Books: The Busy Body By Donald E. Westlake (1966)

“The corpse isn’t anybody special—a low-level drug courier—but it has been so long since the organization’s last grand funeral that Nick Rovito decides to give the departed a big send-off. He pays for a huge church, a procession of Cadillacs, and an ocean of flowers, and enjoys the affair until he learns the dead man is going to his grave wearing the blue suit. Rovito summons Engel, his right-hand man, and tells him to get a shovel. Inside the lining of the blue suit jacket is $250,000 worth of uncut heroin, smuggled back from Baltimore the day the courier died. When Engel’s shovel strikes coffin, he braces himself for the encounter with the dead man. But the coffin is empty, the heroin gone, and Engel has no choice but to track down the missing body or face his boss’s wrath.” 

Like a lot of Westlake’s stories –both the serious noir and the caper comedies- it eventually becomes a detective novel, as much as anything else. And Westlake’s specialty is that they’re written frequently from the criminal’s point of view. While Al Engel may not be hardened crime lord, he works for them, so he becomes guilty by association.

The Busy Body –one of his earliest in the “nephew” genre he created- borrows themes from The Fugitive Pigeon, which I mentioned in my take on that book, had been Westlake’s first really big seller for Random House, and which ironically, outsold the Parker novels by a 2 to 1 margin. Here the tale is bit tighter, the humor less forced, but it’s still a bit weak. The plot is still a bit complex, built like a detective novel with Engel trying to find a body, please his boss Nick, and running into more complications than he ever dreamed of –including, eventually, being sought for murder by Nick’s goons and the hapless police.

I don’t really love the book, mostly because all the characters are just reworked clichés. None appear to have a soul, or any real empathy (much like the characters in his Richard Stark written Parker novels). Even Engel comes off a bit cold in the end –but there is a part of me that understands him when it comes to his relationship with his mother. I could see him escaping to California to get away from her.

There was a film version of this book released in 1967, produced and directed by William Castle, a well know filmmaker who churned out a few competent B-movies quickly and on budget. This led him to independently produce and direct thrillers, which, despite their low budgets, were effectively promoted by using gimmicks, such as 3D. He was also the producer for Rosemary's Baby. It featured Richard Pryor's film debut, but I hear it's horrible.

Books: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (2023)

“When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world. Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market. But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them.”

As someone put this, How to Sell a Haunted House is like Annabelle meets Child’s Play, mixed with a wonderfully Southern dysfunctional family drama. It’s also about dark secrets our family –both intimate and extended- keeps. Ones we sadly pass down from one generation to the next. Where Hendrix’s previous work was bit homage’s to growing up in the 80s and 90s, this is a bit more mature work, but still filled with his perfect dark sense of humor. I mean, I guess, less campy, even if he treads familiar ground with possessed dolls.

It’s not a perfect novel, as it takes forever to get going and it takes a lot to really like Louise and Mark –even when I see some my own sibling rivalry in their relationship. They’re both rather horrible people, but I can understand Louise’s choice to leave Charleston and move to San Francisco. She’s escaping her family’s problems with hopes of starting fresh. Still, at times Mark and her relationship is a bit soap opera-ish and some of the dialogue about modern parenting is reminder that while I may not have the most perfect mother, she never worried about explain to us concepts like death and being a consistent parent. And Aunt Honey easily gives up the dark tale of the family after keeping it buried for sixty-eight years.

I can’t hate it, as it was silly fun, and Hendrix appears to maturing as writer of Southern Gothic Horror, but like his previous tomes, it stumbles here and there and never becomes a home run you think it should

Books: A Country of Old Men by Joseph Hansen (1991)

“After twenty-one years on the detective beat, aging veteran P.I. Dave Brandstetter is finally going to get some rest--that is, after one last case. Even though he is no longer able to sprint after the bad guys like he used to, Brandstetter is not stopped from investigating this wild tale of kidnapping and murder told by a bruised and grubby little boy found wandering the beach alone. The police don't even believe the kid--just as they don't believe that the drug-related shooting death of a pop guitarist in anything out of the ordinary. So Dave is lured out of retirement to confront street drugs, powerful politicians, sleazy record executives, child abuse.and to unravel as snarled a tangle of carnage and deception as he's ever faced.”

The whodunit aspect of A Country of Old Men is a good one, filled with lots of twists and turns, and was the first where I figured out who the killer was before Dave. As the final book in the series, it also brings up Dave’s health issues, something that has always been there, hanging around the dark corners of the series narrative, and makes it more of a subplot than before. There is also another subplot involving some old school classmates, one who has become a novelist and has supposedly written a semi autobiographical tome, that has another classmate, now a rising conservative politician, all up in arms. I found that aspect less interesting, but that was all part of what is called a red herring in this genre. It serves as a distraction, but it’s more of a plot contrivance.  

Still, it’s an enjoyable book, filled with so many distrustful people, especially those who live between the darkness and the light. And Hansen’s Los Angeles is beautiful –well describe, from the smell, to the trees, to the stained concrete. But it’s certainly a Los Angeles that if it truly existed, has not for decades. But it remains a lonely place.

While there is a short story collection perhaps to acquire, as I neared the end of this book, it became obviously –just like the final Westlake book featuring John Dortmunder- hard to turn those final pages. As formulaic as these books can be, just like Westlake, you still want to savior every last sentence, paragraph, and chapter. These twelve titles, released over a twenty-one year period are just great thrillers with a compassionate, empathic gay hero who, despite his aging body and his family history, could never turn away anyone asking for help.

Books: The Boy Who Was Buried This Morning by Joseph Hansen (1990)

“Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter has spent the last few years drifting in and out of retirement. For the sake of his boyfriend, Cecil, he has attempted to forgo dangerous jobs. But when a close friendʹs death sends Dave into a depressive funk, Cecil recognizes that work is the only cure. During a high-stakes paintball game, a hardcore supremacist gets hit by a very real bullet. Although the police claim the death was accidental -nothing but a stray round from a nearby hunting preserve- Dave knows that a man this hated seldom dies by chance. His investigation takes him into the strange world of make-believe war -a grown-up version of cowboys and Indians whose players sometimes have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. If Dave isnʹt careful, heʹll find himself stained with something more permanent than paint.”

The penultimate tale in the Brandesetter series, is one the better entries in the series. Like the others, what work here are the pacing and the fact each book makes Dave a little bit older, a little bit weary and little bit sad that friends and family are shuttling off this mortal coil. It’s a rarity in most genres, but especially the thriller/mystery series, for the hero to age with the passing years between titles. Also, by book eleven, Hansen has complete control of Dave and the other characters that populate the book, which offers a tightly paced thriller filled with some really bad people. And The Boy Who Was Buried This Morning, with its white supremacists, small-town narrow minded citizens, written nearly 34 years-ago, shows nothing has changed and really could be taking place in 2024. Example: “Whole United States feels the way I do, but they’ve been brainwashed by the liberal network TV traitors to where they’re afraid to speak out plainly.”

As always, there is a bit of weirdness of a plot convenience –that Cecil, a black man, would have been concerned with death of a man who was known to be racist. I’ve talked about Dave’s unwavering empathy, but while Cecil has shown some compassion, I question whether he would have enough feelings about racist dead man to involve his boyfriend in finding out who killed him.

Still, another satisfying book from Hansen, a great thriller with a prescient aspect that should appeal to many.

Books: Doctor Who: Rebellion on Treasure Island by Bali Rai (2023)

“Summoned to 1700s Plymouth, the Doctor and Clara must investigate a mysterious thievery from the Crown of King George. Their travels take them to a remote island - but as the secrets of the theft are unearthed, the Doctor discovers something far more sinister. The spectre of a terrible intellect is afoot. Thankfully, the Doctor and Clara won't be alone. A pirate called Long John Silver, a runaway called Janey Hawkins, and professor called River Song, are all along for the ride.”

Doctor Who: Rebellion On Treasure Island is the fifth tale in the Puffin Classics Crossovers series that features various Doctor’s interacting with public domain literature characters and situations. After dealing with the Wizard of Oz (13th Doctor), Camelot (10th Doctor), Robin Hood (4th Doctor), and the Greek Myths (3rd Doctor), the 11^th Doctor and Clara arrive to take on Long John Silver and Janey Hawkens.

Set just after the events of the TV episode Cold War, this book relies a lot on previous knowledge of the Eleventh Doctor’s era, especially knowing about Vastra, Jenny, Strax, and River Song. There is also a return of a villain from that season which adds up to a very crowded short kids books (it’s a continuity overload which reminded me of the various writers of the original tales published in the 1990s where this was fairly rampant then). Plus I’m not counting on the various one-off characters from the book and ones on Skelton Island. It also seems that author Rai was aware of this, as Clara essentially disappears for a good while.

Also, for a book inspired by Treasure Island, there is very little references to the Robert Louis Stevenson tale and what does pop up are not explained in any detail.

Rai also does not get the Eleventh Doctor’s voice down or Clara’s for that matter. And while I don’t want to complain too much about Rai’s attempt at social commentary (having human beings as slaves is bad) or rewriting James Hawkins as a teen girl, I’m not sure why we needed to be hit over the head with it constantly.

A great concept wasted.