Review: Storyteller: Helpful Hints and Tall Tales From the Writing Life - Carlton Stowers

I first met Carlton Stowers many years ago at one of the mass autograph parties TCU Press used to sponsor every December. The idea was that they would gather twenty or thirty local authors in one place, and people could come and buy signed books to give as Christmas presents. The events were usually held at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens in those days. It seemed like they sold quite a few books, but for me, the real appeal was the chance to see old friends I didn’t run into in person that often—Elmer Kelton, Jory Sherman, Kerry Newcomb, G. Clifton Wisler—and to make new friends such as, well, Carlton Stowers.

I knew who Carlton Stowers was before that. I’d seen the name many times and knew he was an Edgar Award-winning author of true crime books. I believe he was acquainted with Bill Crider, too, and I’d heard Bill speak of him. But I didn’t read true crime books so I’d never sampled his work. However, when we were introduced and I spent some time talking to the guy, we were friends right away. His interests ranged ‘way beyond true crime, and I remember telling him one time, after he’d spun a great yarn about a distant relative of his who’d ridden with Pancho Villa, “You really need to be writing fiction. You’d be great at it.”

Eventually he did, but we’ll get to that.

For several years, Stowers attended the annual Howard Days get-together in Cross Plains with his friend and literary agent Jim Donovan (a fine writer his own self), and we had lengthy, hugely enjoyable conversations about everything under the sun, as they say. I haven’t been able to make it to Cross Plains for several years now, and those conversations with Carlton are among the things I really miss. Maybe one of these days.

So, to the point of this review, last year TCU Press published STORYTELLER: HELPFUL HINTS AND TALL TALES FROM THE WRITING LIFE. It’s part memoir, part how-to book, and it’s full of entertaining stories about Stowers’ life and his varied careers as a sports reporter, columnist, feature writer, ghostwriter for sports and entertainment figures, and of course, his award-winning years as an author of true crime books. I said above that I didn’t read true crime, and I still don’t, but I swear, I really need to read Carlton’s books because I know they must be well-written and compelling. Mixed in with these reminiscences are plenty of useful, practical tips about writing non-fiction of all sorts.

There’s also a section about Stowers’ career as a Western novelist. He’s written six novels so far, and they’re all excellent. I hope he does more. In the meantime, and until I get around to reading some of those true crime books, I’m very glad to have read STORYTELLER. It’s a superb book about the writing life, and if that interests you, I give it my highest recommendation. You can find it in trade paperback on Amazon.

True Hollywood Noir: Filmland Mysteries and Murders - Dina Di Mambro

I've never been much of a reader of true crime books, but TRUE HOLLYWOOD NOIR: FILMLAND MYSTERIES AND MURDERS, a new release by journalist Dina Di Mambro, is just the sort of volume to attract my attention. Ever since I started helping Livia research her Lucas Hallam stories and novels, I've been interested in the early days of Hollywood, which certainly included their share of scandals.

Di Mambro starts with several of those, including the murders of William Desmond Taylor and Thelma Todd, along with the mysterious deaths of Thomas Ince and Paul Bern, Jean Harlow's husband (both of which may well have been murder, too).

She carries this theme up almost to the present day with chapters on the death of Johnny Stompanato that involved Lana Turner (a story I first encountered in a highly fictionalized version in one of Harold Robbins' novels, back in the days when I was reading a lot of Harold Robbins); the suspicious deaths of George Reeves and Gig Young; the lurid murder of Bob Crane; the drowning death of Natalie Wood; and the murder case involving Robert Blake and his con artist wife who wound up dead. Di Mambro does a fine job of presenting the facts in these cases and exploring the various theories about them in a fast-moving, entertaining style. I remember all the more recent ones, of course. As a big fan of the Superman TV show, I vividly recall hearing that George Reeves had died. Everybody I knew back then accepted the suicide theory. We were kids, what did we know? I'm convinced now that he was murdered, and that Thomas Ince was, too, to go back to one of the first chapters in the book.

The longest chapter and one of the most interesting is about the life and times of mobster Mickey Cohen, one of the most powerful and notorious figures in the West Coast underworld during the Forties and Fifties. I never knew much about Mickey Cohen other than his appearances, usually as a supporting character, in various movies and novels set in that era. Not long ago I saw the movie GANGSTER SQUAD, which apparently was almost all fiction. Di Mambro bases much of her chapter about Cohen on interviews she conducted with Jim Smith, one of Cohen's long-time associates. As you might expect under those circumstances, it's a fairly sympathetic portrayal but never becomes a complete whitewash of Cohen's criminal activities.

I'm in no position to know what's true and what's not about these cases, but as a reader I found TRUE HOLLYWOOD NOIR very entertaining. It does a good job of capturing both the glamour and the sordidness of Hollywood, and I found it hard to put down.

Torso - Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko

TORSO collects a true-crime comic book mini-series written by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko, with art by Bendis. It's the story of Eliot Ness's search for the Torso Killer, a serial murderer who started carrying out a number of gruesome killings about the same time that Ness was hired as Cleveland's public safety director. This was after the days of Al Capone's conviction and the days of The Untouchables in Chicago, when Ness was a national figure.

I'm far from an expert on true crime, so as Bendis and Andreyko follow the police investigation into the killings, I don't know which parts, if any, are fiction (although the inclusion of several photographs and documents in the back of the book indicate that they stick pretty close to the facts of the case). It's all pretty interesting and makes me want to learn more about what really happened.

Now, as for the script and art . . . comics curmudgeon that I am, I tend to value clarity and storytelling ability pretty highly, and there are a number of pages in this book where I had quite a bit of trouble following what was going on. That goes for words and pictures both. A lot of the dialogue is good, though, and I liked the way Bendis mixed actual photographs with the art in places, so the verdict from me is mostly positive.

Overall I enjoyed TORSO, and if you're a true-crime fan or interested in Eliot Ness, you might want to check it out. Max Allan Collins wrote a novel based on this case as well, and after reading TORSO, I want to read it, too.