JBJs BOOK REVIEWS: The Real Shit.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

THE DOORBELL RANG by Rex Stout

I'm not a Nero Wolfe fan and expected to diss this effort tho almost every reader scores it 5 stars.

The story: A writer investigating the FBI is murdered and his material is stolen. The FBI then stalks and harasses the writer's most loyal fan and patron. She then hires Nero Wolfe to learn what's up with the murder and the FBI, the NYC Police haven't a clue, and Washington twists arms and titties against Wolfe; Hoover wants Wolfe's PI license and head.

Wolfe puts Archie Goodwin to work. Archie soon learns 3 FBI agents paid the victim a visit about the time he was shot, they took the book manuscript and notes, and they took the bullet that killed him. No pistol was found in the victim's apartment, and he had a permit.

Most of the book is about FBI harassment and Hoover's illicit pressure on all who mattered. President Johnson used Hoover to change hearts and minds.

The plot is perfect and flawless and works like a watch from start to finish. Wolfe is tireless and smarter than the average bear but no magic miracle worker. Some of his ideas and guesses work, some don't. To solve the murder and resolve the problem with Hoover he has to tiptoe down a path of criminal acts, snares, and traps like when Archie finds the pistol in a place he and it shouldn't be. What to do! Lotsa risk taking. The story is fulla puzzles and mysteries and suspense and tight corners. All under the eyes of the police and FBI. It's truly excellent and impressive, and the fruit doesn't fall off the tree.

What I dislike is what I always dislike about Nero Wolfe. His orchids and epicurean cuisine. And Archie Goodwin is a fool for milk and carrots. Given a choice of cold milk and hot pussy the milk wins every time. Its incredible when a police detective uses a quart of milk to get a confession and deal from Archie. I score it 4 stars for the bullshit.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway.

Its an endless sufferance of The Lost Generation adrift upon the Sargasso Sea of navel gazing. Lit perfessers and homosexual critics love it. I hate it. What in hell was Maxwell Perkins thinking when he bought it. American Lit courses keep it in print.

In a nutshell: Lady Brett Ashley fucks all the guys, Jake is gelded and not even in the line for her favors, and the rest is chronic boredom and bickering among a mob of drunks in Paris.

I like Hemingway. I wanted to like this book. But I dislike cosmetic effervescent females and queer boys standing in line for used pussy. I liked Georgette the street walker with the bad teeth. She was an honest woman and real.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

http://mostlycrappybooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/fiction-carter-brown-none-but-lethal.html

Enjoy.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

HOP SCOTCH by Brian Garfield.

Garfield wrote DEATH WISH and plenty of other novels, many of them Westerns. I think Walter Matthau starred in the movie version of this book.

I almost threw the book in the trash, the first chapter is lame and viscous to the point of being turgid. But it got better and better and great.

Its the story of a 50ish man who worked for the CIA many years until he took a bullet in his noodle and was retired. He's bored and pissed at the CIA for retiring him. I mean, they treated him right but he misses the thrills. So he dreamed up a game to play with his old employer...the CIA believes he's writing a tell-all scandal book and theyre unhappy about it. So they go after him and he leads them on a wild chase. Its like the Dukes of Hazzard or Smokey And The Bandit.

So far as anyone knows the guy has done nothing illegal but the CIA is obsessed with capturing him, and he foils them every time....legally. He's clever and fulla surprises that slowly captures the enthusiasm of everyone except the head CIA guy. They know each other well as former CIA partners. But about the halfway point you start to understand that the guy is wasting lotsa peoples time and government resources. Go play shuffleboard or bingo. Get a girlfriend.

Buts he's a stress junkie.

I give it 5 stars for clever, excitement, and its moral.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER by Ian Fleming.

Raymond Chandler wrote that it was "about the nicest piece of book-making in this type of literature which I have seen for a long time ... Mr. Fleming writes a journalistic style, neat, clean, spare and never pretentious." I agree.

Others say its Flemings weakest effort, and I agree based on the 4 or 5 I read. Fleming was tops when it came to depicting gambling and fighting, and he was good at depicting trickery and treachery. I also like how he portrayed James Bond: Bond isn't Superman or a genius, he's stable, calm, calculating, and dedicated. When death seems immediate he strives to use the time he has for useful toil.

The story: Diamond smugglers are stealing serious quantities of diamonds from the African mines and transporting them to New York. The Brits capture a currier and replace him with James Bond. The crooks like his work and keep him around, where he goes to work fucking up their other criminal enterprises. They never catch him pissing in the punchbowl but they suspect him and make life painful. He escapes and fucks with them more till the end of the book.

Its not exciting but its interesting. Its almost 60 years old. 3 stars. Its not bad but it wont keep you up late.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

There are two black writers, actually 3, I bother with: Chester Himes, and Zora Neale Hurston. The rest aren't worth shit.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

LINE OF SUCCESSION by Brian Garfield.

Terrorists blow up the US Capitol building on the first day of a new Congress and new administration. One hundred and 43 people die, including several in the immediate line of succession...vice president-elect, speaker of the house, the departing vice president. The president-elect is kidnapped and murdered.

The book is forty years old and the terrorists are who you'd expect from 1972: Militant blacks, Cuban commies, naïve young rich Jewish kids, and a few soldiers of fortune who know how to make bombs and slaughter people. They capture a secret service agent, pull her tongue out with pliers and remove her heart with hammer and chisel.

The central issue is: Does the nation now arrest and persecute all its leftist anarchists, or does it exercise patience and restraint and suffer more harm.

Garfield includes all the essential parts. Half of the writing is excellent, and half is so dull and tedious you wanna throw the book away. That is, the action is good, and the constitutional/legal debates are boring as hell. The terrorists quarrel over haircuts and baths and attire. The Jewish kids hate their wealthy parents. The blacks think they can walk inside a Wall Street bank, in army field jackets, afros, and sneakers to get a million dollars at the point of a gun. The mercenaries recruited the kids and blacks because theyre naïve and stupid and expendable.

Its not really plausible tho it reminds me of the Patty Hearst/Sybianese Liberation Army debacle of 1973. This followed DEATH WISH but isn't as good as the books that came along 2-3 years later. Later books omitted the navel gazing.

3 stars.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

OUT ON THE CUTTING EDGE by Lawrence Block.

This book is like #9 of the Matt Scudder series.

Matt Scudder is a former police detective who killed a child and crawled inside a bottle for several years. He abandoned his wife and kids. And keeps a room in a flop house. He's now in Alcohols Anonymous and makes a few bucks doing private investigations.

The Story:

Mom and Dad hire Matt to find their daughter who left their Indiana farm to be an actress in New York City. Matt spends many weeks looking for the daughter without result. He goes back to attending AA meetings and getting involved in the lives of former drunks. He takes up with a woman whos a former communist and nasty drunk. She makes a living doing plumbing.

I wont spill the beans but the book is an expose of serial murders and assassinations in the Big Apple. It answers the question: How do you get Granny Grunt outta her rent controlled apartment and 51 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER....a knife in the back, Jack!

There's too much AA in it for my taste. It seems like filler and word packing after a while. The ending is an abrupt accounting of all the murders and quick confrontations with the killers. I guessed the end wrong.

The book would be better had Block spent more pages detailing the killers, and fewer pages detailing AA meetings that are irrelevant to the story. This is a common complaint about Block. Its a subplot that wags the story..

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

What If You Put Archie Bunker And Fred Sanford Together?
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Where do your characters come from? Do you extrude (force them to be what they become) them or do they surprise you?

I'm curious to see what happens when Archie Bunker and Fred Sanford are made partners by the new sheriff as punishment for conduct that pisses off everyone.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

SUNSET EXPRESS by Robert Crais

The Story: Joggers find the body of a rich guys wife. Cops find the murder weapon outside the rich guys house. The rich guy is charged with murder. Rich guy hires an OJ Team of lawyers and investigators. The head lawyer hires Elvis Cole and Joe Pike to look for the real killer. Cole finds the 'real' killers by about page 50. Cole is a hero and darling of the main stream media.

But the book shoulda been titled APRIL LOVE. Its really a guy romance after Cole's girlfriend comes to town with her kid. They go to Disneyland and all the attractions, dine at all the best restaurants, go to parties, Cole serves her breakfast in bed, Cole's pals take the kid off so the happy couple can have some quality time alone (she starts calling Cole STUDLEY). Its wonderful when she has a bout of gown angst before a party at rich guys mansion. She's a brilliant lawyer, btw, and gorgeous. At a restaurant Johnny Depp stops by their table to say howdy.

Amazon readers love it. Almost all award it 5 stars, compared to the 1 star I scored it.

W.E.B.GRIFFITH writes books like this one. An ethnic boy goes off to war, wins a chest fulla medals, comes back home to Philly and saves the life of Miss America, her father (the mayor, the governor, the presidents best friend) then gets the hero a job on the police force where the boy quickly becomes chief of detectives. Miss America grills steaks for her hero and his pals while they watch the big game on tv.

Sunset Express is Crais' 6th novel. Number 6 is generally where the wheels fall off the writers wagon. Crais dumps the girlfriend down the road but by then the damage is done, Cole and Pike lose their edginess and seem gelded. Its how America likes its white men nowadays.
__________________
Patriots talk it, veterans live it.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

BORED TO DEATH: Where stories go wrong
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I generally read several books simultaneously, usually 5 pages, per book, per time. It helps me retain more of what I read. To each his own.

But I noticed something that's significant: stories often go wrong and suddenly become tedious and constipated and viscous and boring. I also recognized a few of the problems for it.

STOPPING TO SMELL THE ROSES.
The rich guys wife is murdered and he is charged with the killing. He hires a private detective to find the real killer. The private eye takes the case then his semi-famous lawyer girlfriend comes to town for a visit and the story takes a break for them to sight-see and cuddle & coo and eat out and walk hand-in-hand on the beach at sunset, etc. His partner takes the womans kid for a trip to Disneyland so the couple can be alone.

Two books later the author has to kill the woman off as she's killing sales.

What do you notice?

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

THE MARCHAND WOMAN by Brian Garfield.

THE STORY:

Carole Marchand is a movie executive, divorced, and has a son in the Peace Corps until Cuban terrorists murder him to extort millions from several Latin American countries to carry on the fight against Fidel Castro. No one was supposed to get hurt but one of the players went rogue and killed the young man to speed things along.

Marchands ex works for the CIA, he's the father of the dead boy. The terrorists work for the CIA.

Marchand gets nowhere with the CIA, and her ex is a pussy. She hires a dangerous and notorious soldier of fortune to find the terrorists. He finds them in almost no time and makes a report to Marchand. Marchand spills the beans to her ex, who tells the CIA, and the game is on. Marchand hops aboard a jet to meet with the soldier of fortune in Puerto Rico.

When they meet she is scared shitless of him then abruptly goes full Helen Reddy and scares the crap outta him. She's in charge! She will call the shots. He will take orders from her. He says lower case 'ok.' She knows shit about guerilla warfare and weapons and even where to get a fucking gun. Kiss my ass. I stopped reading. I was over halfway thru the book.

Till the Helen Reddy eruption the story was 95% navel gazing and travelogue.

One star.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

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Writers Cant Do Kids
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I've never read a convincing kid in any book or story. None. Ever. Theyre always lil Mensa sissies who navel gaze...kids don't navel gaze.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

________________________________________RECOIL by Brian Garfield

THE STORY: Merle Mathieson and his family are in the federal witness protection program when a clerk is black-mailed to give him and many others up to THE MOB. Nine years earlier Merle was at the courthouse taking a shit when he observed mobster Frank Pastor bribe a judge. Merle was then forced to testify against the judge, and Frank went away for several years. When Frank gets out he unleashes his organization on all the witnesses. The feds move Merle around but Frank finds him every time till Merle decides to take the fight to Frank. What Merle does then is sign up to become a gelded power ranger. He does all the training Rocky did plus more. But he cant keep his dum wife off the phone; she spills the beans to all. Merle sends her to a safe place and goes to NYC to battle Frank and the mob. I wont reveal the end but its lamer than you can imagine. Merle reminds me of Jimmy Carter.

This coulda been a great action adventure, and Franks not a nice guy, he dynamited Merle's house! Merle is non-violent and intends to appeal to Franks better angels. Merle thinks he can change Franks heart to let bygones be bygones.

TWO STARS. I wuz robbed.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

________________________________________Enough Rope
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ENOUGH ROPE by Lawrence Block arrived in the mail today. Its 800 plus pages of his short stories including his first published story.

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JAMESBJOHNSON said:

The Easiest Thing In The World
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THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD by George V. Higgins

Its a posthumous collection of Higgins' stories that were rejected by publishers. Mostly because theyre neither fish nor fowl, too long for short stories and too short for novels. And they suck.

Elmore Leonard said Higgins taught him how to write, and he said it after 20 years of solid hits and plenty of fame. Higgins spent those same 20 years rejected until THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE was published circa 1970. EDDIE COYLE is a small-time loser criminal, Higgins' unpublished efforts are about social elites fulla angst over ordinary life issues no one wants to read about. It didn't work the first time yet Higgins tried it again at the end of his life and it didn't work again.

What it was, was Higgins admired John O'Hara, and O'Hara knew social elites and knew where their sleaze was hidden. His debutantes are ever bit the whores their servants were, and O'Hara exposed it as he exposed the men. Higgins had no idea rich girls sucked cocks and had abortions. He knew bar maids and gun molls did. O'Hara had the rich girls attend cotillions with green 18 year old boys then slip away to fuck a married cop on the beach. Later the girls went to Florida with their parents for abortions at clinics close to their beach resorts while mom and dad sampled the local flora and fauna, also close at hand. O'Hara was the son of an MD who served rich people.

Higgins' best writing is entirely long monologues. Ask a character the time and you learn how to make a watch. Higgins knew how to make it work. But in the stories its equally long narrative of the navel gazing kind. It doesn't work because there's no feelings in it. It could be a lecture about sugar beet agriculture. His low-life criminals wanna kick guys in the nuts or they yell at black hookers who demand tips.

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