NEWS

 Lost Cain Novel to be Published by Hard Case Crime

Up to no good: Barbara Stanwyck as the Dame and
Fred MacMurray as the Detective in  Double Indemnity.

Hard-boiled crime fans everywhere are salivating over news that Hard Case Crime, the publisher devoted to publishing vintage and new pulp crime novels in the style 30's 40's and 50's was in possession of a previously lost James M. Cain novel.
Cain, of course was the god of the noir novel,  whose work was immortalized in the classic films Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce, among others. He died in 1977 in Maryland, but had lived in Hollywood throughout the 1930s and 40s when was hired away from the New York papers to write for films.
Literati reached out to Charles Ardai, the editor of Hard Case Crime, to get the scoop. Here it is.


Where was the manuscript discovered?

I hunted for it for years and finally found it, with the help of my film and TV agent, in the files of an old-time Hollywood agent, H.N. Swanson, who had represented authors like Faulkner and Fitzgerald and Chandler and Cain when they worked in the film business.

How was it authenticated?

Swanson handled Cain’s work, so he had extensive files on Cain, and there’s enough of a trail to make me confident that the manuscript is the real thing.  It’s also got edits all over it in Cain’s handwriting, and the plot matches the brief description of it Cain gives in his biography. 

When did Cain write it?  Before or after titles that are in print?

After.  It was the last crime novel he ever wrote.

Straight, No Chaser

It never fails. No matter what I've planned to read for this blog and how carefully I've penciled it in my to-do list, the minute I walk into a bookstore all bets are off. Anything could happen, and usually does. LeCarre's latest languishes on my nightstand because  I found a spectacular anthology that I just had to read right away, and lucky for you, I'm going to tell you all about it.

Blood, Guts, and Whiskey  (Kensington books, trade paperback, $14.00), is a collection of hard-boiled stories from the editor of ThugLit.com, Todd Robinson. Robinson curated these  24  tales of moral turpitude by 24 kick-ass writers, and, ladies and gentlemen, this is .44-caliber prose.
It's all here:  Cynical anti-hero/heroines of dubious repute, murky pasts, dames up to no good, and use sex as a weapon, and enough violence so that the blood spatter brightens up the dark mood. The characters and scenes fairly jump off the page, immersing you so quickly the beer and desperation hit you like a wave of humid air.
 Jordan Harper's Red Hair and Black Leather, the opener, sets the tone and starts this trip to the dark side where you'll meet a mobster with a bloody side job, a writer who discovers the darkness within, a couple of mobsters who run into trouble when someone flips the script on them, a shopkeeper at the end of his rope, and a mother who gives up her soul to make amends.  That's just the tip of the iceberg. This is a stellar collection that won't disappoint.

Cops and Robbers, Pimps and Liars

Tequila Blue by Rolo Diez ($13.95 Trade paper Bitter Lemon Press) Translated by Nick Caistor

Political and moral corruption never had it so good.

To paraphrase the subtitle, it's hard being a cop. Betwen the graft, the fencing of stolen goods, and the pimping, there's collecting payoffs, intimidating witnesses and indiscriminate sex. Then there are the wives, mistresses and children to factor in. Detective Carlos Fernandez of the Mexico City Police is only one man, but he tries to get everything done.

This stylish and funny hard-boiled yarn is a rollicking satire that moves at whiplash speed, with characters as vivid as blood spatter at a crime scene.

Fernandez's whole life is about the next peso -- and keeping his boss happy. Then an American with connections to a porn ring turns up dead in a hotel room and things get really interesting. Making money and getting to the bottom of the porn killings use up almost all of Fernandez' talents for lying, corruption, murder and sex, but just when you think he's up against it, he sinks lower and slithers out of another tight spot. But somehow, you can't hate him. And as you catch your breath at the end of this one, you'll shake your head and wonder what he will do next. But you cringe and laugh just thinking about it.