The Vienna Assignment by Olen Steinhauer, 2005

Last evening, I waited in an autorickshaw queue for about half an hour and while I was still twenty heads away from the starting point, I stepped out of the line and caught a bus home. In-between, I ventured out to my regular bookstore and bought myself a secondhand book and an unhealthy snack. In Bombay, you do crazy things like that. 

© HarperCollins

In the bus, all the seats were occupied, including those reserved for women and senior citizens, so I stood behind the driver and skimmed through my new book—my sixth purchase in the past six months.

The Vienna Assignment, the UK title of 36 Yalta Boulevard by American espionage writer Olen Steinhauer, pulls you right in with the tagline, “To be wrongly accused of murder once is a misfortune. Twice — and it’s a conspiracy.”

The blurb on Book Three of the Yalta Boulevard Sequence convinced me that I’d made a good choice, for it says — “It is the height of the Cold War. When a defector mysteriously returns to the Eastern European village of his birth, it's a chance for disgraced detective Brano Sev to redeem himself. Being framed for a murder should just be part of his cover story. Or is it? Exiled suddenly to Vienna, treacherous city of spies, Sev finds himself caught up in a cat-and-mouse game where survival is the only prize. But in a world where no good deed goes unpunished, loyalty can be the biggest crime of all…”

© HarperCollins

Just my kind of book.

Steinhauer, 44, has also written the bestseller The Tourist, the Milo Weaver Trilogy, and the standalone novel The Cairo Affair. His next release, due 2015, is All the Old Knives which is about terrorism and revenge and is set in California and Vienna.

Rob Kitchin, professor and author, has reviewed the novel on his blog The View from the Blue House.

Col, my good blog friend, reviewed Steinhauer's On the Lisbon Disaster and The Cairo Affair over at his blog Col's Criminal Library. Our mutual blog friend, Tracy, who reviews mystery and espionage books among other fiction at Bitter Tea and Mystery, also reviewed The Cairo Affair and The Tourist. 

Have you read anything by Olen Steinhauer?

The Quick and the Dead, 1995

A passable western for Tuesday's Overlooked Films, Audio & Video at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

I don’t like to see a woman gunslinger any more than I like to see a woman smoker. I’m not being sexist. Of course, a woman has a right to carry a gun, as Ellen (Sharon Stone) does in The Quick and the Dead, and she has a right to smoke or roll a cigarette if she wants to. It’s her business. My point is neither looks good when a woman does it. Besides, I associate both violent means with men. Smoking, in my opinion, is violent too: it can kill or do serious harm to the smoker as well as to the one taking the smoke in the face.

This probably explains, in a skewed way, why I didn’t find Stone convincing as a blonde gunfighter in Sam Raimi’s 1995 western—not even when she draws fast, kills first, and kicks butt. I thought she looked lost in a cowgirl's outfit. At one point her character, Ellen, is so distraught and terrified of the gunfights that she saddles her horse and rides furiously out of town, with no intention of returning. It reveals her vulnerable side.

Ellen enters a dusty and depressing town with a secret motive—to avenge the man who “killed” her father, a US marshal, and destroyed her life when she was a little girl (the film is worth watching for the flashback scene). That man is John Herod (Gene Hackman) whose lawlessness is the new law in town. He pretty much owns and runs everything, like he does as Little Bill Daggett, the crooked sheriff, in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992).

Herod sets up a gun competition in the town ostensibly to find out who the fastest gun is; when, in fact, his sinister aim is to force his former accomplice, Cort (Russell Crowe), a gunman-turned-preacher, into the contest and put a gun back into his shackled hands. Herod admits Cort is one of the best guns.

The elimination rounds pit the townsmen against each other and turn them into gunmen overnight. The dead pile up which includes the Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young, swashbuckling cowboy killed by Herod, his father.

Herod ensures the penultimate gunfight is between Ellen and Cort. He has no doubt Cort will kill Ellen, thus, setting up the final duel between him and the preacher. But, Ellen and Cort have other plans for their nemesis who suddenly finds himself confronted by the blonde gunslinger consumed by hate and revenge. The look on Herod's face is worth freezing.

While I liked The Quick and the Dead because of Gene Hackman—who is in top five of my list of best actors—I didn’t care for the film itself. There is no story as such, only a bunch of gunmen, and gun-woman, who take turns shooting and killing each other in cold blood, and that's about all they really do.

The Man in the Moon by James Reasoner, 1980

"Are you sure you're not the man in the moon?" Cindy asked.

© www.amazon.com

Children often look elsewhere for familial warmth when their own mom and dad start behaving like monsters. Jackie and his kid sister Cindy, abused by their warring parents, briefly find a father figure in Markham, a private detective from Southern California, who "rescues" them on a deserted state highway in Arizona one night.

The kids had escaped from their father, John Wheeler, who had whisked them away from their mother, Elaine, who has custody. They live in a trailer in Dunes.

Markham takes the children back to their mother in the trailer park where he meets Sheriff Cartwright. Before leaving, the detective gives the kids milk and puts them to bed, exchanges pleasantries with their mother, and a word with the county sheriff.

However, instead of heading back to LA, Markham decides to stay back and investigate. Something about the kids troubles him. Jackie has bruises on his arms, a burn mark on the back of his hand, and a black eye. He doesn't see any marks on Cindy. But he knows she is as traumatised as her brother, just under ten and rebellious. 

© www.philsp.com

While Markham has dealt with conmen and blackmailers, and even unfaithful spouses, he has never handled battered kids. His investigation eventually leads him to a sordid trail littered with forgery, burglary, blackmail, adultery, hate, and murder, involving the kids' father John Wheeler and his father-in-law, Ralph Barrett, a powerful businessman who wants to deal with John on his terms.

If nothing prepared Markham for this case, nothing quite prepared me for the end.

In The Man in the Moon, veteran author James Reasoner handles the subject of abused kids with adroitness and sensitivity. While there is no graphic description, the 10,000-word novella does not lack in suspense and intensity. The story moves at a pace that is both leisurely and feverish. Reasoner doesn't waste his words as evident from the clear plot points and a simple and engaging style. He puts you at ease in spite of the gravity of his story.

What I liked most about The Man in the Moon is Markham staying back because he thinks he has a personal stake in the children's welfare. PIs are often like that when it comes to women and kids who are vulnerable and at the receiving end.

The novella first appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine of April 1980 and is one of many stories about Markham that I hope to read. I don't know if the private eye has a first, or second, name. It was reprinted in 2013. I acquired my Kindle edition from Amazon.

Recommended.

Comrades by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 1911

Comrades, by American feminist author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911), is a poignant short story of an ageing and ailing war veteran who agonises over the possibility that he might not be able to don his uniform and walk through the village square to decorate his son, Tommy, on Memorial Day. He has been decorating Tommy ever since the young man died in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

© www.gutenberg.org

The story is set twelve years after the war, in 1910, when veteran Reuben Oak, 81, talks about the impending day with his devoted wife, Patience, many years younger. He used to call her Impatience, sometimes just Imp, before settling for Peter, which came as a relief to her.

Reuben, a carpenter and tobacco planter, and Patience, drowning in her love for her husband, live in a village along the Connecticut valley. They have seen life in all its vicissitudes; the highs and the lows through fifty years of marriage bound by their vows, their ideals, their faith, and their love and respect for each other. Reuben and Patience are a sweet old couple.

Comrades is as much a story about Patience as it is about Reuben and the sacrifices she makes for her husband, including caring for Tommy, “the year-old baby of a year-dead first wife who had made Reuben artistically miserable.” She has a tender and maternal instinct for her husband.

Apart from Patience, the other comrades in the story are Reuben’s fellow veterans, Jabez Trent, in his sixties and the youngest; old Mr. Succor who can’t see; and David Swing on his crutches—the last survivors of the Charles Darlington Post, which, I suspect, was the company they belonged to during the war. Like most veterans, they are proud of the war they fought, and together they wait for Reuben, the oldest of them all, to lead the march on Memorial Day. Although, I'm not sure which war Phelps is referring to. I think it is the Civil War because they would have been too old to fight in the Spanish-American War. I also did not find references to the Charles Darlington Post on the internet, so I'm assuming it is a fictionalised company.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
© www.en.wikipedia.org

I liked Comrades for the overall story, the historical touch and the post-war memories, the gentle atmosphere, and Patience’s beautiful character that shines through the narrative. The writing is sublime as evident from just the author’s description of the woman who flows with the tide.

“Patience, in her blue shepherd-plaid gingham dress and white apron, was standing by the window—a handsome woman, a dozen years younger than her husband; her strong face was gentler than most strong faces are—in women; peace and pain, power and subjection, were fused upon her aspect like warring elements reconciled by a mystery. Her hair was not yet entirely white, and her lips were warm and rich. She had a round figure, not overgrown. There were times when she did not look over thirty.”

I look forward to reading Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ other stories and novels that number more than a dozen. I'm sure they are all as delightful.

Recommended

The Torch Singer trilogy by Robert Westbrook

© www.bookmarq.net

American writer Robert Westbrook, last month, published An Almost Perfect Ending (Swan’s Nest), the second book in his Torch Singer trilogy, a noir thriller focused on fifties Hollywood. Here is a preview of the book. 

Book Two opens with “eponymous smouldering anti-hero Sonya Saint-Amant at the height of her career—a glittering, triumphant appearance at Ciro’s, the club house for the stars in 1950s Hollywood where everyone wants to claim her as their friend. But in 1954 popular music was undergoing a revolution which saw all but the biggest stars cast aside. With her looks and popularity fading, Sonya begins to plot and scheme for her Hollywood life setting old suitors against each other to vie for her attentions. Jealousy and the settling of scores take hold to be first played out on a national stage, and then finally and fatally on a rain-soaked night at a house in Beverly Hills…”

© www.bookmarq.net

We are introduced to Sonya Saint-Amant in Book One of the trilogy. An Overnight Sensation (Swan’s Nest), published August 2014, is “a sweeping historical saga that takes the reader from the horrors of Nazi occupied Poland to the glittery excesses of Hollywood in the 1940’s and 1950’s: the rise and fall of Sonya Saint-Amant, a B-singer who schemes her way to fame and brief glory, breaking all the rules.”

The third and final book in the Torch Singer series will be out in June next year, Conrad Murray, Editor-in-Chief at Swan's Nest, an imprint of bookmarq.net, Toronto, Canada, told me in an email. He sent me both the books for review. Since it will be a while before I read them, I thought I’d give you a peak into the Torch Singer trilogy.

© www.bookmarq.net

Frankly, I’d not heard of Robert Westbrook until Conrad wrote to me. According to his short bio, the author grew up in the world of which he writes. The child of Hollywood parents in the Golden Age he brings the period alive with insight, humor, and an insider's knowledge of show business. He is the author of two critically-acclaimed mystery series, including Ancient Enemy, nominated for a Shamus Award as the Best P.I. Novel of 2002, and Intimate Lies, a memoir detailing the relationship between his mother, Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham, and the author F. Scott Fitzgerald which was published by HarperCollins in 1995. His first novel, The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, was made into an MGM motion picture.

You can read more about Robert Westbrook, a resident of Taos, New Mexico, and his books at his website, at Bookmarq, and on his Amazon page.

Popular fiction by 20 bestselling authors

A trip down memory book lane for Friday's Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase.

As you may have noticed, I frequently refer to popular fiction by bestselling authors of the second-half of the 20th century, most of whom were lords of the bookshelves from the seventies through the nineties. 

Popular fiction is fiction I grew up reading. They were bestselling paperbacks. They were novels and not books. They were everywhere around me, even when I wasn't reading them—at home, at my neighbour’s, in school and college, in bookstores and libraries, on footpaths, and at the scrap dealer’s. They were immensely popular among readers of my generation. They were entertaining but only some were memorable. They were made into successful movies. The bestsellers were one of the reasons I started reading books.

Some of them, like Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace, wrote pulp. Others like Jack Higgins, Len Deighton, and Alistair MacLean, wrote war and espionage. Wilbur Smith and James A. Michener wrote epic journeys across spectacular lands. Mario Puzo and Lawrence Sanders wrote crime and mafia. Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follett, and Sidney Sheldon wrote thrillers. Henry Denker wrote family dramas and human emotions. Jeffrey Archer and Arthur Hailey wrote general fiction.

If you went to a private circulating library, the salesman (not librarian) would toss the latest Jeffrey Archer or Frederick Forsyth across the counter, as if those were the only books Indians read, and yet they most often did. If you read Archer’s Kane and Abel, you read The Prodigal Daughter right after it. Similarly, you read Lawrence Sanders’ Deadly Sin quartet in succession. Ditto with Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy. 

While I’m familiar with all twenty bestselling authors, I have not read all their novels. They have written far too many. You can spend a lifetime reading them. Back then, though, knowing them was reading them. 

What I have done is I have shortlisted, in no particular order, the twenty authors and what I think are some of their more popular novels, many of which I have read. I have not covered any popular women authors, the notable likes of Danielle Steele, Jackie Collins, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Judith Michael, because I have never read their novels. So here goes...

Arthur Hailey: Hotel (1965), Airport (1968), and Wheels (1971)

Jeffrey Archer: Kane and Abel (1979), The Prodigal Daughter (1982), and Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1976)

Robin Cook: Coma (1977), Fever (1982), and Outbreak (1987)

Henry Denker: The Physicians (1975), The Scofield Diagnosis (1977), and A Gift of Life (1989)

Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Identity (1980), The Bourne Supremacy (1986), and The Bourne Ultimatum (1990)

Harold Robbins: A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952), 79 Park Avenue (1955), and The Carpetbaggers (1964)

Irving Wallace: The Prize (1962), The R Document (1976), and The Second Lady (1980)

Wilbur Smith: The Sunbird (1972), A Falcon Flies (1980), and Rage (1987)

Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971), The Dogs of War (1974), and The Fourth Protocol (1984)

Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone (1957), Ice Station Zebra (1963), and Where Eagles Dare (1967)

Jack Higgins: The Last Place God Made (1971), A Prayer for the Dying (1973), and The Eagle Has Landed (1975)

Desmond Bagley: The Snow Tiger (1975), Bahama Crisis (1980), Juggernaut (1985)

Len Deighton: The IPCRESS File (1962), Funeral in Berlin (1964), and XPD (1981),

Dick Francis: Nerve (1964), In the Frame (1976), and Bolt (1986)

Ken Follett: Eye of the Needle (1978), The Key to Rebecca (1980), and The Man from St. Petersburg (1982)

James A. Michener: Hawaii (1959), The Covenant (1980), and Texas (1985)

Sidney Sheldon: The Other Side of Midnight (1973), Bloodline (1977), and Rage of Angels (1980)

Lawrence Sanders: The Anderson Tapes (1970), and Deadly Sin and Commandment series

Mario Puzo: The Godfather (1969), Fools Die (1978), and The Sicilian (1984)

Leon Uris: Mila 18 (1961), Topaz (1967), and Mitla Pass (1988)

Do you identify with any of these authors and their paperbacks?

Reading Habits #14: Does anyone talk books anymore?

In the week that saw closing showers and Thor’s wrath, conjunctivitis in the family, a midnight trip to the airport, problems over water supply, a dental appointment, car and medical insurance, and job deadlines and office sendoffs, this is what I have been thinking about.

In the seventies I discussed the Hardy Boys, the Secret Seven, and the Three Investigators with many of my school friends. In the eighties I talked about popular fiction with a few college mates. In the nineties I conferred about philosophical literature with two colleagues who shared my interest. In-between, there were intermittent exchanges about comic books.

In the first decade of this century I have not had a meaningful discussion about books with anyone.

But in just the past four years I have gone berserk “talking” about books, even showing off about books, with all my blog friends. Those four years have wiped out the book-talk deficit of the previous four decades.

Finally, a door to the mind’s library opened and I’m happily lost somewhere inside the giant labyrinth of books that we read and write about on our blogs every day. I'd like to think that blogging is god's 21st century gift to book lovers.

Of course, over the past two decades and more I have been discussing books with my wife, whose main interests lie in the Classics, Agatha Christie, and P.G. Wodehouse, among others, and later with my grown-up daughter who reads weighty books that include fantasy.

Both are wise and serious readers. They read one book at a time and finish it before picking up another. I read three books at a time and finish none. First I hoard books on my shelf and then I hoard them in my mind, dog-eared at the halfway mark of my intellect and no further.

My point is does anyone read and talk books outside the blog world anymore? Do you have to join public libraries, book clubs, and writing workshops to discuss books with others who read them as well? Is chucking anti-social smart phones really the solution to getting people to read books again and, hopefully, talking about them? Would it help if I collared a few people and forced books into their hands? Do I miss the old and informal way of talking about books?

Quite frankly, do I even need answers to these questions when I have you all, my fellow readers and bloggers, to discuss books with?