“No stupid moves: Frank Oz’s The Score” By Anees Aref
REVIEW ESSAY: “Thieves should respect their elders, too.”
Read More “No stupid moves: Frank Oz’s The Score” By Anees ArefCategory: Nonfiction
Jonathan Latimer, Skilled Artisan of the Crime Genre: Headed for a Hearse (1935)
BOOK REVIEW: “Demonstrates a degree of mastery of plot, character, and structure as the mystery is solved with all twists and turns readers have come to expect from the genre….”
Read More Jonathan Latimer, Skilled Artisan of the Crime Genre: Headed for a Hearse (1935)“Jim Thompson’s Cropper’s Cabin” by Jay A. Gertzman
NONFICTION: “There are three outstanding features of Thompson’s novel: (1) the Shakespearean intensity of love and hate depicted in closely bound men and women; (2) the simmering resentment, shame, and fear existing between Oklahomans and Native American descendants of the Five civilized Tribes; and (3) Thompson‘s and Caldwell’s versions of Southern Gothic melodrama.”
Read More “Jim Thompson’s Cropper’s Cabin” by Jay A. Gertzman“Lawrence Tierney: Poverty Row” by Burt Kearns
BIOGRAPHY: “Lawrence Tierney was at loose ends when he learned about the Dillinger picture. Caught in the middle of RKO’s indecision and rejection elsewhere, living in a furnished room with little money, he was considering a way out….”
Read More “Lawrence Tierney: Poverty Row” by Burt Kearns“Walking the Fine Line: Leonardo Padura and ‘Havana Noir’” By William Blick
NONFICTION: “Padura has had to walk a fine line in his writing as he faces restrictive elements from the Cuban government, while being realistic about the state of his society….”
Read More “Walking the Fine Line: Leonardo Padura and ‘Havana Noir’” By William Blick“Hard Case Crime, April 2022: It’s Westlake!” by Matthew Sorrento
NONFICTION: “As the renown imprint presents the last unpublished novel by the author, it delivers one of his most unique and rewarding….”
Read More “Hard Case Crime, April 2022: It’s Westlake!” by Matthew Sorrento“Dead at the Center: Enigmatic Noir Femmes and Psychopaths” by Ken Hall
NONFICTION: “Such characters differ in their affect from another class of noir figures, those who seem ‘dead at the center,’ displaying little or no genuine emotion as they proceed through the narrative. Perhaps these characters might be classified popularly as ‘psychopaths,’ although the definition of the term according to psychological theory and practice is complex….”
Read More “Dead at the Center: Enigmatic Noir Femmes and Psychopaths” by Ken Hall“Literary Mixtape: Coming Through in Waves – Crime Fiction Inspired by Pink Floyd” by John Talbird
REVIEW ESSAY: “Pink Floyd were so cerebral. Dark, but in a post-apocalyptic-cum-dystopian sci-fi kind of way, not a crime story way. However, the anthology, edited by crime writer and memoirist T. Fox Dunham, makes a certain kind of twisted sense.”
Read More “Literary Mixtape: Coming Through in Waves – Crime Fiction Inspired by Pink Floyd” by John Talbird“Femme Fatale Assassins and the Time Clock” by Ken Hall
NONFICTION: “A more recent twist on the general narrative arc [of the hitwoman] places the female assassin as a child, perhaps orphaned, but certainly appropriated by a handler, who is trained from an early age, in a morally perverse adoption scenario, to become the ideal robotic killer…..”
Read More “Femme Fatale Assassins and the Time Clock” by Ken Hall“Writing from an Illusion: Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961)” by Matthew Sorrento
NONFICTION: “The Hammett detective seeks any clues he can but is unable to recreate narratives through induction/deduction, hence his need to shake things up and unlock loose parts in the disorder he has confronted….”
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Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon 