Review: ‘The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones’ by Jack Wolf

Your enjoyment of Jack Wolf’s The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones will be in direct correlation to your tolerance for the author’s gimmicky writing style. Wolf really wants us to feel that Olde English atmosphere he’s cooking up, and he leans heavily on old-school grammar rules such as capitalizing every noun and the use of arcane spelling (“drippt” instead of “dripped,” for example) to try and sell it.

The thing is, such gimmicks aren’t really necessary to capture the mood and the time period Wolf is trying to recreate. Go read any of the novels in Robert McCammon’s “Matthew Corbett” series and you’ll see that I’m right. Those books are set in roughly the same time period as Bloody Bones, but the only gimmicks McCammon resorts to are exacting research and impeccable storytelling.

So, for me, Wolf’s style here became a distraction, and as a result it took me a while to get into the story – which is shame, because it’s a pretty good story. Tristan Hart is, if not a wholly likeable character, a very compelling one. He’s curious, intelligent, and quite possibly completely barking mad. Much like a certain Doctor Frankenstein, Hart sometimes has a difficult time curbing his enthusiasm for new knowledge and new experiences. His greatest struggle is his attempt to understand his own overwhelming desires. He’s tortured but determined to simultaneously control and satisfy urges he can’t fully explain. It’s the kind of struggle that would be tough to witness in a character you’re rooting for, but Wolf isn’t completely successful in making Hart a sympathetic lead.

Hart’s struggle parallels the world he’s growing up in. It’s a time when new ideas are really starting to hold their own versus the old ideologies that have an iron grip on people in general and society as a whole. It’s heady stuff, and to pull off over 500 pages of it requires a light touch that Wolf hasn’t quite developed. There’s good material here, and Wolf is definitely a solid talent worth keeping an eye on, but he can’t seem to get out of his own way this time around.

My advice to Wolf would be to let the story take over. Stylistic touches can be nice, but rely on them too much and you end up derailing the very thing readers come for – the narrative. The plot. The STORY. In the case of The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones, the story didn’t completely come off the tracks, but it easily could have been a much smoother, more satisfying ride.

Review: ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ by Max Allan Collins

From its lurid cover (another stellar effort by Hard Case Crime regular Glen Orbik) to its over-the-top title and scandalous premise, Seduction of the Innocent would appear to be a book as extreme as the comics that figure heavily in its plot.

It’s not. And while that may be something of a letdown it’s a forgivable one, because what you get instead is a solid murder mystery and a fascinating peek into one of the most controversial and misguided smear campaigns in American history.

Author Max Allan Collins uses Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 crusade against comics as the framework for this novel, which he named after Wertham’s own book. (That book, mocked for decades, was recently thoroughly debunked and discredited.) Many of the more sensational elements of Collins’s story – congressional hearings on the evils of comics, mob ties to the funnybook business, drunken brawls and suicidal creators – are based on actual events that took place during that time, and many of its characters are based on real-life players in that saga.

In addition to these historical figures, Collins brings in a couple of his own creations – Jack Starr and his stepmother, Maggie, previously featured in the novels A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder. Like Seduction, the previous Starr books lift their plots from real stories of the early days of comics (think ripped-off artists and feuding creators), making this the third chapter in a loose history of the medium.

The Starrs aren’t in the comic book business; rather, their company, Starr Syndicate, places comic strips in newspapers all over the country. Maggie runs the company, but Jack’s job may be the more difficult one – given that the artists are a moody lot, it’s Jack’s job to head off trouble when he can, and to extricate his talent from their messes when he can’t.

The Starrs’ comic strip business is deeply intertwined with the comic book business, so when a prominent player in the growing controversy stirred by Dr. Werner Frederick’s book Ravage the Lambs ends up dead, Jack finds himself embroiled in an investigation that encompasses several of his associates. The death doesn’t occur until halfway through the book, but Collins uses the ample lead time to flesh out the characters and lay out some of the fascinating and complicated inner workings of the comic book industry. The rest of the novel is spent shadowing Jack as he tries to find out who committed the murder and how he might minimize the effect it has on his company and the business overall.

While you don’t have to be a fan of comics or a student of that particular era of the business to enjoy Seduction, those who meet that criteria are going to find an extra layer of goodness in its pages. It’s hard to imagine society reaching that level of hysteria in today’s climate (well, in relation to comics, anyway, since comics, like all things geek, are in vogue these days), but Collins draws a vivid portrait of the uproar the country was in at the time – an uproar efficiently whipped up by one man and a handful of carefully manipulated “facts.” Into this he mixes an intriguing murder mystery and a colorful cast of characters. The result is thoroughly entertaining page-turner, and another win for Hard Case Crime.

Review: ‘Femme’ by Bill Pronzini

Bill Pronzini’s Femme is the latest pitch-black entry in his Nameless Detective series, a series that encompasses more than 30 books and spans over 40 years. This is only my second encounter with Nameless (the first being Kinsmen, which Cemetery Dance released simultaneously with Femme earlier this year), but the one-two punch of these releases is enough to send me scrounging for the rest of the books.

The “Nameless Detective” moniker comes from the fact that Pronzini never refers to the character by name. I don’t know how or why Pronzini made this decision, but it works because the author hasn’t allowed it to become a gimmick that overshadows the story. He doesn’t get cute in hiding the name, doesn’t cover over it with a black line or anything like that. It just doesn’t get mentioned to us, even when given to other characters in the story. Regardless, I’ve already got a strong sense of who Nameless is after reading only a couple of his adventures.

In Femme, Nameless becomes embroiled with a woman named Cory Beckett through what seems on its surface to be a simple bail jumping case. Nameless is retained to track down Cory’s brother, Kenneth, who’s taken to the hills to avoid robbery charges. In their initial meeting, Cory is sugar and spice and everything nice, but her demeanor proves to be a thin veneer covering an evil that stuns Nameless with its completeness and ferocity.

Working alongside Nameless is Jake Runyon, an associate often tasked with the tedious legwork of the agency’s cases. In between the interrogations, car chases and shootouts, there’s usually copious amounts of doorbell ringing and phone calls – work that Runyon enjoys and even thrives on. It’s Runyon who first realizes Kenneth’s predicament isn’t entirely what it seems, and it’s his tentative relationship with the hapless young man that pulls him (and Nameless) deeper into Cory Beckett’s madness.

Cory is a young woman of insatiable appetites – for money, yes, but also for power. She thrives on manipulation and deception, and she’s absolutely fearless in the way she’ll throw her body at anyone she thinks she can use to advance her own objectives.

Pronzini’s prose, honed over a career that’s closing in on 50 years, is as streamlined as any you’re likely to find. Femme is an effortless read, pure storytelling that’s as clean and uncluttered as a mountain stream. Clocking in at a lean 175 pages (a page count boosted by the smaller design and format of the book), Femme delivers a compelling story punctuated with subtle character work that brings its characters to vivid life. I hope Cemetery Dance continues to bring us more of the Nameless Detective, and I look forward to tracking down the rest of the series in the meantime.

Review: ‘More Than Midnight’ by Brian James Freeman

Brian James Freeman is one of those writers that someone, some day, is going to call an “overnight success,” completely ignorant of the fact that the guy has been pounding a keyboard for years, honing his craft and developing his voice the way all good writers do.

I say this because Freeman’s 2010 novella The Painted Darkness brought him all kinds of attention, and he seems poised to be one of those “next big things.” That’s what happens when guys like Richard Matheson and David Morrell rave about your stuff – people start looking to see what you’re going to do next. What Freeman has done is offer us a peek at the earlier stages of his career with More Than Midnight, a collection of five previously-published short stories now available from Cemetery Dance. While the stories themselves may not be as transcendent as The Painted Darkness, they’re full of the kind of pulpy goodness that we just don’t get enough of these days.

Take, for example, “Pulled Into Darkness,” my personal favorite of the collection. Freeman gives us the classic setup of a stalk-n-slash movie: A man and his young daughter in an isolated house on a stormy night. On the television, news of a riot at a nearby mental health facility, the very same facility where the man’s wife (the daughter’s mother) has been locked up for allegedly trying to kill her family. Now she’s on the loose, leaving a trail of bodies behind her…and the power just went out…

Think you know where it’s going? Think again. Freeman takes the obvious conclusion and deftly twists it on its head. Granted, seasoned readers of horror fiction will likely spot the twist coming, but by giving us two possible scenarios Freeman keeps us guessing right up to the last page.

You get the sense that Freeman was having a ball writing these, telling his own little campfire tales and hoping they’d find an audience. His enjoyment is infectious – just try reading the scene in “Among Us” when the mysterious bosses of a giant law firm begin undressing and intoning “Join Us!” in front of a batch of newly-minted partners without relishing the realization that things are about to go bad for someone. These stories are full of little moments like that, and if you’re like me you’ll enjoy every one.

I have one suggestion for those able to snag a copy – don’t read these stories in the order they are presented in the book. Take a look instead at the copyright page and read them in the order they were originally published. What you’ll get is a glimpse of a young writer gleefully playing with everything the genre has to offer while laying the foundation for what’s likely to be a highly successful career.

I can’t let the review end without giving a tip of the hat to the illustrations of Glenn Chadbourne, whose insanely detailed black-and-white drawings serve as the perfect punctuation marks at the end of these stories. Top it all off with a mesmerizing cover by Vincent Chong and you’ve got a total package that’s well worth hunting up.

Kealan Patrick Burke brings down The Curtain on Timmy Quinn with NEMESIS

Concluding a series must be one of the most difficult things a writer can do – especially a series that’s been as popular for a writer as the Timmy Quinn stories (comprised up to this point of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, and Peregrine’s Story) have been for Kealan Patrick Burke. Not only have they been popular for him, they have in many ways defined his career: from the hot-shot indie writer making a splash among those “in the know” with The Turtle Boy, to the growing artist tackling more complex themes in Vessels, to the mature author back from a long absence with new confidence and mastery of his craft as displayed in Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn.

Many of the series I’m familiar with as a reader are open-ended, like the Hap and Leonard books by Joe R. Lansdale. Series such as these are more about the ongoing growth and development of the characters than a single storyline, and therefore are free of the pressure to give readers a definitive, cover-all-the-bases conclusion. For those writers who face wrapping up multiple books’ worth of interconnected storylines, I imagine the pressure is immense. J.K. Rowling had to be on pins and needles waiting on fan reaction to her last Harry Potter book. Stephen King was inundated for years with fan requests – demands, really – for a proper end to the Dark Tower series, and has been subjected to various degrees of second-guessing ever since he delivered the final chapter.

I don’t know how much external pressure Burke felt in writing the final Timmy Quinn book, but I believe the pressure he likely put on himself was more than enough. Fan feelings aside, this was a book Burke wanted to get right.

In my opinion, he did.

In Nemesis, Burke manages the precarious balancing act of not only tying together the threads from the previous books, but also introducing a number of new elements to the mix. He’s working on a much larger scale than in any of the previous Timmy Quinn books – larger, in fact, than anything he’s done up to this point. Where in the past Burke has struggled a bit with large casts and larger-scale stories, this time it’s clear that his craft has caught up with his ambition.

I’m not going to go into a plot description here. Not only do I want to avoid spoilers, but I also feel that if you’re interested in reading this review you’re probably already invested in the series. If not, I’d recommend that you start at the beginning – although Burke does a good job of bringing readers up to speed, it’s going to take more than a passing familiarity with the series to truly appreciate the scope of events that happens in Nemesis.

All along, this series has been about much more than the surface idea of a young man cursed with the ability to see the dead. It’s been about fathers and sons, and mothers and sons, and revenge, and fate; all wrapped up in the journey of Timmy Quinn, who has unsuccessfully tried running away from his abilities for most of his life. As Nemesis begins, Timmy is through running, ready to (or, perhaps, resigned to) embrace the destination those abilities have brought him to. Burke jumps back-and-forth in time throughout the narrative, weaving the threads he’s scattered throughout the previous books into a tight, cohesive whole. Yes, there are entirely new characters introduced throughout the book, and new details that haven’t even been hinted at before are brought to light, but each of these additions feels like an organic extension of what’s come before. Never once do you get the feeling that Burke is just trying to fill in plot holes – it all plays out like the carefully orchestrated finale that it should be.

And make no mistake, it is a finale – at least, for Timmy Quinn. What’s great about the book is that, while it delivers on the promise of bringing an end to the Timmy Quinn series, it simultaneously opens up a whole new mythology for Burke to play with in the future. Those looking for a definitive conclusion will be satisfied, while those hoping that Burke wasn’t abandoning the ideas of The Stage, The Curtain and the resurrected dead for good have a lot of hope to hang on to.

The Timmy Quinn Interviews

• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Turtle Boy
• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Hides
• Kealan Patrick Burke on Vessels
• Kealan Patrick Burke on The Turtle Boy: Peregrine’s Tale
• Kealan Patrick Burke on Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn

Catch up on the series with Stage Whispers: The Collected Timmy Quinn Stories

Nemesis is available digitally as well as in a signed, limited edition hardcover from Thunderstorm Books. Thunderstorm is also prepping a deluxe edition of Stage Whispers: The Collected Timmy Quinn Stories that will include Nemesis, which is not included in the current digital edition. Visit Thunderstorm Books for more information.

Review: ‘The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion’

I used to be envious of that generation of fans that called themselves “Monster Kids,” the ones that grew up with ready access to Vincent Price movies, Aurora Monster Kits and Famous Monsters of Filmland. Then I realized I had nothing to be jealous about. Growing up in the late ’70s/’80s put me right in the middle of a fertile period for horror fans. Horror movies were a staple of the burgeoning home video market, and while admittedly a lot of it was dreck, there were plenty of quality releases during that time (Halloween, Re-Animator, Evil Dead) that endure as classics today. Bookstores had entire sections devoted exclusively to horror, and we even had our own version of Famous Monsters in Fangoria, its pages filled with articles and photos showcasing the the genius of guys like Dick Smith, Rob Bottin and Tom Savini.

Fango (as we like to call it) gave me and countless others our first taste of behind-the-scenes access to the making of our favorite movies. With the Internet still a futuristic fantasy for most of us, movie news was hard to come by – I usually didn’t know about a new Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street sequel until a trailer played in the theaters (or until Freddy or Jason popped up on the cover of Fango). 

My interest in the movie-making magic that goes into my favorite films has never waned, and I’ve truly enjoyed the recent influx of high quality books devoted to both individual movies (like this year’s Prometheus: The Art of the Film) and entire studios (2011′s The Hammer Vault). Titan Books is the publisher behind both of those books, and they’ve scored again with The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion. The Companion was released earlier this year during the movie’s theatrical run, but with today being release day for the its DVD and Blu-ray incarnations, I thought this would be a great time to look at the book.

This book was put together with the full cooperation of creators Joss Whedon (co-writer) and Drew Goddard (co-writer and director). Goddard contributes the book’s foreward, Whedon the afterword, and the two take part in a sprawling, comprehensive interview that covers Cabin from concept to execution. Following the interview is the film’s entire screenplay, liberally illustrated with storyboard and pre-production art, behind-the-scenes photos and more.

All of that is great, but my favorite section of the book comes at the end. It’s called “Creature Feature” and it provides photos and conceptual art of many of the iconic creatures portrayed in Cabin, everything from its redneck slasher family to its werewolf, blobs and ballerinas. Many of these are barely glimpsed in the film, so it’s great to get a closer, more detailed look at them here. The section also has a short interview with David LeRoy Anderson and Heather Langenkamp Anderson, the husband-wife owners and operators of AFX Studios, that I wish had been given more space. (And yes, that is the Heather Langenkamp who played “Nancy” in the first and third Nightmare on Elm Street flicks.)

Overall, this is a great companion piece for the film, something cool to keep handy while watching it at home. Cabin was something of a divisive film for genre fans, but those who enjoyed its fresh approach to some of horror’s most worn-out cliches will find plenty to appreciate here.

King, O’Nan combine to make a scary ‘Face’

Stephen King isn’t publishing a new novel this fall, but Constant Readers have had plenty of material to occupy them as of late. One of his most recent releases is this second collaboration with Stewart O’ Nan (co-writer of Faithful), the digital-only short story “A Face in the Crowd.”

“Face” introduces us to Dean Evers, a typical King character if there ever was one. He’s a displaced Red Sox fan, living in Florida and grudgingly pulling for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. His wife died months ago after a second stroke, and since then Evers has been floating through a lonely existence, waiting around for something to happen.

“Something” comes in the form of his childhood dentist, a man long dead who appears one night on Evers’ television during a Devil Rays game. There the man sits, looking exactly as he did when Evers knew him decades earlier. That’s bad, but not as bad as the next person Evers sees in the stands, a young boy Evers went to school with. A young boy who would be an old man now, had he lived. A young boy who points at Evers from his seat behind home plate as though he can see him through the television screen and mouths ominous words at him.

That’s bad. And it’s only the beginning.

King and O’Nan have combined seamlessly to produce a Twilight Zone-ish tale of regret. Evers seems likeable enough at first, but as more and more phantoms begin popping up at Tropicana Field a lifetime of selfishness comes to the surface, forever changing our perception of the man as well as his perception of himself. Most will spot the ending from a mile away, but that doesn’t lessen the enjoyment of the path the authors take to get us there.

While not as creepy as King’s recent “The Little Green God of Agony” or as visceral as “In the Tall Grass,” his two-part collaboration with son Joe Hill, “A Face in the Crowd” is an enjoyable diversion, a little something else to tide us over until the next short story or novel appears.

Review: “In the Tall Grass” (Part 2) by Stephen King and Joe Hill

(My review of “In the Tall Grass” (Part 1) is available here.)

On the cover of the August 2012 issue of Esquire magazine in which the second part of Stephen King and Joe Hill’s novella appears, there’s a caption under the story’s title that says “Now it gets weird.” True, but an even more accurate phrase would be “Now it gets dark.” Because there’s one element to the concluding chapter of this tale that is as dark as King (and Hill, for that matter) has ever gone – we’re talking Pet Semetary-levels of bleakness here.

No, I’m not going to spoil it for you. I want you to discover it the same way I did. Let it dawn on you with the same sort of creeped-out, oh-no-they-didn’t realization in which it dawned on me. It’s not gratuitous, it’s not over-the-top – it’s a subtle reveal that proves that when the King men get together, they aren’t messing around.

But let’s back up for just a second. When we left off in Part 1, the DeMuth siblings (Cal and Becky) were just beginning to understand how much trouble they were in. They’d gone into a field of tall grass next to a seemingly abandoned church to try and find a young child who was calling for help. They soon realized that something is toying with them, bending the physical rules of reality they’ve known their entire lives in order to drive them in circles, always tantalizing close but oh so far away from each other.

In Part 2, things progress from bad to worse. There are echoes of another King story in “In the Tall Grass,” particularly in this final part. In “N,” King wrote about a Stonehenge-like circle of stones that were a portal to some sort of mad, Lovecraftian God. There’s a stone in “In the Tall Grass,” too – just one, but like its cousins in “N” it wreaks all sorts of havoc on those who cross its path. This stone isn’t keeping something out; rather, it seeks to draw things in, like a cunning and ageless spider that’s had its fill of food but keeps spinning its web just because it can. It’s remorseless, and the things it drives people to do – well, you’ll see.

It’s clear that King and Hill had a blast working together on this, and they seem to feed off of one another to produce something that’s even darker and more purely horrific than either of their recent solo works. Here’s hoping these two continue to work together to bring us the kinds of simple, effective, good old fashioned horror stories that they are so clearly adept at writing.

‘Blood Related’ offers old questions, few answers

It’s an age-old question: what plays the bigger role in the development of evil men – nature or nurture?

William Cook examines the question in his novel Blood Related, but he never really takes a side. The killers he’s created, twin brothers Charlie and Caleb Cunningham, could be presented as compelling evidence for arguments either way. On the nurture side, both boys suffer through a horrific childhood in which they are the victims of, and witnesses to, mounds of physical and psychological torture. Their father, Errol, is a sadistic killer, luring prostitutes to the family’s labyrinthine home and dispatching them without remorse. After Errol plugs a hose into his car’s exhaust pipe, killing himself and disappearing into local legend, Charlie and Caleb move quickly to take up the “family business.”

Counterbalancing the Cunninghams is Ray Truman, a local cop who has spent a good portion of his career in pursuit of the killers terrorizing the small town of Portvale. Ray is consumed with bringing the Cunningham clan to justice – even if his version of justice is tainted by the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to obtain it.

Cook has fashioned portions of his book after the “true crime” books that document the careers of real serial killers, telling the story not only through Caleb’s eyes but also in sections written as case studies, letters, and accounts from other characters. It’s a good way to look at the events from a number of angles rather than seeing everything from a killer’s point of view, but those sections don’t always ring true as written. The overall “voice” of the book doesn’t vary enough to make these transitions as distinct as they need to be.

In his pursuit to dredge up the bottom-most depths of human depravity, Cook makes it difficult to find anyone in the novel to sympathize with. I think we’re meant to view Caleb as a victim – perhaps he’s the “nurture” side of the equation, whereas the utterly cold and remorseless Charlie is the “nature” side – but it’s hard to empathize with someone who views murder as art. As for the victims themselves, they are largely ignored, treated mostly as anonymous cannon fodder for the brothers’ killing sprees. Even their mother is reprehensible.

In the end, the bleakness of the book and its characters becomes numbing. Yes, it raises some serious and interesting questions about the human capacity for obsession and bloodlust. But the lack of relatable characters – just a sliver of light in the gloom – makes it difficult to muddle through. Perhaps reading this is a glimpse into how the social workers, beat cops and detectives of the world must feel, sifting through human wreckage day after day in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos. Or maybe I’m just a wimp. Either way, Blood Related overwhelmed me.

Review: ‘The Doll: The Lost Short Stories’ by Daphen du Maurier

There’s a thread of dissatisfaction running through the 13 short stories in The Doll, the book of early short stories by Daphne du Maurier. The stories are populated by characters in a variety of statuses and stages, few of which are happy to be where they are in life. Perhaps it’s indicative of how the young author felt at the time, working her way through the early stages of a career that would eventually lead to much acclaim.

If she was, in fact, happy with the way things were going, du Maurier expressed little interest in allowing that contentment to seep into her work. The characters all seem to be reaching for something or someone different, like the couple in “A Difference in Temperament,” two people who can no more stand to be together than they can stand to be apart. It’s the unhealthiest of relationships, an endless loop of love and loathing in which satisfaction is an unattainable goal.

The couple in “Frustration” at least starts out with a chance at happiness. Married after seven chaste years, the relationship begins to unravel in almost comical fashion from the moment they leave the wedding chapel. In “Tame Cat,” the tone is far more serious as a girl comes to some unwelcome realizations about her mother’s companion, a man with desires and attentions for the daughter that cross all respectable bounds.

The real kicker is the young girl in “The Limpet.” A limpet, it turns out, is something that clings tenaciously to someone or something (thank you Merriam-Webster), and it’s an apt description of this young lady, a girl determined to shape her surroundings, circumstances and companions to her liking. It’s never quite clear whether the girl is aware of how manipulative she is – it’s possible that she is delusional, acting without ulterior motive while leaving damaged lives strewn in her wake. Conscious of it or not, she’s rarely happy with her place in the scheme of things and works tirelessly to improve it.

du Maurier is the muse behind a couple of Alfred Hitchcock’s darker films, The Birds (based on her short story of the same name) and Rebecca (based on her gothic novel). It’s clear by these stories that the path of looking at the dark sides of her characters was charted early in her career. There are few happy endings to be found here, although the rescue of these works, long out of print before being brought out for this collection, could easily be considered one in and of itself. Cemetery Dance has their hardcover edition coming out any day now, and it’s certainly worth a look for  and fans of classic gothic storytelling.