Peepland by Christa Faust, Gary Phillips and Andrea Camerini - A Graphic Novel Review

Goodness me, that was a gritty story.

New York in the 1980s was not a pretty place, it's a wonder how much it has changed in a single generation.  Say what you will about gentrification but I do not believe anybody wants to return to the NYC of those days.

Corrupt wealth, corrupt cops, corrupt bosses in a dirty, uncaring city and you've got a backdrop for a dirty, dangerous story.

The art was amazing, I wanted to wash my hands everytime I picked up the book.  (That's a compliment, really.)

But it was the story, oh my, what a scary world Faust and Phillips created.  In the underbelly of Times Square, a murder is caught on tape (yup VHS baby) and the evidence is hidden in a peep show booth.

Once the tape is found a whole raft of villains work extremely hard to cover up what it reveals.


This was a terrific read.  And the ending - cold, man, cold.

Highly recommended.

PS - Faust and Phillips - Doesn't that sound like a terrific detective agency?

Christa Faust - http://christafaust.com/

Gary Phillips - https://gdphillips.com/

Andrea Camerini - http://www.andreacamerini.com/

Normandy Gold story by Megan Abbott & Alison Gaylin art by Steve Scott & Rodney Ramos - A Graphic Novel Review

Once again Hard Case Crime and Titan Comics have published a story that is gritty, violent, scary and just uncomfortable enough to keep the reader engaged.

Normandy is a county sheriff who is a witness, well ear-witness, who hears her troubled sister murdered while on the phone.

Set in the dirty 70's the look and feel of the book drew inspiration from such movies as Taxi Driver and All the Presidents Men.  The murder is largely ignored since Normandy's sister was a prostitute.  So she takes up the investigation.

But in this story she is no cop, she is out for revenge and to hurt as many people as she can along the way.

I liked the story but as I said, it was disturbing too.  The lengths Normandy went to learn the truth made me question her sanity.  But then that edginess kept me reading too.

In the end, I needed to take a walk to get some fresh air and then to take a shower, just to remove the effect the story had on me.

The style of the artwork is a perfect rendering of those times and just like those movies, I did not come away feeling good about humanity.

The ending was satisfying but I came away from it questioning my own sense of justice as much as Normandy Gold's

Read this carefully and do not let children near it.

Megan Abbott's website - https://www.meganabbott.com/

Alison Gaylin's website - https://www.alisongaylin.com/

Triggerman by Walter Hill and Matz

Hard Case Crime is one of my favourite imprints.

It has been a few years since I've read something from them and today I was taken aback.  Maybe I'm getting old, I dunno, but I found this story excessively violent.  Bullets fly, blood splatters and bodies pile up with quick regularity.

Set in the American west during the height of gangsters and prohibition; Roy is released from prison in order to do a contract revenge job for his employer.  Corruption is everywhere and everybody is out to stab each other in the back.

This was Noir Fiction at its most distilled.  The artwork, by Jef, is dark and gloomy and utterly bleak; perfect for this story.

As good as it was, it was actually a bit too long, considering that nearly every character had to double cross somebody and pay for it in some way.  Much of the violence felt gratuitous.

For a first taste of Hard Case Crime's graphic novel series this one left me a bit disappointed.

This in no way will prevent me from reading their other offerings, I know they publish a terrific variety of crime fiction.  This one was simply not for me.

Hard Case Crime website - http://www.hardcasecrime.com/

Walter Hill's Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hill

Walter Hill

Book Report #89 - The First Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Book 13 of 52

Page count - 204

Another paperback from Hard Case Crime.

This story was set in December 1970 when Quarry was in his 20's.

Compared to the previous novel this one was a bit more graphic; more sex and more killing.  The dark humor and unique narration style were still there making this book another fantastic read.

This is Quarry's origin story, how he got his start in the killing business.  What seemed like a simple enough job; kill a college professor and burn his manuscript, turned into a comedy of unexpected people walking into the scene and messing up Quarry's plans.

Through all of this Quarry still wants to do right by the people who've wandered into his life.

I loved this story.  I was flipping pages with a smile on my face wondering how he was going to untangle himself from all the complications.

Highly recommended.

Collins' website is HERE.

Book Report #88 - The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Book 12 of 52

Page count - 201

Now this was more like it!  A fun a quick read; I read it in two sittings.  Max Allan Collins is the kind of author who continually publishes novels at an incredible pace.  I've found, if an author can produce this much, he doesn't waste time describing the colour of the paint on the walls.

Quarry is a retired hit man, enjoying a quiet, secluded life in Minnesota lake country.  On a sleepless night Quarry drives to the local convenience store for a snack run.  There he notices a man he knows, an enforcer for the Mob.  Curiously the enforcer is buying a box of Tampax.  This arouses Quarry's curiosity and he decides to follow him.  He quickly learns the enforcer is holding a young woman for ransom.

Quarry could well have left things alone but doesn't because, for one thing, he just doesn't like the enforcer.

There are some wonderful twist in the story that really grabbed my attention.  You find out quickly that Quarry is no one you want to mess with but you also discover that he has a soft spot for women.

The narration is crisp and personal, like he's talking directly to the reader.

I've pulled all the Quarry books in my Hard Case Crime collection and will be reading them very soon. 

Collins' website is HERE.

Max Allan Collins

Book Report #80 - The Max by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Book 4 of 52
Page count - 220

I can't help it; I just loved this series.  Max Fisher, aka The M.A.X. Finds himself in prison.  But, just like always, he makes the best of it from sheer blind luck and arrogance.

I've never come across a character that was as much fun to read.

Bruin and Starr are a great writing team.

Ken Bruen

Jason Starr

Book Report #62 - Slide by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Continuing from Bust we follow the out-of-control life of Max Fisher.

In this go-around Max is reinventing himself as a hip-hop crack dealer.  Pretty outrageous for such an un-hip, self-centered white guy.

I loved this book.  I must have had an "I can't believe what I'm reading" look on my face the whole time I read it.

It was a ride.

Book Report #61 - Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Oh what fun!

Reads like an Elmore Leonard in that i never knew where the story was going to take me.  Random events and pure, believable, chance cropped up to throw the plans of the principal characters.

Visually this could very well be a Quentin Tarantino film; the violence is quick, brutal and unexpected.  There were great gobs of dark, dark humor in here too.  So if you like either Leonard or Tarantino this book is for you.

The good news is that it's the first in a trilogy.

So, what's it about?  One of the most unlikable guys in literature decides he wants to kill his wife because he certainly doesn't want a divorce and give up half his money.  Through his mistress he hires an assassin who calls himself Popeye.  And that's the only part of his plan to goes as he wants it.  From then on the book is like an amusement park ride - you just don't know what's going to happen next.

There is nothing I love more than reading about an idiot's life as it starts to spiral out of control and how he deals with it.

This was great fun and I'm already reading the sequel - Slide.

Book Report #56 - Dutch Uncle by Peter Pavia

This book sure started out feeling like an Elmore Leonard novel. It had all the elements; south Florida local, lots of drugs, a couple murders, cops, low-lifes and three or four loosely related plot lines. Unfortunately all the separate stories ran out of anything interesting to tell.

195 pages in and I kept wondering when the author was going to bring all these plot lines in for some kind of conclusion.

Interestingly, the dangling plot points ended abruptly, giving the book a rather low-keyed yet believable conclusion. The denouement was interesting in that you don't get that type of ending too often in crime fiction.

A satisfying end, however, did not make up for a book that spent most of its time in the doldrums.

Home is the Sailor by Day Keen

Home is the Sailor by Day Keene first published in 1952 and re-printed, by my favorite publisher, Hard Case Crime in 2005.

It's the story of a sailor who retires and wants to settle down.  He meets a nice woman who then gets him to do things he would never have been capable of in the past.

I kept wondering just when he would wake up and see what was going on.

A pretty good read.

Book Review - The Girl with the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block

First published in 1965 (what a great year that was) Hard Case Crime has republished it in 2005.

It's a great real estate swindle, yea, sounds boring but it's not. Plus a lot of the action takes place in Toronto. Part of the fun of reading this book besides the wonderful pulpy lines like "I wanted to make her purr" is also just how different travel was back in those days. In a post 9/11 world its fun to read about people carrying guns on board a plane and steak knives being used with the meal service.

Lawrence Block has long been one of my favorite authors. He's been writing for decades and is a Grand Master of crime fiction. He's always easy to read and his stories have always kept me turning pages.

Book Review - Plunder of the Sun by David Dodge

First published in 1949 Plunder of the Sun by David Dodge has been newly published (2005) by Hard Case Crime (HCC - 010).

The Hard Case crime website describes the book like this:

"Al Colby should never have agreed to smuggle the package from Chile to Peru. Now one man’s dead, two beautiful women have betrayed him, and a couple of gunmen are hot on his trail. All because of an ancient Quechua manuscript pointing to the hiding place of a priceless hoard of gold, lost for centuries. Now the race is on — by train, by plane, by motorboat and by mule — first to find the treasure and then to escape with it alive..."

It was a good read. However, the main character, Colby, was a bit of a putz: he was double crossed, beaten, tied up and otherwise outwitted at just about every turn. He certainly was tenacious but the amount of times he came out the looser in situations made it a bit distracting. Indiana Jones her certainly was not.

Still, I never lost interest and that is the real test of a book.