FFB: THE SPECIALISTS by Lawrence Block

FFB: THE SPECIALISTS by Lawrence Block

I picked up a copy of this one recently and finally got around to reading it this past week. As with many of the other Block books I have read I found it to be a fast paced, fun read. In my mind I have kinda thought of it as The A-Team '69. Here's the overview from Block's website--

Five former Green Berets and their one-legged colonel knock off a mob-run bank in the aid of truth, justice, and the American way---not to mention a lot of cash.

Originally published by Fawcett Gold Medal, in 1969-- it's exactly what it needed to be, filled with not only the bank job but about bit about the cover stories/ day to day lives of the five men who are going to carry out the mission. I like that day to day stuff, the idea that there are people out there in the world who look like they have the average life, but every so often they head off and do something adventurous. I know that isn't uncommon in the crime fiction of the time and those who have written in homage to that era. Westlake's Parker has some of the same allure and I recently read Max Allan Collin's Quarry in the Middle which also includes that fixture of having a criminal life and a normal life. Maybe it's that when that type of fiction came into the market it's audience was mainly men who had experienced WWII, Korea and Vietnam who were settled into lives much like the cover lives of our heroes and these stories were an escape to feed that adventure and action impulse in lives. I wonder if as we get more and more Iraq vets rotating back to the world if we are going to see another spike in the audience for adventure fictions. I'd also love to see Block revisit these guys, it's been a bit over 40 years where are they now? and how did they get there?

My copy is from Foul Play Press, and has a nice minimal cover that I could not find an image of on the web. I have a couple of other books from them by Block and I think they did reissue of the Richard Stark Grofield books, which I have the set of as well. Anyone out there know anything about Foul Play? Thoughts, Comments, ect?

more forgotten book goodness HERE

Forgotten Music: Life Sentence to Love by Legal Weapon

Life Sentence to Love by Legal Weapon is a special little forgotten an in all honesty flawed album, It bombed when released, it's over produced, it's a little to slick, and when you play the tunes many of which are rerecorded version of songs from their earlier indie album versions they just lack the roar and grit of the original, but I love this record anyway. I am not sure why, it's got all of the stuff that I mentioned going against it, but still it endures in my collection, not only on compact disc, but on LP as well.

Musically it's cleaned up west coast 80's punk rock, it's what a major label, a studio and a producer can turn a band into... hell honestly, I wasn't there, I don't know what really happened. I suspect that the label heard in the band what many of us fans out there (and there are fans) heard, a great bluesy slightly country rock sound, with a strong voiced woman out front. They saw a punk group that had survived the LA scene with the core intact (and a seemingly ever changing get of players in the background), who were different enough from the Hardrock Blues Metal (read Hairmetal) pack to stand out, but still in the same ballpark and might sell to that market.

Released in 1988, and come to think of it that was about the time that I was on the prowl for Legal Weapon stuff (it would be almost 5 years before I could track anything down, and then I would have to special order it), but I never saw this album anywhere around. Come to think of it there was a lot of punk rock stuff that had somehow slipped into the world of the bigger entertainment industry ( the film world had The Runnin' Kind and Dudes, the soundtrack of which is where I found out about Legal Weapon)... and most of it floundered. Maybe it just wasn't time, maybe it's not anything that will ever have a time.

There is a little place in my heart where I want to believe that this album would have been a hit. At least a underground hit, if it had been released at another point in time, if what ever happened with the label hadn't, if only. if only...But.... but.... here it is, I remember it, and while I don't play it every day or even every month, it is one of those records that every so often I pull out and play, spin and enjoy... ok and sometimes maybe, just a little it helps me remember what it was like finding the music, and feeling that first rush of excitement and pleasure of having discovered not only the band, but the power of the music.

More Forgotten Music over at Scott Parkers blog here.

FFB: Yellow Dog Party

FFB: Yellow Dog Party by Earl Emerson

Opening line: "IT WAS RAINING WHEN THEY ROLLED ME OUT OF the big Lincoln and into the ditch"

I picked up Yellow Dog Party after spotting it at the local friends of the library sale. There was just something that called out for me to pick it up, and I am glad that I did. What's it about? well---

From Publishers Weekly (via Amazon)

The hard-boiled, wisecracking detective with a heart of gold is alive (just barely) and not well at all when we first meet him in this clever, well-paced mystery. Hired by four area businessmen to locate the women of their dreams, Seattle private eye Thomas Black (last seen in Deviant Behavior ) soon finds himself up a tree, nearly lynched, by three thugs in Miss Piggy masks. What began as a routine--if somewhat odd--case immediately becomes for Black a cause. Determined to ferret out the identities of the hangmen to settle his own vendetta while on a case tracking down the "dream woman" who got him into trouble with them in the first place, he uncovers long-buried secrets that quickly lead to murder. Emerson, a lieutenant with the Seattle fire department, doesn't miss a beat in carving out his detective's niche in the genre: from the stunning sidekick--Black is much too proud to admit his love for her--to the missing woman's abandoned daughters--whom he takes in and comes to adore--we see a man who is far more than just some remote sleuth out to get a job done.

It's safe to say that I devoured this book, with it's driving narrative, quick wit and the Pacific Northwest setting. The Pacific Northwest is one of my favorite parts of the country, and while I haven't made it to the coasts I really want to go back out that way. There is a flavor of the culture of that area in the book, a sensibility that is at once the last remnants of the old west, but tempered with a sustainable way of life. I loved the smart ass patter from our hero Thomas, which is some of the best I have run across in a while. This is the first Emerson I have read, but it won't be my last.

No Friday Forgotten Book this week-- but.

Well, I don't have a new one this week-- ok ,ok, I have a work in progress one that I hope will be ready next week-- but until then I figured why not post the link to my older FFB reviews for you all to check out. So Make with the Clicky HERE.

You can check out all the new ones over HERE.

Icehouse: The Heartbreak Kid

Icehouse: The Heartbreak Kid by Icehouse

It's said in many circles that there are three main reasons that people kill- Money, Madness and Passion. It could also be said that those are the three main reasons that people write songs, so it should be no surprise that those three themes show up as topics in music, and this months Crime Tune is a little know 80s tune that about murder for passion. Icehouse, from Sydney Australia is remembered in the main stream for their album Man of Colours from 1987. In the USA it's best recalled for the single Electric Blue which was a hit reaching #7 on the American Billboard Hot 100 chart. Like many listeners that single was my introduction to the band, and I wouldn't have cared about the band of the album beyond that if my best friend hadn't forced me to listen to the song The Heartbreak Kid while sitting in his car one evening.

Lyrics:

Dusty wind blew 'cross the high plains

as a stranger rode into town
with a certain reputation
for the ladies and a gun
he walked to the bar so casual
just as easy as you please
he was bound to do some damage
with those valentino eyes

well, the barmaid was an angel
and she looked so out of place
and she said her name was 'Sunset'
she was different from the rest
and she couldn't help but notice
the moment he walked through the door
that the gunman was something special
and the bullet found a score

and the one mistake you make is just enough
and that one mistake is "Boy, you talk too tough"

only takes a single bullet
bring the fastest trigger down
only takes a pretty woman
put a gunman underground
and you may hear the same old story
in ev'ry town, on ev'ry street
the story of 'Sunset'... and the
Heartbreak Kid

dirty rain soaked through the doorway
of an upper westside bar
and the TV news was talking
to the crowd of people there

"...well the kid was always reckless
he said "I'll never stay too long..."
"..and when she knew that he would leave her
Sunset shot that gunman down..."


"Oh, the story of 'Sunset'...
and the Heartbreak Kid."

Musically Icehouse was Rock/Post-punk/New Wave with a Synthpop edge, so it seemed strange that they would record a song that has a very strong country vibe, so strong that I am a little shocked that it hasn't been covered by one of the current wave of Alt Country singers. I would love to hear a woman's take on the song. If you read the lyrics you get a pretty straight reading of the story, it's classic noir. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy is ready to move on and the girl isn't, so she ends him. I would also point out that as with my first entry in this series Stan Ridgway's The Big Heat there is a time confusion element in both songs. In this one the song starts out like a Western, with the image of a Romantic Cowboy figure, not the John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart or Randolph Scott kind of cowboy, but the more Playboy Cowboy figure-- then we get to the part about the TV News and suddenly it's a contemporary setting. At any rate it's a song the I find I am drawn to time and time again, admittedly for the personal nostalgic value as much as the song these days.

Thoughts, Comments, casting of Sunset or The Heartbreak Kid?

previous 12 Crime Tunes entries Here

FFB: Video Trash and Treasures by L.A...

FFB: Video Trash and Treasures by L.A. Morse

Like the video store, video rental guides were booming business in the 80s and just as on line options have and are killing the video store the net is also killing the video guide book.

For today's Friday Forgotten book I have pulled out my copy of Video Trash and Treasures Volume I, which appeared in 1989 and for my money was one of the better examples of fringe video rental guide books. Divided into festivals, the book looks not only at the individual films but the genre or more often sub-sub genre the film most belongs to. For instance there is a post apocylpse chapter that starts off talking about Mad Max and Road Warrior giving the reader basis for understanding the type of film the chapter is going to cover. Films, mostly ones that were made to cash in on the success of the better known films in the genre, are each given a synopsis and then a review. What I like about this format is that it's pretty easy to identify which festival you need to look at if you are looking for; a Star Wars rip off, a Conan wanna be, or a flick that's riffing on Jaws. I don't always agree with the reviews, I have happy memories and still enjoy watching many of the films that Mr. Morse didn't care for, but I have to respect all the dreck he was willing to sit through for this book.

Video guides have come and gone over the years, each seem to be fading faster and faster into obsolescence with the weekly release of new films on DVD and Bluray. DVD of course has mostly supplanted the VHS most of us grew up with, and is showing every indication of being on it's way out. As the formats have changed and titles have gone out of print, books like Video Trash and Treasure which started out as guides have now become histories, covering films that all too often are once again out of print, and may of which are largely forgotten. Honestly, a lot of them are worth forgetting. but there is plenty that is worthy of redisovery.

There was a second volume of in the series, I still have my copy of volume I, but I gave away my copy of Volume II years ago.


Thoughts, comments, favorites from the video fringe?

FFB: Texas Wind by James Reasoner

FFB: Texas Wind by James Reasoner

If it wasn't for the Friday Forgotten books I might never have heard of James Reasoner and I might never have read his first book Texas Wind. I think I am better off for having discovered James and his books. Texas Wind is the story of-- well hell, here's the synopsis from amazon

When Cody, a Texas private investigator, is hired to look into what should be a straightforward missing person case, he soon realizes that he's taken on more than he bargained for. The facts surrounding the disappearance of Fort Worth businessman's daughter, twenty-year-old Mandy Traft, are far from clear. Did she run off with her boyfriend? Or has she been kidnapped? With each step Cody takes, the case becomes increasingly dangerous. Before long, he's been warned off, and bodies are starting to tumble. He knows he should get out while he still can. But he can't. Not until he finds Mandy. TEXAS WIND is James Reasoner's debut novel that has achieved a legendary status since its publication in 1980. Considered by many to be one of the best private eye novels ever written.

PI novels are all over the place and for one to rise to the top of the form in this day and age (let alone back in 1980 when the book first published) it has to have something special. In this case I think it's the direct style and lack of too much extraneous plots and sub pots. We get a nice balance of the private life of Cody and his work. I liked the clumsiness of many of the characters and their actions, the professional thugs are good at what they do, but the amateurs are just that, making mistakes and blundering to often to their own dooms. I also liked that there was a real sense of place and time in the book. Good Stuff.

Pulp Serenade review of Texas Wind here