Book Title Mash-Up

Do Some Damage is the best collaborative blog I know of. Couple of weeks ago, Brian Lindemuth put out a flash fiction challenge: Write a story using as many book titles as possible (or makes sense). Check out the movie mash-up on display there while you’re at it. Great fun.

My piece is below. Follow the link back to DSD to read the other submissions. Given the clientele there, they should be good.

The rumrunners holed up in a collection of strategically-situated trailers across the Whiplash River from town that everyone called Black Rock. Geezer didn’t care much for Whit’s plan.

“Why not just let it ride, man? Place is hard enough to get into, but the bitch is getting out, after you’ve messed with them. That place is trigger city, man. Those are difficult men to handle, and they all live by night. Hell, they’s the ones put the lady in the lake last summer. When did you decide you had to be the last of the independents, anyway? And how’s it gonna look, people know you talked to me before?”

Whit still staring out the window. “What do you care what other people think? Those cheapskates have been screwing me—both of us—for years. I don’t want to be boss, just a little more free. They got to sleep sometimes. I’ll sneak in so I get the drop, sucker punch them, and in the morning I’ll be gone. I don’t need you to go in, just drive the getaway car.”

“Alls I know is, you don’t get in and out of there pronto, you might as well dig two graves for us. That’s some big mojo you’re going up against. You’re wading into war there, man. From here it look like a one-way ticket to the big nowhere.”

“What the fuck, Geezer? You got those Miami blues again? I thought we got past that. You used to be one tough hombre.”

Geezer spit in the sink. “I used to say crime always pays, too. Look where that got me. What you’re planning here will bring nothing but trouble, forever. Sucker punch them, my ass. This set-up calls for the walkaway.”

“Fuck trouble. Trouble is my business.” Whit let the smile fade. Geezer had a point. “Listen, buddy. Remember that girl I met last year? Lives down to Mercer’s Hollow?”

“The hollow girl? Yeah, I remember. You talked about her for a month.”

“She was the last good kiss I had, and it’s been a year. I need a fresh start to get her back, and this is my chance. You in?”

Geezer was in. Clear all day, late rain moved in as they crossed the river, drove past the big O that marked the abandoned Oberg mine. They made it past the first three sentries, but the fourth watcher spotted them. The guards gathered quick once word got out, and by dawn, Whit’s perfect hatred for some toothless, Prohibition-era gangsters left him and Geezer as road kill.

June’s Best Reads

I’m enjoying my summer off from writing (waiting for Wild Bill to come back from formatting by doing light prep research for uploading) by watching baseball (the Pirates are two games over .500 on July 1 and I lived to see it) and reading. Lots of reading. And, as you can see by the list below, lots of good reading.

Samaritan, Richard Price. Not his best, still better than just about everyone else. Price examines white guilt through the story of a writer who returns home to the project where he grew up and tries to do good for debatable reasons. As always, solving the crime is less important than how the principals respond to the act of solving the crime. The book goes on a little longer than it needs to, but the writing never drags. Easy to see how Price got hooked up with David Simon for The Wire. They were made for each other.

Charlie Opera, Charlie Stella. Not as polished as his more recent books, easy to see how this one launched Stella into multiple publications. What could have turned into yet another story of an innocent straight guy in over his head against the mob—winning implausibly when he had no business doing so—becomes the story of a resourceful man who’s straight, but as hard as the crooks who are after him. Law enforcement plays just enough of a role, and the hoods are just shortsighted enough, to keep things believable. Stella’s writing has become tighter over the years, but nothing drags here. It was fun to see where he came from.

Setup on Front Street, Mike Dennis. I’ve been aware of Mike Dennis from his blog and other sources for a while now, finally got around to reading him. Now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long. He hits the trifecta here: great, but not overdone setting (Key West), a protagonist who’s hard enough to get things done in the manner described while retaining your empathy, and a spot-on voice reminiscent of Mickey Spillane. I thought I might like it going in, but not nearly as much as I did. Dennis also has a knack too many writers have forgotten these days: get in, tell your story, and get out. No padding here.

Collateral Damage, the authors or the Do Some Damage blog. Several collaborative blogs have released collection in the past year or so. This one and its predecessor (Terminal Damage) are the best I’ve read. Not a weak story in the bunch, though Joelle Charbonneau, Russell MacLean, and John McFetridge stand out. Just about the most entertaining dollar you’ll ever spend. (Assuming you have a Kindle.)

Pocket 47, Jude Hardin. Kick ass. Hardin’s hero is a former musician turned PI (which I love, as one of my protags is a musician turned PI) who struggles to make ends meet in a manner reminiscent of Hickey and Boggs. Nicholas Colt gets involved in what appears to be  a routine wandering sister case and finds himself seeing dead people. Okay, not really, but read the book to find out. Helluva read.

November's Recommended Reads

I've been busier than a one-armed paperhanger at an ass-kicking contest lately, so the list of good books I read in November is tardy. No publishers have called to complain about the lack of the crucial OBAAT endorsement, so I guess I dodged that bullet.

Boyos, David Marinick - First rate crime story in the manner of Eddie Coyle. Marinick's a former Massachusetts state cop turned armored car robber turned writer who knows exactly how to leverage his experience in both previous careers to enhance the third. His characters are presented unapologetically and without judgment, and they talk like guys talking to each other, not for effect. Wacko Curran is a criminal bad enough to be successful in the Boston underworld, with enough fullness of personality to allow you to empathize with him. You'll end up thinking along with him, setting your moral code aside to work with his, not unlike how Tony Soprano sucked in so many people. He's definitely on the list to read more of.

Dancing Bear, James Crumley - I didn't care for The Last Good Kiss as much as I thought I would, and was about to give Crumley a pass. Then I went through a period of several weeks where I tripped over positive references to Dancing Bear every couple of days. I also remembered I was pretty sick when I read TLGK, and that could have clouded my judgment, so I ordered up Dancing Bear. Now I have to read TLGK again. Crumley reads like no one else, and Milo Milodragovitch is a protagonist--certainly not a hero--unlike any other.

Eight Men Out, Eliot Asinof - The true story of how the Black Sox threw the 1919 World Series. One of those stories you couldn't have made up, presented evenhandedly to allow the reader to make up his own mind whether the banned players were wronged, though there's no question where Asinof stood on the question of Sox owner Charles Comiskey. I NetFlixed the movie while reading the book, and truer depictions are rare. Highly recommended not just for baseball fans, but for anyone interested in a snapshot of America 90 years ago, and for the parallels to today.

Discount Noir,  edited by Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle - A collection of over forty flash pieces,  inspired by the web site, "The People of Walmart," created in response to a writing challenge on Patti's blog The stories were of such a high caliber, drew such a broad sample of talented writers, and offered so many different takes on the same germ of an idea, that e-publisher Untreed Reads took it on. A quick and varied read containing something to appeal to any fan of neo-noir, though not necessarily of Walmart.

Terminal Damage, by the writers of "Do Some Damage" - One of the most underrated writing blogs, "Do Some Damage" features eight crime writers discoursing on matters criminal. Terminal Damage is a collection of stories that all deal in some way with airport security. Fewer writers and longer stories than Discount Noir, still containing uniformly good writing and a wide range of takes from the same starting place, with the added benefit of working occasional bits of each other's stories into each other. This will make you want to read more by each of these writers.