HOT CARGO is a very different sort of book from PUSHOVER, the first Orrie Hitt novel I read. It’s the story of Hank Storms, a tough American sailor working on a boat that’s dredging out a channel in the river flowing through a port city in a Pacific island nation that seems to be loosely based on the Philippines. At one time, Hank was the captain of the boat, but he’s been replaced and demoted because of an accident that occurred while he was in charge.
That’s not all he has going on, though. It seems that there was a recent coup in the island’s government, and Hank is also smuggling guns to the followers of the deposed leader, who plans to stage a counter-revolution. Plus there’s the mistress of the guy who replaced Hank as captain. She’s actually more interested in Hank, and doesn’t mind proving it. And the beautiful native girl he meets in a bar who claims to be a virgin. And the mistress of the island’s current dictator, who’s also involved in the counter-revolution. And Hank’s beautiful but estranged wife, who shows up unexpectedly with a suitcase full of money. Throw in a sinister Dutchman, drug smuggling, pornography, blackmail, a lot of boozing, and a hurricane, and you can see that Hitt’s packed a heck of a lot into this yarn.
And “yarn” is a good description of this book. It’s definitely larger-than-life, an updated version of the sort of story that might have appeared in the pulp SPICY ADVENTURE during the Thirties. As such, although it’s plenty gritty, it lacks some of the realistic edge that can be found in PUSHOVER. However, the style is faster-paced and has a really nice terse rhythm to it, making it a prime example of what I’ve started calling hardboiled sleaze. Hank is a fine character, tough and definitely amoral about 99% of the time . . . but there’s that one per cent when he finds that he does have a sort of code after all and has to do the right thing even though he doesn’t really want to.
Several fans of Hitt’s work have told me that this isn’t one of his better books, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. That’s just me, of course. I have a fondness for South Seas yarns to start with, and a story can’t get too pulpy for my taste. From what I’ve seen, HOT CARGO isn’t really typical of most of Hitt’s novels, and it’s true that the ending isn’t really all it could be (endings seem to be a bit of a problem for Hitt, from what I’ve read and what other readers have told me). But it’s one of those books that resonated with me, for whatever reason, and I’m certainly glad that I read it.
I believe I’ve mentioned here before that Irwin Shaw’s “Main Currents of American Thought” is my favorite short story. I’ll get to the reasons for that in a minute. I think it qualifies as a forgotten short story because, like a lot of other former bestsellers, pretty much all of Shaw’s work seems to be forgotten today. A few of his novels may still be in print, and I’m sure some people remember the Seventies TV mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man”, based on Shaw’s excellent novel of the same name. But check your local used book store, and you probably won’t find many – or any – of his books. Which is a shame, because he was as good as anybody at writing about America during the middle of the Twentieth Century, from the Thirties to the Sixties.
“Main Currents of American Thought” was first published in the August 5, 1939 issue of THE NEW YORKER and later reprinted in several places, including the massive collection of Shaw’s short stories, FIVE DECADES. Because of its subject matter, I’m admittedly biased when I say it’s my favorite short story. I think it’s the best story about being a freelance writer that I’ve ever read. The protagonist, a young man named Andrew, writes scripts for a couple of daily radio dramas, and in a few thousand words, Shaw perfectly captures what it’s like to deal with all the pressures of trying to write for a living. Some of the lines, which I can’t quote without ruining their impact, are just devastating. And there are other little details, like figuring expenses in terms of how much writing you’ll have to do in order to pay for them, that are utterly true. I don’t know how many times I’ve said things like, “We can afford that. It’s only half a Longarm.” There’s a lot packed into this story, and it’s dated a little, but its core is still true. And if you’re a writer, it’ll break your heart.
Shaw’s best-known short stories are “The Eighty Yard Run” and “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses”, and both of those are fine stories. In fact, everything I’ve read by him has been very good to excellent. FIVE DECADES is a great collection, and I recommend it highly. But “Main Currents of American Thought” is a story I reread at least once a year (I picked it up to glance at it before writing this post and wound up rereading the whole thing), and it’s the only story of which that’s true.
I’ve seen several mentions of the Chapter 11 meme that’s going around, where you post the first line of Chapter 11 in whatever book you’re reading. Well, I just picked up the book I’m reading, opened it to the bookmark, and, you guessed it, I’m on Chapter 11. That seems like too much of an omen to ignore. I’m going to fudge a little, though, and quote the whole first paragraph of that chapter, since the first sentence is pretty short:
“The storm came up suddenly, without warning. One moment the sky was clear and blue, the sun burning through a heat haze, and the next minute it was dark and ugly.”
The book is HOT CARGO by Orrie Hitt. I’ll be posting my thoughts about it in the next day or two.
I’d read one novel by Brad Meltzer, the similarly-titled but otherwise unconnected THE BOOK OF FATE, as well as one trade paperback reprinting a story arc from his run as the writer of the Justice League of America comic book. Both of them were pretty good, so I didn’t hesitate to give his most recent novel a try. THE BOOK OF LIES combines two of Meltzer’s interests, thrillers and superheroes.
Cal Harper is a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who resigned after fouling up a case, and now he works with a homeless shelter in Fort Lauderdale. One day he runs across a homeless man who’s been wounded in a shooting, and this victim turns out to be Cal’s long-estranged father, who went to prison when Cal was a kid for accidentally killing Cal’s mother during an argument. It doesn’t take long for Cal to discover that his dad is now mixed up in some sort of dangerous conspiracy and trying to help him out puts Cal in danger, too, from a mysterious assassin. All of this turns out to be tied in with the unsolved 1932 murder of Mitchell Siegel, the father of Jerry Siegel, who was one of the creators of Superman.
Meltzer takes this actual bit of comic book history and spins a very elaborate yarn around it involving centuries-old conspiracies, war, murder, crooked federal agents, and a mystery dating back to biblical times. Does the whole thing border on being a little silly and over-the-top at times? Yeah, probably. But Meltzer keeps the pace moving along briskly and creates a likable protagonist in Cal, along with several hissable villains. It’s all pretty entertaining, and I definitely intend to read more of Meltzer’s novels, as well as his comic book work.
One stylistic note: There was a time when I wouldn’t have read a book like this, because it mixes not only first-person and third-person POV, but also past tense and present tense (first person present and third person past, to be specific). But I’ve gotten a little more tolerant of such things in recent years, and Meltzer makes it work pretty well here.
I've been hit by the same swarm of comment spam that's showing up on other blogs, so I've turned comment moderation on for a couple of days until things settle down.
I drove up to Jacksboro, Texas, today to meet Western author James J. Griffin, who’s been an Internet friend for years, but who I’d never met in person until today. Jim’s on a book tour through Texas and New Mexico, and he’s also stopping at a few libraries along the way and doing presentations about the Texas Rangers, his area of expertise. Today in Jacksboro, he put on a program for 90 fourth-graders, and I’m not sure who had more fun, Jim or the kids. He talked a little about the history of the Rangers, but he managed to work even more info into a series of demonstrations and games that had the kids taking part and learning stuff without even realizing it. It was a masterful performance all around.
I was able to visit with Jim for a while before the program began and it was great to be able to talk with someone I’ve known on-line for years. I also met Jim’s dad Willis and his dog Dougie (hope I’m spelling that correctly). Dougie was a big hit with the kids, too, as you might expect. All in all, it was a very enjoyable little road trip for me.
And now I’m an official Junior Texas Ranger, too. I have the badge to prove it.
The rest of the family watched SHOOT ‘EM UP with me, so it seemed only fair that I watch TWILIGHT with them. In writing about movies here in the past, I’ve commented that I wasn’t the target audience for various films. Well, I was wrong. This is the movie for which I’m really not the target audience.
I don’t think there’s any need to go into the plot. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in the books or the movie, I’ll bet you’ve absorbed the basic story anyway from all the hype. (It’s a form of osmosis, I think, but I’m not sure since high school biology was a long time ago.) So what did I like or dislike?
Well, the first half is awfully slow and broody and full of teen-age angst. However, I liked the supporting cast. They looked and acted like actual high school kids, rather than actors in their mid-to-late twenties pretending to be high school kids. And the Pacific Northwest scenery is pretty.
The pace starts to pick up in the second half, and I got caught up in the story to a certain extent. Pretty good action here and there. And lots and lots of foreshadowing for the rest of the films in the series. This one might as well have ended with a “To Be Continued” graphic.
So, to put TWILIGHT to the ultimate test for a film that’s “not my kind of movie” . . . I watched the whole thing and stayed awake all the way through. Make of that what you will.
Those of you who really wanted to see this movie have probably already watched it. Those of you who haven’t and are undecided . . . well, I have a hunch you’ll either love it or hate it. I don’t think there’ll be much middle ground on this film.
It opens with a nameless stranger (Clive Owen) sitting at a bus stop munching on raw carrots. A frantic pregnant woman about to give birth runs past him with a bad guy in pursuit. Owen, against his better judgment, gets involved, winds up in a shootout with a number of would-be killers who are out to murder the woman and her baby, and rapidly proves himself to be deadlier than any of them. The woman gives birth, promptly gets killed, and Owen is stuck protecting the newborn baby from a horde of assassins led by Paul Giamatti. This leads to an almost non-stop series of very bloody, over-the-top, wildly improbable gunfights and chases. Owen’s character turns out to be just about the best shot in the world, and he can wield a carrot with lethal results, too. I’m not kidding. The Bugs Bunny references are appropriate, because SHOOT ‘EM UP is a live-action cartoon most of the time, albeit a very violent one.
Owen’s character is a cipher for most of the movie, although we eventually do find out his back-story. There’s quite a bit of plot packed in around the gunfire and explosions, so you have to keep up. I don’t know if it all makes sense in the end or not. Things move too fast to worry much about that. Watch this for the sheer audacity of the action sequences and Giamatti’s scenery-chewing performance as the lead villain, as well as Owen’s unflappable cool as he deals out death to, oh, at least two hundred of the bad guys.
Like I said above, you’ll probably either love or hate SHOOT ‘EM UP. I thought it was incredibly entertaining. But I’ll certainly understand if you watch it and say, “Well, this is just stupid.” It probably is. But sometimes I don’t mind that.
With this book, Max Brand (Frederick Faust) becomes the first author I’ve featured more than once in this Forgotten Books series. Some of you may recall that the very first Forgotten Books post I wrote was about Faust’s mystery novel SEVEN FACES. Once again, instead of one of the Westerns for which he’s most famous, I’m writing about one of Faust’s mysteries, or at least an espionage novel.
THE PHANTOM SPY is set in Europe in the mid-Thirties, the era during which it was written. This isn’t a Ruritanian, Graustarkian, comic opera Europe, either. It’s the real thing, with the grim threat of Hitler’s growing power in Germany looming over everything. In Faust’s novel, however, Hitler isn’t even the real menace. The true villains are an international cabal of warmongers who think that Hitler isn’t moving fast enough and want him to go ahead and invade France right away. To further that end, they’ve managed to steal the plans for the Maginot Line and intend to present them to Hitler so that Germany can attack France’s defensive fortifications at their weakest points. (In reality, the Maginot Line didn’t pose much of an obstacle to the Germans a few years later, but Faust had no way of knowing that.) The British Secret Service sets out to steal the plans back before Hitler gets his hands on them, and the agent entrusted with the job is Lady Cecil de Waters, a British noblewoman who has offered her services as a “talented amateur” in the espionage game. (Yes, Emma Peel without John Steed is exactly what I mean.)
Giving Lady Cecil a hand is a would-be suitor of hers, wisecracking millionaire American playboy Willie Gloster, as well as a mysterious phantom spy known only as Monsieur Jacquelin who turns up when he’s most needed. Faust keeps the action moving along briskly as the characters take turns stealing the plans back and forth from each other, and in the process Willie and Lady Cecil uncover the plotters pulling the strings behind the scenes. Sometimes in his Westerns, Faust can get a little flowery and long-winded in his prose, but not here. This one cooks along in a breezy, hardboiled fashion with double- and triple-crosses, characters pretending to be other characters, fistfights and shootouts, and only occasional pauses for reflection. There aren’t many real twists to the plot – really, if you don’t figure out the true identity of the Phantom Spy early on, like when the character first appears, I’ll be surprised – but that doesn’t matter much because Faust is having so much fun, and so is the reader.
THE PHANTOM SPY first appeared as a s
erial in the pulp ARGOSY in 1937, under the title “War For Sale”. It was reprinted in hardback by Dodd, Mead in 1973 and then in paperback by Pocket Books in 1975, when Pocket reprinted a number of Faust’s non-Western novels. Both of those editions are available pretty inexpensively on-line. As much as I enjoy Faust’s Westerns, I’d really like to see more of his non-Westerns reprinted, especially some of the pulp serials that have never been published in book form. I believe he wrote a Revolutionary War novel that’s never been reprinted, and I’d love to read that one. There are several pirate novels, too, as well as numerous mysteries and contemporary adventures. If you’ve only read Faust’s Westerns, or if you’ve never read his work at all, give THE PHANTOM SPY a try. I really enjoyed it.
I ran into a dilemma today that crops up from time to time in my writing. There’s a character in the book I’m working on who needs to die. I didn’t really make a conscious decision to kill him off. I never even thought much about it. I just knew instinctively that he was one of the characters who wouldn’t survive the book. Now that I’m farther into the manuscript, I even know how he ought to meet his end, right down to some of the dialogue.
But here’s the problem: I like him. He’s fun to write. And unlike some of the other characters, he hasn’t really done anything to deserve the gruesome death I have planned for him. I don’t want to keep him around for other books, mind you. He’s just a supporting character in this one particular plot and has no place in future books in the series. There’s still a part of me that would like to see him make it through alive.
Luckily, I still have seventy or eighty pages to go in this manuscript, and if he does die, it’ll be fairly late, so I don’t have to decide right away. It’s a hard decision, because killing him off would make for a pretty effective moment in the story, I think.
And they say doctors have God complexes.
HOT CARGO is a very different sort of book from PUSHOVER, the first Orrie Hitt novel I read. It’s the story of Hank Storms, a tough American sailor working on a boat that’s dredging out a channel in the river flowing through a port city in a Pacific island nation that seems to be loosely based on the Philippines. At one time, Hank was the captain of the boat, but he’s been replaced and demoted because of an accident that occurred while he was in charge.
