#59: Southern Showdown by Louis Masterson

 Lawman Morgan Kane walks away from the badge and becomes a hired gun, but soon suspects he signed on to the wrong side of an oil dispute, in Louis Masterson's Southern Showdown.

Masterson was Norwegian writer Kjell Hallbing, and his Morgan Kane series numbered close to a hundred volumes and was immensely popular.  Holding the storytelling threads together through various books, and showing the character grow and change, seem to be two hallmarks that readers enjoy.

But my sampling size is two, as only some have been translated into English, and are extremely hard to find in the wild.  If I see one on eBay for less than ten dollars, I snatch it up, which is where I found this one.

Southern Showdown is definitely spaghetti-flavored, full of sex and bloodshed, with an above-average story.  Masterson is worth seeking out for western fans looking for a series they might not have known about.

#58: These Women by Ivy Pochoda

 A serial killer is dispatching women on the bad streets of LA, and it's up to a disparate group of struggling women to sort out the truth in Ivy Pochoda's These Women.

Pochoda's writing is downbeat and clear-eyed, and the characterizations are vivid.  Chapters alternate between a haunted mother whose daughter died 15 years before, a hard-living stripper, a demoted police detective with PTSD, an artist with a myriad of repressed emotions, her equally repressed mother, and the killer's lone survivor whose voice goes unheard through the years.

The identity of the serial killer unspools rather readily but the storytelling is striking throughout, as the dominoes begin to tip over--who was a babysitter, who was a neighbor or a friend, until the plot threads right together to a tight finale involving everyone.

A compelling crime novel with a literary bent that I read at a rocket pace and found rewarding throughout.

I checked this out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library bookmobile.

#57: The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda

 A mass poisoning at a family gathering in the 1970s, where only an enigmatic blind child survives, resonates through the decades in Riku Onda's The Aosawa Murders.

The plot sounds straightforward but the storytelling is unique, with each chapter telling the story from different perspectives, including characters with major roles such as a neighbor child who later writes a bestseller about the murders and an origami-loving detective down to people who only were involved peripherally, such as the neighbor of the suspected killer, the author's research assistant, and the children of various characters like the family housekeeper.  

Newspaper articles, interviews, and segments from the bestselling novel-within-a-novel also play an unusual role.

This is a strangely elliptical crime novel that had me guessing right to the very end, and even then I wasn't sure what had happened.  

Really a fascinating and offbeat read from a popular Japanese writer.  This is her first novel translated into English, via Bitter Lemon Press.  I hope more of her work is translated.  Recommended.

I got this for my birthday and read it steadily.

#56: Beyond the Pass by Lee Leighton

A bounty hunter takes a job tracking a pair of outlaws holed up in a small town about to get snowed in for the winter, thinking he can reconnect with his father and perhaps connect with a fiery young woman he had met there once before; but when he rides in and finds his father married to the woman, it makes for a long winter in Lee Leighton's Beyond the Pass.

Making things even more complicated, the outlaws don't seem that bad and the townspeople have a lot of dark secrets.  As it happens, his new stepmother may be the most dangerous one of them all.

The western veers close to noir before the finale.

I had never heard of Lee Leighton, who was actually Wayne Overholser, until pretty recently, and was surprised how good Hanging at Pulpit Rock was.  This one was also a cut above, with interesting characters and an above-average plot.

I was surprised again by Leighton/Overholser and happen to have one or two more in this big lot of mixed westerns I picked up.

#55: The Executioner Weeps by Frederic Dard

 A painter accidentally knocks down a mysterious woman carrying a violin along a desolate road in Spain; when she awakens with amnesia, they form an unhealthy attachment in Frederic Dard's The Executioner Weeps.

The artist becomes obsessed with the young woman, and doggedly ignores signs that maybe all was not well in her previous life; a quick trip back to France to check on clues reveals a tragic truth that leads to a downbeat ending.

Dard was a highly prolific author of French noir, and this entry was an award winner when it came out in the late 1950s.  This is a recent translation by the imprint Pushkin Vertigo.

The French noir novels I have sampled overall have a tendency to be short, very dark, and unpleasant, and I would say this first dip into Dard's work fits the criteria.

That being said, I enjoy Dard's writing quite a bit and would look for more of his lengthy bibliography.

#54: A Dark Redemption by Stav Sherez

 A mismatched pair of London cops are assigned to investigate the murder of a college student, but find the roots of the case reach into complex Ugandan politics, in Stav Sherez's A Dark Redemption.

This World Noir entry had a somewhat familiar pair of protagonists--the lead detective kind of an eccentric outcast, his new partner carrying a lot of baggage from a messy breakup--but the African themes in the plot elevate the surroundings.  

Of most interest is the lead detective, who had a promising recording career before visiting Africa with two friends after graduation; they make a few mistakes that lead to tragedy, and influences the detective's current behavior.  The flashbacks are one of the more compelling aspects of the storytelling.

This is a very solid police procedural and apparently the start of a new series.  I would look for the next one.  A pretty good change of pace.

I picked this up somewhere and read it steadily.

#53: Peking and The Tulip Affair by Nick Carter

Nick Carter, Killmaster, hunts his old enemy Mr. Judas (actually escaped Nazi Martin Bormann) as Judas teams up with the Chinese to launch a deadly drug called Agent Z, in Peking, part of the long-running spy series.

As a teen, I read Nick Carter books avidly, and have decided to tentatively dip my toes back in to see how they hold up.

In this entry, Carter forgoes his usual array of nicknamed weapons and instead using an Astra Firecat .25 pistol and an incredibly handy pen that actually injects a serum that makes the recipient seem dead (and is used multiple ways at convenient times throughout).

This one was penned by Arnold Marmor, an old-school pulp fiction jockey, who writes in a terse, overheated style with a Nick Carter prone to anger and violence.

So terse, in fact, that the story goes that the book was too short, so instead of padding it out Marmor wrote a little short story to stick in the back.  To my knowledge, this is the only time this was ever allowed to happen, and might have contributed to the fact that Marmor only wrote one Killmaster book.

The short story, The Tulip Affair, is a pretty poker-faced and straightforward account of a double agent called Tulip who Carter sets out to kill and chases around Asia a bit before finishing the job.

This is a second-tier spy novel I picked up in a big stash of Nick Carters somewhere, and read quickly.

#52: Killer's Corral by Merle Constiner

A former gunslinger gets a second chance at a normal life and job; but a trio of owlhoots guns down his boss, sending him back on the vengeance trail in Merle Constiner's Killer's Corral.

It's a straightforward description of a pretty fast-paced western, peppered with eccentric characters and humorous digressions, despite the novel's murderous thread featuring a lightning-fast gun-hand who ends up sideways of cattle rustlers.

Constiner is a long-time favorite of mine, and like to dip into one when I find it. He is a colorful, engaging writer with a wry sense of humor. 

This was half of an Ace Double on the other side of The Long Wire by Barry Cord (a pseudonym of another author I like, Peter Germano).  Curiously, this one features the protagonist in charge of grading of a road from a town to a fort, and The Long Wire features characters stringing telephone line; whether this was a coincidence in themes or designed I'm not sure, but makes an interesting Ace Double.

I read this one quickly; enjoyable for fans.

#51: Fair Warning by Michael Connelly

 An investigative reporter learns that a one-night stand is murdered, and he is a peripheral suspect; thus he decides to investigate the murder himself, and finds himself in the sights of a serial killer and in the middle of a dark web conspiracy in Michael Connelly's Fair Warning.

Connelly is probably best known as the author of the long-running Harry Bosch crime series, which I admire greatly, and then probably for The Lincoln Lawyer novels, which features Bosch's half-brother; but he occasionally features other protagonists from the same general milieu.  

Jack McEvoy was the lead in The Poet and The Scarecrow and because of circumstances in those novels has tumbled quite a ways from lead bylines in prominent LA papers to writing for a consumer website.  His off and on again love interest, Rachel Walling, has also lost her job as an FBI profiler (because of McEvoy!) and is now doing corporate background checks.  Yet both still have the fire in the blood for crime, and each other.

They start chasing The Shrike, who they quickly find out is targeting women using a DNA website like Ancestry.com or 23 and Me.  

This novel is a slow boil that continues to ratchet and ratchet the tension to an explosive finale, and a second chance for several characters.

Connelly is a solid writer and this is a decent thriller to add to his admirable bibliography.

I checked this out from the Bookmobile for the New Castle-Henry County Public Library--my first library in six months--and read it quickly.

#50: The Last Lawman by Peter Brandvold

 An aging lawman goes after a deadly gang in Peter Brandvold's The Last Lawman.

Western vet Brandvold has written a lot of "fast action" westerns frequently heavy in sex and violence.  This one has all of that plus features a unique character, a grizzled and cantankerous old law dog who is hoping his heart doesn't quit on him before he has sent a lot of bad guys to Boot Hill.

The bad guys are an especially evil bunch called The Vultures who rape, murder, and pillage across a pretty wide path while our protagonist doggedly follows, gaining and losing a lot of gun-help along the way.

This one has a memorably blood-soaked finale, set in a rotting ghost town that evoked, to me, late-period spaghetti westerns.  The surprise appearance of another Brandvold series character will be welcome to fans.

Brandvold knows how to write westerns for people who like them tough and mean, and I have enjoyed all that I have sampled.  I bought this one for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#49: Big Red's Daughter by John McPartland

Freshly back in the U.S. after a tour in Korea, a young man gets in a fender-bender where he meets a lovely young woman and her hot-headed boyfriend; he loves one on sight and hates the other on sight, leading to plenty of trouble in John McPartland's Big Red's Daughter.

McPartland writes a super-charged noir where destructive emotions run high from the first page; it appears that McPartland himself lived a similar life and died young.  

But he seemed to have left a number of memorable novels.  This one paints a picture of a bohemian 50s California that is fully realized as a backdrop to a pretty brutal story; there are a number of grisly fights, terrorized women, a handful of murders, and a jailbreak, all before a conclusion that makes a turn and wraps up more upbeat than one would think.

This was a rapid-fire read and a nice surprise from Stark House Press, which is dedicated to bringing back more obscure and out-of-print crime, detective, and noir books from the past.  

I would definitely recommend this in any edition you can find it in for noir fans, and will be checking out more of John McPartland.

#48: The Devil's Dozen by Nick Carter

Nick Carter avenges the death of a fellow secret agent by trying to break the back of a drug ring in the spy novel The Devil's Dozen.

Unfortunately, Carter meets a strong-willed crime boss who is every inch his equal, and he contemplates his place in the spy game as a result.  But there's more action than introspection, including a helicopter versus skier fight and a memorable wresting match against a Turkish villain, both in a remote mountain fortress.

Nick Carter starred in hundreds of spy novels, written by a legion of writers, and I read a ton of them as a teenager.  I have recently gone back and revisited all three of the ones by Martin Cruz Smith (a favorite contemporary author) written in his peanut-butter days, and liked this one the best.  It's a good second-tier spy novel on its own merits.

I would rank them as this one, Code Name: Werewolf, and then The Inca Death Squad for those interested.

I tracked this one down on eBay and read it quickly.  I might go back and look for more Nick Carter spy novels if the pseudonymous author is a good match for more interests.

#47: The Inca Death Squad by Nick Carter

 In 1970s Chile, superspy Nick Carter is asked to bodyguard a Soviet dignitary against revolutionaries as part of a secret deal in The Inca Death Squad.

I read these Nick Carter novels by the stack during my teen years, and thought I would revisit a few to see how they held up.  Although I could tell the quality varied widely, I didn't know they were all written by different people until the internet.  I wanted to start with the three Martin Cruz Smith wrote, as his ongoing Arkady Renko series I have steadily enjoyed.

The first I read, Code Name: Werewolf, was a solid second-tier spy novel, but this one I just didn't enjoy as much.  

The core plotting just doesn't make a lot of sense, starting with Carter delivering a new style of bulletproof clothing to the oafish Russian for kind of hazy reasons.  Later, rather oddly, he has a bolo fight with an Aztec warrior in ancient garb, but still has time to bed all of the Russian's comrade harem, which includes an undercover KGB agent.

But there is plenty of action, including a cavalry charge on a band of outlaws and a jeep versus fighter plane battle.

I have heard that Smith disavowed these early novels, and I can see a better argument for it here.  I have one more, The Devil's Dozen, to decide.

#46: Red Dust by Yoss

 On the space station William S. Burroughs a dangerous psionic criminal is on the loose, and it is up to a robot policeman with a Raymond Chandler obsession to catch him in Red Dust by the Cuban sci-fi writer/rock star Yoss.

Yoss writes a pretty goofy romp, awash in pop culture references and action-oriented.  But Yoss has a somewhat cloaked political side as well, which features a triumvirate of alien races who have more or less subjugated humankind, allowing them only limited knowledge of their superior technology.  The robot lawmen are the mediators between both factions, and generally disliked by all.

Yoss appears to be very popular in Cuba, and Restless Books is getting some of his novels translated into English--I also liked Super Extra Grande, about a vet who works on giant alien animals, and has to go inside one (the hard way) to rescue some girlfriends.

Yoss writes a light, fresh, largely comedic science fiction story that is worthwhile for a change of pace.  

I got this for my birthday and read it quickly.

#45: Hanging at Pulpit Rock by Lee Leighton

 A greenhorn deputy is put in charge of a tough frontier town when the rugged sheriff goes on a three day fishing trip in Lee Leighton's Hanging at Pulpit Rock.

Leighton was actually Wayne Overholser, a well-regarded western writer whose books I see everywhere, though I had never knowingly dipped into one.  I actually started reading this for the odd cover, which features an angry man slipping a hangman's noose around another man who is smiling enigmatically.  There is a hanging, as per the title, but there isn't any smiling.

Leighton's plot is a cut above, with interesting characters and situations.  Almost right away a murder and alleged rape happens, and the greenhorn deputy proves out to be the fastest gun anyone has seen, tested by any number of owlhoots.  The crooked town leadership doesn't help as a rampaging lynch mob leads to a trial by fire for some of the more upstanding citizens.

I enjoyed this western quite a bit, and would look for more from Overholser/Leighton.  I got this as part of a big lot of western books I was more interested in from eBay but read this one first.  A good find for western fans.

#44: Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan

Not long out of prison after a fight that went wrong, Danny Callaghan impulsively jumps in during an attempted shooting at his local pub, inadvertently putting himself in the middle of a Dublin gang war he doesn't want a part of in Gene Kerrigan's Dark Times in the City.

Kerrigan writes a propulsive, sardonic crime story that is full of satisfying beats.  About two-thirds through he offers a lengthy flashback that sets up the violent finale, a nice bit of narrative style.

Dark times indeed, as the final chapters leave no characters unscathed, and only a handful alive.

Kerrigan is an Irish journalist with a couple of crime novels to his name; his knowledge of Irish politics and contemporary history plays no small role in the storytelling.  This is a very self-assured outing, and I would look for more from him.

I received this from World Noir, a part of Europa Editions, and read it quickly.

#43: Boxes by Pascal Garnier

 A man slowly unraveling after the disappearance of his wife moves to their newly-purchased country home, only to fall into the circle of a strange neighbor, in Pascal Garnier's Boxes.

Garnier was a French author of bleak, unpleasant noirs, often made more palatable with surreal humor.  This one has a fair amount of humor and is light on the noir, with any sort of crime not really materializing until the final chapters of the novel.

What mystery there is centers around the neighbor, a fragile, pale woman with the overprotective older friend of her deceased father hovering nearby and a lot of unanswered questions--if only our protagonist could keep his wits about him long enough to answer them.

More a study of mental unraveling than a crime novel, Garnier still writes with a speed and wit that makes his writing readable for the discerning.

This is the final novel in a collection I purchased titled Gallic Noir Volume 2.

#42: The Blurry Years by Eleanor Kriseman

 A teenager comes of age in the shadow of an alcoholic mother in Eleanor Kriseman's debut The Blurry Years.

The young woman lives on the fringes of Florida society, and dips in and out of various dangerous situations; an ill-advised road trip with her mother to Oregon begins to tip the scales in her favor, but their return to Florida leads to the breaking point.

Although I didn't think Kriseman's novel broke any new ground, I liked the storytelling, with a good feel for time and place.  The characters are complex and the novel ends with a respite of sorts, but with no easy answers.  I'm curious to see what Kriseman would write next.

This novel was sent to me by Two Dollar Radio, and I read it quickly.

#41: Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors

 Minna loses a lover via text message, and then finds herself adrift in every aspect of her life, in Danish writer Dorthe Nors' novella Minna Needs Rehearsal Space.

Nors' slender outing is packed with both whimsy and melancholy, as Minna navigates interpersonal challenges, including various frenemies and their families.  Minna eventually tries to run away from it all, but perhaps runs towards a better future.

Minna Needs Rehearsal Space is a fast read, but actually a bit of a difficult read, as it is written in an unusual, choppy style.  I believe Nors was trying to reflect both the order, and encroaching disorder, of the protagonist's mind, but its single-sentence paragraphs, often starting with "Minna does etc.", is an unusual literary device, to put it lightly.

However, I enjoyed Nors' storytelling and am interested in her other novels in translation.

I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly.

#40: Go, Lovely Rose by Jean Potts

A sour old housekeeper is pushed down the basement stairs, and a dissolute young man becomes the prime suspect--much to the dismay of his older, protective sister--in Jean Potts' Go, Lovely Rose.

I didn't know anything about Potts or the novel before picking it up from Stark House Press, one of my favorite publishers, who seems dedicated to bringing lost noir out of obscurity.  This one actually won the Edgar for best first novel in 1954 and has unjustifiably fallen off of the radar.

This is a smart, funny novel that colorfully paints the characters and their small-town life.  Potts writes in a steady amount of coded subtext that makes it of continued interest to contemporary readers.  

Eccentric characters add value, including the young man's oddball high school girlfriend, the housekeeper's equally dour twin sister, the scheming ex-husband of the housekeeper, and a somewhat melancholy and love-stricken town doctor.

A welcome surprise, and extremely enjoyable.  Recommended for fans of classic mysteries.

#39: Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby

 An expert getaway driver gets drawn back into the life (as seems to happen) in SA Cosby's blistering, lyrical crime novel Blacktop Wasteland.

Bug is trying to go straight as a mechanic, looking out for his wife, three kids, and an unforgiving mother; but the bills pile up too fast, and he falls in with an untrustworthy gang of halfwit criminals whose scheme is destined to go sideways (as seems to happen).

Cosby's novel is ready-made for the big screen, opening with a backroads muscle-car race, peaking with a harrowing robbery escape that motors along over and through highway construction, and slamming home with a rage-fueled car chase and a spatter of killings.

Cosby hits every noir beat, but also speaks to the rural Black experience with a deft hand.  This adds value to the narrative and lifts the novel above the standard adrenaline-fueled romp.

I found this to be a rewarding read, and has been one of my favorites of 2020--along with, seemingly, a lot of other people.  

I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly. Easy to recommend to any reader.

#38: Lawman by Grant Freeling

 A tough, unbending lawman stalks a nearby town where a group of drunken cowboys accidentally shot a man through a window; and when the cowboys--including an affluent rancher and his son--won't come willingly, violence ensues in Grant Freeling's Lawman.

This is a novelization of a Michael Winner film, written by Gerald Wilson, and starring Burt Lancaster, a 70s film that somehow I've missed seeing along the way.  As for the novelization, there is some debate whether Grant Freeling was a real person or a pseudonym.  

That's typically two strikes against it in my book--I don't like not knowing the author, and I don't generally read novelizations.  

But this is a somber, late-era spaghetti-flavored western novel that I think stands on its own merits.  It is filled with complicated, flawed characters and has as melancholy a denouement you'll read.  I'm glad I gave it a chance.

I got this in a "mystery bag" of books in a fundraiser from Horizon Books in Seattle, a place I had the pleasure to visit a few years ago.

#37: The Unforgiven by Alan LeMay

 A hardscrabble cattle family, living in near isolation and beset by marauding Kiowas, find their fortunes turn for the worse when a poisonous rumor starts about their youngest child in Alan LeMay's The Unforgiven.

I picked this up for a western fiction book club I joined online, and was caught by surprise.  I did not know of LeMay, or that he had also written the novel The Searchers (which was turned into the great John Ford movie).  I also did not realize this novel was made into a (seemingly ill-fated) John Huston movie as well.

Most of all I was surprised by the mature, nuanced storytelling, genuinely surprising for a western, and for one written in the 50s.  I was unprepared for the depth of the narrative (last month's book club read was a poker-faced, PG-rated Louis L'Amour western) and had to keep flipping back to the copyright notice to absorb that it was actually written during the 1950s.

After building mounting dread throughout, the third act is an absolutely harrowing--at times gruesome--siege of the family home by a group of Kiowas who believe the adopted daughter of this ranch family is actually a lost Kiowa child, a somber coda.

Recommended on all counts for western fans looking for a literate entry in the genre.

I bought this from Amazon and immediately went looking for The Searchers.

#36: The Islanders by Pascal Garnier

During a frigid winter, an alcoholic man's estranged elderly mother dies, and when he returns home to her apartment he finds his former love (and her blind brother) now live across the hall, tipping over a dark past in Pascal Garnier's The Islanders.

Garnier wrote a lot of short, intense French noirs, often laced with dark humor.  This one is in a collection I picked up some time ago.  I stick a toe in only every so often as his books are often gruesome, nihilistic, and populated with unpleasant characters.

In this, we gradually learn that the ill-fated couple, as teens, has been responsible for the (perhaps inadvertent, perhaps not) death of a young boy, and escaped unscathed.  As they reunite, a young homeless man, and then a policeman, come to abrupt ends.

Garnier is a great noir writer and rewarding for the discriminating reader.

#35: Wolf's Head by John Benteen

Soldier of Fortune Neal Fargo heads to the Pacific Northwest to help out a logging operation under attack in John Benteen's Wolf's Head.

John Benteen (Ben Haas) is a go-to western writer and men's adventure scribe.  This series, which actually takes place in the early 20th Century, features our tarnished hero, and his impressive array of unique weapons, under orders from Teddy Roosevelt (!) to help out an old friend.

Men's Adventure was never more manly, as there is fist fighting, axe fighting, fire fighting, hard drinking, and tough talk throughout. 

A quick and easy read from a big stack of Fargo books I picked up somewhere.