That’s right. You heard me.
Crime Novels of the 1960s: Nine Classic Thrillers (boxed set)
Some time back, I did a piece here about how Westlake deserves his own Library of America anthology. Well, this ain’t it. But I guess it’s a start?
I’ve read five of the nine. Obviously the Stark. I have lost score of how many times. I would imagine the attraction there is that it’s incredibly entertaining, a true standalone, the entire book is about the heist, it’s short (more room for other books), and there’s a movie based on it in French. Oooh la la, le cachet! And it is unequivocally from the 60’s. The Jugger and The Seventh would have been highly viable alternatives, but looking at the rest of the selection, this is good counterpoint. Not least in that Parker is unequivocally victorious in this one.
This is a very belated follow-up to a previous anthology which featured Noir novels of the 1950’s, and wouldn’t you know, a lot of the same names show up here, but it’s a two volume set, so more–and merrier.
Have not read The Murderers, Dead Calm, The Fiend, or Doll. I suppose I could now. (Hell, I bet they’re all upstairs where I work, or most of them).
The Name of the Game of Death I covered when I did my piece on Dan J. Marlowe’s oddly oblique parallels with Westlake. I honestly have nothing more to say about it, except that since I own a copy of the Gold Medal paperback (technically, a British reprint), I don’t need any other format. It well merits inclusion, but must still shake my head that Westlake got this honor, through a pseudonym, the same exact time Marlowe, a far less accomplished mystery author, got it under his own name.
The Expendable Man is a tricky book to write about. For the same precise reason Dashiell Hammett’s obscure intriguing 1933 ultra-short story Nightshade is. Also Charles Willeford’s short shattering 1955 novel, Pick-Up (which appeared in the 1950’s anthology). You can’t synopsize any of them without giving away a pretty crucial plot reveal, that people often think Dorothy B. Hughes invented. She didn’t. She was a massive Hammett groupie, and at least half her novels (I’ve read all of them) reference The Maltese Falcon in one way or another.
Since Nightshade later appeared in the somewhat misleadingly titled 1944 quickie anthology, The Adventures of Sam Spade (he’s in there–kinda), the odds she hadn’t read Nightshade are in the negative integers. She read it, revised it, greatly expanded upon it, moved the protagonist way up in social class, and I’m inclined to say, made the proceedings a bit Wokeist–in the 1960’s. Not Wokeist on the subject of reproductive rights, though (abortion itself is treated as the crime in crime novel). She wasn’t that far ahead of the curve–behind it in many ways–and Roe V. Wade didn’t exist yet. (Nor does it now.)
Hughes was, in my estimation, an old school Republican (she never namechecks or even vaguely alludes to FDR even once in her novels set during or shortly after WWII), which means she can seem very progressive in some ways now, and very not at all in others. She’s worth reading, but having worked all the way through the oeuvre, I’d say all you really need of her is Ride the Pink Horse, In A Lonely Place, and The Davidian Report. But you need those. If anybody tells you she invented Noir, give them some early Cornell Woolrich to read (I guarantee you she was reading it).
(Oh, and if you think you know the middle one I mentioned, by far her most famous, because you saw the Bogart film, with Gloria Grahame–you don’t. Seriously. At all. Look at the screen credit. “Based upon a story by Dorothy B. Hughes.” The check cleared, and she got to meet Bogie, so she was happy. Hughes had to write quite a few successful but deeply formulaic potboilers featuring plucky ingenues in peril, before she found her feet. Interestingly, though she most often wrote from a female POV, her three best novels all feature male protagonists, though one of them is pure evil–yet oddly sympathetic.
That’s all I’m saying about her work for now, except this–Do not, under any circumstances, pay good money for a used copy of The Big Barbecue. A misguided attempt at social satire and romantic comedy. Her only novel that isn’t currently evailable, and for her reputation’s sake, I hope it never is. Thank God for Interlibrary Loan.
Point is, whatever you think of The Expendable Man (I’d call it the weakest of the five I’ve read in this LOA collection, and decidedly inferior to the Hammett and Willeford stories–she’s way too Western Union about it), you can’t credit her for the plot twist everybody who reads this one invariably brings up, because Hammett got there decades earlier, and she’d have been the first to admit it, if anybody had ever asked her. I can’t say what she’d have thought of Willeford. Or if she ever did. (Nobody ever thinks of him as woke, and he likes it that way.)
I read the Himes offering maybe two years back. It’s not as good as any of his Harlem Detective novels (is anything that good? seriously inquiring.), but it has its own quirky charms. There are two major protagonists, one of whom is the villain, a murderous corrupt drug-addicted racist white cop with serious personal issues, even by 60’s crime fiction standards, and that’s going some. The other, our hero, is a handsome, athletic, and very decent clean-cut young black man, who just wants to stay alive by any means necessary. Give you one guess who owns the book. Himes could be really perverse. (I mean, the cop has fully consensual biblical knowledge of the hero’s girlfriend at one point).
You won’t be putting it down very often. That I guarantee you. Lives up to the title and then some. But what struck me when I read it was that something about the way the villain is introduced to us weirdly invoked the way we meet Parker in The Hunter. No, it’s not on a bridge. But even so. It felt familiar. If you read it, let me know what you thought. That Himes read Stark I’m not really in much doubt about, but this is the only time I felt I’d detected even the faintest whisper of an homage. If that’s what it is.
And then there’s the Highsmith. This is a very odd pick. I mean, is this even a crime novel? It’s one of my favorites of hers. Probably my absolute favorite that isn’t part of the Ripliad. It’s a splendid book. It’s full of marvelous insights about how people behave when they get way off the beaten track and lose themselves. It even has what I think you might call a happy ending. For Highsmith. Have to get that qualifier in.
And there are no murders in it. Not exactly. Accidental homicide? Even that isn’t certain. The only clear resolution involves a very nice German Shepherd (Highsmith loved animals, which to me is a sort of healing balm for the way she utterly loathed people, not least herself).
The title is a head-scratcher, because nobody in it is a forger. (Ripley was, but he’s not in this one). And it’s not out of print. (Is any Highsmith out of print?) But they picked it. If you want to know why, ask them. Maybe it was cheaper to get the rights for. You know, that’s probably it. But if you like her, you’ll love this.
Do I need to buy this? I’d say hell no, except for the mention of ‘updated author biographies.’ How updated? Are we talking short slightly tweaked snippets or would I learn something I don’t already know? You can buy the two volumes separately, and of course both are evailable. And I work for a library, so good bet it’ll be crossing my desk in the near future. I’ll think about it.
So anyway, that’s a book review of a book I haven’t seen yet. Original, huh? If anybody’s wondering, yes, that’s me writing shippy song-laden fanfic on a different blog, related to a shortlived TV show based on comic books. I don’t judge your personal lives. I needed to get out of my writing rut. Break the block-ade. It may even be working. We shall see.
The Westlake Review 