From the Hard Case Crime imprint, this collects the 3 issues of Walter Hill’s The Assignment. With the upcoming movie starring Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodriguez, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this trade paperback.
The Assignment Vol. #1
The Blacklist: Elizabeth Keen’s Dossier
If you’re done binge watching Daredevil Sesaon 2 on Netflix, then it’s time to pick another cool action-thriller, that is NBC’s critically acclaimed The Blacklist starring James Spader (Raymond “Red” Reddington) and Megan Boone (Elizabeth Keen), which is currently on it’s 3rd TV season. The first two seasons of The Blacklist are on Netflix and I have to say I’m hooked on the characters and the story. Hardcore fans of The Blacklist may want to take a look at this new Titan Books release, Elizabeth Keen’s Dossier by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry.
The Original QUARRY Novel by Max Allan Collins
Borderline by Lawrence Block
The sizzling pulp novel “Borderline” by prolific American crime author Lawrence Block sees the printed pages once again after 50 years of being out of print. Four lives intersect on the border towns of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico.
Marty is a smart professional gambler always looking for a good card game in Juarez. After a couple of years spent in a failed marriage, Meg is looking for some fun and action. The beautiful blonde Lily is looking to make money and get out of the border towns. The insane killer running from the law, Weaver is looking for his next bloody victim. These 4 characters ultimately cross each others’ lives in “Borderline.” The book also includes 3 Lawrence Block short stories: 1) The Burning Fury (1959); 2) A Fire At Night (1958); and 3) Stag Party Girl (1963).
A Mike Hammer Novel – King of the Weeds
I enjoy reading Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins crime/pulp fiction books. Just like Dirty Harry, shoot first and ask questions later, that’s the Mike Hammer way.
In “King of the Weeds,” Mike Hammer and long-time partner Velda Sterling look to ride off into the sunset with marriage and retirement, but an decades old murder case looks stir things up with his old buddies Captain Pat Chambers and Army pal Marcus Dooley.
The Wrong Quarry
Over the weekend, I was excited to get my hands the new Quarry book “The Wrong Quarry” by author Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition). His long-running series is about a former US Marine sniper Quarry (no need to know his real name) turned professional hitman. Quarry offers clients that are marked-for-death a unique service, dependent on the fee paid, he gets rid of the hit team after the clients and investigates who hired the hit.
Deadbeat – Makes You Stronger by Guy Adams
Max Jackson and Tom Harris are not just best friends, but “retired” thespians always looking for a pub or two for a great night out all over London. Their new drinking hangout is Deadbeat, a cozy jazz bar that Tom bought a few years back after retiring from the theatre business. Some novellas may want you drinking a nicely brew coffee or tea with biscuits, but for this Guy Adam’s pulp fiction novel, you may just want to grab some beer and chips and enjoy the rollicking adventure.
The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter
If you like sexy women, French accents, booze, cigarettes, and murders to solve, you will want to read Ariel S. Winters debut crime novel – “The Twenty-Year Death.” The crime tale begins with a dead body on the streets of a small French town. What unravels are three complete stories that are interconnected – making one epic narrative. The first story – “Malvineau Prison” takes place in France in 1931; Book 2 – “The Falling Star” takes place in 1941 and involves a private detective keeping an eye on a studio’s leading lady in Hollywood; and the final Book – “Police at the Funeral” happens in 1951 and tells the tale of one man’s last chance at redemption.
This is a great debut novel by the author and I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the different writing styles in each book. If you are not in the mood for summer blockbuster flicks at the theater or sitting at home playing with your iPad, may I suggest some page turning thrills with “The Twenty-Year Death.”
Interview with The Twenty-Year Death Author Ariel S. Winter
Next week on August 7th 2012, Titan Books will be releasing Ariel S. Winter’s debut crime noir novel “The Twenty-Year Death.” Our Retrenders staff had a chance to interview Mr. Winter and talk a little about the book, his influences, and more:
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RTNDR: How did you come up with the idea to start The Twenty-Year Death? What inspired you to write not just one story but three complete novels written in the style of three different iconic mystery writers?
Ariel: I originally set out to write a different book. It was going to have a frame narrative, and within that frame would have been full novels of various genres. So it was in that context that I wrote Malniveau Prison in the style of Georges Simenon. When I decided to jettison the original idea but keep Malniveau Prison and expand it into what became The Twenty-Year Death, it only made sense to continue with other pastiche/homages. The character that I was going to follow from book to book was an American writer living in France in the 1930s, and so many of the writers who did that in real life, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, ended up writing for Hollywood at some point. And Hollywood led naturally to Raymond Chandler in the 1940s. So with ten years between the first two books I figured there should be another ten years between book two and book three, and the list of choices of master crime writers from the 1950s was basically Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith. At the time, I’d read more Thompson and his style fit better for the subject of the book.