At 06:55 AM 4/9/2005, you wrote:
>Anybody else read Richard Rayner's THE DEVIL'S WIND?
Most of the reviews
>I've seen have used some form of the word "noir" in
them, but the book
>doesn't seem noir to me. (I'm not trying to start
another discussion of
>definitions, just asking.)
>
>Bill Crider
Hi Bill
Yes, I used the word "noir" in my review of The Devil's Wind,
but I was using it in the film sense, rather than any of the
definitions for prose noir that keep popping up. If there's a
difference. Like pornography, I know it when I see it. Most
of the time.
Best
Steve
RICHARD RAYNER - The Devil's Wind
HarperCollins; hardcover. First Edition: February 2005.
If
there were no such word as "coincidence" or "serendipity,"
they'd have to be invented. The day before I received this
book in the mail to read, I happened to be looking up science
fiction writer Charles Eric Maine, for some reason or
another, no longer remembered - the reason, not the author,
although in all likelihood there are not many who remember
Maine, either.
But I
digress. As it happens, Maine, who died in 1981 and whose
real name was David McIlwaine, also wrote a handful of
mysteries (all scarce, and none published in the US) under
the name of - you guessed? - Richard Rayner. Hmm.
The
Richard Rayner who wrote The Devil's Wind was born in
England, but now lives in Los Angeles, and as in the case of
a certain other author
[named Chandler, although born in Chicago], it may take
someone on the other side of the Atlantic to come to this
country to tell us, and show us, what we're really
like.
Or what
we were in the past, as this book does; back in 1956, the
time of HUAC; the atom bomb tests in Nevada and the
concomitant growth of Las Vegas; Jimmy Hoffa; inherent
racism; and jazz. All essential ingredients of a top-notch
noirish thriller (filmed in glorious black-and-white?) based
on identities: hidden identities, newly created identities;
and revenge: subtle and not-so-subtle, and bullets to
match.
And
jazz. On pages 193-194, wealthy up-and-coming architect -
about to become the new Senator for the state of Nevada -
Maurice Valentine
(not the name he was born under) is listening to the only
record a young black musician ever made:
I
didn't know what to expect. In the war, like everyone else,
I'd danced to Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Count Basie;
I'd lain on my bunk, smoking, dreaming, while Bing Crosby or
Billie Holliday or Frank Sinatra sang on the radio. I
understood, in a general way, tthat after a war a revolution
had occurred in jazz, that the swing of the music had turned
itself inside out, with bop, bebop, hard bop. I knew, even,
of a further development - West Coast jazz, cool jazz.
Especially liking the sound of those concepts, I'd sped to a
Hollywood music store and bought myself a couple of Art
Pepper records. The guy had style. He wore fine duds, was
handsome, white. He played each solo like it was a seduction.
That, I could relate to. And of course jazz bands were always
playing in the Vegas show rooms. I was no ignoramus on the
subject, in other words; nor was I an expert. But nothing had
quite prepared me for what I was about to hear.
It was
a quintet: the piano came in first, with bass, drums, and
trumpet following behind, and I knew at once this wasn't the
hard stuff; the Dizzy Gillespie kind of jazz; nor was it
California cool, man. The tune was a standard, "Come Rain or
Come Shine," and when Wardell Lane entered with his first
solo I swear it was like being washed in the purest, freshest
water I'd ever known. That horn floated with a sweet clarity
that cleansed my blood and eased my bones. Okay, I was
exhausted, drugged with fatigue. But I don't want to
underplay the feeling of the moment. The whole room glowed,
and Konstantin stood there with a huge grin.
"You
see now? You understand?" he aid. "Listen. He's almost on the
edge, as if he were in danger of falling over."
But
somehow Wardell never did.
The
woman. Mallory Walker is a rich man's daughter and a would-be
architect, a field which in the 1950s in which there were
very few openings for women. Valentine is married but
eminently capable of being seduced, and he finds himself
captivated. From page 8:
My
first impressions were of a cool hand and a firm, bony
handshake. A slender figure in blue linen and flat heels. A
lean face with hair cropped short and bleached blond, almost
silvery in color. Full lips, nose slightly upturned. An
impression of impudence, of life. Her eyes were a pale
gray-green, and powerful, of startling clarity; she looked at
me as if she knew my every secret.
"Pleased
to meet you," she said, as simply as that. Her voice was
clear and clipped, with no identifiable accent.
She is
a force, a whirlwind, someone who knew her well says on page
256. Clever and proud and ruthless and beautiful, Maurice
says earlier on page 40. There is also the hot wind that
blows across the Nevada desert. The natural wind. There is
also the unnatural wind that arises after the flash and
colossal boom of the mushroom clouds that can be seen from
the top floor of Las Vegas hotels, the wind that causes
disasters in more ways than one.
I also
have to tell you about one of the notes I wrote to myself
while reading and absorbing everything that was happening as
quickly as I could. I suddenly sat up and told myself, less
than half way through, and I quote, "I have absolutely no
idea where this book is going."
Is that
adequate as a one-line review? I'd like to think so. I do
think so. It's quite a ride.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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