Dirty Money by Richard Stark
Very nicely completes a trilogy. I may go back and read all
three, because although only about a week passes in the three
books, I read them over a three year period, so some of the
details are not that fresh in my mind (though Stark does
remind you of essential back knowledge). This may be my
favorite of the comeback Parkers.
Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman
A very good pure noir outing from Dave (now that I think
about it, it's the only one of four of his I've read that is
wholly within a single genre). Just out of prison, an excop
returns to is old town. No one wants Joe back there, not the
other corrupt cops whose names he never gave up, not the
dying crime lord (who may be planning on a deathbed
confession) and his psycho heir for whom he once did
collections, nor the DA whose disfiguring (plus a little bit
of arson) led to his prison stint. Not even his parents
welcome him; they just want him to stay away from his kids.
Joe keeps telling himself he'll straighten up for his kids,
but first he has to do just one more bad thing . . . and then
another . . . He keeps thinking he can dig himself out, but
digging only leads in one direction.
Chasing the Devil's Tail by David Fulmer
Valentin St Cyr is a mixed race Creole PI in turn of the
century (1900) New Orleans. Most of his work comes from
retainers from whorehouse madams and Tom Anderson, the King
of Storyville. They want him to quietly investigate a series
of prostitute murders the cops are being told to sweep under
the rug. One of those cops resents being sidelined almost as
much as he resents St Cyr. The case gets personal for St Cyr
when his childhood friend, real life jazz legend Buddy
Bolden, is implicated and his "sporting girl" girlfriend is
threatened. Fulmer has clearly done serious research about
Storyville and, more importantly, tells a good traditional PI
story set there. I'll definitely be reading more by
Fulmer.
Big City Bad Blood by Sean Chercover
Thanks to whoever recently recommended this. I didn't think
it was a quite as good as that endorsement, which seemed to
imply it was something more than a straight PI book. But it's
a very good straight PI book. And PI novels are my comfort
reading, so I was quite happy.
The Dead Past by Tom Piccirilli
From Berkeley Crime after they trimmed their list to small
town and/or female protagonists. This "Felicity Grove
Mystery" is an odd mix, teaming a feisty grandmother and her
somewhat bullheaded grandson who gets called home from the
city every time granny imposes herself in a case (their first
case, told in backstory, was solving the deaths of his
parents and the crippling of granny in a car accident that
had been ruled accidental). As Ed Gorman (to whom the book is
dedicated) says in a blurb, he's her Archie Goodwin (though
she's not a housebound Nero Wolfe). It's good for what it
was, kind of reminds me of John J Riggs's mysteries, and I'll
probably eventually read the second, though I doubt I'd read
more than one more. Nowhere near as good as his recent Cold
Spot.
On deck: Made in Miami by Willeford, Fever Kill by
Piccirilli, Hard Man by Guthrie and the recently raved about
Robbie's Wife. (Also Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, but that
doesn't look like it fits in here.)
Mark
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