SHELDON SIEGEL – Final Out. Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez #12. Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc., paperback, January 2021.

First Sentence: The Honorable Robert J. Stumpf, Jr. scanned the empty gallery in his airless courtroom on the second floor of San Francisco’s crumbling Hall of Justice.

   Jaylen Jenkins is arrested for the murder of prominent San Francisco sports agent Robert Blum. He is on video holding a baseball bat walking toward Blum, and then running away without the bat. Jenkins claims he is innocent. But is he? Without contradictory evidence, can attorney Mike Daley and the team of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office use the “SODDI” defense to convince the jury that some other dude did it?

   The story begins with a soft case to introduce the principal characters in a casual, conversational manner. In very little time, one is taken into the meat of the story and a case that couldn’t be more timely. One of the benefits is learning something new. Siegel walks readers through every aspect of the case allowing one to experience exactly what is involved. He educates without lecturing or slowing down the plot. After all, who else is familiar with the legal term “wobbler”?

   It is impossible to conceive knowing one is innocent and while being told accepting a plea sentence of eight years is a “good deal,” yet that happens to so many.

   Through the principal character, Mike, an ex-priest turned lawyer, Siegel created an excellent ensemble cast of Mike’s family and friends. They are wonderfully drawn; brought to life mainly though his skill with dialogue. Even Mike’s internal monologues add dimension to the character and the story.

   One appealing aspect of the character is his realism. This isn’t a strutting, overly-confident lawyer, this is one who recognizes he could lose his case.

   Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, captured in perfect detail, Siegel brings the region into focus. It is always fun having a book set in one’s hometown, being familiar with the places visited by the characters. It is even more amusing when the author’s description of a particular building echoes one’s own thoughts— “The Salesforce Tower dominated the San Francisco skyline and dwarfed the Transamerica Pyramid. It’s impressive in its size and technology, but it looks like an enlarged phallic symbol to me.”

   Siegel’s style is one of short, tightly written chapters that read almost as vignettes. Each chapter compels one to continue reading straight through to the end.

   Final Out is well written and completely involving. The underlying theme is a sad, but important truth about our justice system.

Rating: Very Good.

THE BADLANDERS. MGM, 1958. Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado, Claire Kelly, Kent Smith, Nehemiah Persoff. Based on the novel The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett (1949). Director: Delmer Daves.

   I suppose I should tell you that I haven’t yet gotten around to seeing the earlier version of this movie, nor have I read the book. All I know is that it has a pretty good reputation (the movie, I mean; I don’t know about the book). Whose idea it was to turn it into a western, I don’t know that either, but it was a lousy idea.

   At least it’s one that didn’t come off, in terms of putting it into practice. I’m not surer what went wrong. The actors are professional and competent, and they seem enthusiastic enough. (Or in Alan Ladd’s case, as enthusiastic as he ever seems to get.) I would lay most of the blame on the people responsible for the script.

   But maybe I should tell you what the story’s about first. Ladd is a mining engineer or geologist who’s been framed for stealing some gold; Borgnine is a simpler sort who’s been cheated out of a mine (or the land it was on; it wasn’t entirely clear) and jailed for retaliating the only way he knew. They leave Yuma Prison at the same time, but not on so friendly terms with each other. Nevertheless, they decide to team up and steal some ore that’s still in a vein that only Alan Ladd knows about.

   Along the way somehow or another they become friends. Male bonding. Borgnine also saves a Mexican woman (Katy Jurado) from some overfriendly white men, and before you know it, he has moved in with her, full of surprisingly cheerful good will toward mankind.

   The heist comes off – don’t ask me how they can carry around three large bags of gold ore worth $200,000 (or more) with as little effort as this – and what it so unpredictable about the rest of the movie is that no one would predict anything as predictable as what happens next. If you see what I mean.

I’m back in business again, starting later today, I hope. I still don’t know what the problem was. While demonstrating it over the phone to my son-in-law Mark, the third time was the charm. It stopped.

And I’d already rushed over to Home Depot for five boxes of baling wire and duct tape. Fingers crossed that it won’t happen again, but next time I’m ready.

Posting from my phone. Will be back as soon as I can.

J. D. ROBB – Shadows in Death. Lt. Eve Dallas #51. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, September 2020; paperback, December 2020.

First Sentence: As it often did since he’d married a cop, murder interrupted more pleasant activities.

   Lt. Eve Dallas, with her husband, Roarke, goes to the scene of a murdered woman. While on-site, Roarke sees a man he knew from his past in Ireland. Lorcan Cobbe, a contract killer, claims he is Roarke’s father’s actual and first son. Lorcan hates Roarke enough to kill him, and everyone he loves. Eve is certain the dead woman’s husband hired Cobbe to perform the hit. Eve’s first task to proving the husband a killer, then stop Cobbe before he kills Roarke.

   There are times when one wants an entertaining, captivating read. With her 51st book in the Eve Dallas series, Robb succeeds in creating exactly that. Yes, the plots are somewhat predictable, but the world Robb has created is visual, and the characters are ones about whom readers’ care.

   What is remarkable is that the “…in Death” series began in 1995 with the first book set in 2058 and Eve being 30 years old, releasing two Dallas books/year, plus the occasional novella. Shadows in Death is set in 2061; three years and 51+/- cases later, bringing Eve’s clearance rate to ~17 cases per year, or once every three weeks. What police department wouldn’t love that?

   Robb has a deft hand when it comes to dialogue, even creating slang that fits for the near-future time period. How clever to use an expression known to readers in the present but would be anachronistic to the period. There are some great lines, and her wry humor is always a pleasure. A discussion on the subtle differences between colors leads to an internal observation— “Peabody turned a little green —perhaps celadon — and turned her head to stare hard at the wall.” Robb carries thoughts through from one scene to another with great deliberateness and ease.

   One learns more about Roarke’s childhood and one must respect that Robb, even this far into the series, still has new information to impart. One small irritant is Roark’s references to Eve being “his,” making her seem a possession. However, this is mitigated by the realization that Eve claims Roarke in the same manner and showing it is a manifestation of their commitment of care and protection, and not possessiveness, even including those around them. Yes, the scenes of lovemaking are hot, but they are more about emotion than sex.

   Eve is not perfect which makes her more real. She has areas of discomfort and gaps in her knowledge for anything beyond her job or her city— “They look like cops…I need them to look like farmers. Irish farmers,” Eve added. “Who are out there doing farm stuff.”

   There is an urgency and intensity to the investigation which gives the sense of needing to run to keep up. The action scenes are visceral, tense, exciting, and filled with twists. They provide excellent examples of Eve’s leadership and authority, and the respect she has earned. Even so, it is not a perfect book. There were opportunities for danger and suspense not taken, and the ending seemed too quick with a final scene a bit silly, albeit satisfying.

   Shadows in Death is an excellent remedy to offset the stress and uncertainty of these times in which we live.

Rating: B Plus.

REX STOUT – Champagne for One. Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin #31. Viking, hardcover, 1958. Bantam, paperback, April 1960. Reprinted many times since.

   Not only was this a long-delayed return visit to the brownstone mansion on West 35th Street for me, it’s also an impossible crime murder mystery — double the pleasure! And the only reason the cops cannot call the death of Faith Usher a suicide is that Archie Goodwin is there and watching as the dead girl is served a single glass of champagne with (apparently) no one else at the party able to drop the fast-acting cyanide into it between the time it was poured and it was served to her.

   This all takes place at a “coming out” party for a group of unwed mothers, guests of a large philanthropic organization. Nero Wolfe’s investigation, provoked in part to stand up to Inspector Cramer and the District Attorney, who want nothing more to whitewash the affair, shows that the dead girl had no friends, no acquaintances, only a mother she hated and wanted nothing to do with. And hence, no motive.

   It’s a baffling case, but if not needing to leave his house, not even once, is a criterion, this is an easy case for Nero Wolfe to solve, culminating in bringing all of the suspects together in the final chapters and having the scene of the crime re-created. That and Stout’s usual smooth and witty way of telling the story — through the lips and mind’s eye of Wolfe’s most trusted assistant — makes this a treat I’ve neglected for far too long.

THE SHOOTING. 1967. Walter Reade Organization, US, 1968. Will Hutchins, Millie Perkins, Jack Nicholson, Warren Oates. Director: Monte Hellman.

   This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, your typical, average western. This one is perky, murky, and quirky, à la Twin Peaks, of which this is very nearly the cowboy western equivalent. It does, however, except for the ending, which is deliberately obtuse, make more sense.

   Two men, apparently miners, are hired by a mysterious women to take her to a town which apparently lies across a desert. She has another idea in mind, however, and the two men soon realize that she is really on the trail of someone. Someone is on their trail, as well.

   That someone being a hired killer, played ultra-enigmatically by Jack Nicholson (the most subdued role I can ever recall seeing him play in a movie), and he eventually joins the small group of riders traveling through the sand and the barren hills on a trek that lasts, or so it seems, clear on to forever. (It’s no Lawrence of Arabia, but in a small budget sort of way, it comes close.)

   Brian Garfield, in his book on westerns, seems to have been totally mystified by what this movie is about, seeing all sorts of mystical things in it. I couldn’t tell you about the ending – I’m not sure if anybody could – but I didn’t have any problem with the rest of the film, nor should anyone who sees the first ten minutes. It seems like a straight-forward tale of revenge to me, without all the other motivations being spelled out completely (and believe me, this movie has more than most).

   Of course, maybe I’m wrong, so when you see it yourself, you’re entirely free to make up your own mind. It wouldn’t bother me. As I hope you can see, it’s that kind of movie. (And if you’re a western fan, see it yourself I think you should).

ROBERT B. PARKER – Chasing the Bear. Philomel Books, hardcover, 2009. Speak, paperback, 2010.

   
   It is a Sunday in Boston, and on this particular one while Spenser and Susan Silverman sit on a bench in the Boston Public Garden, Spenser decides to open up about his childhood in the West with his father and three uncles. What follows once in a while almost evolves into a coming of age story, but mostly meanders from one incident to the next of Spenser being Spenser, just a younger version of himself with his Father and Uncles as his wingmen rather than Hawk.

   The longest and most involving section involves a teen girl fleeing her abusive father (Jeannie Haden wasn’t my girlfriend. She was a girl who was my friend. We spent a lot of time together. Things were bad at home for her. Her mother and father were getting divorced, and they fought all the time. Jeannie was scared of her father. She only went home when she had to.), and Spenser helping her in the wilderness eventually killing the father. Of course nothing comes of this because the wise deputy is a friend of Spenser’s father, and the man was a near cartoon of an abusive father, so no one really cares a teenage boy killed him in self defense.

   It is that kind of book, a Spenser novel in miniature, written for a juvenile audience to give a glimpse of Spenser’s formative years, but by the time the book opens he is already Spenser full blown, and whether protecting a girl from an abusive father or a new friend from racist thugs, only Hawk and the guns are missing.

   You would expect in a Hemingwayesque novel of coming of age set in a rural Western setting (“Western Flub Dub” as Spenser describes it) some sense of the outdoors, scenes of hunting and descriptive passages of the world Spenser grew up in, but you barely get that. Like the later novels the book consists of mostly talk, a few descriptive passages of violence, and asides from Spenser about his past, but there is not much more to it than that.

   Spenser is Spenser, Spenser kills a man, beats up some bullies, grows up, has a couple of adult conversations, casually mentions blowing a sports scholarship and goes to college. There is precious little about growing up without a mother or the other drawbacks of being raised by four hard fighting sem-literate fathers in the rural West. Characterization is so bare bones you couldn’t cast the characters in a film based on the bare detail provided.

   Parker takes 37 chapters to do considerably less than Jim Harrison in the in the novella Legends of the Fall.

   Before it starts, I loved Parker and Spenser when they debuted, and I stayed with them much longer than many others I know, but over time I just stopped enjoying the books. There was a sameness about them that I couldn’t remember if I had read one or not, too much cuteness with Susan, too much wisecracking with Hawk, one too many big fights that read like the big fight in the book before.

   I recognize that the things I mention are why millions of readers read Parker and still read the continuing series by Ace Atkins and others, and more power to them. For me it was a camel’s backbreaking straw.

   I had hoped this would actually give a little insight into Spenser (incidentally we still get no idea he has a first name, for all we find out his father called him Spenser), and sense of how he became the man he was, but instead the boy he was is exactly the same as the man he is, just younger and smaller and needing four Hawks instead of one.

   I suppose growing up enough to only need one preternaturally capable killer is some sort of coming of age, but I really can’t imagine many young readers rushing to read this or many older readers being satisfied by it.

   I still have great affection for Parker. I loved the early books and still do, loved the Robert Urich series, spent many happy hours with his works, but I can’t pretend the books didn’t wear thin as plot took a farther and farther place in the background.

   Spenser even tears up a little at the end as Susan reminds him he has not left his family behind.

   I only wish Parker had given us enough of a connection to the characters that the final touching tribute actually meant anything to the reader.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Hesitant Hostess. Perry Mason #41. William Morrow, hardcover, April 1953. Pocket, paperback; 1st printing, September 1956.

   Every once in a while, there is one of the Perry Mason novels which does not end up in a courtroom, with Perry giving D.A. Hamilton Burger his lumps one more time. One such was The Case of the Silent Partner (1940), the TV version of which I watched not too long ago. (And as such it was a shame, as the theatrics in the courtroom is what every reader or viewer always sits back and waits for. Disappointing!)

   But as if to make up for that earlier lapse, Hesitant Hostess actually begins with a courtroom scene. It does not go well for Perry, however, as a witness he was counting on disappears from the small room where he had her waiting. Luckily it is a Friday, so he has an entire weekend to track her down and find out why she bailed on him so precipitously.

   She is a hostess at a local night club – hence the title – and Perry’s first ploy is to pretend that he is a paying customer. There is one long chapter, a rather risque one for a Gardner novel, I should think – in which the curious reader begins to wonder how far the flirtation of sorts will go.

   Perry’s client is purely pro bono – a 50ish retiree who is accused of a robbery at gunpoint from one car to another – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pull out all the stops in defending him. His bill from Paul Drake – he the private eye with hundreds of operatives working for him – must have ended up in the thousands of dollars.

   It seems like a very minor case until around page 90 or so, when the police suddenly tie the robbery to the murder of a young woman from a few weeks earlier, and all seriousness breaks out. Even Della Street gets into the act, breaking and entering a suspect’s apartment to do some fingerprint work.

   And the plot gets equally confusing – does the missing hostess have a double, a twin sister, perhaps? – but not so confusing as to make the final explanation (almost) intelligible. It’s 100% certified as a doozy, though. This was a lot of fun to read. Recommended.

EDWARD S. AARONS – Assignment Bangkok. CIA agent Sam Durell #33. Gold Medal, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1972.

   If the listing before the title page is correct, this is #33 in Aarons’ long-running Sam Durell series. Durell is the Cajun-born CIA agent whose adventures ranged over three decades of world disorder, from the dark, dismal days of Europe soon after the Iron Curtain began, on through the era of deep-trenched US involvement in Southeast Asia, and beyond.

   His mission in Thailand in this book is on three levels. Ostensibly he is in Bangkok as part of an economic/agricultural advisory team. He thinks he’s there to retrieve another agent who has been investigating revolutionary forces in the northern part of the country. Soon after his arrival, however, he discovers that opposing forces know more about his real mission than he does.

   In other words, Durell is in deep trouble from the very first paragraph on. And this is an action story, through and through. And once again, Aarons’ eye for exotic, picturesque detail does not fail the reader: this is a part of the world I have never been in, and probably never will be, but as far as it’s possible, I feel as though I’ve just returned from a prolonged visit there.

   Unfortunately, I think that with this number of entries in a single series, Aarons’ zest for a spine-tingling story might have been beginning to fail him. There are plots and subplots, but none of them seem to amount to much. Durell and his cohorts in espionage simply have too easy of a time of it (even though they would never say so themselves, if you ever had a chance to ask.)

   All the ingredients are here, but in this book, I think Aarons was only going through the motions.