KEN BRUEN – The Killing of the Tinkers. Jack Taylor #2. St. Martins Minotaur, softcover, 2004.

   The death drive drives to self-destruction. Not just to cease to be, to stop the pain, to nothingness. But towards an earlier incarnation. A oneness with everything. The self is an illusion dividing us against everything and everyone, creating a loneliness we cannot bear. Death is coming, ready or not. But as much as we try to avoid it, to do everything we can to stay alive, to self-preserve, take meds (Christian scientists notwithstanding), to exercise, to exorcise the death from life: It’s coming. And at times we even hurry it along, speed it up along its merry way, brush the front steps, invite it in for tea.

   At the end of The Guards, Jack Taylor kills his best friend. It’s justified. But who gives a crap, justified? What does that mean? What does it matter? Like Sam Spade handing Brigid O’Shaunessy over to the cops. Choosing ‘justice’ over love in this corrupted world. What the hell for?

   So here Jack Taylor finds himself. Alone. Addicted to coke, and drinking himself to death. The usual.

   He gets hired to find out who’s killing the hobos. He fucks up the investigation, gets the wrong guy killed, and hires a hit man to clean it up. The end. A freaking mess.

Meantime, as per usual, he gives the reader a bunch of tips: Songs and books to listen to and read on the road to perdition.

   He reverentially mentions Jernigan. Twice. So I order it.

DAVID GATES – Jernigan. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1991.

   Jernigan is a failed English lit academic who quits to be a half-assed corporate real estate broker, married to another overeducated souse, raising a teenaged boy in the lower Hudson valley. The suburban dream.

   He picks at his wife constantly, little passive aggressive pokes at her laziness and she at his impotence.

   They have a party. It’s the fourth of July. The neighbors are all there. At the pool. And finally she’s had it. She says ‘fuck you—fuck all of you’, strips off her clothes and jumps in the car, backs out of the driveway full speed, eyes full of hate, only to be instantaneously t-boned by a van. Dead.

   Jernigan starts drinking more and more. Gets fired by his firm. And starts screwing his son’s girlfriend’s mom.

   The mom is in a group of suburban survivalists. They squat in suburban buildings, they dumpster dive for barely expired produce behind the supermarkets, they raise bunnies in their basements. To eat. They make their own moonshine. They have no bills. Their kids go to the nice suburban schools. They don’t work. So they can ‘truly live’.

   This kind of life doesn’t suit Jernigan. Does any?

   So he sells his house, moves in with his son’s girlfriends’ mother, and drinks himself into oblivion.

   The end.

   Can’t say I enjoyed this stuff. But there’s something to this death drive. Maybe.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. Apple Original Films, 2025. John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González, Domhnall Gleeson, Arian Moayed, Stanley Tucci. Director: Guy Ritchie.

   Given the title of this film and the fact that I’ve placed it in the Action Adventure category, I expect that most of you are thinking right now that you know exactly how the story line will play out, and long before the movie begins.

   And most of you would be right. All but the details, of course, and they don’t matter anyway.

   But for the record, a mostly estranged brother and sister agree to work for a man with lots of money but who’s dying anyway. Object: to find – you guessed it – the Fountain of Youth. The brother is the instigator, who wants to say yes immediately. The sister needs a lot more persuasion, but she reluctantly agrees as well. She’s in.

   The trail leads them from Thailand to the US and then to Egypt and – the Pyramids, where they all have a lot of fun in not only finding what they are looking for but at the same time fending off all kinds of mercenaries on both sides, sort of, plus the police and maybe someone else whom I’ve forgotten.

   Lots of fireworks in this one, folks, and a lot of money went into the production, which is quite superb. It all works well enough – even more than well enough, in fact – except for the fact that it’s all been done before. (The ending suggests that another adventure may even be in the offing. It all may be done again.)

DETOUR. PRC, 1946. Tom Neal, Ann Savage , Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald, Tim Ryan. Screenplay by Martin Goldsmith, based on his own novel. Director: Edgar Ulmer.

   Fate laughs at a nightclub pianist, hitch-hiking to Los Angeles to see his girl friend. The man who picks him up dies in a strange accident, and when he takes the other man’s money and identity, the events that follow are unstoppable.

   Ann Savage plays the girl that Neal picks up in turn, and she knows he is not who he says he is.Neal is under her constant thumb from then on – willingly or not, we are not quite sure. A low budget film that makes a much larger impact than you might expect.

WAYNE D. DUNDEE “The Judas Target.” PI Joe Hannibal. First published in An Eye for Justice: The Third Private Eye Writers of America Anthology, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1988).

   Of the various authors included in this third PWA Anthology, Wayne Dundee is probably the least well known. But when you’re included in a book that also includes original stories by authors such as Lyons, Lutz, Grafton, Estleman and Pronzini, I’d have been pumped if it were me, and I’ll bet Dundee was too.

   His primary PI character was a fellow named Joe Hannibal, and although it’s been a while since he’s made an appearance, over the years he’s been featured in a couple of dozen short stories and eight or do novels. His stomping ground is, of all places, Rockford, Illinois, a place which if you’re a PI in, you’re probably the only PI in town.

   In “The Judas Target” it’s his good buddy, bar owner Bomber Brannigan, whose life has been threatened – twice before he lets Joe know about it, and once after the Joe talks him into letting him help.

   The case develops slowly but assuredly from that point on, ending in one slam bang of a finish. It’s difficult to learn much about a character after reading just one short story about him, but I can safely say that if someone were after me, for reasons unknown, I’d sure like to have someone like Joe Hannibal on my side.

IF SCIENCE FICTION. October 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: Hector Castellon. Overall rating: **½.

HAL CLEMENT “Ocean on Top.” Serial, part 1 of 3. Review to appear after my reading of the full story.

LARRY EISENBERG “Conqueror.” A short but terribly important story of how sex can humiliate the proudest conqueror. (5)

A. E. van VOGT “Enemy of the Silies.” Novelette. More incomprehensible adventures of the Silkies, attacked this time by the Nijjians. Cemp’s only weapon if his Logic of Levels, whatever that might be. You gotta admire van Vogt, if he understands this stuff. (0)

C. C. MacAPP “Winter of the Llangs.” Novelette. An intelligent cattle-like people trapped by the weather are harassed by creatures which might be wolves. Solid alien characterization. (3)

DONALD J. WALSH “Mu Panther,” First story. A hunting party goes after a mutant panther which has more than size going for it, (2)

JAMES BLISH “Faust Aleph-Null.” Serial, part 3 of 3. To be reviewed separately soon.

THE DARK PAST. Columbia Pictures, 1948. William Holden, Nina Foch, Lee J. Cobb, Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne, Lois Maxwell, Berry Kroeger, Steven Geray. Director: Rudolph Maté

   You might think that, with the title The Dark Past, that this Columbia production was a film noir. And, in some ways, you’d be correct. But overall, this feature is way too optimistic about human nature to be considered a proper noir.

   Let me explain.

   Lee J. Cobb portrays Dr. Andrew Collins, a college professor/psychiatrist whose family home is invaded by notorious outlaw Al Walker (William Holden) and his crew. Over the course of a stormy evening, Collins takes the angst-ridden Walker on as a veritable patient.

   Apparently the distraught and criminally-minded Walker has been having a recurrent nightmare that is slowly driving him to the brink of insanity. Collins, who seems to believe many criminals can be “cured,” breaks down the symbolism of the dream and helps Walker break from his murderous ways. That’s the gist of The Dark Past.

   Supporting cast members include the lovely Nina Foch as Walker’s girlfriend and Adele Jurgens as one of Collins’s houseguests. Truth be told, however, the movie – which is based on a play – centers around the performances of both Cobb and Holden.

   Both do well enough with the material, even the psychobabble. But the material simply isn’t that particularly compelling, at least from the vantage point of 2025. Still, I surprisingly somewhat enjoyed watching this movie, perhaps due to the short running time and the commitment that both leads gave to the work.

A. S. FLEISCHMAN – Danger in Paradise. Gold Medal #295, paperback original; 1st printing, 1953. Cover by Barye Phillips. Stark House Press, 2010, 2-for-1 edition with Malay Woman.

   It’s easily said, but the fact of the matter is that they just don’t write books like this any more.

   Adventure thrillers, that is, written for the fun of it, and for the reader’s pleasure as well, without the bloated look of a book aimed straight for the bestseller list.

   Jefferson Cape is in a small village in Bali when a beautiful girl slips him a message. Upon his return to the United States, she tells him, he is to make sure it is immediately turned over to the CIA. Unfortunately, he is forced to miss his boat, whereupon he distinctly finds himself a center of attention, and from all sides.

   He soon finds he has fallen in love with the girl, of course, has doubts, has doubts erased, then raised again. Underlying his every action, however, is a sense of honor and chivalry no longer adhered to today, not even by the good guys.

   Maybe you can just chalk this one up to nostalgia.

Rating: B plus.

CHARLES L. HARNESS -The Ring of Ritornel. Berkley X1630, paperback original; 1st printing, November 1968.

   The twelve galaxies surrounding the Node, now at peace, bring [the planet] Terror/Terra to trial in prelude to its destruction. Terror/Terra, having been the cause of the Horror, nuclear warfare which threatened life everywhere, is not felt to deserve mercy.

   But is life a cycle, a Ring so to say, predestined to return to its original form, and then to continue again and again? So say the followers of the god Ritornel, and the postponement of Terra’s destruction may be the key to the Ring’s fulfillment. But Alea, the goddess of chance, has her own followers, who believe that the Ring can be broken, and new life can be formed.

   James Andrek us caught between the two. Seeking the reason for his brother’s disappearance, he id marked for death by the Magister of the Home Galaxy. But then escaping, he returns to put into effect one of the two destinies of the universe.

   A generous sense of wonder is evident throughout, but if the simple matter of statistical mechanics on page 99 is faulty, how much trust can be put into the grander theories of cosmology that follow? Plus a style which is both poetical and heavy reading and the book does not satisfy completely. Yet it is not a book to be missed.

Rating: ****½

WALKING ON AIR. RKO Radio Pictures, 1936. Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern. Director: Joseph Santley.

   A girl hires an obnoxious suitor to force her father to let her marry the man she loves. Nature naturally takes its own way in such matters, and here is no exception. You can very easily write the rest on your own.

   Gene Raymond’s character is also an aspiring young radio singer, which allows for a fine opportunity for a few extra songs, resulting in a pleasant mixture of comedy and music. If Ann Southern could never be called beautiful, she was the next best thing to it.

ARTHUR LYONS Hard Trade. PI Jacob Asch #5.   Holt, Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, 1981. Henry Holt, paperback, 1983.

   There must be more private eyes per capita in California than anywhere else in the world. Jacob Asch is another one. He’s been around for a while, but he’s never gotten himself so deeply caught up in the muck and mire or foul-smelling politics as he does in this one.

   Throughout their long celebrated history, the majority of the work that private detectives do has been to deal with the likes of blackmailers, errant spouses and runaway daughters. Common everyday problems like that. People like Jacob Asch just don’t end up on the county payroll, working for the leading maverick on the L.A. Board of Supervisors or at least not ordinarily.

   On the other hand, while private eyes are known for fighting the system, they’ve almost always been loners, at least in fiction, with hardly ever any kind of power or authority behind them. Nor do they usually end up uncovering a trail of corruption, tinged with illicit homosexual diversions, leading up anywhere nearly as high as this — clear to Sacramento and the governor’s mansion.

   This is heady atmosphere, there’s no denying it, but what it does mean, as whenever a story takes this route, is that there’s a lot less action involved, and the paperwork outweighs the legwork by far. Have no fear, though — the ending is as authentically sour as anything you can find in the works of Chandler, say, and it does compensate a great deal for a slower-than-usual course of events from Mr. Lyons.

   There is, by the way, one other note that is safe to add:

   Here is a book that Jerry Brown will definitely not be pleased with.

Rating: B minus.