Some good books I've read recently that didn't make it into my column...
Steve Brewer - Bank Job (Intrigue Press, $24)
Another top-notch book from Steve Brewer, the working man's Elmore Leonard. He may only get a fraction of the attention that Dutch does, but his work is just as entertaining. Bank Job is the witty and suspenseful story of three hayseed stick-up men on the lam who take an old bank robber and his wife hostage. When they force the retired crook to perform one last heist, things go more wrong than they ever could have imagined. Combining big laughs with some serious tension and a terrific plot, Bank Job is a real winner.
Tod Goldberg - Simplify (University of Illinois Press, $14.95)
Short story collections are nearly impossible to review, especially in anything under several hundred words. (How do you comment generally on a book that contains twelve different stories that vary in plot, theme, quality, etc.?) Still, there are a few observations that one can make about Tod Goldberg's Simplify. The stories are sharp and insightful, many of them dealing with issues emerging from childhood. The writing is often funny, even when it's painful, and always to the point, with keen dialogue and a strong voice. Finally, the stories on the whole are powerful, provocative and a pleasure to read. The title entry, in particular, is a minor masterpiece.
Lawrence Block - The Girl With the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime, $6.99)
Hard Case Crime continues their tradition of excellence with their latest re-release of a classic noir novel, this time a con man's gem from one of the masters of the medium. Block knows the territory as well as anyone in the genre ever has, and even this early novel (originally published in 1965) demonstrates his already considerable chops. A pair of grifters set up a long con to fleece a New York businessman with a Canadian land scam. They've got the whole thing planned to the smallest detail -- or so they think. Wanna bet things somehow go wrong? This machine-gun paced story shows that, even from the beginning, nobody was better than Block.
Walter Mosley - Cinnamon Kiss (Little, Brown, $24.95)
Easy Rawlins has entered middle age, if not with grace, at least with resilience. He's living in a new world, one beginning to be changed forever by Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement, but he's still playing his trade in South Central L.A. the way he always has. When his daughter takes ill, though, and Easy desperately needs money to pay for a cure, the black PI is forced to take a case he doesn't want and to do things he shouldn't do. After ten books in the Rawlins series, Mosley has proven himself to be one the finest writers of detective fiction ever. If in recent years the quality of his plotting has dropped off, the emotional resonance of his storytelling has remained strong. Increasingly over the last few books, there have been times when the author has sacrificed his story in order to make a point, something he never had to do when the series was new. Still, his observations remain sharp, and his depiction of an ordinary black man making his way in a white man's world is as profound and moving as ever.
