RUMRUNNERS by Eric Beetner

This is the third Eric Beetner book I've read this year and for the third time in a row, he delivers thrilling, pulpy, criminal entertainment. Rumrunners, which so far might actually be his most popular book, follows the McGraw family, who for generations have been working as talented wheelmen for the Stanley's, an Iowa crime family. Tucker McGraw has been set on ending this outlaw legacy by going to college and becoming an insurance salesman. But when his father Webb goes missing with the Stanley's latest package, the Stanley's put the debt on him. So Tucker must reluctantly get involved in the family business, and with the help of his OG grandfather Calvin, find out the truth about Webb's disappearance, and get out from under the thumb of the Stanley's.

Like in Dig Two Graves and Run For the Money, in this one, Beetner once again shows a knack for creating engaging criminal characters. Calvin McGraw stole the show here as the 84-year-old whose fondness for beer is only eclipsed by his love for American muscle cars, and who is growing tired of his retirement and jumps at a chance for reliving his glory days outrunning the Feds on the open road. Also, seeing the McGraw side of straight-man Tucker gradually emerge from within as he begins to embrace the outlaw life was fun to see as well. And Beetner has a talent for crafting great action scenes, with the fist-fights and car chases properly standing out the way they should in a book like this. And when you include Beetner's trademark wit and humor, you won't be disappointed with this classic crime thriller.

"Well, Milo. You're really going from zero to McGraw in one shot tonight. Tell you what, cops and our family are like magnets and wood—they don't stick. Lose this son of a bitch and we'll add your name to the wall of honor."

GRADE: B+

PRELUDE TO THE MASSACRE by Stan Miller

I apologize in advance for bringing up politics in this review. But recently a number of supporters of  U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump were referred to as a "basket of deplorables." Many people had an issue with that. The thing is, it's not much of a stretch to imagine the two main characters in this novel voting for him, and they are the very definition of deplorable. Publisher All Due Respect has truly lived up to their mission statement of delivering 'low-life fiction," by showing us some of the lowest of the low here.

Lee Williams is a bitter, damaged, directionless man who has just been released from prison and thrown into America's Great Recession. He is haunted and broken not only by his years as a sex toy for various gangs on the inside, but also by his abuse from his mother, and his fantasies of tying her up and torturing her. But it's not until he moves in with his cousin Jeff, a Neo Nazi Iraq vet with a blown-up face gearing up for a race war, that he's really able to express himself and let loose all of the urges that have been building in him all along.

Lee swore he would never smoke crack again yet kept looking at the floor as though expecting to see some there.

My emotions toward this story ran the whole gamut. There were times where I was totally disgusted, where it felt like sloppy crime porn and the author was just trying to see how much he could shock the reader. There were a few times where I thought I'd made a mistake purchasing this and I was going to put it down. Lee and Jeff are truly pieces of shit, and it's a real challenge to be so entrenched in their point of view. Miller's writing is so uncompromising and direct that it's hard to take at times. But it's also these things that make it difficult to put down, and ultimately makes it a must read for people who might deny this dark side of America. Miller is showing us how it's possible that the bigoted sickness that simmers below the surface of our country can come bubbling to the surface and how certain people can latch onto that and make it fester. As I watch the news everyday, I can't think of a better year for this book to have been released.

There are only the barest of plots here, instead it's more of a character study of a man taking a drug-addled, violent exploration of his own hatred. It hurts to read but it's something that I ultimately couldn't turn away from. Check out the passage below from a scene where Lee gets crack-high and you'll know what to expect from this crazed, rabid hyena of a novel. I struggled a bit with how to grade this. But, even if this turns out not to be my favorite read this year, I can't think of a book that will prove to be more important.

Problems?
What fucking problems?
The only "problems" he had were monetary and these could be fixed the next day. 
He'd go back out and sign spin. He'd go out with the Mexicans and do day labor. He'd rob banks! He'd get that money, one way or the other, then he'd get wheels, he'd get that chromed out black Dually. He'd get tools, he'd do renovations. He'd be an independent contractor. He'd have business cards. He'd make some money, put that into a house, he'd fix that house up, then he'd sell that house. Profit. He'd take that money and buy two more houses, fix them up. Sell them. Profit. He'd buy some rental units. Income stream! Profit!! He'd give out money to everyone he knew. To everyone who deserved it. He'd buy Jeff his face back. That's why he was so fucking crazy, of course! He'd buy Gary his house and his wife and his daughter and his other kids and his life back. Then he'd kill all of them. He'd kill at random. He'd fuck all the pussies of all the women in the world. He'd tie Gary up and fuck his dead wife in front of him! He'd decorate the inside of a church with the bones of thousands! He would never be stopped because no one could stop him. His powers would spread outwards forever and ever and ever until they encircled the entire universe, then Lee would begin squeezing...
But for now Lee needed music and more crack.

GRADE: A-

THE BRAT by Gil Brewer

Pulpy tagline!: "She wanted out and she had the price—a lovely body and the will to use it."

This is a middle of the road Gil Brewer novel that falls somewhere between the pulp awesomeness of The Vengeful Virgin or A Taste For Sin, and the disappointing Wild To Possess. In this book, Brewer pushes to create the "fatalest" of femmes in Evis Helling, the titular "brat" of the story. But brat is an understatement! Lee first meets her when he's riding down a river one day minding his own business and he sees her sitting on a dock, as if she's been waiting specifically for him to ride by, like a sweaty swamp succubus ready to suck him in. They soon marry and then begin to plot a robbery together. After he starts to get cold feet, she goes through with the robbery anyway and sets him up to take the fall, prompting Lee to travel back into the heart of swampy darkness to track her down!

I thought that the beginning of the book was great and the final act was pretty good, but the middle of the book that mostly consists of Lee traveling through the swamp did not have the same urgency that Brewer is known for, and it falls into a repetitive slog. I also thought that the desperate sheriff was a pretty annoying character. But even though it doesn't stand up to his best work, it's still entertaining enough, even if just for it's pulpiness and for Evis herself!

I cursed her and tore that dress to shreds.
It was like tearing us apart. I had to demolish every last stitch of cloth, scattering what remained of the dream across the floor of the room where a ghost of her still moaned and writhed in ecstasy.

GRADE: C+

THE BLACK WIDOW CLUB by Hilary Davidson

I've been searching for more female crime writers that tell the kind of dark stories that I love, and in my search I stumbled onto award-winner Hilary Davidson and thought that this collection of nine previously published tales of betrayal and murder would be a good start. The main theme in the majority of these are tales of desperate women doing bad things, things like revenge, cuckolding, plastic surgery, and other kinds of psycho shit.

Richard sank to his knees. It was almost how Kelly had pictured him proposing, except for all the blood.

I can see why Davidson has gotten a fair amount of praise with her short stories. The concepts might be familiar to some but Davidson writes with a precision and a wicked little sense of humor that makes them special. There's a playful naughtiness to each story that would make Hitchcock proud and sharp twists that made me smile. All of the stories are equally entertaining and well-told but if I were forced to pick favorites, I'd probably say "Beast," "Son of So Many Tears," and "The Other Man." Hilary Davidson really knows her stuff and I'll definitely be checking out more of her work.

GRADE: A-

BLISTER by Jeff Strand

This is not what it looks like.

Yes, I know that the cover art and title is creepy. Yes, I know that it's written by Jeff Strand, who has an extensive bibliography filled with lovely titles like: Dead Clown Barbecue, Benjamin's Parasite, and Casket For Sale: Only Used Once.  But trust me, this book is not a horror tale. Now, there are some horrifying events detailed, but in fact, this is actually a tender-hearted, quirky love story with doses of great comedy and also some small-town mystery.

It begins with one of the best opening lines ever:

I'm a liar, but this is the truth.

I think that line is not only a great way to start this particular tale, but it also simply sums up everything about what it means to be a writer of fiction. While reading this book, I was so worried that this story would fall off the rails in an epic way. It's not the easiest tale to tell and the love story aspect as well as Rachel's backstory have to be handled delicately or it all could've fallen apart. And there's a twist near the end that I believe could've been handled better. But Jeff Strand is such a witty writer and has so much confidence in what he's doing, it seems like he could take any crazy story and really make it stand out.

GRADE: B

DARK MATTER by Blake Crouch

It's really hard to find something else to add to the ton of accolades that's already been heaped onto this book, one of the most talked about novels of the year. The story by Blake Crouch, of a physics professor who is kidnapped one night and forced into an adventure beyond anyone's wildest imagination, has all the elements of crowd-pleasing, perfectly escapist entertainment. It has an amazing concept on which Crouch expertly adds layers upon layer, forcing me deeper into the rabbit hole. But not only does the concept make for great entertainment but it's also an ingenious way to tackle the issues that Crouch is really after: choices, regret, and what it truly means to love your family.

Along with a tender romance, a likable protagonist, and possibly the worst villain you can imagine, this book is a fast-moving adventure story that kept me reading past all the acceptable time limits! I'll just stop now because I don't have much more to add other than what others have already written. The book is cool as hell and much more fun than this redundant review.

Go read it.

GRADE: A-

A F*CKLOAD OF SHORTS by Jedidiah Ayres

Jedidiah Ayres is such a great writer that if he wrote more accessible stuff like a coming of age family drama or a thriller with the word Girl in the title, he would be a household name. But instead he writes stuff like this collection of stories full of depraved violence, filthy sex, disturbing psychology, comedy blacker than the darkest night, and characters devoid of any moral center and it's all for the better. It's one of the best written pieces of work I've read this year by a writer more people should know about. Most of the stories in this collection shouldn't work; they should feel too ridiculous. And Ayres takes these things to places you were sure he wouldn't dare go, but you'll be so wrapped up in his storytelling flair, that by the time you get to the witch-burning and the necrophilia, you will simply be along for the ride.

He tries his hands at a variety of genres here, from noir, Western, apocalyptic, or a couple of comedies that have a Friends of Eddie Coyle-ish stream-of-dialogue style, but he puts his own twisted spin on all of them. Try reading "Hoosier Daddy," "The Whole Buffalo," or this bewildering and tantalizing passage near the beginning of "The Adversary," and not want to read everything else he's written:

The witch had been holding ceremonies. Sacrifices. Poultry mostly. She blessed and hexed for a fee and she'd send and deliver messages across the Stygian chasms separating worlds.  All of her arts were brought over from the Dark Continent and she practiced in the woods under penalty of death by the Law of Moses, which the Reverend Chalfont Avery was charged with upholding now in the face of Armageddon.  He had been present at her execution, a willing and enthusiastic participant, but the kicking feet of the blasphemer brought not the warmth of God to his soul, so they torched her home to mirror the flames of Hades and on them he warmed his hands.

It's a shame that this book is out of print by SnubNose Press. I'm lucky to have stumbled onto a used copy in an LA bookstore. If you can find it, snatch it up. But if you can't, his novella Fierce Bitches is the best thing I've read so far this year, and I'm sure his full-length novel, Peckerwood, which I haven't read yet (soon come), is just as great.

GRADE: A-

KILL 'EM WITH KINDNESS by C.S. DeWildt

Sometimes, when presented with the opportunity to be a good samaritan, maybe you should think about just leaving well enough alone!

I'm sure Nick Gillis realizes this, after he helps a beautiful girl at a bar, and ends up on the radar of Chad Toll, the most dangerous dude in town. If Nick's own trouble trying to get over the suicide of his wife wasn't enough, now he has a psycho fascinated with him.

Chad, the charming psycho in question, is a well-illustrated, three-dimensional villain, who takes Nick on a date to watch classic films at the drive-in, before taking the most brutal act of revenge you'll read in fiction this year. He's one of the keys to the book's success, providing a quiet menace that permeates the book, even in scenes where he's absent, as if he can just pop up when you aren't expecting him and shocking you again with stunning violence. I'm sure that's how protagonist Nick Gillis felt too! This is a gripping novel that maintains the danger from beginning to end.

He pulled her tighter and she continued to cry. He felt better than he had in a long time. His own demons could sleep while he was dealing with hers. But even the relief nagged at him. Was it worth it? Leave one hell to vacation in another? And how long until he had to go back home?

GRADE: B+

THE COLD SIX THOUSAND by James Ellroy

*Book 2 in the Underworld, U.S.A. Trilogy*

"You never know when you might rub shoulders with history."

Well here it is, the book that ends my A grade streak with James Ellroy's books. But it's definitely not a bad book, just not as impressively crafted as the others and much more difficult to read.

John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, all assassinated within five years, all by lone gunmen who all claimed to not be the only ones involved. Coincidence? James Ellroy thinks not, and just as in the stellar American Tabloid, he deconstructs the turbulent 1960's and rewrites his own version of American history during that time, leading up to the deaths of RFK and MLK. Picking up immediately after the JFK assassination at the end of Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand follows our characters cleaning up after the killing that has shaken the country to its core and they struggle to define their roles in the history being made. Pete Bondurant dedicates himself to staying useful and to mending his fraying relationship to the Mob and the CIA, dreaming of rekindling his Anti-Communist glory days that led up to the Cuban crisis, while Ward Littell uses all the skills he's learned from Kemper Boyd, dangerously juggling alliances with everyone from the Mob, Howard Hughes, the FBI, and the Civil Rights movement, and at the same time feeling increasing guilt with his role in a rising number of conspiracies. Debuting into this mess is Wayne Tedrow Jr., a Las Vegas cop struggling to avoid following in his racist father's footsteps, but tragic circumstances allow him to embrace the darkness within. And looming over everything is J. Edgar Hoover, the Emperor Palpatine of the Ellroy galaxy, increasingly unhinged, crafting conspiracies from behind a desk, wire-tapping every room in the country, struggling to make the country great again.

One of the things that made me fall in love with Ellroy's work is his ability to pull together an immense encyclopedia of material and, through the use of some black magic, craft these tight tales and characters that are engaging and fully memorable. And though his past five masterpieces that I've read haven't been short, this is the first of his work that I actually think is too long. And Ellroy takes his prose-style to the extreme here and that doesn't help. It's exhausting and many times tedious, and there are whole parts that I don't think were all that necessary; the Vietnam storyline in particular didn't really amount to much or affect much of anything. I wish that Ellroy spent less time on that and more time really fleshing out the character arcs, which weren't as finely tuned as in his previous novels. I wanted to feel the conflict in Ward Littell more as he feels the pull of the Left even though he tries so hard to be part of the Right. His story could've been the most fascinating. I wanted to further explore Wayne Junior's acceptance and rationalization of his racism. While all of these ideas were great, I just wish they were fleshed out more.

But the book is still an Ellroy book and like most of his work, it's an epic that stands out in a crowded field of fiction. There are times when the declarative sentence style really shines, as in a chapter where Littell witnesses firsthand the horrors that haunt the civil rights movement. It was also great catching up with old characters from previous books, or witnessing infamous history from a different perspective, like the JFK assassination clean-up, Sonny Liston's alleged Outfit ties, the plots to discredit Dr. King, or the recruitment of both Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray. There were times when the book hovered around an A-, but alas I have to settle on a B-. Hopefully the next book I read from him is back to the A-quality I've come to expect!

GRADE: B-

A WIND OF KNIVES by Ed Kurtz

He wished for his guns, but decided his hate would have to do.

While the country is neck-deep in civil war, unassuming Texas rancher Daniel Hays wakes up to find his loyal ranch-hand and lover Steven castrated and lynched, hanging from a juniper tree. Daniel gathers his guns and his horse Oscar and sets out to reap vengeance on those responsible.

Based on that summary, you might expect this novella to be a Death Wish-style Western actioner where Daniel tracks each man down one by one and we get episodes of violent, cathartic retribution in graphic detail. But I was pleasantly surprised that this was much more brooding and contemplative, and more about studying the nature of revenge, and how much of an ineffective effort it can be. It shows how muddled it can be, how it rarely goes the way many would expect, but shows how through it all, Daniel keeps going out of a sense of duty; it's something he simply has to do. Another thing that I really enjoyed was the little hint of what might be some magical realism, which really added great texture to this tale. I'm lowering the score a bit though because the ending felt like a bit of a rushed cop-out and a let-down.

"I hope you get your revenge. A man can't be right when there's somebody livin' that oughtn't be."

GRADE: B