The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett

Dashiell Hammett is a wonderful writer. This is the third book I have read of his, and though I feel it was the least strong and found it boring  at times, he still has a charm that I cannot deny turns me on. In the same way Don Draper’s charm turns people on, if you follow me.

His stories are typically prohibition era private-eye or consultant detective solving a murder mystery or busting up a crime ring. The Maltese Falcon was my introduction to him, and featured a great detective who did not trust anyone trying to find a missing treasure, which is a falcon of gold from Malta, if you can believe it. The hero is a highly intuitive, rough and stoic chauvinist who openly admits to not trusting or loving anyone and this seems to always work to his advantage in solving crimes. Red Harvest was another great book where a man who essentially owns a town with his wealth is seeing it slip away after the murder of his son, so he hires a private-eye, the best in the business, to come set the town aright. The private-eye does actually very little, but learns from everyone by being agreeable, receptive, and working “on their side” and eventually, the 4 different crime-rings are at full on war with each other and the hero watches the town destroy itself. It is the only way to purge the town of the evils that plague it. It is very violent and very clever. 

This book, though very much lacking in terms of action (only one scene where the protagonist is shot and wounded), is also very clever and features a detective carved from the same block as the other two stories. Only difference is this guy is married, and the sexual tension between he, his wife, and each partner’s friends-of-the-opposite-sex is really entertaining to me. Young girls and mature women alike all seem to love Nick Charles, and men off all different backgrounds in the story cannot seem to get enough of his wife Nora. And because they are constantly detecting, they each flirt back incessantly. I think it is a fun new angle from the types of characters I am familiar with through Hammettt’s stories.

The plot of this one is pretty basic: lover of an inventor is murdered. Ex-wife and her family, who have worked with the vacationing, retired, Nick Charles in the past, are expected to be involved. The current detective on the case ends up using Nick as a consultant of sorts. And even though Nick wants nothing more than to refrain from getting involved, he just cannot help it. The people in the Wynant family are all great characters: the eccentric inventor ; the lying, harsh and violent cougar-attractive mother; the equally as dangerous and untrustworthy yet incredibly beautiful daughter; the strange detective-hopeful son with a knack for spying on everyone; and the wife’s new husband and step-father to the children,  supposed Frenchman Chris Jorgensen.

Everyone is hiding something and Nick and Nora trust nobody. Instead, their method of solving this murder is to visit speakeasies and hose down the degenerate low-class criminals with alcohol and flirtatious charisma to get’em talking. In typical Hammett fashion, very few pages remain when the crime is still unsolved, but without giving anything away the hero pretty much has a final grasp of what is going on here. Then, as news unfolds, his chess pieces in place, he is able to kick the gate open on the whole thing and everyone goes home no longer confused but still very uncomfortable.

I do believe it to be the weakest of the 3 I have read of his, but refuse to back down on recommending Hammett as a great American all-around detective novel badass. I would suggest that anyone with any desire for those types of stories should start with the Maltese Falcon and then try out the less-clever-yet-much-more-violent Red Harvest.

Wizard and Glass - The Dark Tower: Book Four (Part I)

That Part I bit in parentheses is due to the fact that I wrote so much to this book, I wanted to share it in two parts. Oh and I sort of read it in two parts, breaking midway through (which this review covers, obviously) to pick up a book for our Book Club, the CBC, which was Nation (reviewed last month).

We join Roland and the gang right where we left them at the end of Book III; aboard Blaine the Mono hauling ass through the Waste Lands at an incredible rate of speed. Blaine is a psychotic self aware and extremely violent computer system on board the at-one-time state of the art monorail, and enjoys riddles even more than he enjoys slaughtering everyone within the city of his resting station.

Thus far the series has evoked villains from so many different backgrounds it is difficult to expect anything but the unexpected next: old west druggies and undead folks; a crazed religious figurehead that turns to an extremist leading a deathgroup; zombies at the way station; a mysterious wizardly man in black; demon-fairies and just straight up demons; Jack Mort the insane violent psychopath in contemporary New York City; Guido Druglords; giant evil venomous lobstrocities and their lawyering questions; A giant bear that is actually a robot with some sort of disease; a plaster man that jumps out of the walls of a haunted house and eats people; and some wackos within the city in which Blaine the Mono reigns, unbeknownst to the wicked ruler we only know as Tic-Toc. Not to mention the monsters that the gang sees on their way through the Waste Lands.

That being said, this universe is very fucked up. Stephen King is a very cynical writer and most characters are either terrifying to imagine or just plain twisted. Everyone thinks of some pretty nasty stuff on occasion, but we maintain that we are mostly normal. The characters thus far, though, seem to be composed entirely of the very things we find repulsive in one another or, worst of all, deep within ourselves. Which is what I like about King and what I really like about the series. Not a lot of good people, not much in the way of innocence and sure as hell there is nobody who is remotely innocent here that doesn’t get side-swiped by some unfortunate turn of events.

Stephen King is also a man with children in his stories. Nearly every book I have ever picked up of his, save maybe 1 (Misery I think?) has a child character or a scene where a character is flashing back to being a child. And he loves cashing in on the discomfort of growing up, and also of being afraid. So after Eddie, against all odds, bails the gang out with nothing other than quick wit, silly New York humour (i.e. dead baby jokes), and a face melting explosion of shit talk, Roland is faced with the difficult task of regaling them with the story of Susan, the woman he oft refers to in his incoherent mumblings.

I mentioned it just now but I have been drinking so I will say it again, before we get side tracked with the legend of Roland, Eddie Dean’s trash talk is a truly magnificent piece of this series. Everyone has a weapon in life. Some people throw their weight around, some are gunslingers, some are quiet and polite but are real killers underneath with a quick hand and a lethal touch. Eddie Dean is a man I can relate to, though. His weapon is his mouth. His big fucking idiotic mouth. Issue him a challenge and the fight is over before it even begins, literally, as it probably will not reach the point of fighting since people like him are the sort than can break a man (or machine, mind you) down with harsh language so effectively that everything the challenger hates about him, he is brought to see in himself and absolutely loses his mind, composure, and all ability to maintain the upper hand. I dig that.

Back to the Legend. Roland sets the stage with this young hottie Susan real well. We are transported to another world - or another where and another when, in this series - and it turns out this one is a Western with a small Western-like town and a witch just outside. The witch is pretty nasty, truly vile in the Stephen King sense but also a bit comical, as she is quite terrible at being a witch at her old age. I really like the setting, especially as we learn more about it. Not just a Western, but a post-apocalyptic Western where some of the carryover from a world we might recognize (oil fields, tankers, refrigerators) make appearances but there is mystery as to how anyone could make honest use of them. The references to mutants amongst the horses, cattle, and pets gives the reader more hints at this universe, lending more to the debate of “our world that was split by nuclear warfare, or just a fantasy world that is similar to ours and then split by nuclear warfare?” Bog (and King) only knows.

It is better to just sit back and let the worlds unravel themselves. And pay attention to the hot broad that catches Roland’s eye. Teenage Roland, that is. And even a complete badass like him, the youngest gunslinger of all time, needs to have a good alibi for fucking the holy Christ out of a tragic young blonde like Susan Delgado; so he says it is Ka. “No, no, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to do these awesome things to her, I just have to. It’s Ka!” (not an actual quote from the book).

This is also our first real introduction to the character from Roland’s youth that we have come to learn is much like Eddie Dean, Cuthbert Allgood. The kid is a phenomenal character. Always talking, like Eddie, always trying to make a joke, and never at an appropriate time. And really, all Roland wants is for him to shut up. But the kid also has talent. He can talk his way out of a jam as easily as he can talk his way into it. Plus, he is a killer just like Roland. Very understanding of the ways of a gunslinger, even if he has not passed through his rite yet. Also a bit of a jealous bone, which makes him very human but very much the identifiable young, envious, right-hand-man to Roland’s young alpha-male group leader personae.