Widows by Ed McBain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"On the street outside, the crowd behind the barricade was getting restless. This was already three o'clock in the morning, but no one was thinking of sleep. The only thing on anyone's mind was Showdown at the O.K. Corral. Toward that end, and with the seeming purpose of rattling everyone in sight so that the only possible outcome would be a loss of blood, a loss of life, further fuel for the inevitable fire to come."

Accurate and bitter social observations elevate Ed McBain's Widows (1991), the 43rd installment in the 87th Precinct series, to the above three-star rating. The accounts of two hostage situations are dispassionately written and believable. The hysteria of the crowd that watches unfolding events and yearns for a bloody climax is scary even for cynical observers of human nature. So are the interventions of actors from outside, which whip up the crowd's frenzy to further their unrelated political goals. All that on the ever-present backdrop of poverty and racial issues.

As it often happens in the 87th Precinct novels, the plot is multithreaded, with the threads intersecting at various junctures. There are three main stories in Widows: the novel begins with Detectives Carella and Brown catching the case of murder of a young woman. A bundle of erotic letters is found in the room, where the body has been found, and the case grows to include further victims.

The second main thread focuses on a personal loss of one of the detectives, and the investigation connected with it, difficult because of racial undercurrents. The novel was published in 1991 and it shows how little has changed in 30 years, except for current "euphemization" of the language.

The third thread features Detective Eileen Burke, who's beginning her new job on a hostage negotiating team. One of the strongest fragments in the novel is an account of her handling the negotiations with an old man holding a hostage. I am wondering if the author was influenced by Fellini's film Amarcord (1971) and its memorable scene when an elderly man hiding in a tree is yelling Voglio una donna! Brilliant and sad scenes, both.

There is some gentle humor:

"[...] how could you keep an eye on your sister to make sure some sex fiend wasn't dry humping her while you were busy trying to dry hump Margie Gannon? It got complicated sometimes. Adolescence was complicated."

Overall, I recommend the novel, not only because of two captivating and well-written hostage crisis vignettes, but also for the interesting denouement of the first thread.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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Valediction by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Then she went out and closed the door and I was alone with my soul dwindled to icy stillness at the densely compacted center of myself."

Susan Silverman, having just received her PhD in clinical psychology at Harvard, leaves Spenser to take a job on the other coast, in San Francisco. There might even be another man involved. And - to use Mr. Parker's flowery prose - Spenser's soul dwindles to icy stillness at his densely compacted center, whatever that center is...

Robert B. Parker's Valediction (1984), the eleventh novel in the Spenser series, follows The Widening Gyre , which I quite liked and recommended. Alas, this is not the case with Valediction, which I find below average.

Paul Giacomin, an aspiring dancer, whom we know from one of the earlier books in the series, is helping Spenser survive the loneliness. He also brings him a case: one of the female dancers in the ballet company where Paul is employed has disappeared, and the company's owner, who has been romantically involved with her, hires Spenser to find the dancer. Spenser confirms that she has joined a religious sect, The Reorganized Church of the Redemption, and is trying to determine whether she is with them voluntarily or under duress.

The plot serves as a pretext to depict several violent scenes: two vicious beatings, where Spenser demonstrates his physical prowess.

"[...] I hit his buddy across the face with my chain flail. His glasses broke and some of the glass got in his eyes. Blood appeared and he dropped the handgun and put both hands to his face. I shook the chain in a short circle to keep it out and away from him and then drove it down against the back of the fat man's neck."

Particularly the second episode, when our hero defeats four skilled and armed men, leaves no doubt that Spenser could beat Superman, using just the little finger. Yet even SuperSpenser eventually gets in trouble, which calls for Hawk's intervention.

I do not mind the cartoonish scenes of violence; they are an integral part of the essence of a Spenser novel. What I dislike is the "romantic" thread of Spenser pining for Susan: it reads artificial and contrived, as if the author wanted to try out a Susan-less variant of Spenser, but went for it without enough conviction. In my view, it doesn't work at all since the Susan-Spenser union is also an integral component of the essence of a Spenser novel.

I find the denouement clumsy and over-explained. To sum up, while Valediction is not entirely a clunker, it does not quite deserve my rating of

Two stars.

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Lullaby by Ed McBain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"One of the ambulance attendants walked over to where Hodding still had his arm around his wife.
'Leave the knife in her or what?' he asked Carella.
Which was when Mrs. Hodding began screaming."

Another strong entry in the 87th Precinct series. Ed McBain's Lullaby (1989) has a captivating plot and several interesting characters; the denouement is close to plausible - a rarity in the crime novels genre.

New Year's Day, early morning. Detectives Carella and Meyer catch the case of a double murder: a young babysitter stabbed to death and a baby smothered with a pillow. The baby's parents come back from the New Year's party and find the bodies. The detectives quickly find out that the case might be connected to a residential burglary, which occurred in the same building the day before.

The two threads - murder and burglary - are accompanied by two other stories unfolding in parallel. Detective Kling saves the life of a small crook who is being viciously beaten by three thugs and is rewarded by getting information about a major drug shipment to arrive. The author also offers interesting accounts of psychotherapy sessions for cops suffering a nervous breakdown or job burnout. The four threads continue throughout the plot, with the murder thread getting a particularly plausible and logical conclusion.

There is some strong writing in the novel. From this sad passage

"'Yes?' he said again.
And with that single word, identical to all the yesses he'd already said, Carella knew for certain that the man already knew, the man was bracing himself for the words he knew would come, using the 'Yes?' as a shield to protect himself from the horror of those words, to deflect those words, to render them harmless."

to the scene of a savage killing, so cruel that I found it very hard to read.

In several places, the author inserts biting social commentary as a background for the plot. I find it stunning that while the novel was written only 32 years ago, the compassionate and well-meant remarks would be deemed totally inappropriate today, simply because of the language. I much prefer the language of the past, crude and potentially offensive, yet devoid of circumlocutions and euphemisms, thus better conveying the hard truths. The novel is well worth reading even if just for emphasizing how much the acceptable language has changed over the third of a century.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.

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The Widening Gyre by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"There was a little coffee left. I drank half of it. If I always drank just half of the remainder, it would never run out."

I like the "mathy" quote shown above and I like Robert B. Parker's The Widening Gyre (1983), the tenth novel in the Spenser series. I have been reading them in chronological order and, in my view, it is the only one, other that the first, The Godwulf Manuscript, that deserves a three-star rating, all the others being two-star, sort of "meh" reads.

Spenser is hired by a Christian Right politician to provide security in his Senate campaign against an opponent who is rumored to have mob connections. Our manly yet intellectual private eye is grumpy: his girlfriend, Susan Silverman, is away on a pre-doctoral internship in a hospital, "succoring the afflicted," and Spenser does not like being alone.

The portrayal of the Religious Right political candidate is quite believable, not just a roughly painted caricature like protagonists in several earlier novels in the series. The author sprinkles in some apt observations of a political campaign, for instance:

"As the candidate spoke with the people, there were no questions, only shared certainties."

The plot is interesting and generally plausible, except for Spenser's uncanny ability to find the right solution in every situation and to figure out the best ways to outwit all the bad guys.

A heavily intellectual conversation between Spenser and Susan sounds a little out of place in the fast-paced plot:

"'[...] I have vestiges of my upbringing, and religious training, and school inculcation that nag me under the heading of conscience. But consciously and rationally I try to do what serves me the most at least cost to others."

It is fun to read, though. I am wondering how much my positive opinion of the novel owes to the very strong first page, which reads like a throwback to the 1940s - 1960s noir or a homage to Chandler or Macdonald:

"When you thought about it, silence was rarely silent. Silence was the small noises you heard when the larger noises disappeared."

I am happy that the series of totally unremarkable novels ("Spenser #2" through "Spenser #9") has been interrupted by a substantially better work. I am also grateful to the author for using a fragment (the first stanza, that contains the widening gyre phrase) of William Butler Yeats' poem The Second Coming as an epigraph, which encouraged me to read the poem - a worthwhile experience.

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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Lightning by Ed McBain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"And then, suddenly, a sharp click.
'What's that?' Meyer asked. 'Did he turn off the recorder?'
'No, sir,' Ollie said.
'I thought I heard...'
'You did. That's [...]'"
(A fragment of dialogue in the novel. The readers will have to find out on their own what that click meant.)

It is mid-November and I am three books behind the schedule in my 2021 Reading Challenge. I am overloaded with work this semester and barely have any time for reading. I want to complete the challenge so I will sacrifice the principle of alternating "serious" reads with "unserious" ones, which I have followed for over 900 reviewed books. I may have a chance to read and review 11 "unserious" books in the remaining days of 2021.

Lightning (1984) is the 37th installment in the famous 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain (that is, Evan Hunter). The novel begins when detectives Carella and Genero find a body of a young woman hanging from a lightpost. The narration then switches to a rapist exhilarated about the power he wields over the women he violates.

The multi-threaded narration alternates between the two cases and recounts the 87th Precinct detectives' methodical work on catching the killer and the rapist. Of the 17 novels in the series that I have reviewed on Goodreads, Lightning is the strongest on the procedural aspect of police detectives' work. The investigatory approaches, forensic science methods, and crime scene techniques are described in meticulous detail. The fragments of detectives' D.D. reports are included in the text as are the copies of some of the victims' diaries (chronology happens to play a role in getting closer to solving one of the cases).

The author also includes some sharp social commentary on poverty, crime, and their roots. The novel is only 37 years old, yet I think it could not have been published in 2021 without editing for phrasing; some fragments of the text would violate today's strictly regimented language when referring to certain social issues. I like the straightforward and uncompromising language, and I miss it in today's careful prose. The descriptions of the crimes are chilling, yet certainly not gratuitous.

Despite my aversion to the "conceptual continuity" of a long series of novels - the repeating motifs in most books in a series - I like this installment of the 87th Precinct saga, and recommend it without hesitation. A solid mystery, outstanding procedural, and quite a good read!

Three-and-a-half stars.


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Ceremony by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"My jaw was very sore where Marcus had hit me. It had stiffened overnight, and I had to talk through my teeth. I sounded as if I'd just graduated from Harvard."

The minimal amount of humor does not save Robert B. Parker's Ceremony (1982), the ninth installment in the Spenser series, from a below average rating. The setup sounds promising, yet the novel does not quite deliver.

Susan Silverman, Spenser's girlfriend and a high-school guidance counselor, asks him to find one of her charges, April Kyle, who dropped out of school. The meeting between Spenser and the girl's parents gives us an opportunity to meet the world's worst father. Spenser uses his police contacts to learn that they know the girl as the 'queen of gangbangs,' as she often goes with several men, while drunk or stoned.

It does not take Spenser long to discover April's involvement with the prostitution business in the local red-light district. The story grows darker when Spenser's search takes him to a kinky brothel and the connections with a local crime boss are discovered. This being the early 1980s, we have an extended scene of an orgy

"The room was a swarm of debauchery, a maelstrom of naked and part-naked limbs and torsos. It looked like a feverish animation of one of those Gustave Doré illustrations for The Inferno."

This being a Spenser novel, we also have an extended scene of mayhem; even the readers who are not connoisseurs of violence will have to admit that it is written well. I am unable to describe the denouement without spoiling the plot, so let me just mention that some readers may find one of the aspects of the conclusion ethically dubious.

As it often happens in Spenser novels, the ease with which Spenser gets police's approval of and collaboration in his activities, is grossly implausible. He is able to arrange police intervention to come at the right place and time.

Ceremony is an unremarkable episode in Spenser's saga. I can't quite recommend the novel. I will continue reading the books in their chronological order because I am interested in the development of the author's style, and the evolution of the social and cultural background of the stories.

Two stars.

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A Savage Place by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"It was a big sunny buffoon of a city; corny and ornate and disorganized but kind of fun. The last hallucination, the dwindled fragment of -- what had Fitzgerald called it? -- 'the last and greatest of all human dreams.' It was where we'd run out of room, where the dream had run up against the ocean, and human voices woke us. Los Angeles was the butt end, where we'd spat it out with our mouths tasting of ashes, but a genial failure of a place for all of that."

The poetic descriptions of Los Angeles are the best thing about Robert B. Parker's A Savage Place, (1981), the eighth installment in his Spenser series. The quoted fragment reminds me a little of my first visit to Los Angeles, in 1983, when I realized that I had never seen a city so different from all other cities in the world - absurdly huge, incredibly diverse, and incomprehensible in its strange and unique allure. The rest of the book is routine, formulaic, and mostly boring.

Rachel Wallace, whom we met in the sixth novel in the series, contacts Spenser and asks him to accept a job of guarding an LA journalist, Candy Sloan, who uncovered a scandal in the movie industry, and who fears that her life may be endangered. Spenser flies to Los Angeles, talks to Ms. Sloan and meets her male companion. The scene of moronic macho posturing and exchange of blows between the two men is painful to read; not because of the physical violence, but because of the utter stupidity of men trying to establish the "alpha maleness."

Ms. Sloan gets beaten, even before Spenser begins his guarding job, and the plot is getting quite serious. Yet, in a lame homage to Anton Chekhov and his "Chekhov's gun,", the author, at some point, mentions the space between the couch cushion and the arm of the couch, to have that space save his life a few pages later.

A cinematic climax follows - stereotypical yet well written. The slightly ambiguous ending and Lt. Samuelson's "Nobody's perfect" quip save the novel from a one-star rating. A small dose of humor helps:

"We were both naked finally, dancing on the balcony. The gun lay holstered on the table beside the cognac bottle. If an assassin broke in I could reach it in less than five minutes."

One-and-three-quarter stars.

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The Cure: A Perfect Dream by Ian Gittins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"After four decades of making some of the most restless, somber, and variegated music in pop history, the Cure's legacy remains mighty and unquestionable - both in abstract and concrete terms."
(Ian Gittins, The Cure. A Perfect Dream)

I love the Cure. I have listened to their music for 36 years, more than half of my life. Yes, they are just a rock/pop band, but their music resonates with me as strongly as Bach's sonatas for solo violin or John Coltrane's Transition. This is the fourth book about the band that I am reviewing here, after "">https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Never Enough: The Story of the Cure, The Cure. Poletko Pana Boba (this one is in Polish), and "">https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys. Thus, instead of repeating the history of the band, I write about the book itself.

I find Ian Gittin's The Cure. A Perfect Dream (2018) the best "biography" of the group. It is very well written and sympathetic virtually to everybody who had been in any way connected with the band. And - of course - the pictures! This is really a coffee-table kind of book, one that not only can provoke house guests to talk about popular music but also can serve as a decorative item. It is a hard-cover, large-format book, 11 by 12 inches, printed on high-quality paper, and it contains probably over 300 photographs (I did not count, but there are often two pictures on each of the 240 pages). About a half of the images depict Robert Smith, the leader of the band, author of all lyrics and the primary composer.

The story of the band, whose first sort-of-official concert, in a secondary school auditorium, took place in December of 1976, and who still performed in 2020, is presented vividly and engagingly. Mr. Gittins knows how to write well - he is a noted ghost-writer, journalist, and editor. In addition to the smooth prose, I suppose some part of my high praise of Mr. Gittin's work is due to the fact that he seems to admire the same pieces by the Cure as I do. Let me quote some samples of the author's captivating prose that may debunk the old adage "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

About The Forest from the album Seventeen Seconds, the author writes:

"[...] nearly six minutes of charged, evocative menace unfurled around a sparsely claustrophobic yet nimbly infectious guitar line."

Strange as it may seem, these orotund phrases resonate with me in the same way as the song does! Mr. Gittins writes the following about one of the most popular Cure's songs - Close To Me:

"[...] the capricious, gorgeous 'Close To Me'. Feather-light, fickle, and fervent, this touched-by-the-hand-of-God song about stage fright has become one of the Cure's signature songs."

Again, how well these pretentious-sounding words capture the essence of this light, capricious, and gorgeous song!

Then comes Disintegration (1989), the Cure's most famous album and - to me - one of the best albums in the history of rock music. The author calls it "Robert Smith's masterwork," and describes every one of the 12 songs with his trademark flowery and visual, yet aptly accurate style. He writes:

"'The Same Deep Water As You' seems like a song to be delivered from a death bed to a lover. Romanticism never sounded so bruised, forlorn and, well, yes, gothic. Here Smith aligns himself more with Percy Shelley [...]"

And:

"[...] the record's title track delivers a frenzied, chaotic mea culpa of past sins set to a killer bassline and subtle, atmospheric synths. [...] It's a fantastically clever piece of writing, the zenith of Smith's lyrics."

The book ends with a short but illuminating exposition of the influence that the Cure had on other bands and on the pop and rock music in general.

An outstanding, engrossing read!

Four-and-a-half stars.


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