NGAIO MARSH – Grave Mistake. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1978. Little Brown & Co., US, hc, 1978. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and soft.

   Published by Ngaio Marsh when she was 83, Grave Mistake certainly is a better effort than Agatha Christie’s Postern of Fate (1973), published when Christie was that same age. But it’s still a distinctly minor work by this talented author.

   Grave Mistake is one of those British village mysteries that cozy-loving Americans particularly seem to enjoy reading. Several other Marsh village mysteries, most notably Overture to Death (1938), Scales of Justice (1955) and Death of a Fool (Off with His Head in the UK, 1956), are among her most popular tales. Grave Mistake is a weaker tale than those, but should still offer some enjoyment to cozy fans.

   The village in Grave Mistake is Upper Quintern, one of those rural locales in classical English mystery that always seems about twenty years out of date (for example, Overture to Death feels like it should be taking place in 1918 at best and Scales of Justice and Death of a Fool in the 1930s).

   Though presumably Grave Mistake takes place around 1977, it seems that the village is composed solely of wealthy, mostly jobless, women and the people who serve them. Oh, and that Greek multi-millionaire who bought up one of the local mansions and about whom no one is quite sure whether he’s quite quite. The servants are more independent here than in many of the pre-WW2 tales and competition for their services is fierce. The gardener even expects to be called “Mister” — imagine!

   Marsh novels usually have a pair of winning young lovers, it seems, and we have such a pair here. Marsh provides one short scene of the couple in which she not too convincingly tries to convey the language of people born around 1960 (lamentably, the word “groovy” is uttered), but mostly her focal point is Verity Preston, a fifty-something, unmarried, intelligent, charming, sensitive playwright. If you think this might be Marsh herself, more or less, you may be on to something.

   Eventually one of the local society ladies is smothered to death in the fashionable sanitarium she has checked herself into for a “rest” (shades of P. D. James’ recent novel, The Private Patient, and the doctor who owns this clinic is straight out of Marsh’s own Death and the Dancing Footman, from nearly forty years earlier) and soon enough Superintendent Alleyn shows up with Inspector Fox to restore order in the village.

   Alleyn still calls his subordinate “Br’er Fox” and, even more egregious, “Foxkin”; but I suppose Fox had put up with this for 44 years and was surely nearing retirement, so he was able to restrain himself from finally snapping and throttling “Handsome Alleyn” on the spot. For their part, the posh members of the local gentry still comment on how Alleyn is so much more a gentleman than they would have expected, his being a policeman and all.

   As the above may suggest, there’s plenty in Grave Mistake that would have been guaranteed to have set Raymond Chandler’s remaining teeth on edge, had be survived until 1978 and sat down to read this tale. There’s an Aunty Boo. The lovely young well-born girl is named Prunella. She calls Verity, who is her Godmother, Godma V (as in, “Godma V, it’s a stinker”). The ladies love to use the word “lolly” (“Daddy was a wizard with the lolly” actually gets said here). But, then, Marsh wasn’t writing for Chandler, was she?

   My favorite character by far was the stepson of the murder victim. Nicknamed by all the gentry ladies “Charmless Claude,” he’s a feckless character, a sponging waster and loser in his late thirties (a slacker as we would say today) who is tremendous fun to read about as his ineffectual plotting comes to naught. The charming people, by contrast, I found a bit tiresome.

   The mystery itself is a disappointment. It’s extremely straightforward and lacking in complexity and ingenuity, though it is fairly presented.

   But I suspect many did not mind this when Grave Mistake appeared in 1978, two years after Agatha Christie had been been lost to the mystery-loving world. I imagine, rather, that most enjoyed simply immersing themselves in the cozy comforts of a classical form English mystery.

PETER O’DONNELL – Pieces of Modesty. Pan, UK, paperback, 1972. Mysterious Press, US, hc, 1987; Tor, US, pb, 1990.

   Modesty Blaise first appeared as a comic-strip character in 1962, and the first novelization of her exploits was published in 1965. She is often thought of as a female James Bond, but her wildly entertaining adventures certainly entitle her to stand alone as a fascinating fictional character.

    A good way to make Modesty’s acquaintance is to read the stories collected in Pieces of Modesty, each of which reveals something of her background and philosophy.

    At the age of eighteen, Modesty commanded the Network, the most successful crime organization outside the United States. After dismantling the Network, she occasionally found herself working for the intelligence section of the British Foreign Office, as she does in “The Gigglewrecker,” in which a very reluctant defector is transferred from East to West Berlin.

    A better story is “I Had a Date with Lady Janet,” narrated in the first person by Modesty’s formidable associate Willie Garvin, who comes to Modesty’s rescue when she is held captive by an old enemy ensconced in a Scottish castle.

    “A Better Day to Die” and “Salamander Four” might be read as companion pieces. In the former, Modesty finds herself captured by guerrillas, along with the other passengers on a bus. One of the passengers, a minister who believes strongly in nonviolence, sees the results of brutality and is changed by them.

    In “Salamander Four,” a sculptor given to non-involvement finds himself involved against his will when Modesty helps a wounded man, but the ending is is predictable. “The Soo Girl Charity” features Modesty and Willie in a robbery for charity and has an amusing twist at the end.

    For colorful writing and nonstop action, the books about Modesty Blaise are hard to beat, especially such titles as Modesty Blaise (1965), Sabre-Tooth (1966), I, Lucifer (1967), and two titles published for the first time in the United States in 1984: The Silver Mistress (1973) and The Xanadu Talisman (1981).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright � 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

PETER O’DONNELL, R. I. P. (1920-2010). He was in ill health — he had had Parkinson’s disease for several years — so the reporting of Peter O’Donnell’s death on Monday, May 3rd, at the age of 90, was not surprising news, but it was still difficult to accept.

   It is remarkable (or perhaps not) that the opening paragraph of his obituary in The Times begins with a description of Modesty Blaise’s most famous tactic in distracting the enemy, the so-called “Nailer,” described here on one of the earliest posts on this blog, as well as much more (as they say) about both Modesty and her creator.

   And for even more on Peter O’Donnell and his career, including a complete bibliography, check out Steve Holland’s recent post on his Bear Alley blog.

M. R. HALL – The Coroner. Pan Macmillan, UK, hardcover/softcover, 2009.

Genre:   Licensed investigator. Series character:   Jenny Cooper, 1st in series. Setting:   England/Wales.

First Sentence:   The first dead body Jenny ever saw was her grandfather’s.

   Jenny Cooper spent 15 years practicing child-care law, but a serialized cheating, emotionally abusive husband and subsequent divorce, plus a missing year from her own childhood, has resulted in an emotional breakdown and severe panic attacks.

   She’s beginning to put her life back together and has been appointed local coroner in the Severn Vale District Corner, inheriting the office, and its rather resentful clerk, from recently deceased Harry Marshall.

   Two of the cases she also inherits are those of a young boy and a teen prostitute, both dead of apparent suicide, both of who spent time in a youth penal facility, and who knew each other when younger. Jenny begins to suspect Harry of negligence, at best, and possibly a cover-up for murder.

   I have often read about coroners, but never really understood their role, responsibilities and the extent of their authority. How nice to finally find an author who not only focuses on that role, as pertains to the UK, but makes it really interesting. I was particularly struck by the protagonist’s observation that “After just four days as coroner she was already the earthly representative of fifty traumatically departed souls.”

   The scenes at the inquest were as well done as any trial scene I’ve read. I am so impressed with Hall’s writing. There are three major threads to this story: Jenny’s emotional issues, her dealing with a possible new relationship, and the case on which she is working. Hall weaves these three threads evenly and perfectly, and in such a way that you see the character gain strength and develop as the story progresses.

   I like seeing a male author write realistic female characters, and Jenny is an interesting character. In spite of her issues, you know there is strength there and she will survive. It is also nice to see a male author write a male character who isn’t the knight on a white charger. Jenny’s neighbor, Steve, may be her new relationship, but he has growing of his own to do.

   All the characters were real, whether likable or not, and for some, you felt their angst. I was particularly struck by the father of a dead girl, “We blame the teachers, the police, the politicians, every last God-dammed one of those self-righteous bastards who spend their lives telling other people what’s best for them but can’t tell right from wrong.” How heart-felt and timely a statement is that?

   There were some minor weaknesses. As can happen, because Hall lives in the area in which the book is set, the sense of place was not as strong as I, a “foreign” reader, would have liked. It was necessary for me to resort to the internet in order to find out where the book is set and what the area looks like.

   There were also a couple of rather large coincidences and predictable threads, but it was still a very good, engrossing read that kept me up until 2 a.m. to finish the book. Hall’s next book, The Disappeared is already on my shelf, to be joined by his third book, The Rapture due out Fall 2010.

Rating: Very Good.

JACK WILLIAMSON – The Legion of Time. Pyramid X-1586, reprint paperback, March 1967. Hardcover edition: Fantasy Press, 1952 (limited to 4604 copies).

   Actually two short novels published together as one book: “The Legion of Time” and “After World’s End”, each originally appearing in the pulp magazines in 1938.

   Both are slam-bang space opera at its finest, with groups of gallant men banding together to fight for the survival of (1) a far-future civilization, and (2) the human race itself. Names like Rogo Nug, Kel Aran, Verel Erin and Zerek Oom prevail.

   The first is the better story, but I soon found myself caught up in the second one as well — obviously a distant forerunner of Star Wars.

COMMENT: Of the four names above, one is that of a starship’s captain, two are members of his crew, and the fourth is that of the girl he seeking, perhaps the last other survivor of the human race. Can you tell which is which?

JOHN BRUNNER – Into the Slave Nebula. Lancer 73-797, paperback; 1st printing, this edition, 1968. Revised from the novel Slavers of Space, Ace Double D-421, pb original, 1960 (bound with Dr. Futurity, by Philip K. Dick).

   The young scion of a wealthy family on Earth stumbles across the murder of a “Citizen of the Galaxy,” and faced with a boring future otherwise, decides to investigate, not realizing how deep into space the conspiracy lies.

   Unfortunately, anybody who reads the title before opening the book knows exactly what’s going on. And even so, it’s only an adventure novel, poorly told. I’d suggest another revision, if I thought it would do any good.

COMMENT: This is the first time I have ever used the word “scion” in a sentence. Do you know what? It feels just fine.

E. HOFFMAN PRICE – Operation Longlife. Ballantine/Del Rey, paperback original, January 1983.

   The story of an 186-year-old scientist named Avery Jarvis “Doc” Brandon. This was written by an 84-year-old pulp writer, and — with all due respect — it reads like it.

AVRAM DAVIDSON – Masters of the Maze. Pyramid R-1208, paperback original; July 1965.

   It sounds like space opera — the monstrous Chultex swarming across the galaxy to ravage Earth! — but as usual, Davidson’s flair for dense literary science fiction is beyond me. I’ve been able to read Davidson’s short stories, on occasion, but never one of his novels. In his case, and given his reputation, I’m perfectly willing to say it’s me.

[UPDATE] 05-04-10. Back in the late 1950s through the 1960s, I used to gobble up space opera SF novels as if they were snacks just out of the pack. By the early 90s, as you can see, it was getting more and more difficult for the same old fare to satisfy me. For the most part now, I don’t read much SF, although I try every once in a while, and when I do, guess what? It’s almost always space opera. No new tricks for me, or at least not very often.

FRANK TALLIS – Vienna Blood. Random House, US, trade paperback, January 2008. Originally published by Century Books, UK, hardcover, May 2006 (shown).

   Volume Two of the Liebermann Papers, a series that began with A Death in Vienna [reviewed here ], continues the saga of the ongoing collaboration between Freudian psychologist Dr. Max Liebermann and his friend, Detective Oskar Rheinhardt in investigations that can profit from the insights afforded by the new, and not generally accepted, theories of Sigmund Freud.

   In a chilly Vienna winter, a killer is apparently randomly selecting victims, with no discernable pattern, except that many of them are prostitutes, and the savagery of the murders, accompanied by brutal mutilations, appears to have some similarities with the crimes of the infamous Jack the Ripper.

   However, Liebermann begins to see patterns that link the murders with a notorious secret society, an apparent harbinger of the Nazi party, and take him and Rheinhardt in directions that could compromise the detective’s career.

   Vienna, at the turn of the century, was a major cultural center, rich in new directions in music, art, and literature, but also with a strongly conservative social and political milieu, a potentially explosive mix that Tallis negotiates with remarkable skill. An impressive series that’s close to the top of my list of current favorites.

Editorial Comment:   If you follow the link in the first paragraph above, you’ll also see a list of the first four books in the series, all that have been published in the US so far. A fifth has been published in the UK (or soon will be), and there’s a sixth on the schedule for 2011.

THE SHE-CREATURE. American International, 1956. Chester Morris, Marla English, Tom Conway, Cathy Downs, Lance Fuller, Frank Jenks, Kenneth MacDonald. Director: Edward L. Cahn.

   Speaking of Cheap Thrills, The She-Creature was on recently, a film I’ve been looking for over the last several years and one I found pleasantly not-disappointing.

   This was produced by Alex Gordon, a movie-maker and film buff who also turned out a few memorable B-Westerns in the 60s, films that utilized the talents of some stalwart old western stars without the tired fustiness of the A.C. Lyles efforts over at Paramount. Gordon’s Sci-Fi films are less memorable than his Westerns, but still worth a look.

   This was probably his best Horror Film, a fast-moving, unsubtle, mildly erotic tale of Mind Control and Reincarnation, with Marla English in the unwilling thrall of Chester Morris as a Carnival Hypnotist who can regress her back to some vaguely prehistoric sea-monster state, with scales, claws, stringy hair and massive headlights.

   In this condition, she walks out of the Sea and kills people, then vanishes into the mist while Morris thrills audiences in his tawdry show with predictions of more “Monster Murders.”

   Tom Conway comes on about then, as a wealthy publisher who gets wealthier by promoting Morris, and whose swelling ego heads all concerned to a predictable ending.

   Yeah, it’s not much, but what there is has some marginal virtues, including Paul Blaisdell’s impressive She-Creature makeup and a remarkably vigorous performance by Chester Morris, whose career by this time was at its obvious nadir.

   Somehow, he’s perfect for the part, with his sagging features and cheap hair dye, looking poignantly just like the sleazy showman he plays.

   And to his credit, he acts his heart out here, ignoring the cardboard sets (which also look poignantly like Carnival Cheapery) and giving his obsessive part a quiet intensity that never lets up but never goes over the top, either.

   Incidentally, Marla English, parts of the She-Creature outfit, and all of Tom Conway (playing a White Witch Doctor with what looks like a porcupine on his head) returned the very next year in Voodoo Woman, another Alex Gordon effort that makes She Creature look sumptuous by comparison.

THE BRIBE. MGM, 1949. Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, John Hodiak, John Hoyt, Samuel S. Hinds. Screenplay by Marguerite Roberts, based on a story by Frederick Nebel (Cosmopolitan, September 1947). Director: Robert Z. Leonard.

   This slick, well done film noir with a top notch cast may not be one of the greats of the genre, but it is an intelligent and handsomely done film with a top notch cast in attractive locations, plus a wonderfully sleazy portrayal by Charles Laughton as an opportunistic coward who almost lifts the movie far above itself.

   Robert Taylor is Rigby (“I never knew a crooked road could look so straight.”), a tough emotionally remote and cold hearted Federal agent sent to Central America to track down surplus WW II airplane parts that have gone missing (*) and are showing up places the government would rather they didn’t.

   Rigby’s only clue is the suspect Tugwell ‘Tug’ Hintten (John Hodiak) and his night club chanteuse wife Elizabeth (Ava Gardner), so he moves in on the couple and especially Gardner hoping to get close enough to find Hintten’s contacts.

   But Rigby’s carefully polished armor begins to tarnish and show cracks under the powerful appeal of Elizabeth and the sensual tropical atmosphere.

   He discovers that there is more than one kind of bribe when he realizes that Hintten and the man behind him are using Elizabeth and the promise she offers to distract him and get him to turn his gaze away from their activities.

   Laughton is an expatriate, J. J. Beale, who attaches himself to Rigby like a leech, both gathering and selling information. It’s a superb little performance that stands out in this dark sweaty melodrama.

   Vincent Price is Cardwell, a tourist who may be more involved than he seems. Not a great performance, but at the time Price specialized in these roles and did them with rare skill, and over the years Price played enough variations that you couldn’t always count on how his character would turn out, even when you were certain you knew going in.

   As Rigby grows more attracted to Elizabeth he is caught between his mission, her distrust of him. and the still open question of whether she is a victim or part of the plot. How loyal is she to Tug, her husband, and how far will she go to protect him even if she no longer loves him?

   As Rigby gets closer to Elizabeth, and to betraying his mission for her, circumstances grow more desperate, and Tug begins to unravel under the pressure of his crimes and his dissolving marriage becoming a danger to his partners.

   The finale is a fine set piece set during Carnival, with a suspenseful and well staged shootout among the surging celebrating crowds in elaborate costumes. (Ironically it may remind you of a similar scene in Hodiak’s film Two Smart People set at Mardi Gras.)

   The Bribe is based on one of the few crime stories written by Black Mask alumnus Fred Nebel for the slicks, where he labored with notable success after the pulps died out as a regular along with Doc Savage creator Lester Dent.

   (At the time the ‘slicks,’ as magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers were called, actually paid better than selling a novel. Many writers works are largely lost to us since the major part of their output appeared in novella or novelette form in these now forgotten magazines, too long to be collected in most anthologies and too short to be published as a novel. As a result many highly successful writers are all but forgotten today because of the format and the market their work appeared in.)

   I admit I probably like this slick little noir film much better than it deserves. It is only superficial noir, lacking the raw qualities of many of the classics, but the leads are handsome and capable, the script taut and intelligent (though in some ways it is closer to silent melodrama than modern noir), and whenever Charles Laughton’s J.J. Beale is on screen, the film threatens to become something more than a good noirish thriller.

   The Bribe isn’t a noir classic by any means, but it is a capable A-film of its era and with that Laughton performance well worth catching.

Note: Of course Fred Nebel is the legendary author of Sleepers East and the adventures of newsman Kennedy and his cop pal Captain Steve McBride. (For the movies Kennedy became a woman, Torchy Blaine, played by Glenda Farrell, Jane Wyman, and Lola Lane, with Barton MacLane and Paul Kelly among the Steve McBride’s.)

   He also penned the adventures of ruthless private eye tough Dick Donahue and the long running Cardigan series. Though many of his stories have been anthologized, his two novels have long been out of print, and his short fiction has been sadly neglected.

   There is one collection of the Donahue stories (Six Deadly Dames), one of the Cardigan stories (The Adventures of Cardigan), a few pulp story reprints, and sadly no collection of the Kennedy and McBride stories from Black Mask. Luckily his work appears in most noir anthologies and in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulp Fiction an entire Kennedy and McBride serial from Black Mask is reprinted.

* For some reason this film always reminds me of Charles Leonard’s (M. V. Heberden aka Mary Heberden) Paul Kilgerrin books about a tough ruthless insurance investigator who appeared in Treachery in Trieste, Sinister Squadron, Secret of the Spa, and others.

Editorial Comment: The Bribe is scheduled to be shown next on TCM this coming Wednesday, May 5th, at 4 pm. It is also available from the Warner Archives site.

  KERRY GREENWOOD – Death Before Wicket. Allen & Unwin, Australia, trade paperback, 1999. Poisoned Pen Press, US, hardcover, January 2008; softcover, March 2008.

Genre:   Historical/private eye. Series character:   Phryne Fisher, 10th in series. Setting:   Australia-Golden Age/1920s.

First Sentence:   Sydney struck Phryne Fisher, quite literally, in the face.

   Phryne Fisher is off to Sydney for a bit of cricket, sightseeing and to attend the Artist’s Ball. She is barely off the train when two young men, students at the University of Sydney, ask for her help. Exams have been stolen from a safe in the dean’s office and their friend has been accused.

   Phryne is also soon asked by Dot, her maid, to find her sister who has disappeared leaving behind two small children with Dot’s less-than-desirable brother-in-law.

   Phryne (pronounced Fry-knee) Fisher may be my all-time favorite character. Ms. Greenwood has done a wonderful job creating her, and with vivid descriptions of clothes, food and her life, she seems very real.

   In this book, we learn even more of her childhood, which was very poor and provides an excellent contrast to her present life of wealth. Phryne is smart, clever, independent, and sexy with a wonderful attitude toward affairs while being very loyal and caring.

   Greenwood is smart in creating the contrasting character of her maid Dot, whom Phryne rescued, is subdued, Catholic and uncertain how much Anglicans knew about religion when she gives Phryne a St. Michael’s metal for protection.

   This is not your traditional cozy, as there are scenes that are quite sexually explicit. But the book also deals with issues. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is under construction. There are interesting observations on the damage done by the original Brits to Australia and the problems which still exist in Sydney versus Melbourne, Phryne’s home.

   The books also deals with the beliefs of the Aborigines and the belief in magic with a very good line that although one may not believe in magic, one can believe in belief.

   In Death Before Wicket Ms. Greenwood creates a well-rounded story with excellent dialogue and a very good twist at the end. It includes just the right touch of humor as in a scene where the protagonist does a delightful send-up of the too-stupid-to-live, gothic-novel heroine.

   This book was a joy to read and I always look forward to the next book in the series.

Rating:   Very Good.

Editorial Comments:   According to the Phryne Fisher website, there are now 17 books in the series, with an 18th due out in October. Poisoned Pen Press has been publishing them in the US, but as I far as I’ve been able to tell, in no particular order. I wish the Poisoned Pen website had been designed for users to maneuver around in a lot more easily than it is, but unfortunately it is not.

THE MISSING PERSON. 2009. Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan, Frank Wood, Linda Emond, Paul Sparks, Margaret Colin, John Ventimiglia. Screenwriter & director: Noah Buschel.

   This is a private eye movie, and as you probably all know, if a PI movie is made in the year 2009, there has to be a reason. This one starts out as a spoof, sort of, or so I thought for quite some time.

   You know what I mean, I think. Michael Shannon plays John Rosow, a former New York City cop who now ekes out a living as a PI in Chicago.

   He’s a hard drinker, an incessant smoker, and he does damn fool things like speak tough guy narration over the first few scenes, among others, every so often as the movie goes along.

   Speaking of smoking, though, another incessant bit of business that goes with his lighting up is that every time he does, whoever’s in the scene with him immediately asks him to put it out, and that’s the kind of movie this movie starts out to be.

   He’s hired to look out for a guy whose wife is looking for him, to follow him and see where he’s going and what he does. It turns out that the man, a middle-aged balding fellow (played by Frank Wood) is taking the train to California (and San Diego in particular) with a young Mexican boy.

   And in California a woman played by Margaret Colin picks Rosow up in a bar, and somehow she’s part of the story, which by this time, nearly a third of way through we (the viewer) have next to no idea what’s gong on, except in bits and pieces. If Rosow knows more than we do, he’s putting on a pretty good act.

   Speaking of Margaret Colin, though, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in anything worth watching, but even when the movie or TV show she’s in isn’t worth watching, she always is.

   In this movie we see more of her than usual, so that was a plus factor for watching, I admit it, right then and there, and when I watch this movie again, she’ll be one of the primary reasons.

   The story gets out of control more than ever when Rosow confronts two FBI agents in an alley behind his motel right around this same time, a meeting which ends with the pair (male and female) giving him a pair of sunglasses with glow-in-the-dark frames.

   It turns out that these frames have a small but important part of the movie, if not the story itself. But once Rosow is in Mexico, and he learns why the man he has been tailing is doing there, the story does turn serious, having significant post-9/11 implications and more, including the reason he was hired for such an outwardly innocuous job in the first place.

   I’ll say no more about that. You can call this movie “art house” noir, if you like, but behind the faux pretentiousness, there was some thought put into the making of this movie.

   Don’t give up on it, once you start. This may be the best PI movie made in 2009, and you may quote me on that.

PostScript: I meant to work this quote into the review, but now that I’m done, I don’t see any place to put it, other than now. Amy Ryan plays Miss Charley, the staid but polite liaison between Rosow and the lawyer who’s hired him. Says Rosow, “I told her she could be my secretary, once I got a few more assignments. But she said she didn’t mix business with pleasure. I promised her I was no pleasure. Yuk, yuk, yuk.”

   Also, while I have you here and before I let you go, every good PI movie has to have a jazz background, right? And one of the jazz players has to be pretty good with a saxophone. The Missing Person qualifies on both counts. The sax player in question is Joe Lovano:

[UPDATE.] Later the same day. Vince Keenan’s take on this film can be found here on his blog. I saw he’d reviewed it but I didn’t read what he had to say until after I’d written up my own comments. I’m pleased to say that when it comes to noir, like minds think alike, at least this time.

KILL ME AGAIN. 1989. Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Michael Madsen. Director & co-screenwriter: John Dahl.

   PI Jack Andrews is down on his luck, you might say. After the death of his wife a few years back, his life has gone downhill ever since. Right now a local Reno gambler has a couple of hoodlums on his neck, and Jack has no idea where he can raise $10,000 in three days.

   Such is his life when the beautiful girl knocks on his office door. She has a proposition for him, she says. She’s in this terrible relationship with a man, and to get out from under, she wants Jack to help her fake her own murder. Jack demurs for a moment, but the sight of $5000, payment in advance, quickly changes his mind, and the deal is struck.

   What Jack doesn’t know could kill him. Soon he not only has the two hoodlums on his heels, but the police, and the boy friend from whom the money came — and he’s not about to give it up easily — but also the mobsters from whom the boy friend stole the money, nearly $1,000,000 worth.

   And they aren’t about to give it up easily, either. Double cross is soon followed by double and triple cross. Val Kilmer seems too boyish looking to be in such a game, sort of a Jack Tripper caught up in a Jim Thompson crime caper, if you see what I mean, but Joanne Whalley-Kilmer is a smoldering keg of sexual dynamite, and if it weren’t for her presence in the story, it’d have no place to go.

   I wasn’t expecting too much from this movie — I watched it only because of the private eye connection — but once I started, I couldn’t turn it off. There were some minor gaps in the plot, so far as I could see, but it’s also as current an example of authentic “film noir” as I’ve seen in a while. And even if it strongly reminds you of something you’ve already seen before, it’s still a spine-tingling thriller.

Editorial Comment: As I was formatting this review in the process of getting it posted, it started to sound awfully familiar to me. You may not believe this, but when I reviewed it here on the blog in February of 2008, I’d completely forgotten I’d seen it before.

   My comments back then, a couple of years ago, were a lot lengthier, so I was able to include a couple of scenes from the movie I didn’t have room for this time, but my opinion on the movie? Exactly the same.

   And I’ll probably watch and review this same movie again in five or ten years. It’s my kind of movie. Don’t believe me? Stick around and find out.