The Distance by Eddie Muller

(hb; 2002: first book in the Billy Nichols series)

From the inside flap

“It’s 1948, an era when newspapermen were stars─and San Francisco sportswriter Billy Nichols is no exception. Known as Mr. Boxing throughout the city, he is the West coast’s answer to Damon Runyon─an insider’s insider who plucks and polishes his pearlike stories from the nonstop hustle of the city’s nightclubs, gambling dens, and ringside seats.

“Billy Nichols is right where he wants to be, until he stumbles onto a shocking crime scene. Heavyweight boxer Hack Escalante has killed his manager, and for reasons Billy doesn’t fully understand, he makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to protect the prizefighter. Soon Billy’s in too deep, caught in a conspiracy of desire, deceit, and betrayal, and he sets off a chain of events whose consequences may cost him his beloved career─and his life. . .”

Review

Distance is a vivid, reader-immersive and distinctly-San Francisco novel that brings together the best pulp elements, character archetypes with its fast-paced, quick-twist plot and action. It is a perfect, reader-immersive read, one of my all-time-favorite, set-in-1940s pulp tales. Followed by Shadow Boxer.

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

(pb; 2002: first book in the Legends of Dune trilogy)

From the back cover

“. . .Throughout the Dune novels, Frank Herbert frequently referred to the war in which humans wrested their freedom from ‘thinking machines.’ In Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring to life the story of that war, a tale previously seen only in tantalizing hints and clues. Finally, we see how Serena Butler’s passionate grief ignites the struggle that will liberate humans from their machine masters: here is the amazing tale of the Zensunni Wanderers, who escape bondage to flee to the desert world where they will declare themselves the Free Men of Dune. And here is the backward, nearly forgotten planet of Arrakis, where traders have discovered the remarkable properties of the spice melange.”

Review

Butlerian is a good, action-packed read by sometimes-excellent authors, a solid─if unnecessary─addition to the extended Dune series. Set 10,000 years before Frank Herbert’s original novel, this trilogy set-up book has many characters (e.g., Serena Butler, Omnius, etc.) mentioned in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune. It is worth reading, but it is not an absolutely-vital-to-the-Dune-storyline offering─pick it up for cheap, or borrow it from the library before committing serious cash to it. Followed by Dune: The Machine Crusade.

The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly

(pb; 2008: second book in the Jack McEvoy series)

From the back cover

“Once a hotshot in the newsroom, crime reporter Jack McEvoy is now about to be laid off at the Los Angeles Times. Deciding to use his final work days to write the definitive murder story of his career, he focuses on Alonzo Winslow, an imprisoned sixteen-year-old drug dealer who confessed to the murder of a young woman found strangled in the trunk of her car. But as Jack delves into the story, he realizes that Winslow’s so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent. When Jack connects the L.A. trunk killing to an earlier murder in Las Vegas, he is on the biggest story he’s had since the Poet crossed his path years before. But Jack doesn’t know that his investigation has set off a digital trip wire. The killer knows Jack is coming. . .and he’s ready.”

Review

Scarecrow is a slick, burn-through and dark thriller, a worthwhile and equally twist-punctuated follow-up to the excellent beach read novel, The Poet. Be sure to look for the blink-and-miss-it mention of Michael Haller, "the Lincoln lawyer," another Connelly character with his own novel. Scarecrow is worth picking up for a few bucks or borrowing from the library.

Fascination: The Celluloid Dreams of Jean Rollin by David Hind

(pb; 2016: nonfiction)

From the back cover

“May 1968. Paris is awash with violence and public unrest. In a small cinema, where a surreal film is showing, another riot is taking place. Here, the enraged audience smashes up the auditorium, tear out the seats, and chase the film’s director out onto the street. This is the premiere of Jean Rollin’s feature debut, The Rape of the Vampire.

“As an outsider of French cinema, Rollin’s films are unique and dreamlike. They offer tales of mystery and nostalgia, obsolescence and seductive female vampires with a thirst for blood and sex. It is a cinema at once strange, evocative and deeply personal.

“Funding his own projects, Rollin defiantly made the films he wanted to make and in so doing created a fantastique genre unlike any other. The Nude Vampire, The Living Dead Girl and The Grapes of Death are among those films now celebrated as the work of an auteur, one who confounds preconceived notions of ‘Eurotrash’ cinema.

“This book is devoted to the director and all his work, across all genres, including a nascent French hardcore pornographic film industry. Written with full co-operation from Jean Rollin, shortly before his death in 2010, it contains exclusive interviews and archive material.”

Review

Fascination is one of my all-time favorite nonfiction reads about filmmakers. Hind concisely and honestly recounts─in a creativity-focused overview─the events and works of Rollin’s life, as well as cataloging Rollin’s mostly distinctive cinematic output.

By financial necessity, Rollin’s films had female nudity: his producers required it. That said, the writer/director and his faithful crew members imbued many of his better, not-quite-mainstream films with poetic, haunting, playful and often elegiac moods, mixing sex with simply-stated Gothic romanticism, as well as thought-provoking themes of science fiction, horror and other elements that stick in one’s mind long after seeing said films. 

Love or hate his non-hardcore and low-budget work, most of his non-pornographic films are distinctive, not easily dismissed as outright, brainless─if sometimes scene-meandering─Eurosleaze pieces. (To dismiss them as such suggests a lazy-minded, prudish stubbornness.)

This is a must-own book for any Rollin fan, or anybody who might be curious about him. Rollin is an underrated and worthwhile auteur (in the truest sense, as in: he wrote and co-produced most of his films).

The Letter, the Witch and the Ring by John Bellairs

(pb; 1976: third book in the Lewis Barnavelt mysteries. Drawings by Richard Egielski.)

From the back cover

“Rose Rita [Pottinger] wishes she could go to camp like her best friend, Lewis. She’s sure that boys get to have all the fun─until Mrs. Zimmerman offers her an adventure of her own. Mrs. Zimmerman’s cousin Oley has left her his farm, as well as a ring that he thinks is magic. But when the two arrive at the deserted farm, the ring has mysteriously vanished What power does it have? And will the person who took it use the ring to do evil?”

Review

Letter is my favorite entry in the Lewis Barnavelt mystery series thus far. Letter shakes up  Bellairs’s usual character/story set-up by making Rose Rita Pottinger the main character, and changing the setting of the story. Like the two previous Lewis Barnavelt books, it is fast-paced, scary and thrilling in parts, with characters who are either warm and familial or effectively villainous, and great for kids who like that sort of thing. This is excellent, worth owning. Followed by The Ghost in the Mirror.

Pretty Things by Virginie Despentes

(pb; 1998, 2018. Translated the French by Emma Ramadan.)

From the back cover

“Stunning Claudine and gloomy Pauline pretend to be one person so that Claudine can be famous, but just as thing take off, Claudine commits suicide. Pauline hatches a new scheme, taking on her dead sister’s identity, inhabiting her apartment, and reading her emails─slowly realizing the costs of femininity is to dazzle on the outside while rotting on the inside.”

Review

Pretty is my favorite book by Despentes thus far. It is a blunt, character-true and entertaining takedown of how society defines (and suppresses) femininity, identity, sexuality, pop culture and other notions of (un)acceptable behavior─nothing is sacred here, even the truest, kindest and ultimately healing aspects of human nature undergo rigorous and often clever examinations. This fast-moving, trance-inducing novel is excellent, memorable and worth owning, perhaps even worth re-reading a few years from now.

The Poet by Michael Connelly

(pb; 1996: first book in the Jack McEvoy series)

From the back cover

“Death is reporter Jack McEvoy’s beat: his calling, his obsession. But this time, death brings McEvoy the story he never wanted to write─and the mystery he desperately needs to solve. A serial killer of unprecedented savagery and cunning is at large. His targets: homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn’t crack. The killer’s calling card: a quotation from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His latest victim is McEvoy’s own brother. And his last. . .maybe McEvoy himself.”

Review

Poet is an excellent, fast-paced and often hard-to-set-down thriller with a relatable protagonist. Its finish is a flourish of mostly-effective twists. While Poet works as a standalone work, it also sports a set-up for possible sequels─and one later appeared, its title The Scarecrow.

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting by William Goldman

(pb; 1983: nonfiction)

From the back cover

“No one knows the writer’s Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood’s inner sanctums. . .on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and other films. . .into the plush offices of Hollywood producers. . .into the working lives of acting greats such as [Robert] Redford, [Laurence] Olivier, [Paul] Newman, and [Dustin] Hoffman. . . and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firshand look at why and how films get made and what elements makes a good screenplay.”

Review

Adventures is a fun, informative, blunt and sometimes sad/frustrating (about the Hollywood writing-filming process) book. If you are interested in the aforementioned subject matter this may be an excellent read for you, like it was for me. It never lagged, was consistently interesting─in a way that I may re-read it in the future, re-reading something I rarely do: worth owning, this.

The Money Trap by Lionel White

(hb; 1963)

From the inside flap

“Take an honest police detective─devoted both to his job and his wife.

“Take the fact that his wife has money, likes to living up to it─and doesn’t like living on a policeman’s salary.

“Add to the fact that our honest detective, Joe Baron, has a partner with a much more cynical view of life─and the stage is set for trouble.

“Especially when to that setting is added seemingly the best of opportunities─the chance to get a million dollars from a  man who could not admit to its existence.

“Here, then, in Joe Baron’s own words. . . is the suspenseful  tale of how the lure of money became the trap for an honorable man.”

Review

Money is an excellent, waste-no-words pulp novel, with quick-effectively-sketched characters, heart-pounding intensity and equally masterful pacing. If you enjoy pulp stories, chances are you will deem this worthwhile entertainment─worth owning, this.

#

The film version was released on February 2, 1966. Burt Kennedy directed the film. Walter Bernstein wrote the screenplay.

Glenn Ford played Joe Baron. Elke Sommer played Lisa Baron. Rita Hayworth played Rosalie Kenny. Joseph Cotten played Dr. Horace Van Tilden. Ricardo Montalban played Pete Delanos.

Tom Reese played Matthews. James Mitchum played Detectice Wolski. 

Fade to Black by Ron Renauld

(pb; 1980: movie tie-in novel)

From the back cover

“Sensitive Eric Binford strikes back a lie the only way he knows how─he reenacts in character his favorite and most terrifying movie murders.”

Review

Fade is a lean, engaging and swift-paced thriller, with quick-sketch characters and a deep love for 1940s—1960s cinema. This is a fun, based-on-a-B-movie book, one worth owning.

#

Its cinematic counterpart of the same name was released stateside on October 14, 1980. Vernon Zimmerman scripted and directed the film.

Dennis Christopher played Eric Binford. Tim Thomerson played Dr. Jerry Moriarty. Eve Brent, billed as Eve Brent Ashe, played Stella Binford. Linda Kerridge played Marilyn O’Connor. Marcy Barkin played Stacy. 

Mickey Rourke played Richie.  Peter Horton played Joey. Norman Burton, billed as Normann Burton, played Marty Berger. John Steadman played Sam.

Morgan Paull played Gary Bially. James Luisi played Capt. M.L. Gallagher. 

Starr Creek by Nathan Carson

(pb; 2016: novella)

From the back cover

“. . .Set in 1986 rural Oregon, Starr Creek features heavy metal teens, Christian biker gangs, and hopped-up kids on three-wheeled ATVs. They all collide when strange occurrences unveil an alien world inhabiting the Oregon woods.”

Review

Starr Creek is a fun, fast and solid read. It is a heady mix of sketched-out characters, Satanism, biker violence, strange aliens, heavy metal, street drugs and Oregon-style weirdness. Other reviewers have mentioned how the writing─especially the climactic ending─feels a bit rushed. I can see why they might feel that way, but I was okay with it. Given the swiftness of the events, the ending still works, as does this novella. Above-average and worth owning, this.