Book Reviews

Dancing with the Stars

Great atmosphere shares center stage with a cast of memorable characters whose lives are intertwined in this fascinating tale of the dark side of old Hollywood.

Tommy Gun Tango, co-written by Bruce Cook and Brant Randall, brings back several characters from Randall's Blood Harvest, an equally entertaining story set against a backdrop of the KKK in Massachusetts. And readers of Cook's first novel will recognize a name that might be a relative of his hero in Philippine Fever, Cook's adventure story set in the steaming back streets of Manila.

Utilizing multiple points of view, one per chapter, each character starts out by explaining where they came from and about the skeletons in their closets. First is Marshal Lawe, an out-of-work constable from a podunk town called Peony Springs in rural Massachusetts. His little town pretty well dried up and blew away, so he headed west to the Golden State.

Along a deserted highway one night, Lawe sideswipes a hitchhiker who ends up completing the journey with him to the land of milk and honey. This is the Depression, 1932, and everything looks better on the other side of the tracks.

The guy Lawe hits is Al Haine, a two-fisted Irishman who uses one fist to fight and the other to gamble. He is good at both. Talk about the luck of the Irish. Al manages to secure a few extra bucks on their journey to the coast. He never mentions the bruised bodies he leaves in his wake.

Once in Hollywood, Lawe gets himself a job in the movies as an extra. His credentials lead him to a security job for one of the big studios. Al tries his luck at the dog track. He does well and soon moves with a faster, more dangerous crowd.

Laced throughout the opening section of the story are tasty little tidbits ripped from the headlines of the newspapers of the day. Stories like the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and the mysterious death of William Desmond Taylor. Each tale shows how the studio heads deal with moral turpitude and the threat to their box office receipts along with their willing accomplices in law enforcement.

Another character who graces the pages is Gladys Alwyn. When the war broke out she left Virginia and turned tricks in New York City before saving up enough money to buy a diner in Peony Springs. She hid her past and became romantically linked with Marshal Lawe, but when the economy turned south, she headed for Los Angeles. She had relatives there. She took with her another, darker, secret that she figured would ruin any further notions about making any permanent plans with Lawe.

Al Haine's tempestuous past was filled with rapid departures, usually when a dead body turned up. His anarchist tendencies finally landed him in America from Ireland where trouble kept finding him. Once in Los Angeles, he sought to improve his lot in life and ended up working at one of the studios as a dancer in a gangster musical. His dancing partner, Gayle, a gorgeous blonde, is a kid with ambition, but this little number plays by different rules.

Gayle wants to get out of the chorus line and into better things. She is a Jean Harlow look-alike who wants to parlay her considerable assets into a sizable career. The young woman (really young, try sixteen) ran away from her hometown, Peony Springs no less, changed her name to a high-toned hyphenated British derivative and, with a doctored birth certificate that places her outside the statutory range, works every angle to get ahead. She meets Al who likes all her angles. They decide to pool their resources and take Hollywood by storm. But they have no idea what kind of storm is brewing.

So everybody is now in Los Angeles, and a particular Hollywood death draws each into a soul-searching nightmare. Tommy Gun Tango is filled with spot-on atmosphere and terrific characters. Any fan of the movies from the 1930s will be instantly transported to an old black and white movie, so bring the popcorn.

A fast and fun read. My only complaint: I wanted it to last longer. The characters are so well drawn, I wanted to see more of them. But the authors left a few doors open, so there just might be more adventures in Hollywoodland.

Published by Capital Crime Press, $14.95.

Noblesse Oblige

Veil of Lies is a fourteenth Century tale told with Chandleresque pacing. Author Jeri Westerson centered her intriguing tale about former knight, Crispin Guest, who earns a meager living as a tracker (think private detective with a dagger). The story is replete with damsels in distress, court intrigue, holy relics, and a man's honor.

The period detail is neither boring nor scholastic, with just enough pictures painted to set the stage for sword fights and dungeons and scurvy knaves. The dialogue is just contemporary enough to give you an occasional laugh, right before you hastily turn the page, because this is a page-turner.

Crispin Guest is hired by a merchant to follow his beautiful, young wife. The wife seems up to no good, then the husband is found murdered in a locked room in the fortress like home of the rich merchant. And the wife isn't a highborn lady. She had been in service in the home before marrying the man.

Then the mystery of the veil comes to light. It's a holy relic that seems to cast a spell over anyone in its presence, forcing them to tell the truth. But sometimes the truth can be a problem. Secrets abound. Truths are revealed. And Crispin Guest confronts his own prejudices.

A great tale, well told. The plot could have taken place in a 1930s Noir movie or in an episode of Magnum P.I. A good story is still a good story. This one just happens to have wonderful atmosphere and situations that only a former knight could experience.

Loved every page.

A Matter of Honor

Author Jeri Westerson has added another sterling chapter to her marvelous tale of 14th Century knight, Crispin Guest, in Serpent in the Thorns. Guest, a former knight who had pledged his loyalty to the one man in England he truly trusted, was accused of treason and stripped of his title, lands, and everything he thinks made him worthy of respect. The only reason he remained alive was because King Richard II thought stripping him of everything and tossing him into the street would be the most satisfying punishment. The young king knew the man better than the man knew himself.

This medieval noir tale finds Guest living in the Shambles, one of the roughest areas of London, working as a tracker. Think: Sam Spade with a dagger and cotehardie instead of a gun and a trench coat.

The case that ensnares him begins when a dull-witted wench pleads for him to help her. She thinks she killed the man lying in her room. The man was shot by an arrow and Guest cannot believe this simple woman had the strength, much less the skill, to kill the man with a well-placed arrow.

The man turns out to be a courier from the French king who is in London delivering a relic purported to have mystic powers. The prize, the Crown of Thorns. Those in its presence seem to have unyielding courage and perhaps immortality, but there is a catch.

As Guest tries to sort out who the killer is, he is in a quandary as to where the relic should go. He hides it, but there are those with evil intent who want it for more sinister reasons.

But while Guest is searching for the killer, eyes start turning toward him, after all, he was a marksman when he was a knight. As more arrows fly, Guest and his trusty sidekick, Jack, a cutpurse or pickpocket by trade, escape the hangman's noose, but for how long?

Just as in any good detective story, there are many suspects, each with a tale to tell, and the real villain comes as a surprise. But what Crispin Guest learns about himself in the end is the most fascinating tale of all. Truly a knight to remember…

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