Archives: Hardboiled & Noir

Private Eye

victory's knifeHere at Jones central things have been on the quiet side lately, which is nice. I’m working away on the revision of the second novel of my new series, although revision is a stretch for some portions when a lot of the middle is going to be drafted from scratch.

When not drafting, or still hacking away at the honey-do list, I’ve been reading a lot more, and returned to some of the noir volumes on my shelf. I just polished off Fredric Brown’s The Fabulous Clipjoint and ended up wishing I’d read it a lot sooner, and have been slowly working my way through some great stories in The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, which I’m told by those in the know is a landmark collection. Certainly I’ve enjoyed everything in it, and a lot of it I’ve loved. Finding a lot of new (to me) writers in it I mean to explore.

I’ve also been reading my old friend Joe McCullough’s collection of swashbuckling fantasy fiction, Victory’s Knife,  in preparation for writing a proper review. I hope to have something up about that in a few weeks, and Chris Hocking and I are talking about reviving our Hardboiled Monday series. I want to at least talk about the aforementioned anthology and Wade Miller and some other hardboiled detective writers who need more love.

But for now I need to get back to writing.

Chandler Collected

chandler collected storiesI became a Raymond Chandler fan only a few years ago because I’d seldom wandered beyond the genre walls I threw up for myself — historical fiction, history, fantasy, the occasional space opera or hard science fiction novel. As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I fell for Chandler’s prose, so it was only natural that I explore his canon.

On my birthday last year my friend Brad gifted me with a copy of Chandler’s complete short stories. They include a slew of tales Chandler never wanted reprinted during his lifetime, perhaps because he wasn’t as fond of them, but more likely because he had cannibalized them in the construction of many of his Phillip Marlowe novels. It also includes a final Marlowe short story.

My thoughts? Well, first, there are some great short stories in here that any fan of mystery fiction might have heard of, like “Gold Fish” and “Red Wind.” If you don’t already own a Chandler short story collection that contains these tales — and some other strong ones as well — then this collection is a must have. But that other stuff? It varies. “The Pencil” is the last Marlowe story and it seems somehow faded and removed and tired. It has some of that famed polish, but it’s not written at the height of Chandler’s game and is probably only worth a look for completists. 

Devil May Care

devil may care 1The old saying goes that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, which is a nice sentiment and all, but doesn’t usually hold water as far as actual books. Yes, occasionally a great book is hiding behind a terrible illustration, but more often, as my first born Darian says, “it turns out that no.” A bad cover might mean the publisher either didn’t have their act together or didn’t believe enough in the product to bother hiring a good artist.

Or it might mean that the novel isn’t marketed for you… or that it was marketed in another time.

A case in point is this great adventure novel from the 1950s by the writing team of Wade & Miller. They’re one of my favorites from Chris Hocking’s pulp list, and I hope to go into detail about them later this year. But judging from that cover, which suggests some kind of romance with a hot dame and a brooding lunk, I’d never have picked it up.

Dabir and Asim Return

skelosFor the first time this year I’ve sold a short story. I’m delighted to relay that the upcoming Skelos magazine will be carrying a never-before-published Dabir and Asim story in its second issue! You can see magazine details here and there is, briefly, still time to get in on its kickstarter.

I still fully plan to finish writing at least one more Dabir and Asim novel. If I can actually maintain the pace with this current set of drafts, I hope to find time to create a new Dabir and Asim every other year or so and market it as an e-book. That’s assuming that the next one sells, and that ANY of my next books sell, of course. I think they will, I plan for them to sell, but one does have to be realistic about these things.

Chandlering Around

ladyinlakeBetween a whole lot of revising, thinking about revising, and a mess of home repairs and organizational stuff, spending much time updating the site has felt like a luxury. I hope to be a little more active here in the coming weeks, but I can’t guarantee it.

To wind down in the evenings I’ve continued dipping into various books and short story collections. Typically, while I’m revising, I re-read favorite authors to remind myself of great techniques, and so I’ve been reading some Raymond Chandler short stories. It’s not quite re-reading in some of the cases, because many of them are new to me. And I’ve discovered that the lyricism present in the novels and later stories isn’t as prevalent in his early work, as you’d probably figure. To really soak up the best of his style I’ll probably start re-reading Farewell, My Lovely over the weekend.

In the meantime, though, here’s a link to an interesting essay about Chandler’s revision process. If you haven’t read The Long Goodbye (or even if, like me, you haven’t read it recently) some of it might be too particular to be of use — but there are other details that should be of interest to any writer.

I find that I’m also curious about the work of writer Mike Coggins, who wrote the rather fascinating essay. My to-be-read pile is tottering already, but I like the essay well enough I’ll probably look into his books.

Strange Juxtapositions

nicklebyUpon reflection I find that I’ve been poised between the old and the new a lot in the last few days. For instance, while a passenger on the way to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival, I was reading Nicholas Nickleby. Immediately after finishing Nicholas Nickleby I started reading some hard boiled detective short stories from several omnibuses I’ve acquired.

And, of course, I just finished the rough draft of one novel and am getting ready to start work on the slightly less new one I finished a draft of a few months back.

Maybe I could find this kind of old and new parallel every week if I tried, but it struck me as curious. I mean, I guess any Dickens is pretty old, but not as old as the Reniassance, and that the short stories I was reading were at least 50 years old, but not as old as Nicholas Nickelby, so maybe the problem is I’m reading nothing new.