Arson Plus and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

Published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on June 14, 2016

This volume collects three of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories, originally published in Black Mask during the early 1920s. It also includes a couple of introductions, apparently taken from The Continental Op: The Complete Case Files, one of which details the history of the Continental Op stories.

Since prices change frequently, I generally don’t take them into account when reviewing books. I will say that there are only three stories in this collection, and that readers might want to ask whether they would get more value for their money by purchasing The Complete Case Files or some other collection that includes more stories.

The three stories aren’t bad, but they are not up to the level of Hammett’s later work. Many later stories in the series were better. I’ve always been a bigger fan of Hammett’s novels, which are justly praised by fans of noir.

The stories:

In “Arson Plus,” the Continental Op helps the police solve a murder. A man dies in a fire. Suspects include housekeepers and a niece, but the solution is trickier than it first appears. This is the best story of the three.

In “Crooked Souls,” the Continental Op is hired after a wealthy man’s daughter is kidnapped. The plot is familiar, but it might have been fresh when the story was first published.

“Slippery Fingers” turns on finding the suspect who left bloody fingerprints on a gun. The story seemed to me to turn on an unlikely premise, but I’m hardly an expert on the state of fingerprint technology in 1923.

RECOMMENDED

The Dark Side by Anthony O'Neill

Published by Simon & Schuster on June 28, 2016

The dark side of the moon is sort of like the legendary Old West: lawless, wild, and free, a haven for criminals and outcasts. It even has a town named Purgatory, which isn’t too far from Sin. Its newest resident is Justus, a lawman who has been forced to abandon Earth because he ruffled the wrong feathers. So there’s a new Sheriff in town, but is he willing to take on the moon’s leading developer, Fletcher Brass?

Bass, with the help of QT, his daughter, runs the town of Purgatory on the dark side of the moon. Justus’ first case involves the assassination of Bass’ advisor, Otto Decker. Of course, Fletcher and QT are both suspects, but so are nearly all the other inhabitants of Purgatory.

The moon also has an experimental program to house dangerous prisoners. A robot is wandering from hut to hut, engaging the prisoners in a way that does not contribute to their health. The robot, who frequently tells people that he is traveling to Oz, seems to be a bit demented. An ordinary guy, with not much to lose, decides to stop him. How that storyline relates to Justus’ attempt to solve a murder is not apparent until a good bit of the story has unfolded.

Three words that start with O best describe The Dark Side: odd, offbeat, and original. It’s sort of a tongue-in-cheek mystery novel in a western setting, but it should appeal to fans of action-oriented science fiction. The protagonist is likable, but so is the mad robot who manages to kill a few dozen people before the novel’s end. Well, none of us are responsible for our programming, aren’t we?

To its credit, the story isn’t even slightly predictable, and it’s consistently amusing. If you’re looking for serious sf, look elsewhere, but if you just want to have a good time with an old fashioned western married to a goofy sf novel, The Dark Side is a fun choice.

RECOMMENDED

Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen

Published by St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books on June 21, 2016

A spy has the code name Kangaroo because has a pouch. After he makes the pouch materialize, he can reach inside and connect to another universe, which gives him a lot of storage space. Not many people have that accessory. Why Kangaroo can open a portal to a pocket universe is something of a mystery to science, to Kangaroo, and to the reader. Probably it is best not to think about it too deeply. Whatever the reason, the ability makes him a good smuggler. It would certainly come in handy to avoid paying fees for checking excess luggage on airplanes. I'm envious.

Kangaroo works for an espionage agency. His smuggling capability makes him a useful courier. He was once in the military, fighting against the Mars uprising, but he was pulled out of harm’s way because his pouch was too valuable to place at risk.

Kangaroo’s boss sends him on a vacation on a cruise ship to Mars, which is promptly hijacked and turned into a weapon that could reignite the Mars-Earth war. What follows is essentially an action novel in which Kangaroo finds ways to use his pouch to save himself and thwart evildoers. Along the way he has some moments of romance which, fortunately, do not overshadow the story as a whole.

Don’t expect deep characterization or intricate plotting from Waypoint Kangaroo. This is an action story with a few clever twists that are dictated by its premise. At the same time, it moves quickly, the prose is polished, and it is fun to read. The ending seems to set up a sequel. While it isn’t the kind of book I would pre-order, I have to think that a sequel to Waypoint Kangaroo might be worth reading.

RECOMMENDED

A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl

Published by Viking on June 28, 2016

A Hundred Thousand Worlds takes place inside the comic book industry. That doesn’t make this novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, gushing blurbs notwithstanding, but it is nevertheless an interesting setting.

Valerie Torrey is an actress who once starred in a time travel series. She lives with her son, Alex, in New York, where she acts in off-Broadway plays when she gets a chance. Alex’s father is an actor in a current television show that Alex is probably too young to watch, but Valerie can’t bear to stop him. He was also Valerie’s co-star in the time travel show.

Valerie earns pocket money by appearing at comic book conventions. At a convention in Cleveland, she meets Gail Pope, who has achieved token popularity as the only female writer for a major publisher. Part of the novel deals with the difficulty of being a female writer in a medium that is dominated by males. The story also addresses Gail’s professional jealousy as another writer is selected to revive an iconic title that has gone unpublished for 20 years. Similar jealousies afflict an independent artist (Brett) and writer (Fred) who work as a team until their professional relationship is threatened.

Comic book fans will appreciate the critical examination the industry. Gail and other writers discuss the relative merits of the various companies (a thinly disguised DC has embraced change for the sake of change, even when the changes are bad; a thinly disguised Marvel is incapable of change because it has sold the movie rights to its characters). Women who attend conventions dressed as female comic book characters add humor to the story.

But the world of comics is only the background for Alex’s story. Growing up with an absent father, Alex befriends Brett, who draws the stories that Alex narrates. When Alex’s father comes back into his life, Valerie frets about whether it would be wise to allow Alex to live with him in LA. She also frets about her own future if Alex goes to live with his father. Alex, on the other hand, is more mature than any adult in the story. His resilience allows him to handle change even if he doesn’t look forward to any disturbance of a life he loves. As Alex makes up his own comic book story, the reader quickly understands that it is the story of the life Alex wants to have.

While the story and its background are interesting, I’m not sure the twin plot threads (one involving Alex and his parents, the other involving comic book writers and artists) mesh together very well. Alex’s story resolves a bit predictably, while the other thread fizzles out.

Alex might be the sweetest kid who ever lived, which makes his character difficult to believe. Much of the story is a family drama, but it generates little dramatic tension. Notwithstanding those observations, I was consistently entertained by A Hundred Thousand Worlds. Bob Proehl’s prose is lively, the setting is colorful, and the gentle humor sprinkled through the story kept me smiling.

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Pressure by Brian Keene

Published by Thomas Dunne Books on June 21, 2016

The seabed around Mauritius is collapsing. The island may need to be evacuated. Attempts to investigate the phenomenon have been hampered by electrical malfunctions. Diver Carrie Anderson nearly dies because of equipment failure, but she sees something during her dive that makes her want to return.

Pressure is a denizen of the deep novel. Creepy creatures lurking in the ocean are common residents of thriller/horror novels. “There’s something down there” is followed by attempts to figure out whether the “something” is an alien, a prehistoric fish monster, an experiment gone awry, or a predator of some other origin. In addition to messing up their electronics, this one instills hallucinations in divers who get too close.

In an apparent effort to accumulate as many near-death experiences as possible, Carrie and her friend Paolo continue to investigate the monster. I find it hard to care about people who care so little for their own lives, so I began to cheer for the monster.

The monster’s nature, once revealed, turns out to be a tired and unimaginative science fiction construct. That flaw cannot be overcome by a story that is surprisingly dull given the action upon it relies to generate excitement.

On the other hand, the quality of Brian Keene’s prose is fine and the key characters are drawn in greater detail than is common for an action-thriller. I particularly like a crusty old skipper whose cantankerous nature adds humor to the story. Not all of the characters are who or what they appear to be, which adds moderate interest to a lackluster plot.

Sadly, the story never becomes surprising. It churns along to a predictable finish that is even duller than the story that precedes it. Even by the relatively low standards of denizen of the deep novels, Pressure isn’t sufficiently suspenseful to merit reading.

NOT RECOMMENDED