Hell Is Too Crowded by Jack Higgins, 1962

Patti Abbot has all the links to Friday's Forgotten Books at her blog Pattinase.

“I’d have followed you to Hell if necessary,” Brady said.

“But Hell is too crowded, my friend,” Davos smiled gently. “There was never anything of a personal nature in this affair, Brady.”

Hell Is Too Crowded is a murder mystery which is interesting because Jack Higgins, the best-known pseudonym of British writer Harry Patterson, doesn’t write many of them. He usually writes spy and war thrillers in which the main characters are kind mercenaries, tough and battle-scarred, idealists with a fatalistic view of life, loners with little hope of any kind of redemption.

Matthew Brady has none of those characteristics but the structural engineer from Boston, Massachusetts, isn’t the kind of hero you'd normally find in a Jack Higgins novel. He is, in fact, a normal person who has been drinking to forget the woman who dumped him and ran off with his money. Standing alone on the embankment of the Thames in England, cut off from all human beings, Brady tries to make sense out of his life, when an attractive woman called Marie Duclos runs into him in the thick fog, apparently trying to get away from a stalker.

As gracious as all of Higgins’ heroes are, Brady is instinctively protective of her and accepts her invitation to spend the night at her place. He kisses her, has a drink, and passes out. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in someone else’s nightmare—framed for the grisly murder of the French woman, a known prostitute.

“Her clothes had been ripped and shredded from her body. She sprawled there wantonly, her thighs spattered with blood, but it was the face which was the ultimate horror, a sticky, glutinous mess of pulped flesh.”

Inspector Mallory and Detective Gower of Scotland Yard take the half-dazed and half-drugged Matthew Brady into custody and it’s not long before he finds himself condemned to spend the rest of his innocent life in Manningham Gaol, a maximum-security prison.

Now Brady may not be anything like Sean Dillon or Paul Chavasse, the ex-IRA turned British agents and two of the author’s most famous heroes, but what he has in common with them is plenty of guts, a fighting spirit, a penchant for stupid risks, a brazen attitude, and the knowledge that he could be going down a one-way street.

Unbelievably, Brady escapes from Manningham and begins his hunt for the man (or men) who framed him. I found it slightly reminiscent of Andy Dufresne's escape from the Shawshank State Penitentiary in The Shawshank Redemption.

There hasn't been a Jack Higgins novel that doesn’t have a lovely girl in it. Anne Dunning, the daughter of Harry Dunning who worked with Brady on a dam project in Brazil, crops up out of nowhere and joins him in his quest. Their love is unspoken. Together, they unearth the truth behind the frame-up and discover why Brady was made scapegoat. The book is less than 120 pages, so I have given away very little.

Final word
Hell Is Too Crowded sounds like the title of a hardboiled noir paperback. It isn't. It’s a simple and uncomplicated story of a man who is at the wrong place at the wrong time. It has been done before. There is plenty of action thanks mainly to Brady’s knack for getting into trouble. The end is predictable though it's not always so in some other novels of Jack Higgins, who has written this one in his characteristic mild-to-moderate style. A decent read.


My previous reviews of Jack Higgins novels:

1. The Keys of Hell, 1965
2. The Iron Tiger, 1966
3. A Fine Night for Dying, 1969
4. A Prayer for the Dying, 1973
5. Storm Warning, 1976

Stand-up comedy by Jim Carrey and Ray Romano

A little something different for this Tuesday's Overlooked Films, Audio & Video over at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

I'm a sucker for stand-up comedy. I enjoy watching stand-up comedians deliver clean, witty, satirical, and intelligent lines on stage. I wonder how they do it. Do they speak impromptu or do they rehearse? I assume it's a little of both: they practice first and then speak extempore. I also wonder if stand-up comedy is an in-built thing, a gift you were born with, a talent you inherited through your genes.

It takes a lot of courage and confidence to stand up before a live audience, babble non-stop, and make them laugh. What happens if you know your jokes are beginning to fall flat and you're losing your audience? Do you reach for the flask of whisky in your pocket?

Everyone has a good joke to tell but not everyone can tell a good joke. Most of us have at one time or another told a joke to family and friends and met with embarrassing silence. Now imagine that on a much bigger scale.

One of the reasons I also like watching awards ceremonies like the Academy and Golden Globe are the speeches by the presenters and winners, particularly those who have a proclivity for humour, like Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Meryl Streep, Jim Carrey, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Sacha Baron Cohen, Hugh Laurie, Ray Romano, Jennifer Lawrence, and Adrien Brody. Their speeches are a form of stand-up comedy too.

Surfing the internet for some good stand-up comedy, I came across two short nineties clips on YouTube. The first is Jim Carrey’s tribute to Clint Eastwood at the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1996 and the other is Ray Romano’s jokes at a talk show appearance long before Everybody Loves Raymond.

Both are very funny, especially Carrey with his imitation of the man with no name. Romano excels with his parental humour. Take a look below.

Library Anxiety

This is the first time I have come across the term Library Anxiety. I discovered it quite by accident on the website of the Luria Library of Santa Barbara City College, California, which hosted a national library week. I was intrigued by its theme which read as follows:

“Have you ever been intimidated by the thought of asking a librarian a question? If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of people around the world have Library Anxiety, avoiding libraries for a variety of reasons: time constraints, uncertainty about a librarian’s ability to meet their information need, fear of looking unintelligent for not being able to find information themselves, and more. Some people may simply be overwhelmed by the vast amount of information libraries provide through electronic databases and the library’s collection itself, not knowing where to start in the information search.”

The Luria Library assured students that the National Library Week would be “the perfect time to leap over the hurdle of Library Anxiety and learn more about what your library can do for you.” 

Students at the Library of Congress.
Photo source: www.loc.gov

I thought it was a very innovative reaching-out programme for students. It showed that the college cared for their well-being.

In the past I have been a member of private libraries as well as the British Council Library and the American Library in Mumbai, but I have never experienced Library Anxiety. I recall going up to the librarian(s) often and inquiring about the availability of specific books or reserving those I wanted to borrow. Librarians are by and large friendly people. I suppose that is because they spend the entire day among tons and tons of lovely books, which is not to say that their jobs are less stressful.

Apparently, Library Anxiety is an issue and is linked to other forms of anxiety and stress. The Washington State University, which offers counselling services, describes Library Anxiety as “a real and prevalent problem for many college students. Very basically, Library Anxiety is a fear of both the library space, which can be seen as overwhelming and confusing, and of the process of using the library to find materials.”

The American Library in Mumbai.
Photo source: www.photos.state.gov

In fact, the WSU Libraries – Guides has listed four common signs and symptoms of Library Anxiety: fear and uneasiness with the physical space of the library, often related to how big the library is; fear of approaching a librarian or library worker to ask for help; fear that you are alone in not knowing how to use the library; and feeling paralysed when trying to start library research.

I haven’t been to a library in nearly two decades and I haven't met anybody who felt anxiety in one, so there’s not much I can say. Do you have anything to share on this relatively unknown phobia?

Who Is Killing The Great Chefs Of Europe?

First things first. I have neither read the book I purchased four years ago nor seen the film I read about subsequently. I found this book in a cupboard while looking for some other book and couldn't wait to write about it. 

Originally published as Someone Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe, 1976, this 239-page novel by Nan and Ivan Lyons is a comic-murder mystery. Someone is killing Europe’s most famous chefs "in a manner that reflects their most famous dishes." For instance, the lobster chef is drowned. Even more intriguing is that the recipe for each dish is given in the book. 

This is what the back cover of my 1979 Coronet edition (above right) says, “While the world’s sexiest cook prepares her ‘Bombe Richelieu’ for dessert at Buckingham Palace, a connoisseur criminal who makes Jack the Ripper seem like a vulgar amateur is serving up the bloodiest master-caper ever conceived. An outrageous mixture of liberated pleasure and gourmet violence sizzling with surprise-a-page suspense…”

And here are the first lines of the book: “Lacquered to perfection. Crisp skin. Warm moist pancakes. Spring onions and sweet bean sauce. Yes. If he were to leave London immediately, within eighteen hours he could be in Peking.”

In 1978, Ted Kotcheff (of First Blood fame) made a film starring George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset, and Robert Morley. It had music by Henry Mancini. The film was released as Too Many Chefs in the UK.

Have you read the book or seen the film?


For actual reviews of Forgotten Books this Friday, go to Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

R.I.P.: Tom Clancy, 1947-2013

Tom Clancy at Burns Library, Boston College, in November 1989.
Photo: Gary Wayne Gilbert/Wikimedia Commons

Tom Clancy was one of my favourite authors of spy thrillers. His Cold War novel, The Hunt for Red October, tops my list of those of his books which I have read.

His novels were technically brilliant and technologically superior. In this regard he was ahead of all his peers. In fact, he was probably the only one to write the way he did. Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré are known for writing highly researched novels but mostly in a non-technical way.

Clancy was a fearless writer. For instance, in Red October, he took the reader into the bowels of a submarine and not only explained how it worked but also compared it with rival U-boats. Going into a sub is one thing, writing about its nuts and bolts is another (I don't know if Clancy actually went into one). My knowledge of a submarine is restricted to its periscope and torpedo. I know what the two things are used for but it was Clancy who explained in some detail how to look through the first and fire the second.

The author of several entertaining thrillers like Patriot Games, Red Storm Rising, and Clear and Present Danger had a large number of fans in the US and other world militaries including, I suspect, secret admirers in the then Soviet (now Russian) navy.

As far as spy thrillers go, Tom Clancy was in very good company. He is part of my list of 10 of the best writers of espionage books. I have mentioned the other nine below, along with titles of novels that I think are their best. Actually, I like all their work.

01. Tom Clancy – The Hunt for Red October

02. Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins) – The Eagle Has Landed

03. Don Pendleton (Mack Bolan) – Continental Contract

04. Frederick Forsyth – The Day of the Jackal

05. Alistair MacLean – The Guns of Navarone

06. John le Carré – The Russia House

07. Ken Follett – Eye of the Needle

08. Len Deighton – XPD

09. Craig Thomas – Firefox

10. Donald Lindquist – The Red Gods

Of all these writers, the last two, Thomas and Lindquist, have been forgotten. I recommend their books to those who haven't read them.

Books I read in the second quarter

Actually, that should read Books I didn’t read in the second quarter. Unlike in the first quarter, April to June, when I read 17 fictional and non-fictional books, I read only six in the past three months, averaging a poor two books a month. I didn’t read much because I didn’t feel like reading. You don’t have to scroll far down the blog to find out the ones I did.

The only book I read but didn’t review was A Dog of Flanders (1872) by English author Marie Louise de la Ramée. The short fiction, published under her pseudonym Ouida, is the beautiful and touching story of a poor boy and his bighearted dog. There is history behind this story which has been adapted to film thrice. I think there is an animated version too.

Of the remaining five books, I enjoyed reading The Girl from Sunset Ranch by Amy Bell Marlowe (1914), Vultures in the Sun by Brian Garfield (1987), and All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards (1991).

As always, I read comic books including Action Comics #1 (June 1938) where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduce Superman to the world. The rather immature storyboard didn’t hold up but that is to be expected in this digital world of comics. I read the comic book online though I wouldn’t mind owning the rare comic worth millions of dollars.

So if I didn’t read books in my spare time, what did I do? I have been watching Friends all over again with the family. We are now in Season 6 where Monica proposes to Chandler. I think it is one of the best sitcoms to come out of the nineties. It has plenty of good humour. I also like its central premise about six friends who stick up for each other. It gives you a nice feeling.

I’m hoping to read more books in the third quarter, from now until new year’s eve. Let’s see how that comes out.

The Concrete Jungle, 1982

A little-known B-movie for Overlooked Films at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

In the days before videocassette recorder and video cassette and colour and cable television, I watched films in the theatre, often alone. I saw all kinds of films, mostly bad films; so bad, in fact, you’d have to be really frantic to go to a theatre to see them. One did this sort of thing in one’s adolescence, when one is rudderless.

Even after all these years, I can’t get over the fact that I actually saw The Concrete Jungle made by someone called Tom DeSimone and starring Jill St. John, Tracey E. Bregman, and BarBara Luna. I have no idea who they are.

I don’t know if I went for this film because I thought it was about urban construction but I do remember that it made me squirm in my seat. I dislike films involving frame-ups and innocent victims doing torturous time in prison usually at the mercy of the evil warden and a bunch of depraved sex maniacs. The repeated rape of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), an otherwise brilliant film, had me squirming too.

You might think the girl-on-girl action in The Concrete Jungle would raise testosterone levels in a 15-year old. It didn’t because I was scared silly. Since then, I have seen few sick films, like The Exorcist (1973), again brilliant but sick.

Around the time I saw The Concrete Jungle, I also saw two other films in the theatre, one about heaven and the other hell—Jesus Christ, a documentary, and The Day After (1983) that some people thought was a porn film. It was, in fact, about the devastating effects of nuclear war.

As I said, I saw all kinds of films back then. Did you?