RICHARD STARK – Plunder Squad. Random House, hardcover, 1972. Avon, paperback, 1985. University of Chicago Press, trade paperback, 2010.

   So I’d already read nearly all of ’em, the Parkers. The Hunter thru Butcher’s Moon. (I ain’t interested in Comeback, etc.) But this one had passed me by. For no reason. And this one resolves the George Uhl problem left off in Sour Lemon Score. So I wanted to read it for that closure.

   Anywho, Parker’s in a rut. Things ain’t working out. And he needs money. Badly.

   But still not badly enough to take the first couple jobs lined up for him. And the one he finally takes. That one’s completely fucked up too.

   So basically this one lines up three jobs. He declines two, and the third one goes to shit.

   Meantime, two interesting things happen in this one.

   First is that George Uhl, asshole I mentioned earlier, decides it’s time to kill Parker. You can guess how that ends.

   Second is a kind of cool scene where Parker opens the door to find Dan Kearney standing there. Yeah that Dan Kearney. It’s a reverse image of a scene from Joe Gores’ Dead Skip.

   Anyway. Aside from those two things, nothing really happens in this one. And you can skip it, from a narrative stand point.

   On the other hand, why would you want to? Parker’s in good form, as is Westlake. And there’s a paucity of great hardboiled lit. So hey, why not? You owe it to yourself and I owe it to me, to read all the Parkers, Hunter thru Butcher’s Moon.

   And like it, you will, says Yoda. Like it, you will.

TRAP. Warner Brothers, 2024. Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills. Written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

   Picture it: a middle-aged man and his pre-teen daughter are at a pop music concert. The performer in question, one Lady Raven, is on the top of her game and has legions of devoted fans. Then imagine the middle-aged man starts noticing something is off-kilter; there are simply way too many police around. What might be going on?

   That’s the premise of Trap, a recent film from prolific director M. Night Shyamalan. Josh Hartnett, whose performance carries the film, stars as Cooper, a seemingly normal guy from the Philadelphia suburbs. As it turns out, he is far from normal. In fact, he’s “The Butcher,” a serial killer that has been stalking the city. And the concert? Well, that’s an elaborate trap that has been set for him.

   Now, that might sound like a ludicrous premise. But trust me: when it works, it works. As a suspense flick filmed with a sense of fun and one that fortunately doesn’t take itself too seriously, Trap is an above average escapist thriller.

   It’s important to remember that screenplays need to be original, but not too original. They can’t be so off the beaten path as to confuse audiences. There’s a reason why genres and subgenres have tropes. Trap succeeds in being both a familiar “serial killer” movie and something entirely new. While it might not be palatable to all tastes, there’s a lot here to appreciate. For the squeamish, don’t worry. The movie relies on suspense rather than gore to get its point across.

DASHIELL HAMMETT “Fly Paper.” First published in Black Mask, August 1929. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   “It was a wandering daughter job.” Sue Hambledon had disappeared with hoodlum Babe McCloor. The Continental op finds her dead, poisoned by the arsenic from fly paper, the mere thought of which is enough for memories of cheap desolation. (4)

JO PAGANO – Die Screaming. Zenith ZB-4, paperback, 1958. Published earlier as The Condemned (Prentice-Hall, hardcover, 1947), and by Perma Star 286, paperback, 1954. Film: The Sound of Fury (United Artists, 1950), re-released as Try and Get Me.

   A little gem I recently picked up almost by accident is Jo Pagano’s Die Screaming, which was filmed in 1950 as Try and Get Me. I exaggerated just then for dramatic effect. Die Screaming is the Cheapo-house paperback reprint title of a work which was originally (and rather uninspiredly) titled The Condemned. And the title of the movie was originally (equally pretentious) The Sound of Fury. Fortunately for both book and movie, trashier heads prevailed.

   Content-wise, they both book and film are intelligently done, but marred by attempts to pump Social Significance into their slender frames. Howard Tyler, broke, married with child, hard-working but jobless and luckless (well-played in the film by Frank Lovejoy) hooks up with smart guy Jerry Slocum and ends up pulling a few quick robberies.

   As Howard flounders in bewilderment, the robberies turn into kidnapping and murder: Movie and book both brilliantly describe Howard’s total inability to come to grips with what has happened. Overwhelmed with guilt and fear, totally incapable of hiding his emotions from his family or even from strangers on the street, he seems like some vividly-drawn, well-tortured animal.

   Unfortunately, both book and movie dissipate the energy of all this with endings that come off as self-important and preachy. But while the ride lasts, it has its moments. I particularly liked the intelligent writing that went into the Jerry Slocum character, played in the film by Lloyd Bridges. (An actor, it seems, who came to Hollywood too late. In an expanding film industry, he could have been another Dan Duryea.)  The implicit sexuality of his dominance over Howard is cunningly conveyed in meaningless little requests that somehow sound like orders.

   When I talk (as I often do) of the way cheap books and B-movies sometimes surprise one with the care and thoughtfulness that goes into them, I’m talking about efforts like Die Screaming.

THEODORE STRAUSS – Moonrise. Viking Press, hardcover, 1946. Serialized before book publication in Cosmopolitan, August-September 1946. Bantam #889, paperback, 1951, as Dark Hunger. Stark House Press, softcover, 2024. Film: Republic Pictures, 1948 (with Dane Clark, Gail Russell).

   Danny’s daddy was in the noose before Danny got out of the cradle.

   Danny’s mother was sick. So Danny’s daddy called the doc. Twas the middle of the night, goddamn it. Said the doc. She’ll be fine til morning.

   Cept she wasn’t. So then it was Danny’s daddy made the housecall. Payback. And the noose.

   So Danny’s a bit of an orphan, then. With a chip.

   Don’t make fun of Danny’s daddy either. So Jerry learned.

   Jerry was a dick. His daddy ran the bank. And Jerry drove a cute little trick of a red sportscar or something. Convertible.

   And Jerry was a bully. Back in 1st grade when Danny started school, Jerry kicked the crap out of him with the whole school rooting him on.

   Danny didn’t forget. So when Jerry, at the big dance, pretty Gilly, the new schoolteacher in tow, starts ragging Danny bout his daddy in the noose, Danny says come on down to the pond and let’s settle this.

   And Danny gets him this time. Beats him up but good. Only Jerry won’t give up. And picks up a rock and tries to hit Danny. Only Danny takes the rock away. And hits Jerry. Hard. On the head. Too hard.

   So Danny throws Jerry in the swamp. Goes back to the dance and picks up Gilly. And drives her home.

   Only murder don’t go away that easy. There’ll be a reckoning, I reckon.

   Decent little 40’s noir. Almost said ‘descent’. And it is. But ambiguous. With a strange sort of redemptive end. Where one may want to be caught. For the truth of it. And the peace.

DASHIELL HAMMETT “The Gutting of Coufignal.” First published in Black Mask, First published in The Black Mask, December 1925. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   An island in San Pablo Bay, the home of wealthy retired businessmen, is attacked by bandits with machine guns and grenades, The Continental OP is on hand, guarding wedding presents. It is not difficult for him to suspect an inside job at once. The observant reader will also. (4)

DASHIELL HAMMETT – The Big Knockover [edited by Lillian Hellman]. Random House, hardcover, 1966.

   Nine adventures of the anonymous Continental Op, plus an unfinished portion of a novel titled “Tulip.” The Op was [among the first] hard-boiled detectives in fiction, so the effectiveness of the writing may have become diluted by the appearance of all those who followed. The confused younger generation of characters in the stories this collection contains has a great role in the stories, as well as the usual underworld population at the time.

Rating: *****

         ____

Note: I reviewed the stories separately, and these will be posted here on this blog individually over the next few days and weeks ahead. Also, in my original review of the collection itself, I referred to the Continental Op as the first hard-boiled fictional detective. The actual very first may  have been Carroll John Daly’s Terry Mack, or if not him, then certainly the same writer’s Race Williams, neither of whom I may have heard of at the time I wrote this review.

STUMPTOWN. “Forget It Dex, It’s Stumptown.” ABC, 25 September 2019. (Season 1, Episode 1.) Cobie Smulders (Dex Parios), Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus. Based on a series of comic books by Greg Rucka (story) & Matthew Southworth (art). Director: James Griffiths. Currently streaming on Amazon and Apple TV.

   First thought: What an ugly title for a TV show. I didn’t find out until quite a while later that the TV show was preceded by a series of comic books later  collected in graphic novel format. I also later discovered that “Stumptown” is a nickname for the city of Portland OR. (This may be the only time that Portland OR is the home of a (non-licensed) PI.)

   Said PI is female, a former Marine in Afghanistan named Dex Parios. She is now suffering from PTSD, gambling debts, and caring for a younger brother with Down’s Syndrome. Offered a job to find a missing granddaughter, she hesitates at first, then decides to take it. She can use the money.

   The plot suffers a bit from trying to tell a story along with filling us in with all of the people in her life, most of whom will show up again over the course of  the rest of the season. Stumptown was successful enough in its first season to be renewed for a second season only to be cancelled when Covid comes along.

   Cobie Smulders is an actress new to me, but she’s been around for a while, including long stints on the CBS series How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) and as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in the Marvel movies. (I’ve never watched either.) I also haven’t watched any of the other shows in the TV series to see which way the wind blew after this one, but based on this one, its future success, if any, would of course depend almost totally on her performance.

   Which, to coin a phrase, better than satisfactory. Smulders does, I thought, overdo it at time in terms of portraying a woman living a lousy life and being sour and witty and clever about it, but otherwise she is just fine. The young lady, at the end of this first episode, sort of decides she likes the job she has just done, and it is clear that, when offered another, she is almost assuredly going to take it.

THE WEB. Universal International, 1947. Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer. Directed by Michael Gordon.

   A mild-mannered mystery movie which with a little stronger punch might be remembered by more of us fans of old black and white films than I think is the case. To wit: Edmond O’Brien’s brashness as a small hick attorney garners him a job as a bodyguard for a rich man (Vincent Price) who tells him that a former business associate, just released from prison, has been making threats against him.

   Also in the story, as it plays out, is Ella Raines, who plays the rich man’s (very) personal secretary, and whom Edmond O’Brien’s character takes a strong liking to. She’s the sleek kind of young lady who holds secrets well, and whom we the viewer are never quite sure exactly how close to her boss (the rich man) she is.

   The problem is is that Edmond O’Brien is as always a very good actor, but let’s face it, he just isn’t in Ella Raines’ league. Vincent Price is, of course, as smarmy and unctuous player as he always is, and when his newly found bodyguard kills the former business associate (see paragraph one), we know there’s something going on that our hero is slow in catching up with.

   Enter William Bendix as the tough guy detective handling the case. Even though there’s a previous connection between them, he handles Mr. O’Brien a lot tougher than the circumstances seem to warrant. It is a puzzle, but not a overly challenging one.

   It all makes for a good movie, but in the mind of no one, I imagine, is The Web more than a mere entertainment, once seen and soon forgotten. Watch this one for Ella Raines’ elegant grace, aloof and yet most charming.

CHARLES ALVERSON – Not Sleeping, Just Dead. Joe Goodey #2. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1977. Playboy Press, paperback, 1980.

   Joe Goodey, private eye. Former cop. Fired for shooting the wrong guy, the mayor’s nephew, or some such.

   He gets hired by some gramps. Gramps wants to know what happened to granddaughter.

   Granddaughter, a beauty, a druggie, leapt, or fell, or was pushed off a high tower of a Monterey mansion. A cult lives there. ‘The Institute’. Of which she was a member. A very wealthy member, bequeathing a considerable sum upon them.

   Gramps wants to know who at the Institute killed her. Because if he can prove the Institute killed her, the money goes to him.

   So Goodey heads to the Institute. Hangs around. Insults everybody with his hardboiled repartee and scabrous wit. And solves the case.

   Decent 70’s PI yarn, with California vibes. Recommended.