Crime Fiction Reader

Dispatches from a crime fiction lover in Astoria, New York

[crimefictionreader]

[crimefictionreader]

253: Willeford’s Miami

The TV show Miami Vice ran from 1984–1990, closing out the decade with a slick, fashionable, multi...

Brief article on the cover art of Willeford’s mass market paperbacks published by Ballentine.

[crimefictionreader]

Hard Case Crime announced on Twitter today that they are re-printing the currently out-of-print novel “Understudy for Death” (summer 2018). This is a novel I’m quite excited to get my hands on to read. 

According to the bibliography in “Willeford” by Don Heron, the original title of the novel was “The Understudy: A Novel of Men and Women”. It was published in 1961 by the Chicago Newsstand Library under the title “Understudy for Love”. The cover blurb read: “When it came to love he was just an understudy...but he was learning in a hurry!” Apparently, the publisher had insisted that he insert additional sex scenes to the novel to make it more racy.   

In 1988, just before Willeford’s death, there were plans to publish a trade paperback of the novel under the title “Understudy for Death” (yet another example of the black humor Willeford is known for). 

[crimefictionreader]

[crimefictionreader]

Kurt Wallander - BBC - Ringtone

For those who wants it on their phone :) http://www.youtube-mp3.org/

"The ringtone of Kurt Wallander's mobile phone is shrill, insistent, impossible to ignore and just a little bit hypnotic. As such the phone represents the pull of the job on Wallander's life: it is always on; liable to go off at any second; it has an unbreakable hold on him"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6983024/Wallander-mobile-ringtone-mystery-solved.html

[emissions]

The Burnt Orange Heresy, Charles Willeford.

[crimefictionreader]

[crimefictionreader]

Last month, I stopped by the Queens Books Festival which was being held in the lot at Kaufman Astoria Studios. Akashic Books was tabling at the event and, while browsing their books, “The Lost Treasures of R&B” caught my eye. I couldn’t pass up a book that was R&B themed detective fiction, especially when the cover design was so visually striking. 

The book is the second or third book in a series but I was able to step in without getting too confused. The story is set in Brownsville, Brooklyn which is in the beginning stages of gentrification. An underground fight club, a botched robbery, corrupt cops, and murder set the stage for the main plot. The secondary plot is a search for an incredibly rare Motown recording of Otis Redding and Diana Ross. The chapter names are inspired by R&B songs and there’s a suggested play list of songs to accompany each chapter (”The Root” by D’Angelo, “On & On” by Erykah Badu, etc.).

This was a fun, quick read. I’m glad I came across this book because it’s a little different from what I usually read.

[crimefictionreader]

[crimefictionreader]

A discussion of the films based on the books of Charles Willeford and also other movies that have a Willefordian sensibility.  There are a couple movies on the list that I need to check out.  For instance, Night Moves starring Gene Hackman is a one that I haven’t seen yet but keeps getting mentioned in things that I’ve read about the genre.  Unfortunately, it’s not available on Netflix right now. 

[crimefictionreader]

What an amazing way to spend a Friday night...listening to crime authors read from their work right here in Astoria.  On my way to the event, I saw Lawrence Block walking down the street (how cool!).

This was my first visit to Astoria Coffee.  It’s a clean, intimate coffee shop with decor that seemed tailor made for the reading of crime fiction.  The authors read in front of a cinder block wall with industrial lights shining down on them.  The room was packed and the lighting definitely added to the atmosphere.

Henry Chang read from “Death Money”, the fourth installment of the Jack Yu series which was published last year.  In the scene, a group of Manhattan detectives and a group of Bronx detectives respond to a 911 call about a floater spotted in the Harlem River. An argument ensues about which jurisdiction is responsible for investigating the murder.  The crowd was absorbed in the reading and were laughing uproariously by the end.

Jason Starr read from “Savage Lane”, which was published just a few days ago.  His writing was crisp and smooth as usual.  

Dennis Tafoya did a reading from an unpublished novel that he is currently working on.  The scene was between an off-duty corrections officer (”CO”) and a woman who is an accomplice of one of the prisoners in the CO’s prison.  The woman was trying to convince the CO to smuggle contraband into the prison.  The CO had smuggled items into the prison before but, despite this, his decision is presented as being a pivotal moment for him.  

I had never heard of Dennis Tafoya but I’m definitely going to check out his books after hearing his work.  I was impressed with his dialogue and storytelling.  For example, there was a line about how the woman pronounced the word “boat” with a southern drawl that made it seem that the vowels went on forever. Amazing.

I couldn’t stick around to hear Lawrence Block read.  I’m hoping someone will post a video online.  He was reading from his new book, “The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes”.

Many thanks to Astoria Coffee, The Astoria Book Shop, and Alex Segura for putting together a great night.

[crimefictionreader]

"And he was drunk. Drunk on Jim Beam, drunk and full of devilry, full of himself, full of shit."

Jo Nesbo, "The Leopard"

[crimefictionreader]

The Reid Technique

I've been meaning to read a book written by Jo Nesbø for quite some time now (my experience with Scandanavian crime fiction up until this point has been limited to Stiegg Larson and Peter Wahloo).  The local library always seems to have a few of Jo Nesbø's books available on the shelf.  I finally checked one of his books out last week: Headhunters.  My expectations for the book were pretty high.  After all, the book was published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

The novel is about an executive recruiter and fine art thief who meets the perfect candidate for a CEO position.  The candidate also just so happens to have a long lost painting of Rubens which could solve all of the protagonist's financial problems.

The book was an enjoyable read but I found myself bored with the plot about halfway through the book.  The most compelling part of the book for me was the protagonist's use of an FBI interrogation technique during recruitment interviews for corporate jobs.  The protagonist, Roger Brown, describes the technique as follows:

It has been said that when the American police investigators Inbau, Reid and Buckley published Criminal Interrogation and Confessions in 1962, they laid the foundations for what have since become the prevailing interview techniques in the Western world.  The truth is, of course that the techniques prevailed long before then, that Inbaud, Reid ad Buchkley's nine-step model merely summarized the FBI's hundred-year experience of extracting confessions from suspects.  The method has shown itself to be enormously effective, on both the guilty and the innocent.  After DNA technology made it possible for old cases to be re-examined, hundreds of people were found to have been wrongly imprisoned in the USA alone.  Around a quarter of these wrongful convictions were based on confessions extracted by the nine-step model.  That says everything about what a fantastic tool it is.

Any casual television viewer is familiar with this technique (e.g. see any episode of the Law & Order series).  Before reading this book, I would not have expected for this technique to be used in situations outside a police precinct (e.g. corporate investigations).  I'm glad I read Headhunters because it prompted me to formally read about this ubiquitous interrogation technique. During my reading I came across an article in the New Yorker that has a thorough discussion of the history and controversies surrounding the technique (see The Interview: Do police interrogation techniques produce false confessions?). 

[crimefictionreader]

Review: Gone Girl

I'm always a little suspicious when a novel is a runaway hit and then turned into a movie, especially when the amount of time between publication and theatrical release is so short (published in 2012 and the movie was released on 10/2/14). The movie trailer was intriguing so, about a week ago, I checked out the book from the library.  I finished reading the book yesterday and then caught an early showing of the movie this morning.

The verdict: I enjoyed the movie but I thought the book was better. There were some important details in the book that increased the suspense and really amped up the creepiness factor (the stalker friend, the movies in the woodshed, the vomit in a jar!). These details didn't make it into the movie, which is understandable given that the movie is 149 minutes long.  All of the major beats of the book made it into the movie and I am genuinely glad that I went to see it in the theater.  Ben Affleck was an inspired choice to portray the character of Nick Dunne.  

[vintagecrimeblacklizard-blog]

I distrust a man that says when. If he’s got to be careful not to drink too much it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (via vintagecrimeblacklizard)

[crimefictionreader]

[crimefictionreader]

The executive who signs his name by quickly scratching a few illegible lines may make himself feel important. He also makes himself a forger’s delight, warns Paul A. Osborn, who heads a New York firm that specializes in examining questionable documents. How should he sign? “The hardest kind of signature to forge is one that contains at least two full names and is written rapidly, freely and legibly", says Mr. Osborn. He adds that the signature should be in normal script, with all the letters connected. A signature with unconnected letters is easier to forge, says Mr. Osborn, because the forger gets a chance to work more slowly, lifting his pen at the breaks while he studies carefully the rest of the letters.

Edward P. Foldessy, "Crime and Business: What You Should Know About the Infiltration of Crime into Business--and of Business into Crime"

Published by Dow Jones Books, 1971