WHERE ALL LIGHT TENDS TO GO by David Joy

There was a place where all light tends to go, and I reckon that was heaven.

After reading The Line That Held Us, I was stunned by David Joy's writing and I wanted to read more of his work. I decided to go back to the beginning and, wow, what a fantastic debut novel! Joy is now, to me, an author that demands to always be on the must-read list. His work isn't merely country crime or grit-lit. There's something else going on here.

The novel is told from the point of view of Jacob McNeely, a young man growing up in his father's North Carolina meth ring business, resigned to his lot in life. But the aftermath of a brutal murder and the rekindling of an old flame force him to consider the fact that he has other options and can change his life.

Blood's thicker than water and I was drowning in it. I was sinking down in that blood, and once I hit bottom, no one would find me.

I was surprised by how little the book focused on the murder or the crystal meth business. For a crime novel, very little time is spent on the actual big crimes. Instead, the focus is all on Jacob as a character and his struggle to change his legacy. It's a sad, mournful novel that's emotionally resonant and beautifully written by David Joy, with a terrific and fitting conclusion. Jacob's feeling of helplessness in his situation touched me, as well as his awakening and eventual dreams of escaping this life. There's a running theme in the book about what it means to be a man and the virtues of being  "hard," with Jacob's father constantly saying that Jacob is weak. I found Jacob to be much more of a man than his dad was, with his self-awareness and honesty being the virtues that truly mean something.

Some souls aren't worth saving, I thought. There're some souls that even the devil wants no part of.

GRADE: A

THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME by Rick Remender

This is the case of an otherwise decent graphic novel being nearly ruined by its artwork. It has a great concept in the premise of the country essentially making street crime obsolete, making paper money worthless and switching to electronic money, and the group of old-school criminals trying to hit the one last score that can set them up for life after the switch-over. The book had a lot of double-crosses and some bits of great dialogue as well but I kept getting taken out of the story my the mushy artwork by Greg Tocchini. I had a difficult time telling the difference between characters because of the lack of recognizable facial detail, and I thought that the action scenes were terribly rendered. I kinda wish that the cover artist Alex Maleev worked on the whole book! I've been curious about Remender's LOW series but I'm having second thoughts because Tocchini draws that one as well.

GRADE: C

SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME by Lee Thompson

In full disclosure, throughout a couple of years I grew from being just a fan of Lee Thompson to being a friend. But I was a fan first and I can say that this is the best writing I've read so far from Lee, and that's saying something. There's a passion in this piece that comes out in every page, even more so than the other books I've read by him.

Here, he writes of one eventful night in a small town where a group of bar patrons witness an unexplained miracle and it leads to a night of violence and exposed secrets. Lee takes the idea of the breakdown of a small town through mob mentality and tells it in a way I haven't seen before. Instead of the mob being fueled by hate or fear per usual in these kinds of stories, it's spurred by awe and hope, which makes the events that happen in the book that much more twisted. And his dedication to digging deep into the souls of his characters always leads to a rewarding experience, which is especially the case here.

It's always exciting to jump into one of his books because he is so courageous as a writer. His refusal to flinch at depictions of violence and graphic themes as well as his desire to try something new with every book are risky endeavors, but it's inspiring and he always pulls it off. And he has that extremely rare talent of consistently coming up with great titles for his books! Give this one a go, it'll stick with you and it's a good place to start with his work.

GRADE: A-

DIE DOG OR EAT THE HATCHET by Adam Howe

Adam Howe's got the goods!! Howe is a natural-born storyteller and seems to be one of those rare authors with the gift of being able to write about any damn thing under the sun and captivate readers no matter what. You can find this same quality in writers like Joe Lansdale, Jeff Strand, and Stephen King; natural tale-spinners!

In this book, Howe collects three of his novellas, all of which are intense pieces of pulp fiction that pay homage to various classic sub-genres. Each story was consistently engaging and definitely memorable, but each in it's own way, really showcasing Adam Howe's versatility. Each tale is very different but what they do share is a true pulpiness in their bones.

The first novella, Damn Dirty Apes, is the longest, following a washed up ex-boxer now bouncing in a shitty titty bar. He joins a motley crew of low-lifes on a hunt for the mysterious skunk ape, a Sasquatch-style creature legend, which has kidnapped their friend to use as a sex toy. It's the most Lansdale-esque of the stories, with a great balance of Southern humor and violent, wacky action. I can imagine Hap and Leonard going skunk ape-ing too! It's a great send-up to the 80's B-grade action movies, and every character is charming in their own way.

When the second novella, Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, comes along, it marks a demanding change in the book's mood, presenting a terrifying story that is miles away from being anywhere near funny. It's a graphic slasher story that presents crafty and unpredictable twists on the usual serial killer tales. The way that Howe builds these twists and turns, the way he changes point-of-view, and stacks the pieces so that the obstacles become unbearable, it's really something you should read without me spoiling it. But be warned, if you can't handle EXTREMELY graphic violence and horrifying scenes, this book probably isn't for you.

In fact, the final novella, Gator Bait, probably isn't for you either. But I fucking LOVED it. This time, Howe writes a classic swamp noir of the Gold Medal variety, much in the pulp vein of Harry Whittington or Charles Williams. Here, our noir "hero" is a pianist who lost a couple of fingers to a man he cuckolded, but he obviously didn't learn a lesson because he jumps back into trouble when he takes a job playing at a hot swamp honky tonk and lays his eyes on the wife of the bar's demented owner. Horace Croker is a terrifying villain, and like any good noir, from the moment the two men meet, you can tell things will go to shit in a big way. And it does.

This was one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year, and if each novella was released separately, I'd give them all an A. I'll definitely be reading more by Adam Howe.

GRADE: A

THE FURY OF BLACKY JAGUAR by Angel Luis Colón

This novella doesn't waste time with set-up, exposition, introductions, prologues or any other bits of literary lollygagging. It jumps right out from the first paragraph at a full sprint and never stops until the end. Someone has stolen Polly, Blacky Jaguar's beloved 1959 Plymouth Fury. It turns out that Blacky is a crazy Irish badass and he'll stop at nothing to get Polly back and give the thieving bastards a right proper beatdown.

"I ain't beyond a little old-fashioned revenge."

It's a simple plot that's punctuated with Colón's economy. His writing is immediate and unadorned, much like Blacky himself. Well, maybe Blacky is a bit adorned, he does drive a Plymouth Fury and wears his hair like Elvis. Blacky is a difficult protagonist because he's a total villain. He's a fully unrepentant criminal that is willing to kill or maim to get what he wants. But you get a sense that he has a code and he works because Colón makes him so damn charming and fearless.

GRADE: B+

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy

I thought I'd get a re-read in before the year was out.
He's done it with the western and he's done it with the post-apocalyptic novel. And now Cormac McCarthy tackles a crime thriller and does what he usually does, turns it into something else that's part of a whole different genre: "Cormac McCarthy Fiction."

It starts as a simple noir. Llewellyn Moss is out hunting game when he stumbles onto a botched drug deal complete with dead Mexicans, dead dogs, dead trucks, and a satchel of 2 million dollars. He decides that finders keepers, so he does what any hot-blooded human would do and takes it for himself, setting off a chain reaction of violence across Texas, as a multitude of enemies search for him.

I prefer the more recent McCarthy novels, like this and The Road, to his earlier work. It feels like he's been able to really hone his style and become more disciplined and economical, straying away from some of the distracting bloat without losing any of the trademark lyricism and rumination he's famous for. And this book has some of his best characters. I think that Moss is a great "hero," a simple but resourceful man of straight action while still being charming, while with his lady Carla Jean, I at first got the sense that she was a bimbo, but she turns out to be much stronger, resilient, and acute than I initially thought. McCarthy really surprised me with her character. And then there's Anton Chigurh, the enigmatic figure doggedly chasing Moss. He's less of a person than a force, similar to the Judge in Blood Meridian. He's the embodiment of unstoppable judgment and inescapable fate. His character is pretty unsettling.

Anything can be an instrument, Chigurh said. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same.

But then you have the character of Sheriff Bell, whose character is what provides the soul and transforms this crime noir into Cormac McCarthy fiction, and turns a four star book into a five-star book. He's the real main character here, providing a point of view for the reader, as he muses on the nature of violence and his horror at the way that evil has evolved into something that he's unable reckon with.

Things happen to you they happen. They don't ask first. They don't require your permission.

Another stunning, instant-classic McCarthy novel.

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-

DEATH'S SWEET SONG by Clifton Adams

"But all things end, if you wait long enough."

The plot is classic pulp noir. A man meets a married babe that he can't stop pining over and is ultimately drawn into a sandpit of crime that he can't crawl out of no matter how hard he tries. We've seen this plot many times before, obviously. But where lesser writers of the time expected us to just accept the fact that the man immediately falls for the fatale and would do anything for her,  Adams takes time here to really build Joe Hooper's motivation. We quickly feel his disillusion with his motel/gas station business, his desire to get out of his dead-end hometown, his disappointment with his bland girlfriend Beth, and his excitement and hard-on for the seductive Paula Sheldon when she shows up in town with her husband. So by the time the plot kicks into high gear and Joe decides to get his hands on a payroll heist and his hands on Paula Sheldon's short shorts, we understand his desire to seize an opportunity and we're along for the ride.

And Clifton Adams, mostly known as a successful Western writer, proves to be a master at pacing, never letting the reader up for air for a second. He also crafts a strong lead character in Joe Hooper, especially in the anguish he feels at his father's growing disappointment in him as things go from bad to worse. The small handful of crime pulp that Adams wrote in his career, including this one, are considered some of the best of the classic noir era. While the plot may be very familiar to fans of classic pulp, it's only with the master writers that you see it done with such a knack for pace, tension, and command of the material.

"You wouldn't like my world," she said. "You wouldn't like me either, after you got to know me."

"The way I feel about you has nothing to do with liking you. I just have to have you. As for this world of yours, all I ask is that it be different from the one I've known all my life."

GRADE: A-

SAFE INSIDE THE VIOLENCE: CRIME STORIES by Christopher Irvin

This 2016 Anthony Award-nominated short story collection by Christopher Irvin focuses mainly on ordinary individuals that many people almost never notice, the disenfranchised people who live quietly on society's borders: garbage men, cleaning ladies, immigrants, and returning war veterans, factory workers. And rather than the standard crime stories that most people expect, many of these stories and characters mostly exist on the fringes of crime, sometimes before or after major violence. And Irvin, as with his novella Federales, the brooding Mexico-set noir I read earlier this year, shows a real sensitivity to character as he sketches (in only a few pages) people that feel totally real.

I appreciate that Irvin respects the reader's intelligence, never spoon-feeding or spelling everything out for you. All the stories have a "lived-in" feel, as if they exist in a bigger world beyond each tale, as if there's a novel or two lurking before or after the story takes place. This is what some people dislike about short stories, but it's what has always attracted me to them. I wouldn't mind if Irvin returned to any of these characters and fleshed them out even more in other books. And although each story feels like a part of a bigger narrative, they never feel incomplete.

Standout tales include: "Blind Spot," "Bitter Work," "Lupe's Lemon Elixir," and "Napoleon of the North End."

GRADE: B+

THE SCENT OF NEW DEATH by Mike Monson

In this novella, professional thief and zen master Phil Gaines lives a relatively quiet life robbing banks and staying out of the police spotlight. But it all goes to shit when he falls for and marries a young fiery redhead named Paige, who's looking for the thrill of the criminal fast life, which she definitely doesn't find with Phil. She eventually hooks up with Phil's psycho wheelman partner Jeff Sweet and double crosses Phil on his latest job, where they both steal all the loot and run away to go rape, torture, and murder whoever they can, with Phil hot on their heals, set on revenge.

But who cares?

It all sounds very exciting though, right? Not really. It's all pretty dry and unremarkable, and Monson's writing feels lazy and strangely uninterested in the whole thing. The characters are pretty forgettable and most of it is so by the numbers that even the extreme violence and sex feels like it's all there just to fulfill a requirement, never leading to the real consequence or impact that graphic violence should have.

GRADE: C-

SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM: STORIES by Chris Leek

Good things might come to those who wait, but trouble always seems to show up right away.

I first became familiar with Chris Leek after reading "Last Exit," his great tale of gritty revenge on the streets of Brooklyn that opens the Zelmer Pulp collection Maybe I Should Just Shoot You In The Face. And when I discovered his debut collection, which has one of the coolest titles ever for a compilation of crime stories, I knew I had to snatch it up!

She played me like a goddamn slot machine and knew exactly how hard to yank the handle to make me pay out.

I was so relieved to see that Leek's stories are exactly what they're supposed to be: short. Along with other authors I've been gravitating to recently, his efficient work is a breath of fresh air in this time of bloat in the crime genre. While there are so many short story authors out there who's stories sometimes feel like they're pushing into novella territory, the length of the pieces here average about 4-6 pages. In these little sketches of criminal life and the losers involved, Leek uses the great technique of jumping into a scene late and leaving it early, a technique that's perfect for the short story form. The stories usually open by throwing you right into the mix and then Leek's prose and structure knocks you around hard a bit and you barely have time to recover before jumping into the next round. As usual, some of the stories are better than others but it's a pretty damn good collection overall. My favorites were "The Johnny Cash Killer," "Take 'Em As They Come," "The Ties That Bind," and "Jacks, Queens, and Evens." Great pieces of work. If you enjoy good short crime fiction and you've got 2 bucks to spare, grab this short collection.

"Who the fuck are you?" he said.

I wanted to tell him, to scream "I'm Pete Jones motherfucker" in his face, making sure it was the last thing he heard before his organs shut down and he shit his designer jockeys. But my name wouldn't mean a damn thing to him and neither would hers. He didn't stop to ask it when he dragged her off the street and into the backseat of his beat-up Pinto. Names didn't matter; names were for toe tags and arrest warrants, not for revenge.

GRADE: B+

FIERCE BITCHES by Jedidiah Ayres

What a great find! I'm definitely not the first person to discover Jedidiah Ayres (I'm sure he has a bunch of fans already) but I'm glad I got to jump on the bandwagon early while his career is still relatively young! Although they're still niche areas of fiction, the new age of gritty noir and the novella format are getting more popular these days, so there are many great examples of both out there. But Jedidiah Ayres really put his mark down with this one and penned a true stand-out!

The book focuses on Politoburg, a small, depressing Mexican shanty town/brothel owned by a gringo crime boss. It's also where the crime boss sends all of the people in his outfit that have proven themselves useless to him. So it's a place filled with castoffs, fuck-ups, and failed dreams. Ayres tackles this story with panache: telling the tale with a creative structure, as well as with lyrical, haunting prose; writing that is both muscular and graceful at the same time. It's always exciting finding a new author that grips you simply with the way they form a sentence. He creates such an incredible atmosphere that the story feels almost like a fable or a myth. It's the best thing I've read this year so far. In just 55 pages, Jedidiah has locked in a new fan.

He put his nose on the top of her head and breathed in deeply. The aroma was hideous, but he breathed deeper as if he could somehow process the pollution and breathe purer air back to her, polish her scent til it shone like before. Deep, intense breaths through his nose, holding each breath like a precious object, stained and misused.

GRADE: A

THE KIND OF FRIENDS WHO MURDER EACH OTHER by Chris Rhatigan

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Really though, how the three characters are friends is beyond me. They don't even seem like they like each other that much. But alas, the book's three losers all worked together at the local Pump 'n Munch and have continued to go bowling together every Wednesday. One of these Wednesdays they get drunk and decide to one up each other by confessing the worst things they've ever done. Obviously this will cause a tragic snowball effect and the guys seem to recognize this almost immediately. So were the events in the book some form of self-fulfilling prophecy, or maybe even a kind of twisted form of penitent wish-fulfillment? Seems like it to me.

The main character's nihilism and self-loathing along with the stream-of-consciousness style that Rhatigan uses in the narrator's voice might be a hard pill for some to swallow. But it worked for me, making the narration feel both manic and apathetic at the same time. Plus, at it's core that's what noir fiction is, right? A bottle of hard ass pills.

"I don't trust him," he said.
"Why?"
"Because he can't trust us anymore."

GRADE: B

KNOCKEMSTIFF by Donald Ray Pollock

This debut short story collection by Donald Ray Pollock is comprised of hard little nuggets of country grit that follow a variety of individuals living in and around the small Ohio holler of Knockemstiff, a place based on Pollock's own hometown. It's hard to look back on the book and single out stories for review because each story truly does feel like part of a whole, making the book feel more cohesive than most story collections. Many of the characters are referenced in more than story, and some even reappear in multiple stories. But, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, the main character in all the stories is the town itself, acting as the stories' sort-of-antagonist, placing an almost mystical hold on its inhabitants. Some dream of leaving but are either held back by circumstances or terrified of the world outside. Some even actually leave but are ultimately brought down by the past or are pulled back. And here, Pollock's blunt and doom-filled language gives the reader a hint of what's to come in his great follow-up novel, The Devil All The Time.

I'm beginning to believe that anything that I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.

GRADE: B+

DIG TWO GRAVES by Eric Beetner

Goddammit. I'd hoped to get this over with in one bullet. At this rate, I'd empty the clip before morning. 

When gangster and bank robber Val gets arrested after a perfectly executed heist, he finds out the hard way that you can't trust anyone these days! He discovers that he's been ratted out by the one person who he expects to be trustworthy: Ernesto, his prison-bitch when he was inside; the one he has started to catch a few feelings for. Val escapes from police custody and stalks the city on a manhunt to track down the snitching bastard and get his vengeance.

Starting off strong with a great title that's both deceivingly simple and completely illustrative, this revenge story stays strong to the end. The book is fast-paced, violent, and many times laugh-out-loud funny. Author Eric Beetner maintains a great balance between the dark noir tones and the humor and creates an engaging voice in the narrator Val, a man who seems to be desperate to maintain his reputation for having a cool and collected demeanor throughout the whole thing but whose composure starts to strain as the odds and betrayals stack against him. This is the first book I've read by rising pulp noir star Beetner and I quickly scooped up some of his other awesomely-titled work to check out soon!

GRADE: A-

DIG MY GRAVE DEEP by Peter Rabe

 Pulpy Tagline: "He wanted out of the big rackets—and the boys said okay—feet first!"

Oh man, this one was hard to get through! This was one of the most difficult times I've had reading something that I was actually interested in. I was attracted by the reputation of pulp author Peter Rabe, the nifty title, and the awesome cover. The story of a gangster who's lost the taste for the bad life and having to fight to get out from under his mob bosses isn't the most original of plots, but if done well, could be pretty great. But jeez, all the shady deals with crooked politicians and pages-long talks about wards and taxes and properties just bored me to tears. And the book is only like 150 pages! I feel like I'm getting increasingly impatient while reading now that I've seen what could be done when great, efficient writers take the helm, and this book might be an unfortunate victim of that impatience. To add to that, the writing was glaringly awkward, clunky, dated, and sometimes downright confusing. I read a review where someone mentioned that Rabe learned English as an adult and knowing that now, that might be a big factor in the writing style. Granted, the problems that I had got better as the book went on but ultimately it still wasn't very enjoyable. But Rabe was a very popular pulp novelist and a Gold Medal star and I have some other attractive books by him, so I'll give his work another try. Maybe this wasn't the one to start with...

GRADE: D-

THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS: STORIES by Stephen King

It's always an event when a new Stephen King short story collection is released. Much of his best material comes in the short form and he's proven time and again to be one of the best short story writers working these days. I adored his previous collection Just After Sunset, and I couldn't wait to jump into this one! I had read about a third of the stories when they were previously published, including the two novellas in the collection, the inventive and entertaining magic Kindle story UR, and the highly disappointing killer car story Mile 81, which is wrecked by it's atrocious ending.

Unfortunately my favorite stories in the book were ones I'd read before, which lessened my enjoyment a bit with the collection as a whole. It's by no means a bad collection, I just didn't have many amazing discoveries but enjoyed the re-reads. My favorites were the captivating "Morality," about a New York City couple who are approached with a tempting way to get themselves out of the economic slump, the beautiful and heartbreaking story of a highway accident, "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive," and the Raymond Carver-esque tale of a doomed marriage, "Premium Harmony", all of which I'd read before. There were a few new stories that I enjoyed and which read like classic King shorts: "The Dune" (which had a nifty ending), "Obits," and "Bad Little Kid," all of which would fit snugly right in the middle of his Skeleton Crew collection.

Some of the others were less enjoyable, with King's occasional tendency toward disappointing endings on display. He's famous for not outlining his stories and not knowing what will happen once he starts writing, which most of the time is not a problem. But in some of these stories, it's glaringly obvious and he doesn't bring it home very well. But as I mentioned, a collection of new King stories is always a big deal. And there's enough great stuff here to get excited about!

"Memory's job is not only to recall the past but to burnish it."

GRADE: B-

IN THE SEASON OF BLOOD AND GOLD: STORIES by Taylor Brown

It's always a great feeling when you feel like you've discovered a new author that's on the cusp of blowing up. When you feel that great privilege of knowing that not only is there still a whole career's worth of material to look forward to, but also once he/she gets hugely successful, you can say, "I was a fan from the beginning." In The Season of Blood and Gold (released last year in 2014) is Taylor Brown's debut, a collection of hard-hitting short stories, some of which have already won awards. 

"In a world gone white, ghosts must be the color of shadow."

I'm here to tell you that Brown is the real deal. His writing is some of the very best that I've read all year. He has a real mastery of language, using it in expressive ways, evoking both atmosphere, character, and emotion with impressive economy. There are some stories that seem like they could have been written by a young Cormac McCarthy, where Brown uses words like a mallet and chisel, making sure they stick with you long after reading. Here's the opening line of the award-winning story "Kingdom Come":

"The boy dropped the knife into the stone mouth of the well and watched the blade glitter into the depths, blood from its edge red-clouding its wake, haunting the blade like tidings of its history."

The stories take place in a wide variety of places and times, ranging from the Old West past to even a post-apocalyptic future. A big similarity that I noticed in the stories were the characters, all of which seem to be adrift in their respective worlds, searching for connections, their identities defined by what they do, whether it be a poacher, a soldier, a piano player, a moonshiner, a tattoo artist, or even an alligator wrestler.

My favorite story in the collection, "Whorehouse Piano," blew me away with it's efficiency in the way it illustrates the fascinating character of Lucy and how hard it hits emotionally in just five pages. It's about a former whore who now plays piano in her brothel, her complex and bittersweet relationship with the owner, and her journey to see her estranged father.

"They drove all night into bayou darkness, low-hung moss and the scarce reflection of blackwater amid the mangroves. Highway signs reared before them, bleary and wayward-tilted. Red-flattened carcasses of small mammals littered the road. Whoreson crossed himself when he saw them, reborn. Her hand retreated when he tried to hold it. They never touched, not since the night he slit her throat."

Other standout stories include "Sin-Eaters," set in an apocalyptic future, where one young man decides to buck the system once he finds beauty in a terrible world, "Bone Valley," about a lonely guy who wrestles gators for a living, as well as the beautiful title story, about a young Civil War soldier who risks everything after he meets the love of his life. This story also seems like it might be the basis for Brown's upcoming debut novel, Fallen Land, which I will be scooping up like a hotcake as soon as I can. So excited to read more from this guy! 

GRADE: A-