New and Exclusive Documentary: ED GORMAN: A Master of Suspense

 

Book Review: Crime School by Carol O’Connell. **** out of *****

(c) Putnam.

Carol O’Connell has to be one of the most underrated crime fiction writers of all-time. Her books are atmospheric, eccentric, and feature tremendously original plots. Crime School is no exception.

The plot: Police Detective Kathleen "Kathy" Mallory, a cold, hyper-intelligent young woman, recognizes a recent victim of a brutal attack as Sparrow, a prostitute she knew from her past who protected her on the streets of New York when Kathleen was a homeless child on the run. Slowly, clues reveal that this attack might be the work of a copy-cat killer who is repeating crimes from more than twenty years ago. But Kathy is worried, and so is her older partner Riker, as it seems that Mallory's past has finally caught up with her.

The above synopsis does the book a disservice, as O’Connell’s books are never about plots, which are usually serpentine and overly-complex. Instead, her books are about the journey, the characters, the unique voice that is both modernist and classical; accessible yet strange. O’Connell has a tendency towards self-indulgence, often losing herself in bizarre asides and overly quirky situations, elements which are more pronounced in her less effective novels, like Stone Angel, and Shell Game, also featuring Mallory. But here, although these distractions are present, O’Connell’s writing, for the most part, is at its finest, weaving myriad strands and fascinating psychological details into a compelling, haunting story about memory, trust, the magic of storytelling, and the beauty of an unsolvable mystery. The novel also pulls off the neat trick of working both as a stand-alone story, and as an introduction to the adventures of Mallory, of which this is the sixth volume, while ending on a pitch perfect note that could have served just as well as the series’ finale.

Crime School is crime fiction at its best, entertaining, moody, original, and with a touch of the surreal. If you’re new to the Mallory novels, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. If you’re already a fan, you’re in for a treat.

Watch/Listen to review here:

 

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2022.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of several short films and a feature, which was released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. He is also the host of The Dark Fantastic Podcast. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer

Book Review: THE GRIFTERS By Jim Thompson *** out *****

Known for his noirs, Jim Thompson offers something a bit different with The Grifters, a pitch-black psychological drama first published in 1963. Centering on the disturbing mother-son relationship between 25 year old Roy and his mother Lori, both players in the world of the "grift" (meaning flim-flamming and short con-games), this virtually plotless novel is basically a journey through their troubled, often exciting, and ultimately tragic lives.

What Thompson skimps on in plot, he somewhat makes up for in alluring cynicism, delivered in hypnotic, if not always subtle, prose, and fascinating details about the life of the career grifter. Considered by many to be among Thompson's best works, this novel isn't really that special, but it is short, highly readable, and has an ending so nihilistic and twisted, it has to be read to be believed.

Note: The audiobook version, released by Hachette, and read by Barbra Rosenblatt, is highly recommended.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2021.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer

The Dark Fantastic Interview with author Robert J. Randisi (Author of The Rat Pack Mysteries and Curtains of Blood)

Robert J. Randisi is one of the most prolific writers in history, having authored hundreds of  published books and edited more than 30 anthologies of short stories. He co-founded and edited Mystery Scene magazine (with Ed Gorman) and co-founded the American Crime Writers League. He founded The Private Eye Writers of America in 1981 and created the Shamus Award.

In a 2011 Barnes & Noble interview he revealed that he writes under sixteen pseudonyms, and that he produces fifteen books a year, with 1984 being his most prolific year, with an output of twenty seven books!

He is most renowned for his mystery fiction (Dean Koontz and Michael Connelly are fans of his work), which includes The Rat Pack Mysteries, the Nick Delvecchio series, and the Joe Keough series.

Randisi has also written hundreds of western novels - including The Gunsmith series, The Tracker series, The Angel Eyes series, among others - and dozens of stand-alone novels in numerous genres.

Author Robert J. Randisi

I had a chance to interview him recently and ask him about his prodigious output, his style, and one of my all-time favorite novels, Curtains of Blood.

How early in your life did you discover that you wanted to be a writer?

I was 13 when I first put pen to paper—or fingers to a typewriter—but I was 15 when I decided I would do it full time for a living by the time I was 30—and I did. 

Early in your career, your worked for the NYPD. What was that experience like, and how did it influence your writing?

It was an eye opening experience, a peek into real life that I hadn’t seen before. At 23 I’d have to say it was life altering.  It did enable me to write more realistically about people, but except for a short story or two it didn’t actually influence my writing until I wrote ALONE WITH THE DEAD in 1995.

P.I. fiction has definitely stood the test of time and continues to be popular to this day. In your opinion, what makes P.I. fiction such a sturdy and timeless genre?

I think the loner standing against the masses is timeless.  We all like to think we could do it if we had to. It’s something that connect the Western and the Private Eye story, the lone gun who’s not on either side of the law, but sort of straddling the line in the middle. He’s heroic, and almost everybody would like to be a hero.

I think it's safe to say that you're one of the most prolific writers of all time, with hundreds of novels in countless genres under your belt. To what do you attribute your prodigious output, and what is your writing process like?

I can only attribute my output to my absolute love of writing. Most of my waking hours are spent writing. And I discovered at an early age that I had an unusual ability to write swiftly. I was advised by other writers early on NOT to write quickly, to slow down. But when I tried to follow that advice it affected everything—my output and the quality of my work. So I had to settle down into my natural pace, which is the advice I give to writers when they ask. Find your natural rhythm, and stick with it. And remember, I wanted to write for a living by the time I turned 30. That meant writing a lot of books, or becoming Stephen King—and I ain’t Stephen King.  

Do you have a favorite genre to write in?

For me it is and always has been the Private Eye genre—even  before it was accepted as a genre of its own, rather than the sub-genre of the mystery. It became part of my life’s work to make that happen.  

As the creator of the Shamus Award, and an expert in P.I. lore and methodology, did you ever think of becoming a P.I. yourself?

Early in my life, yes. Dealing with police detectives and meeting some private eyes along the way, I thought about it, but that would have interfered with the writing. I was a musician in my teens, and decided I’d have to either pursue music or writing to succeed at one of them. You know what I chose. But yeah, I think I could’ve been a good P.I.

Who are your favorite writers, the ones that inspire you the most?

I go cross genre with influences, from Chandler and Ross Macdonald to Roger Zelazney and Keith Laumer. I enjoyed them, and learned from them. And I was mentored by Warren Murphy, who gave me my first writing job.  These days I enjoy the work of Michael Connelly very much. He’s one of the few writers I think actually deserves his success status. 

Your style can arguably be called minimalist: You achieve so much with so few words, and your sentences are always lean and drive the story forward, which makes most of your books on the shorter side, yet wholly satisfying as novels. What attracts you to this spare style?

It’s not conscious, it simply comes naturally. I don’t rewrite, the story comes out of my head and flows through my fingers at a certain speed, and the “minimalist” style you refer to just fits.  I’m much more concerned with the action of the story, than I am with the kind of shoes characters are wearing, or what the weather’s like. I’m as much criticized for that as I am praised, but once again, you have to go with what comes naturally. 

Your mastery of almost all genres is mind-boggling. Is that the result of your interest in a wide-range of subjects? Or are you just a voracious reader?

Oh, I was a voracious reader from an early age, and kept looking for more and more to read, which meant bringing new genres into the fold. I have to say the only genre I’ve never read or written is the romance. The private eye is still my favorite genre to read, but some of my favorite books have come from Roiger Zelazney and Frank Herbert.

One of my favorite novels of yours is CURTAINS OF BLOOD, a terrific historical thriller in which Bram Stoker crosses paths with Jack The Ripper, a concept which has been used many times, with varying degrees of success. In my opinion, your take is the most effective, and for me, the most enjoyable. What attracted you to the subject matter, and how much research did you have to do for the novel?

I probably did more research for that novel than any other I’ve written. I just happened to come across the fact one day that Stoker was the manager of the Lyceum Theatre at the time of Jack the Ripper, and that the theater’s run of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was closed down due to the fact that the police thought it might be “inciting” Jack. I just went from there . . . to me, it was a natural.

Do you ever consider going back to that Victorian world and writing something in the same vein as CURTAINS OF BLOOD?

There’s nothing on the planning board, but who knows. I always have time to write another book, right?

What advice would you give to aspiring writers who want to write in the mystery/crime genre, especially now that the paperback market has all but disappeared?

If you want to write this stuff, you just have to write it. You can’t worry about where or when or how it’s going to be published. If you’re a writer, then the writing is the important part. You’d write it even if you were the only one who was going to read it. So get it written, and don’t worry about anything else until it’s done.

What are you working on at the moment?

Several things—a traditional western for Berkley Books, who has started publishing westerns once again; the next Gunsmith book, continuing the output of one a month since January of 1982; and my next Rat Pack mystery, which will be the thirteenth book in the series.

Thank you for your time.

It’s been my pleasure.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer

Book Review: DEVOTED by Dean Koontz *** and a 1\2 out of *****

While no one could argue that Dean Koontz has been more prolific than ever these past ten years, his output has been polarizing, to say the least. There have been some very good books (Odd Apocalypse [2012]), some middling ones (What The Night Knows [2010]), and some terrible ones (The Silent Corner [2017]). Some fans, especially lifelong ones, had even started to think that the Koontz of old (of terrific books like Midnight, Hideaway, and Odd Thomas) was gone, never to return. Then came Devoted (2020), restoring the faith.

Devoted is Koontz energized, impassioned, and focused. Yes, there are still instances of heavy-handed social commentary and sentimentality, and the main characters aren't that memorable, but Koontz hasn't written a book this enjoyable, this readable, this moving, in years. The plot - about an autistic boy and his mother getting entangled with a cabal of assassins, a hyper-intelligent dog, and a seemingly omnipotent killer - isn't that original, and, at times, feels like a greatest hits compilation of Koontz's best novels. But what sets this novel apart, what makes it special, is Koontz's energy. His writing hasn't felt this ebullient in more than a decade. Devoted also features one of his scariest villains in Lee Shacket, and some of the darkest, most violent scenes Koontz has ever written.

Consisting of over a hundred short chapters, this is an addictive read, and a most welcome return of a master. Highly recommended.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer

Book Review: NO EXIT by Taylor Adams *** and a 1\2 out of *****

 

An effective, fast-paced thriller, No Exit by Taylor Adams is a highly readable suspense novel with a likeable heroine and twists aplenty.

The plot: A young woman taking refuge from a snow storm in a rest stop, discovers that one of the four strangers with her is a psychopath who has a seven year old girl trapped in a cage in his car. Author Taylor Adams takes this high concept and runs with it, creating one intense situation after another, building the tension to a fever pitch.

But the novel does have its flaws. Aside from the heroine and the little girl, all the characters are barely memorable, especially the villains, who get less and less believable as the story progresses. But the novel's biggest misstep is the climax, which reads like the finale of a blockbuster Hollywood thriller: contrived and over-the-top, and with a clichéd epilogue.

Faults aside, No Exit is an immensely enjoyable, tense, and energetic thriller, with just enough style to make it memorable.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer

Book Review: THE DINNER By Herman Koch. *** out of *****

A highly praised novel of psychological suspense, The Dinner is an intriguing and readable book about a troubling subject matter.

Told in the first-person by Paul Lohman, a seemingly loving husband and father, as he sits down with his older brother and his brother's wife for a quiet dinner at an expensive restaurant, as he slowly reveals, through flashbacks that grow more disturbing as they go along, that there is more than meets the eye to this family gathering.

Revealing any more would be unfair. Suffice it to say that this is a dark novel, and one which gets darker and more disturbing chapter by chapter.

Koch's prose is on the chilly side, and all his characters are more or less unlikable. But there's a pitch-black mystery at the core of this novel that keeps one reading, no matter how unsavory things get, and Koch has some interesting things to say about mental illness, evil, and nature vs. nurture. But this is a challenging read; an unpleasant story about unpleasant people. And the ending, though shocking, is heavy-handed and implausible.

As far as psychological suspense novels go, this is a good if pedantic one, and only recommended to readers who like their mysteries dark and nihilistic.

* Adapted into a feature film starring Richard Gere, in 2017.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Book Review: THE COLORADO KID By Stephen King. *** and a 1\2 out of *****

The Colorado Kid (2005) is a story about storytelling, and our continuous search for answers to questions that might never have answers. It is a short, entrancing novel, with Stephen King at his avuncular best, weaving a tale seductively told by two ageing journalists in a small town in Maine; a  tale that grows more intriguing with every chapter, while never actually giving us any definite answers to the central mystery. It's a bold choice for a populist writer like King, who usually specializes in masterfully written but wholly accessible novels, revolving around tired genre tropes raised anew by his unique and incomparable voice.

Here, King stretches his muscles a bit, writing a story about a story with no ending, and focusing on a few hours in the lives of two ageing characters who live to tell a good tale. It's a charming little book, and one which ends far too soon.

* The audiobook version, wonderfully narrated by veteran screen and TV actor Jeffrey DeMunn, is highly recommended.

** The book was adapted to TV as the Canadian-American TV series Haven (2010-2015), which bore almost no resemblance to the novel, but which was a charming supernatural mystery in its own right.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Video Version:

Book Review: THE GOOD CHILDREN By Kate Wilhelm. *** out of *****

The Good Children (1995) is author Kate Wilhelm's attempt at a contemporary homage to Victorian Gothic novels. There's an unreliable narrator, a mysterious death, familial tensions, madness, and a creepy house. But it isn't a wholly successful attempt.

For the first two thirds of the novel, the book is unputdownable, with interesting and believable child characters, an intriguing inciting incident with dire consequences for all involved, and a story that defies expectations. But things take a downturn in the last third of the novel, as the now grown-up characters become less interesting and less believable, and the dialogue grows more and more stilted as it goes along. Also, the climax is overwrought and implausible, failing to gel with the what transpired before.

All in all, this is a lesser entry in Kate Wilhelm's impressive cannon, but it is still a readable if flawed psychological novel, and one which benefits from being a relatively short and easy read.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.