews The Turnaround by George Pelecanos. Says Winter:

It’s 1972, and Alex Pappas doesn’t want any trouble. He just wants to go to college and become a writer. He’s not even interested in taking over his father’s coffee shop, much as his father wants him to do. Hoping to stay clear of trouble, as well, is James Monroe, who wants to become a mechanic like his own father. But when Alex and two friends make a beer-fueled run into Washington, D.C.’s Heathrow Heights, an isolated black neighborhood, their worlds are irrevocably ruined. A shouted racial epithet turns into a fight that leaves one boy dead, Alex maimed and James headed for prison.

Dead is Billy Cachoris, who drove the car into Heathrow Heights with Alex and another boy, Peter Whitten. One of those boys throws a cherry pie at someone and yells “Nigger!” That sets off Heathrow Heights kid Raymond Monroe, James’ younger brother, and sparks a fight between the boys in Cachoris’ car and the neighborhood boys. Egging on the Monroe brothers is a thug-in-training named Charles Barker. The fight, which costs Billy Cachoris his life, sends both Peter Whitten and an injured Alex Pappas running.

The full review is here.