Blood on the Moon by James Ellroy

 

(pb; 1984: Book One of the L.A. Noir/Harold Lloyd trilogy) 

From the inside flap

“Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins can’t stand music, or any loud sounds. He’s got a beautiful wife, but he can’t get enough of other women. And instead of bedtime stories, he regales his daughters with bloody crime stories. He’s a thinking man’s cop with a dark past and an obsessive drive to hunt down monsters who prey on the innocent.

“Now there’s something haunting him. He sees a connection in a series of increasingly gruesome murders of women committed over a period of twenty years. Hopkins will dump all the rules and risk his career to make the final link and get the killer.”

Review

This edited review was originally published this site on September 20, 2006. That review has since been deleted.

Lloyd Hopkins, a womanizing, high-strung supercop who's turned his traumas into an unhinged and noble quest to “protect innocence,” stumbles onto the bloody work of a rhyme-minded mass murderer. The victims are almost always women; the killings are sexual, reflecting, in a warped/inverse doppelgänger way, Lloyd's obsessive notions about women.

Racism, sacrifice, murder, redemption, rape and bad poetry abound here, theme- and otherwise. This politically incorrect novel is excellent, memorable, and often coarse. Author Ellroy isn't trying to sell us prettiness; he's showing us blunt, surly veracities.

Followed by Because the Night.

Those who’ve seen the below film version, Cop (1988), should note that the novel has a considerably different ending than the novel. Even if you ‘ve seen the film, the book is a raw, worthwhile and stunning work, one worth reading.

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A film version of Blood on the Moon, retitled Cop, was released stateside in March 1988.
James B. Harris scripted and directed it.

James Woods played Lloyd Hopkins. Lesley Ann Warren played Kathleen McCarthy. Charles Durning played Arthur “Dutch” Peltz. Charles Haid played Delbert “Whitey” Haines. Raymond J. Barry played Captain Fred Gaffney. Randi Brooks played Joanie Pratt.

 

Vampire$, by John Steakley

(pb; 1990)

From the back cover:

"Suppose there really were vampires.

"Dark. Stalking. Destroying.

"They'd have to be killed, wouldn't they?

"Of course they would.

"But what kind of fools would try to make a living at it?"


Review:

Vampire$ is a grim, snarling, tightly-written gem of a back-to-basics horror novel that manages, in its simply stated and wild-violent way, to be a landmark work in bloodsucker fiction. Emotional, tender and brutal as a war novel, with complex, desperate characters, this.

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The film version was released stateside on October 30, 1998.

James Woods played Jack Crow. Daniel Baldwin played Anthony Montoya. Sheryl Lee played Katrina. Thomas Ian Griffith played Jan Valek. Maximilian Schell played Cardinal Alba. Mark Boone Junior played Catlin. Frank Darabont played "Man With Buick". An uncredited Lex Lang narrated the film.

John Carpenter directed the film, from a screenplay by Don Jakoby.

Build My Gallows High, by Geoffrey Homes

(pb; 1946)

From the back cover:

"Retired private eye, Red Bailey, is finally happy in Nevada, spending most of this time fishing and tending his out-of-the-way gas station. Then his past returns to haunt him. Blackmailed into doing just one more job, he is forced to revisit the life from which he had flown. And in particular a woman from his past: the seductive Mumsie McGonigle. Red Bailey soon discovers that the whole affair is a set-up -- a trap laid just for him with little or no way out."

Review:

This is one of the leanest, sharpest pulp novels I have read. The characters are deftly (but thoroughly) sketched, the twists are effective and fast, and the sense of doom -- not only Red's -- is constantly remarked upon by the characters, and confirmed by the mounting number of corpses, as well as the clearly-defined divisions of light and dark (in the novel's oh-so-cinematic scenes). It's a fast read, a 153-page black-humored gem, well worth your time.

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Build My Gallows High has been filmed twice, under different titles.

The first film, Out of the Past, lensed in 1946 and released on November 13, 1947, was scripted by Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote the novel under another name, Geoffrey Homes.

 Robert Mitchum played Jeff Markham (the cinematic counterpart to Peter "Red" Markham). Jane Greer played Kathie (the cinematic counterpart to femme fatale Mumsie McGonigle). Kirk Douglas played Whit Sterling. Rhonda Fleming played Meta Carson. Richard Webb played Jim. Virginia Huston played Ann.

 Directed by the consistently-great Jacques Tourneur, it's considered one of the best noir films made.

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The second film, a remake called Against All Odds, hit the silver screen on March 2, 1984. Loosely based on Daniel Mainwaring's 1946 script, it was co-scripted by Eric Hughes. Taylor Hackford directed.

Jeff Bridges played Terry Brogan (the cinematic counterpart to Peter "Red" Markham). Rachel Ward played Jessie Wyler (the cinematic counterpart to Mumsie McGonigle). James Woods played Jake Wise (the cinematic counterpart to Whit Sterling).