Tue 29 Mar 2016
ROSS THOMAS – Voodoo, Ltd. Durant & Wu #3. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1992; paperback, 1993.
Well, it’s out: Ross Thomas’s twenty-fourth book, and the third featuring the team of the lean, scarred Quincy Durant and Arthur Wu, pretender to the Chinese throne. What more needs to be said?
The story takes place about five years after events of Out on the Rim. Durant and Wu are partners in WuDu, Ltd., a London firm that does for you which you might not want to do yourself. They are hired by Help! (a sort of headhunter firm for those with delicate, out-of-the-ordinary, and confidential needs) to find a pair of missing hypnotists. The hypnotists were also furnished by Help! to Ione Gamble, a famous actress-director accused of murdering her ex-lover and producer. Blackmail is feared, among other things.
Recruited by Artie and Quincy to help are Otherguy Overby, an amiable but ruthless con man (“It was some other guy”), Georgia Blue, a thoroughly ruthless ex-Secret Service agent, and Booth Stallings, the international terrorist expert; all of whom appeared in the preceding Wu-Durant adventure. The interplay of characters among these five forms an integral part of the book.
All of the things we’ve come to expect from Thomas are here to one degree or another. a convoluted fast-paced plot, thoroughly amoral characters (though usually charmingly so), and all imbued with Thomas’s wryly cynical way of looking at the world and its creatures.
On the other hand … If you haven’t met the players before, you won’t find the usual carefully built and illuminating characterizations that are one pf Thomas’s strengths, and none of the supporting characters are strong enough to compensate. Too, the plot seems rather standard — for Thomas, anyway.
Overall, it’s the weakest book he’s done in a long while. But it’s still damned good, and well worth your time.
Editorial Comment: Barry’s author profile of Ross Thomas, which anticipated this as his next book, can be found on this blog here.
March 29th, 2016 at 9:35 pm
Agreed on this one, although even weaker Thomas is better than anyone else. If nothing else I have long held Otherguy Overby is one of the great names in the literature.
The curious thing about Thomas is how much you can identify with and cheer on his amoral characters. In that he reminds me of the same country Eric Ambler mined so brilliantly, one where morality was as porous as a colander.
I don’t know if there would have been more about Durant and Wu or not from him had he lived. On the one hand the books were popular, but it was growing increasingly hard for him to find much new to say about the pair and their friends.
How Hollywood managed to avoid Thomas has always amazed me. You can virtually cast the film reading the book and hear the bright brittle dialogue propelling the plot along. He is cinematic in the sense you can hear echoes in his work of movies like THE MALTESE FALCON and CASABLANCA.
Maybe that’s the problem. At the time these were written there was no Bogart, no Greenstreet’s, Lorre’s, and the like to read those devastating lines on screen. Hopefully his work will be rediscovered since it would take little to update most of it to fit todays world, he was that good and that universal at what he was portraying.
Looking back I am amazed that at the time he was writing there was him, Waumbaugh, George Higgins, Gerald Petrivich, Joe Gores, Thomas Perry, Bill Granger, and so many others writing so well so consistently in a voice that is virtually unheard today or at best badly aped by a handful of bestselling writers who can’t hold a candle to them.
March 30th, 2016 at 7:41 am
I think Thomas wrote only one other book after this one, and perhaps the sense of disappointment I read in Barry’s review was due to the fact that Thomas was running out of of good story ideas. I appreciate Barry’s warning that it might not be a good idea to read this one (I haven’t) without reading earlier ones in the same series.
On my night table waiting for me to pick up to read some time very soon is THE FOOLS IN TOWN ARE ON OUR SIDE. I’ve read it before, but after 45 years, I don’t think I should begrudge myself for reading it again.
That’s a good list of authors you bring up in your last paragraph, David. Good? Make that excellent.
Right here on my desk beside me are two books by Thomas Perry, still active I believe: STRIP and THE INFORMANT. All I need is more time.
April 1st, 2016 at 7:42 am
Steve, you and David are right about Ross Thomas. Thomas hit his peak around THE EIGHTH DWARF.
Thomas Perry grew up here in Western NY before he moved to the West Coast.
April 1st, 2016 at 10:18 am
One of the few Ross Thomas I have yet to read so I did not read the review.
But as for Thomas Perry I agree. Both men even have writing for SIMON AND SIMON in common. Perry is very much active and has been on tour promoting his latest FORTY THIEVES that I look forward to reading,
April 3rd, 2016 at 2:35 pm
Almost bought this awhile back when I was renewing my acqaintance with Mr. Thomas. You’ve just nudged me into the download zone.
April 4th, 2016 at 1:24 pm
Matt Paust, for some reason there are a few of Ross Thomas books not available as e-books and VOODOO LTD. is one of them. I am still waiting to download this one to my kindle. But you should find one in print.
Thomas is the only author I have left where I wonder what is worst – to die before reading every one of his books or to live long enough where I don’t have any new Ross Thomas books to look forward to read.
From what I have read about him you are lucky to have known him.