DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

IT’S IT’S ABOUT ABOUT CRIME
CRIME
by y Mar Marv Mar v Lac Lachman Lac hman
The Short Stop
HARDCORE HARDBOILED, edited by Todd
Robinson (Kensington Books paperback, $14.00),
is not really as bad as its title makes it sound. It’s
just that who wants to spend as much time as it takes to
finish 24 stories with characters as obnoxious as almost all
of them are. A couple of stories are good, notably David
Bareford’s “Eden’s Bodyguard,” about a man who guards
a pop singer, and Frank Zafiro’s “Rescuing Isaac.” Most
stories are not worthwhile, having minimal plots and boring
dialogue. Since these are stories from the online magazine
Thuglit, they do not cause me to change my mind about the
difference between fiction in a print and that on the web.
Incidentally, many of the characters smoke cigarettes in
these stories. Is that supposed to be a hardcore habit or one
that is hardboiled?
For twenty years Edward D. Hoch edited the
annual volume of the “best” mystery short stories. Since
then, the closest thing to those volumes has been the yearly
anthologies edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.
The latest in that series, A PRISONER OF MEMORY
(Pegasus Books trade paperback, $15.95), contains 25
stories published in 2007, Jon L. Breen’s superb annual
review of that year, and Hoch’s listing of mystery writers
who died in 2007. Ironically, Hoch died in January 2008,
shortly after submitting his necrology. There is a heartfelt
tribute to him by Francis M. “Mike” Nevins.
The average quality of the stories is quite good,
with two stories that deserve to be on any list of the year’s
best. They are Doug Allyn’s “Dead As a Dog” and Nancy
Pickard’s “I Killed.” Allyn’s, in particular, deserves to be
shortlisted for the year’s various prizes. There are also
strong stories by some of today’s best mystery authors,
including Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block, Jeremiah
Healy, and Clark Howard. The book’s title is from a story
by Robert S. Levinson, one of his typically enjoyable tales
about show business and Hollywood. Four of the stories are
from online magazines, introduced by Sarah Weinman, a
big proponent of mysteries published in that format. Of
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these, Patricia Abbott’s “A Saving Grace,” from Thrilling
Detective, is certainly worth reading.
Novels Recently Read
Harrison Gradwell Slater’s NIGHT MUSIC (2002)
begins promisingly, especially for lovers of classical music.
Matthew Pierce, a music scholar and pianist, finds what
may be a lost Mozart diary at a Milan auction. Before he
can have it authenticated, he is invited to a French estate
to what will prove to be an almost endless round of parties
given by a wealthy viscount. Among the guests are some
of the leading lights of the music world, including the
world’s two leading Mozart scholars. Naturally, the Mozart
diary creates a great deal of interest and eventually results
in murder and attempted murder.
Unfortunately, Slater’s book is so padded (it
comes in at 493 pages in paperback) that my interest
waned. Pierce visits virtually every major city in Europe,
and they are described in excessive detail. There is a large
cast of characters, and they are difficult to tell apart.
Having characters named Andrei and Andreas doesn’t
help. Sexual scenes are often inserted, and while they are
quite erotic, they don’t move the plot forward. Slater’s use
of language is sometimes awkward. For example, we read
on page 425: “Some event of unthinkable violence was
about to take place.” There are too many quotations
inserted, a frequent fault of writers of first novels (as is
Slater), as if they had been saving them up for years.
Taken individually, there are good elements in
this book. The descriptions of Europe might be intriguing
for would-be travelers, and Slater is adept at conveying the
beauty of classical music. However, the book as a whole did
not work for me, and it wasn’t helped by a very long and
not too convincing resolution at the end.
Those of you who read current mysteries exclusively
may never have read a locked room detective story.
I envy you the treat you have in store if you choose either
or both of two terrific, impossible crime mysteries by John
Dickson Carr, recently published by Rue Morgue Press at
$14.95 each. Both date from 1938, a golden year in the
Golden Age, and they show how fertile was Carr’s imagination
to be able to devise two plots this good in the same
year. His enthusiasm (he called detective fiction the “Grandest
Game”) clearly comes across.
In THE CROOKED HINGE, a seemingly impossible
murder, in a locked room, follows a dispute over who
is the legitimate claimant to the baronetcy of Mallingford
and Sloane. (There are echoes here of the famous true
crime involving the Tichborne claimant.) In 1912, allegedly,
identities were switched aboard the Titanic as it went
down. In 1937, when the book takes place, two possible
claimants show up at Farnleigh Close. The murder involves
the least likely person – to be murdered. Literary gravy is
supplied to the puzzle by references to witchcraft and an
automaton similar to one written about by Poe and
Ambrose Bierce. What could be science fiction or even
fantasy is explained fairly and logically by Carr who, in the
best detective tradition, issues a challenge to the reader.