Dastardly Deeds

Performing Autopsies on Great Bodies of Crime Fiction.

The Book That Can’t Wait

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by Jas Faulkner 

Anyone with a tall “to be read” stack will get chills at the thought of  “El Libro que No Puede Esperar”  (translation: “The Book That Can’t Wait”).  Eterna Cadencia, a publisher and bookseller in Argentina, has reportedly published a collection of stories by up and coming Latin American writers featuring a gimmick that garnered the imprint a lot of attention outside of its usual market. In the interest of creating a sense of urgency that these authors should be read, and read soon, a promotional video reports they have printed the books using an ink that begins to degrade as soon as the book is exposed to air and  light.  Break the seal and you have two months to read the book. The fading process starts immediately.

The promotional video about the book that has gone viral (en Inglés, gracias a Dios!). Mainstream outlets such as Wired and Huffington Post have already reported the story as gospel.

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Holy Crap! Another Book That Could Be On My List

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This is the very reason it took me so long to create the Best 100 Mysteries of All Time list. I keep reading. If I keep reading, especially vintage crime fiction, I’m bound to hit a couple of  ‘holy crap!’ books along the way. A ‘holy crap’ is one where at the end I yell, holy crap!  More likely in language a bit more salty. I finished a ‘holy crap!’ book about one hour ago, and felt I needed to express my frustration at not being able to add, switch, change, or somehow acknowledge the book in that list.

But the very fact that so many books are that good, should make me happy. And it does, while reading. However, my thinking tank starts placing it before one book, or after another, knocking something off, but then I think, ‘no, that book was really fascinating, book B should go, and so on.’ And the list would never be finished. I had to end that kind of thinking, and set the list, without room for more reads down the line.

The Chill, Ross MacDonald, 1963 shouldn’t have been that good. I’ve read Kenneth Millar before. Millar as Ross MacDonald has been praised as the next thing to Hammett and Chandler in PI stories. But I’ve not found him that compelling. Good, not great. I think his wife, Margaret Millar is a far superior writer, who although acknowledged by the mystery community, hasn’t the place in history her husband enjoys. They both came from a little Canadian town, married and moved to Southern California, where most of their books are set. His is the straight forward detective tale, hers are more psychological and character driven.  Her stories are haunting, and not easily forgotten. Or they can be funny as hell.

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The Thin Man. Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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The ‘thin man’ on the cover is Dashiell Hammett himself, looking just as dapper as his character played in film by William Powell.

The Thin Man—Dashiell Hammett-1933-IP

Some may say, well, hell, this books is a given, of course it belongs on the list. But are they thinking of the written word, or the iconic film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy? Is there a huge difference between the two? I’d say, no, not a huge difference, but differences there are. It’s hard to look at title such as this one and imagine how a reader would see it sans  the imitators and film adaptations. Hammett’s imagination brought forth the sparkling upper class couple whose life seems full of drink, parties, and more drink. Written from Nick Charles’ point of view, the sentences are crisp, quick and easy going. The plot starts out within the first paragraph as a young lady approaches Charles at a NY hotel bar, while he’s waiting for his rich wife Nora, to return from shopping. The ‘thin’ man of the title is not Nick Charles, as many have believed, but the victim, or one of them. The young lady’s father is missing, his secretary  and lover is found dead, and Nick insists he’s not been a detective since his wife’s father died and all those millions needed looking after.

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Shadow of a Lady. Best 100 Mysteries Of All Time

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Shadow of a Lady—Holly Roth–1957-OOP

I admit I just finished reading this yesterday. Actually I started it the night before, and finished it the following morning. The story wasn’t earth shattering. It wasn’t heart pounding suspenseful. It was intriguing, disturbing, and overall, surprising. I can’t remember reading anything of Ms. Roth before this title. Her output was limited, but the books she wrote were well received. Interesting point–the plot of one of her novels  involves a drowning death off a boat, which is how she ultimately died–with her body never recovered. Hmm. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

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The 30,000

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 by Jas Faulkner  

In those odd moments when there can be plenty to do and yet the mind wants to wander through Binkley’s anxiety closet,  it is easy to come up with hypothetical catastrophes that put us through a Green Beret-level obstacle course.  We see the thin veneer of civilisation stripped away as a mob mentality nudges thousands of people off the side of a cliff in a carb-fueled rage, all neatly battered, fried, and served on a biscuit with a side of fear and loathing of The Other.

Those of us who are caretakers of libraries, whether they’re large public archives of wisdom passed down through the centuries or linen closets that have been converted into repositories of books we have known and loved; we have all wondered what we would do if we only had a small, undisclosed time to save what we could.  What would we grab first?  Who could we trust to protect what we hold dear?  As a bit of woolgathering, it’s scary but there is the comfort that, at least for now, the chances of seeing our libraries destroyed is  fairly remote.

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The Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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I’m finally half way through the reviews of each mystery on my Best 100 Mysteries of All Time list! I’ve become less worried about the worthiness of each title after talking with an expert book collector and reader. Each individual’s taste is so different, that no matter what titles I include, someone will believe I’ve left off the best ones, and others will think my list is the crappiest of all time, lol. So, there you go. I am still going to play with the titles on the list, if I find some thing I’ve read is stunningly great and better than another title on the list. But even though a title may fall off, it remains up here, as a runner up.

PAST thoughts:

I don’t think I’ve worried and thought about and scrutinized any decisions, the way I have this never ending list! LOL. I’m almost thinking it a mistake to re-read those I can’t precisely put my finger on why they were so great. Because practically none of them measure up to the initial wow factor I remember them having when first read. So, because of this and the agonies I am suffering in dread of making the wrong choices, this list will be a living one–meaning–if I re-read something, and don’t think it’s as fabtastic as originally thought, I will relegate it as a RUNNER UP. Below the official list. And in the missing slot will be a title I read and had forgotten how splendiferous it was, or a brand new unbelievably good book,  etc etc–you get the picture. This way, I won’t feel I made myself the scorn of the crime fiction community for choosing a title that’s downright bad.

I’ll still only have them in alphabetical order until completely filled in, then I will number them.

Older explanation:

I can’t seem to pin the best down–honestly. Each time I write up a new book, I find I’ve left something out, or shouldn’t have put a book in a particular slot, or rethink–No. 100 should be in a better position than last, or number whatever should be next to last–y0u see my dilemma? I should have begun with the entire 100 out in the open–but I was trying for sustained interest–which clearly didn’t happen, I couldn’t keep my own interest going, so why would someone else’s be engaged? And partially the problem was I’d read so many of the titles eons ago–and although KNOW they were fantastic, can’t remember why. At first, I was just going to list, give a teeny synopsis, at best, and call it a day. I started delving into each title deeper and deeper, and was finding in order to do each book justice, I’d need to dig up every single one.

Well, I’m OK with that–but I decided I’m going to put up the 100 titles, now–not in order. I’ll list them alphabetically.

I hope this works better for readers, and for me.

So. Eek. Here are 100 mysteries that are the very very best, according to me in alphabetical order.

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A Personal Best as a Bookseller-Or How I Sold The Carter Burden Collection

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One of the books sold that night–I think. If not, it was another very rare in dust jacket Stout.

There were days when I sold well over a hundred hardcovers. Mostly hand selling, some via The First Editions Club I managed. My enthusiasm for a certain title, and the collectibility would combine to convince an already interested party to buy the book I was praising. If I had read the book, naturally, my sales pitch would be more informed and rooted in personal pleasure. If I’d not yet read the book, or it wasn’t something I was likely to read, I still sold it well based on fellow booksellers’ thoughts, Publisher’s Weekly, The NY Times Book Review, and again, collectibility. I became obsessed with making sure a book was in pristine condition when selling it as an ‘investment’. Not a visible wrinkle, tear, spot on the dust jacket was permitted. The book must have no bumped corners.  (bumped is when the tips at top and bottom of the book’s boards have been squashed via falling, or bad packaging) No damage to the interior pages was acceptable either, nor was any kind of scratch or stain on the boards beneath the jacket.  I was looked at askance by fellow employees and the boss, at one place of employment. Which was slightly ironic, since I was hired for the express purpose of selling hypermodern mysteries to collectors.

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Spoiler Alert–Book Covers Give Away Too Much Info

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What kills interest is revelations on the book cover before you read them.

You read the phrase ‘spoiler alert’ all the time online. Someone is writing about a film, a TV show, a book. And they so very desperately want to give away the ending. Why? Well, sometimes a title cannot be throughly explored unless the ending is scrutinized. Other that than one reason, I can’t think of any for destroying other reader’s pleasure. But, that’s why the polite, socially acceptable thing to do, is state up front and out in the open, that you are going to detail the specifics of a book most have not yet read. And that takes care of the spoiler’s responsibilities to readers of his words.

But what about those pesky dust jacket synopses’? So many times I’ve mistakenly read all the way down the front DJ flat, and even onto the trailing end on the back DJ flap. And an equal amount of times, I kick myself, and put the book back down, because it’s clear they’ve given too much away in their delight in the manuscript. I’ve made a habit of checking out the first couple paragraphs and if interested, stop reading. So those who are writing the blurbs better make the story compelling fast, or you’ve lost me.

I’m not certain how much this applies to straight literature. No doubt there are plot points that arrive far into the book, that the jacket spills before the reader gets to them, but they aren’t usually as damaging as declaring a murder victim right there, when the book doesn’t reveal who the body is until half way through. That, my publishing friends, is a spoiler. There has to be a way to entice readers to your titles, without killing off the victim before the murderer does.

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