Gilded Needles by Michael McDowell

(pb; 1980)

From the back cover

“Welcome to the Black Triangle, New York’s decadent district of opium dens, gambling casinos, drunken sailors, gaudy hookers, and back room abortions. The queen of this unsavory neighborhood is Black Lena Shanks, whose family leads a ring of female criminals─women skilled in the art of cruelty.

“Only a few blocks away, amdist the elegant mansions and lily-white reputations of Gramercy Park and Washington Square, lives Judge James Stallworth. On a crusade to crush Lena’s evil empire, the judge has sentenced three of her family members to death. And now she wants revenge.

“One Sunday, all the Stallworths receive invitations─to their own funerals. Can even the wealth and power of the Stallworth family protect them from Lena’s lust for vengeance?”

Review

Gilded is one of the best books I’ve read this year. It is an intense, cinematic-vivid, character-rich, slow burn of a period piece thriller, one that was near-impossible to set down from its first page to its last. It is worth not only worth reading and owning.

The Running Man by J. Hunter Holly (a.k.a. Joan Hunter Holly)

(pb; 1963)

From the inside flap

“NO ONE WAS SAFE FROM THE POWERFUL FORCE!

“‘I can’t tell you my name,’ the trembling man stammered out. ‘I’m simply  a man, Mr. Munro─a man running for his life! But whether or not I’m able to stay alive or not, someone else must know. . .’

“And what the running man knew was incredible and horrifying. But before the night was over, the running man was dead, and with that, Jeff Munro had to believe the horrifying truth. And he had to find a way to destroy the evil power that was loose upon the world. It had come from outer space, reaching into our Solar System from a faraway star. It was a power that could invade men’s minds. It was a power capable of ruling the entire universe.”

Review

Running is a fun, fast-paced and action-oriented science fiction/alien cult-conspiracy novel. The usual twists, turns and occasional betrayals keep this novella interesting, making it worth your time.
 

The 2013 “Deluxe Paperback Edition” I read was republished by Armchair Fiction as a two-novellas-one-paperback work. Its companion novella is William P. McGivern’s The Mad Robot (it was originally published in the January 1944 issue of Amazing Stories).

A Killer is Loose by Gil Brewer

(pb; 1954: novella)

From the inside flap

“Ex-cop Steve Logan is down on his luck. With a baby on the way, Logan decides to pawn his last pistol to a bartender friend. On his way, he rescues a stranger, Ralph Angers, from being hit by an oncoming bus. Angers is an eye surgeon and a Korean War vet, and he has plans to build a hospital in town. Unfortunately, he is also prepared to kill anyone and everyone who gets in the way of his plans. So when Angers manages to get a hold of Logan’s Luger, he also drags his rescuer into a nightmare of murder and insanity. Logan becomes a hostage to Angers’s plans, and there will be no mercy to anyone who gets in his way.”

Review

Killer is an excellent, immediate-action-and-desperation tale, where its protagonist is thrust into bad-to-worse situations, with a delusional psycho who’s flick-of-the-switch wild. The body count is high in Brewer’s hard-to-set-down pulpy read, each killing horrific in its casual, fast-shot execution. Killer delivers the goods on all counts, even with its lapses into sexist attitudes and pat-happy ending (remember this was written in the late 1950s, not 2019). Worth owning, this.

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The resulting film, La machine à découdre, was release in France on May 7, 1986. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky, who also wrote the screenplay and played the character of Ralph Enger.

Patricia Barzyk played Lilane. Piere Semmler, billed as Peter Semmler, played Steff Muller. François Michaud, billed as François Michaux, played Betty.

The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman

(pb; 2006: eighteenth book in the Navajo Tribal Police/Leaphorn and Chee series)

From the back cover

“Retirement has never sat well with former Navajo Tribal Policeman Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. Now the ghosts of a still-unsolved case are returning to haunt him, reawakened by a photograph in a magazine spread of a one-of-a-kind Navajo rug, a priceless work of woven art that was supposedly destroyed in a suspicious fire many years earlier. The rug, commemorating one of the darkest and most terrible chapters in American history, was always said to be cursed, and now the friend who brought to Leaphorn’s attention has mysteriously gone missing.

“With newly wedded officers Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito just back fromt heir honeymoon, the legendary ex-lawman is one his own to pick up the threads of a crime he’d once thought impossible to untangle. And they’re leading him back into a world of lethal greed, shifting truths, and changing faces, where a cold-blooded killer still resides.”

Review

Steeped in Native American myths and legends, Shape is a good, steady-pace cop procedural with interesting multicultural characters, myth- and legend-infused action and characterization and a suspenseful climax. The identity of the villain is easy to figure out but in Shape it is not a criticism because Leaphorn’s journey and the multicultural stories he hears and tells are more important than the mystery aspect of the novel. This is worth reading and owning, if the above back cover description and this review interest you.

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster

(hb; 1994)

From the inside flap

“It is 1927, the year of Babe Ruth and Charle Lindbergh─and of Walter Claireborne Rawley, a streetwise orphan from Saint Louis who becomes ‘Walt the Wonder Boy,’ a diminutive showman famous for stunning audiences across the country with his feats of levitation.

“Walt’s teacher is Master Yehudi, a mysterious iconoclast who rescues him from poverty and instills in him the faith, fearlessness, and devotion to hard work essential to such a magnificent venture. Inevitably, Master Yehudi and Walt fall prey to the sinners, thieves, and villains in America in its pre-depression heyday, from the Kansas Klu Klux Klan to the Chicago mob, and Walt’s resilience, like that of his young nation, is over and again challenged.”

Review

Vertigo is an excellent, immediately immersive novel. Its mix of “magic,” American history, colorful characters and its from-high-to-low-situations storyline made Vertigo hard to set down, one that will likely stick in this reader’s memory for a long while. Worth owning, this.

Star Wars: Thrawn─Treason by Timothy Zahn

(hb; 2019: sequel to Star Wars: Thrawn─Alliance)

From the inside flap

“‘If I were to serve the Empire, you would command my allegiance.’

“Such was the promise Grand Admiral Thrawn made to Emperor Palpatine at their fist meeting. Since then, Thrawn has been one of the Empire’s most effective instruments, pursuing its enemies to the very edges of the known galaxy. But as keen a weapon Thrawn has become, the emperor dreams of something far more destructive.

“Now, as Thrawn’s TIE-defender program is halted in favor of Director Krennic’s secret Death Star project, he rewalizes that the balance of power in the Empire is meausured by more than just military acumen or tactical efficiency. Even the greatest intellect can hardly compete with the power to annihilate emnitre planets.

“As Thrawn works to secure his place in the Imperial hierarchy, his former protégé, Eli Vanto, returns with a dire warning about Thrawn’s homeworld. Thrawn’s mastery of strategy must guide him through an impossible choice: duty to the Chiss Ascendancy or fealty to the Empire he has sworn to serve. Even if the right choice means committing treason.”

Review

Treason is a good, fun and often-thrilling science fiction read, like one of its prequels, Star Wars: Thrawn. Thrawn, clever─and lucky─strategist, deftly navigates his path through a battery of conflicting elements, situations and personalities, trying to unite his dual allegiances together in a way that is ultimately faithful to both. It is a fast-burn, intriguing entry in the Star Wars franchise, worth your time.

The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz

(hb; 1974: prequel to The Guardian)

From the inside flap

“When Allison Parker found the old brownstone apartment it was to be a new beginning─a place where she cold forge the agony of her father’s illness and death, a place where she could quietly recover from that long ordeal. But slowly a sense of mounting terror began to take over. The neighbors─the old man and his cat, the two strange women, the blind priest─seemed to be something other than what they appeared.

“Then the headaches began. They had plagued her as she watched her father die; now they returned with an intensity that left her numb and shaken, threatening her tenuous grip on reality. And then she realized that here on  this quiet street an epic battle was being waged, a battle ordained from the beginning of time; and she was the prize.”

Review

Sentinel is an excellent, often-unnerving horror novel, with some terrifying images and action, and a pervasive sense of dread throughout its run. Its characters range from religious-iconic shallow and evil to fully realized (especially Christina and her boyfriend, Michael)─most of them work in the story. I write “most” because of the way two next-door lesbians are presented: the outsized horror and derision that is shown toward them may raise the hackles of modern-day LGBT+ supporters (Christina, in general, is horrified by them; Michael dismisses them as “vicious”).

I was initially alarmed at the venom Christina verbally and physically displays towards them (she does not just condemn them for being publicly lascivious, she condemns them for being lesbians). Then I checked myself, remembered Christina─victimized by her family and Catholic─is repressed, so any enthusiastic lustful displays are bound to offend her, especially those expressed by a group that most religions have demonized for thousands of years. Not only that, the 1970s, while progressing women’s rights (up to a point), were a period─like now─when aggressive, necessary feminism was getting a lot of scary, verbal and physical pushback not only from men, but gender-traitorous hausfrau women.

I normally would not give this much “airtime” to an issue that should be dismissed with an understanding of presentism (judge a work by the society and time period that produced it) and its protagonist’s paranoid bias. Unfortunately, a lot of knee-jerk social warriors may not take the time to check their biases while reading this hard-to-set-down, no-words-wasted suspense/horror novel, which may be a milestone for many, including myself, in the 1970s.

This vivid-enough-to be-called-cinematic book is worth owning, if you can get past its dated, egregious attitudinal flaws regarding women and LGBT+ issues. Followed by The Guardian.

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The resulting film was released stateside on January 7, 1977. Michael Winner directed and co-wrote the film. His co-screenwriter was book-source author Jeffrey Konvitz.

Christina Raines played Allison Parker. Chris Sarandon play Michael Lerman. Jeff Goldblum played Jack. Deborah Raffin played Jennifer.

Ava Gardner played Miss Logan. Eli Wallach played Detective Gatz. Christopher Walken played Detective Rizzo. 

Burgess Meredith played Charles Chazen. Sylvia Miles played Gerde. Beverly D’Angelo played Sandra. Kate Harrington played Mrs. Clark.

Martin Balsam played Professor Ruzinsky. Hank Garrett played Brenner. William Hickey played Perry.

Arthur Kennedy played Monsignor Franchino. John Carradine played Father Halliran. José Ferrer played “Robed Figure.” Jerry Orbach played “Film Director.” Tom Berrenger played “Man at end.” Nana Visitor, billed as Nana Tucker, played "Girl at end."