 |
Hard Boiled Love An anthology of noir love
edited by
Insomniac Press
184 pages
ISBN 1-894663-45-4
|
» Globe and Mail, review by Margaret Cannon
» January Magazine,
» Quill & Quire,
» Front&Centre,
» Read an excerpt from Buying The Farm, |
| Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail, May 24 2003 | ||||
This is a marvellous anthology of short fiction, none of it new, gathered as a celebration of noir love. That means lots of cigarettes, langourous looks and darkened streets. Sellers, editor of the very fine Cold Blood series, and author Schooley have edited a book that is must reading for noir fans, especially those who like their mysteries Canadian. Some of the authors are known, such as William Bankier, James Powell and Barbara Fradkin. Others, such as Sinclair Ross, are unexpected, although why I don't know. His icy depictions of Depression-era Canada are as noir as one gets and his story, One's A Heifer, takes us back to the roots of the genre.
| ||||
| Kevin Burton Smith, January Magazine, June 2003 | ||||
Speaking of Canada, editors Peter Sellers and Kerry Schooley are back with more "Canuck Noir," in HARD-BOILED LOVE (Insomniac Press). Like their previous collection, ICED (2001), it attempts to show that Canadians can be far more dark, twisted and perverse than their Dudley Do-Right image suggests. There's no thin line between love and hate here -- in fact, there seem to be no borders at all. Kicking things off is Vern Smith's "The Gimmick," the tale of a mismatched pair of lovebirds who are working a little ATM scam in Toronto called "The Windsor Withhold." Everything appears to be going just fine, until the lovers choose the wrong cop as their next mark. Later in this collection, Stan Rogal offers his gloriously low-rent tale, "Lie to Me, Baby," a little ditty about what happens when people try to live their tawdry lives as if they were in a movie, while Barbara Fradkin brings her years of experience as a psychologist/social worker to bear in "Baby Blues," about an Ottawa criminal lawyer who thinks she's seen it all, yet allows lust to cloud her better judgment. Like the doc says, "The problem with spending half your working life before the courts is that you know restraining orders are worth dick-all." And just in case anyone misses the point that women writers can't get just as down-and-dirty as men, check out Jean Rae Baxter's "Loss," perhaps this book's blackest, most chilling story. The editors get to strut their own stuff, as well. Sellers' "Trophy Hunter" is a vicious little reprint that still takes my breath away. The story of a less-than-scrupulous P.I. and his gold-digging girlfriend who team up to scam a rich old eccentric, it has the sort of dirty-trick ending that would have been right at home in an episode of "Twilight Zone" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." And Schooley, writing under his John Swan pen name, offers here the bucolic "Buying the Farm," a cautionary new tale about what happens when a middle-aged couple with money problems find that agricultural alternatives don't always work out the way they should. "Green Acres," you're not there. Rounding out HARD-BOILED LOVE are sturdy reprints from seasoned vets William Bankier, James Powell and the late Sinclair Ross, along with some strong stories by relatively new authors such as Gregory Ward, Mike Barnes and Linda Helson. There isn't a dud in this bunch. The only flaw I can see -- and I don't mean to get all politically correct on anyone's ass -- is that Canada is much bigger and more varied (and possibly even more nasty) than it's depicted in these pages. The Great White North isn't all white, and it stretches way beyond Ontario. It would have been good to include a few more voices from other provinces and other subcultures, including from French Canada. Still, that's nitpicking. This remains a rock-solid anthology, and proof that ICED wasn't a fluke. Forget about standing on guard for thee; Canadians should watch their own damned backs. Love may be all that some folks need, but for most of the star-crossed, doomed losers in this collection, luck would probably be a better bet. Or even just a little mercy.
| ||||
| Nathan Whitlock, Quill & Quire, April 2003 | ||||
Hard Boiled Love, the follow-up to last year's Iced anthology of noir fiction, gets off to a shaky start, but ends up succeeding on the strength of four or five solid tales and one unexpected classic. The collection only really fails when the stories descend to the low campiness of the femme-fatale cover, the lipstick kiss symbols on almost every page, and the unnecessarily overheated author bios. Many of the 12 authors here are veterans of noir and detective fiction, and most show a command both of the subtle mechanics of storytelling and the particular nuances of the genre. Neither "Dead Wood" by Gregory ward, "Buying the Farm" by John Swan, nor "Bottom Walker" by James Powell are particularly ambitious, but all three deliver solidly on their promises. You might not want to read them twice, but they are fun the first time around. While the veterans contribute the most consistently solid stories of the anthology, the willingness of the editors to cast their noir-net widely results in Hard Boiled's highest and lowest points, as it did in Iced. Stan Rogal continues his low-budget Bukowski act with the goofy "Lie To Me Baby." Mike Barnes, a respected literary writer whose "The Stand-In" was perhaps the strongest story in Iced, contributes "Don and Ron," which never really gets off the ground, despite being the longest of the anthology. Perhaps tautness is the soul of noir -- newcomer Jean Rae Baxter's "Loss" is a brief but creepily effective tale of cruel, calculated revenge. The unexpected classic is Sinclair Ross's "One's a Heifer"--unexpected because of the shock of Priarie Gothic amid all this urban noir, classic because of Ross's perfect control of language and plot. The story bristles with threatened violence and the particular madness brought on by isolation and the Canadian winter. The noir in Ross's story (and the choice is brilliant on the part of the editors) refers not to a literary genre, but to one potential colour of the human heart.
Philip Alexander, Front&Centre, #9- June 2004 | For crime fiction lovers tired of maverick alcoholic cops and polarized PIs, Iced: The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction was a godsend. And Hard Boiled Love, the second in the series, packs an equal punch. In the follow-up, Schooley and Sellers assemble a riveting collection of tales that look at love, lust and obsession gone, or going, wrong. Vern Smith kicks things off with "The Gimmick," about a hard-nosed cop, a bombshell in a belly shirt and a bank machine card scam. It's a complex and intense story and who can resist the brilliant opening: "Cecil Bolan started believing that he really was tougher than a dozen years in jail"? John Swan's "Buying the Farm" also stands out. It spins an involving story about a woman who can only sit on the sidelines and watch her debt-ridden husband try to pull them out of financial ruin with a pot-growing operation that seems doomed from the beginning. The anthology clips along, each story offering something unique, sometimes darkly unique. "Loss" by Jean Rae Baxter is short but complex; a revenge story like no other. And be warned, they don't come much darker than this nasty little piece by Baxter. "Bottom Walker" by James Powell looks at love and betrayal by examining a horrible, shocking family secret. Powell eases the reader through this murky tale with great economy but somehow never sacrifices detail. One complaint: twelve stories, 184 pages? Come on, lads! Fifteen stories would be more like it, maybe even a novella or novelette thrown in there. But with paint-by-numbers police procedurals and cozy village mysteries crowding the bookstores by the pallet-load, Hard Boiled Love is well worth the time. The editors and contributors have collectively tipped their hats to the greats, like Highsmith, Cain and Wileford without being derivative or predictable. Bring on the third in this fine series. Just make it a little thicker next time around, will yah?
| |
all prices Canadian Dollars
 |
 |