THE DEVIL HIMSELF :: Peter Farris

It's hard to believe it's been ten years since Peter Farris's fabulous Last Call for the Living. I've been missing Pete's words, but since only the French seem to have common sense when it comes to publishing crime fiction, the U.S. market has had to wait for this barnburner. But holy moly is The Devil Himself worth the wait. How's this for an opener that grabs you by the guts with hot needle-nose pliers:

"The girl in the trunk had been bound."

Short, sweet, and irresistable. To say too much about the plot is a disservice. Though this is straight-forward, hell-bent-on-revenge grit, the beauty is in discovering everything unfold in real time. To figure out who you're rooting for, what layers the characters have that are slowly peeled back. 

I will say that teenaged Maya, she of the trunk, does not go down without a fight. She's found herself in a difficult position that marks her for death, but don't underestimate her based on circumstance. She ends up on the property of Leonard Moye, the town's eccentric kook who doesn't tolerate anyone on his land. To say that Farris takes these two heavily-labeled individuals and turns them into individuals you will never forget is downselling what he's done here. It's simply magnificent.

Set in the deep woods of South Georgia, The Devil Himself is a masterful work of character, set within a dark world filled with many bad actors. As well-paced as it is heart-piercing, it's one I won't soon forget. It's no surprise Farris won several French literary awards with this work, I hope he is similarly recognized here at home.

PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS :: Chris Harding Thornton

 A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

In a town with "three dozen jobs, give or take," the history of each Madson, Neb., homestead permeates the land and its denizens. Deputy Harley Jensen patrols every night, "absently tick[ing] off names of passing tracts like reading a plat map in an old atlas." The events at his abandoned childhood farmhouse are inescapable, often reflected in the eyes or words of his community, and Harley always speeds past. But as Chris Harding Thornton's dark and brilliant debut, Pickard County Atlas, opens, Harley pulls in and finds Paul Reddick there.

The Reddicks were scarred by a 1960 tragedy that remains part mystery. Paul, then four, remembers his family only as broken. In the 18 years since, he's been involved in numerous violent events and run-ins with Harley, who likens him to a bad penny, though "you turn up often enough--wrong place, wrong time--you seem less like an omen than a reason."  

Thornton immediately sets a country noirish stage, dropping clues that smolder through the pages as she reveals each family's past. Paul's parents are long-divorced and shells of their former selves. Brother Rick is married with a young daughter, his family a tinderbox of desperation. Though the plot appears male-centric, the women are its true, complex heart. Thornton's expert prose and turns of phrase beg for repeat reading ("cooked like those hobos her mother once told her had roasted in a freight car") and the character work is full of depth and detail that astonish; a dazzling display of literary prowess.

A FRIEND IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF :: William Boyle

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Rena Ruggiero was a good Brooklyn mob wife. A regular churchgoer, she stayed out of Gentle Vic's business and has lived a quiet life since he was gunned down. Then Enzio, with "earlobes that dangle like melted coins," makes a pass at her. After fighting back, she steals his impeccable Impala and flees. Rena runs to the Bronx, to the home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and 15-year-old granddaughter, Lucia. Rejected, Rena is invited in by fireball neighbor Lacey Wolfstein, a former x-rated actress who moved in across the street after a stint hustling cash from rich men in Florida.

Things go spectacularly sideways when one of Wolfie's old marks shows up, as does Richie Schiavano, Vic's former right-hand man, who has knocked off a mob sit-down and stolen a briefcase full of cash to fund a future with Adrienne and Lucia. The confrontation at Wolfie's gets deadly when a sledgehammer-wielding gangster comes after Richie. Believing in the titular Robert Louis Stevenson quote, "A friend is a gift you give yourself," Wolfie takes Rena and Lucia under her street-smart wing and on the run.

William Boyle's work (Gravesend, The Lonely Witness) is some of the finest in crime fiction and while he ticks every box each time out, the emphasis changes. Character and nonstop action are gloriously on the rampage here, as three very different women join forces to survive high-speed car chases, crashes, shootings, violent men and general bedlam. Boyle's dialogue snaps and his sense of place is top-notch. This roller-coaster madcap tragicomedy is a great gift to give yourself.

STREET SENSE: After writing this review, I saw William Boyle describe it as "screwball noir," and now I'm bereft I didn't think of or use that phrasing, because it's perfect. This unusual trio of women on the run after an evening gone awry is well worth checking out

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  There are so many great quotables in this book, both long and short. Some had meaning to the plot, others to me specifically, many just life in general. I pulled a couple short ones that stuck:

Praise be random adventures. Praise be survival. Praise be not having a plan.

*  *  * 

We're all unfinished wreckage. Whatever's not dead is fixable.

COVER NERD SAYS: Huge fan of this cover and Boyle's covers in general, which are now very thematically similar. If they keep with this format, I will recognize a William Boyle book on a bookstore table or shelf without even reading the words. Lean, mean, smart and gorgeous.

THE SMILING MAN :: Joseph Knox

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

After the disastrous events in Joseph Knox's debut, Sirens, Detective Constable Aiden Waits is banished to the night shift with the partner no one wants, DI Peter "Sutty" Sutcliffe. Permanent night duty is the mark of no life or no career, and Waits has managed to blow up both. Then he comes across the Smiling Man.

An historic hotel, the Palace is closed for "renovations" (i.e., the acrimonious divorce of its owners) when an alarm is triggered. Waits and Sutty arrive to find the night watchman face down in a hallway. Behind the wide-open door of room 413, Waits spies a body in a chair, the muscles of its dead mouth "contracted viciously, and locked into a wide, wincing grin."

As the detectives spin down the rabbit hole of the unidentified man, new characters swarm around at a furious pace. The plot is thickened through flashbacks to a young boy abused as a crime tool by a Fagin-esque father figure. Knox never lets up, taking left turns just when the clues seems to jibe. Despite the chaos, he's always in firm control of each ball in the air, as if the precarious nature of their flight is merely an illusion.

The setting of gritty London is wonderfully on display (sounds emanate from a heat wave like the "slow-drip of people losing their minds"). Knox's vivid descriptions ("He was a wiry, fatalistic spider of a man who played chess with the people around him") make The Smiling Man a noirish pleasure.

STREET SENSE: Knox's take on the the disgraced cop brings enough to the table to make this more than just another disgraced cop story. I have not read Sirens, but the way Knox dealt with the prior installment felt Baby Bear just right. It made me want to go back and read Sirens rather than confusing or irritating me (and we know how easy that is). Knox's writing is pleasantly gritty and sometimes even more pleasantly snarky. It's also not the normal noirish "lean," but the style worked and I enjoyed Knox's descriptions enough that I often read them multiple times. 

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  The heat that year was annihilating. The endless, fever dream days passed slowly, and afterwards you wondered if they'd even been real. Beneath the hum of air conditioners, the chink of ice in glasses, you could almost hear it. The slow-drip of people losing their minds.

COVER NERD SAYS: I find this cover super clever, but admit I missed the point at first. Why  not include the entire (or at least more of the) "x" as the "dead" eye of the smiling man? An effort to be obtuse? Maybe I'm the only dimwit who didn't see the "x" as that symbol at first, but once I did I liked the cover better (and thought "What, did some poor sap just stick the mock-up a bit too far into the paper cutter?" 'Cause I've been there, man, and it's a drag). My only other "complaint" about the cover is it's too busy. First, blurbs have become way too important (IMHO). Second, when it clutters your cover, put it somewhere else. Or don't make the description of the blurber almost as long as the blurb. This would have been a much stronger cover if it lost the blurb and the image dropped enough to show a little more of that eye. It feels way too bottom-heavy. Interestingly, my ARC has a different and much shorter blurb and does show more of the eye, so maybe it's just the cover image I pulled for this review that's f'd up and this entire rant has been about nothing. Wouldn't be the first time for that, either.