Book Review: DEATH COMES TOO LATE

TITLE: Death Comes Too Late

AUTHOR: Charles Ardai

397 pages, Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9781803366265 (paperback, e-book)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Hard Case Crime imprint, the publishers have released Death Comes Too Late, a collection of 20 mostly noir short stories from across the career of imprint founder Charles Ardai. The author admits the choice of title is a bit cheeky for a collection of stories in which death seems to arrive in a timely manner, if not early and unexpectedly. Regardless, it is a phenomenal collection by an author who I think is truly underrated. I say this as someone who is mostly familiar with Ardai as founder/editor/publisher and who had previously read only one of the stories contained herein.

That story, “Mother of Pearl,” blew me away when I first read it in From Sea to Stormy Sea (edited by the great Lawrence Block), and it blew me away again here. It is one of the few non-noir stories in the collection, if noir must include a crime or double-cross of some kind. There is a mystery at its core – who is this nameless, seemingly genderless, narrator telling us this tale of a young woman’s search for the truth of her father’s death and the mother who put her up for adoption? As I said back in 2020, the story is “a rumination on success, failure, identity, and the search for where we come from,” and upon multiple rereads I continue to find some moment or bit of phrasing or twist in the story that didn’t stand out to me on previous reads. As with most of the stories in Death Comes Too Late, “Mother of Pearl” has layers upon layers, twists to the twists, that keep you wondering where Ardai is leading you right up to the last paragraph.

I think it is safe to say that the whole collection is a rumination on success, failure, identity, and the search for where we come from (sometimes to embrace it, sometimes to understand it, sometimes to leave it behind). And equally safe to say that most of the time, those ruminations take some long, complicated routes to get to that moment of embracing, understanding, or leave-taking.

The book starts strong with “The Home Front,” in which a private investigator hired by the United States government to suss out black marketeers during World War Two is responsible for the accidental death of a young man he’s just arrested – which is just the start of a journey that turns brutal and bloody by the end while our protagonist tries to decide who he is after the tragedy. This is followed by “Game Over,” which starts with a boy’s simple wish to treat his less-well-off best friend to a free afternoon of video games at the local pizza place but whose plan to do so results in wounded pride, misunderstanding, harsh accusations, and yes tragedy. Two quite different time frames with characters of very different ages, both dealing with expectations of who they are based on something someone else has done (or not done). “The Fall of Man” is another heartbreaking story with a teen at the center, a startlingly honest look at suicide and its aftermath.

Charles Ardai is an expert at making sure his stories don’t end where they start – those long, complicated routes mentioned earlier – even when obeying genre dictates. “The Case” starts out as a standard “missing luggage” story but neatly twists through two characters’ points-of-view into something that would be at home on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. “Goin’ West” starts with a classic “Hollywood casting couch” scene (only in New York) that doesn’t quite go where you’d expect but with a conclusion that feels inevitable. “The Shadow Line” opens with our narrator waking up in a room in Mexico with a sex worker, intent on hunting down a man he’s been sent to locate – but not for the reasons that seem apparent. “Jonas and the Frail” is a “bodyguard loses his teenage charge, chaos ensues” tale with a killer reveal and ending; “Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright” is a revenge tale writ large; “My Husband’s Wife” is a riff on “disaffected corporate wife has affair” type stories. But they all take surprising turns, and each protagonist faces challenges that reveal something about where they came from or who they really are.

Ardai is also not above twisting his genres. “The Deadly Embrace,” one of my favorites in the collection, is a neat bit of super-hero noir that takes the real-world fierce competition between comics publishers in the 1950s (think the famous DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit over the original Captain Marvel) and combines it with a twist on the Hollywood Studio System in a world where super-heroes are real but under contract to the comics companies, which some of them find stifling. “Don’t Be Cruel” plays with conspiracy theories (particularly around Elvis’s supposed survival) in a noir light. “The Day After Tomorrow” is another tale that is not really noir at all, but more horror.

The collection ends with another decidedly non-noir tale, the mystery “The Investigation of Things.” If any story in the book can be called “Sherlockian,” it is this one. Two brothers in 11th century China, both detectives with decidedly different investigatory styles, are called to solve the murder of a Buddhist monk and stumble upon the invention of something we are all too familiar with as a weapon of murder in our modern era. There are twists upon twists, with one brother looking at minute and seemingly unimportant minute details while the other systematically interviews reluctant peers of the deceased (said brother even utters a variation on Detective Columbo’s famous “oh, just one more question” line, which brought a smile to this reader’s face).

If you love short stories in the mystery/crime genre that are more than just a recitation of the facts of the case or the reveal of the mystery, stories that explore the breadth of human interactions and passions, then Charles Ardai is your man, and Death Comes Too Late is your next must-read short story collection.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Those interested can find my review of From Sea to Stormy Sea, where Charles Ardai’s story “Mother of Pearl” first appeared, HERE.

Book Review: VELVET WAS THE NIGHT

TITLE: Velvet Was the Night

AUTHOR: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

304 pages, Del Ray, ISBN 9780593356821 (hardcover, e-book, audiobook)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): 1970s, Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger.

Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents.

Meanwhile, someone else is also looking for Leonora at the behest of his boss, a shadowy figure who commands goon squads dedicated to squashing political activists. Elvis is an eccentric criminal who longs to escape his own life: He loathes violence and loves old movies and rock ’n’ roll. But as Elvis searches for the missing woman, he comes to observe Maite from a distance—and grows more and more obsessed with this woman who shares his love of music and the unspoken loneliness of his heart.

Now as Maite and Elvis come closer to discovering the truth behind Leonora’s disappearance, they can no longer escape the danger that threatens to consume their lives, with hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies all aiming to protect Leonora’s secrets—at gunpoint.

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: It’s been a while since I’ve read something that was straight noir (as opposed to crime thrillers or urban fantasy with noir-ish flavor), and I’m glad that I chose this book as my return to the genre. I’m well familiar with Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s fantasy and horror work and had no doubt I was in good hands but Velvet Was the Night surpassed all my expectations. Damaged people trying their best to survive? Check. Character turns and plot twists? Check. A setting that is as much a character as the humans who inhabit it? Check. A satisfying but not necessarily “happy” ending? Check.

Most of the noir I’ve read has been told from a single character point of view, usually in first-person narration. Moreno-Garcia spends equal amounts of time in the heads of both of her protagonists, El Elvis and Maite, widening the lens of the story and allowing the reader to see some of the events from both perspectives. The characters are not always with or even near each other (despite Elvis’ mandate to surveil Maite to find out what she knows about the missing Leonora), so we don’t get every single event through the eyes of both characters (thankfully, because I think that would get tedious). But when the characters meet or even just see each other from afar, we get to see what each of them thinks about the situation. Elvis is more aware of Maite than she is of him, and Moreno-Garcia puts to effective use the adage about every witness to an event remembering it differently.

The book is populated with a half-dozen or so interesting supporting characters: the mysterious Leonora; her two ex-boyfriends (one a rich antique dealer, the other a struggling student); Elvis’ fellow gang-members and mysterious boss; a revolutionary priest and a Russian spy. Mexico City is a character as well, almost purposefully throwing hot sticky weather and traffic and protests in the characters’ way. They all add color and drama and increasing stakes. But it is Maite and Elvis who draw the reader in, almost mirrors of each other. Both have been hurt by the betrayal of former lovers, both come from impoverished backgrounds, both have mothers (one present, one long absent) who don’t support/believe in them. Both love American music (flying in the face of the political movement of the time) but can’t afford to buy much of it, and both love language (they own the same edition of the same dictionary, even). They both spend a good portion of their day fantasizing about what could be (alternating between longing for their lost loves and obsessing over someone they can’t have) fueled by romance comics (for Maite) and the lyrics of American pop songs (for Elvis). They each equally have romantic standards that are likely unrealistic, which cause them to constantly be disappointed. And that constant disappointment further fuels their social awkwardness and need to fantasize, which further pushes them into the increasingly dangerous set of crosses and double-crosses that keep the novel moving. The best noir builds action out of character flaws, and this is the very best noir.

I have to admit I know almost nothing of Mexico’s history, and especially little about the 1970s. Moreno-Garcia gave me everything I needed to know to understand the political underpinnings of the story – and also enough to make me want to learn more about the country’s history of upheavals and outside influence. I love it when a work of fiction makes me excited to read non-fiction.

If you’re a fan of noir, of damaged people struggling to make the best of bad situations, of gunplay and double-crosses – move Velvet Was the Night to the top of your purchase/read list. You will not be disappointed.

NOTE: I read an Advance Reading Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley. But this review has been so delayed that the book is now available in print, audio, and e-book.

Series Saturday: Terriers

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then blog about.



We all have That Thing (or sometimes, Those Things) that friends have been recommending for months/years/decades that we just, for one reason or another, put off reading/watching/experiencing. For me, the reason is often, but not always, that I’m afraid I will not like That Thing as much as my friends did and thus will disappoint the friends – which would bother me far more than being disappointed in That Thing myself. But sometimes, it’s just because That Thing isn’t available in a format I can experience it in.

For most of a decade now, my friends Dave and Jim have been extolling the virtues of a short-lived television series called Terriers. And for most of that time, it’s been difficult to find given that it’s never been released on DVD and I didn’t really have access to any streaming services that it may or may not have been on. But Dave recently discovered the show is available on Hulu, informed Jim and myself, and well… there really was no reason not to watch it, since I have Hulu (even if I rarely use it).

For those unfamiliar with it, Terriers ran on FX for one 13-episode season back in 2010. It starred Donal Logue as Hank Dolworth, recovering alcoholic ex-cop, and Michael Raymond-James as Britt Pollack, former break-and-enter-man, who share an unlicensed private eye business in Ocean Beach, CA. The main cast was rounded out by Kimberly Quinn as Hank’s ex-wife Gretchen Seiter; Laura Allen as Britt’s live-in girlfriend Katie Nichols; Jamie Denbo as the boys’ lawyer/employer Maggie Lefferts; and Rockmond Dunbar as Hank’s former police partner Detective Mark Gustafson, plus frequent guest stars Loren Dean as Gretchen’s fiancée Jason and Karina Logue as Hank’s sister Stephanie.  Folks, this is one of the tightest casts I’ve seen on a television series. They all have great chemistry; there’s not a single relationship (romantic, platonic, familial, or business) that isn’t completely believable. Even the single-episode guest stars have the right level of timing and rapport with the regulars (especially D.J.”Shangela” Pierce in the “Pimp Daddy” episode – one of those one-off characters I suspect we’d have seen more of had the series been renewed – and Noel Fisher in “Missing Persons”).

Of course, it helps that the cast actually has strong material to work with. The dialogue is sharp: witty, biting, deeply emotional one moment and tension-breaking the next. And while the main characters share a sense of humor, they don’t speak alike at all. This is one of those rare shows where the writers understand their characters well enough to not put the wrong words, the wrong turns of phrase, into their mouths.  The season arc, mini-arcs and single-episode plots all weave together almost perfectly. Small seeds in early episodes pay off in big ways down the line (examples that aren’t too spoilery: a throw-away line in the pilot in which Hank jokes that he’s possibly going senile because he doesn’t remember putting dishes away leads to a great reveal a few episodes later; Britt’s casual willingness to at least threaten violence to get information in the early episodes of course creates problems later on). If I went back and watched with greater scrutiny, I would not be surprised to find a lot of small moments of dialogue or visuals that hint at things to come. Very often, the “case of the week” mirrors themes of the overall arc or features smaller character moments that play into the whole. And the show is yet another example of why Short Seasons work so well: with only thirteen episodes, there’s less chance of a “filler” episode causing the viewer to lose interest or contradictory details sneaking in to derail the viewer with “wait, didn’t they say something completely different last episode” thoughts. You’re more likely to be derailed by “wait, that’s what he meant when he said X” or “holy shit, did they set that up four episodes ago? I think they did” thoughts. The season arc that starts in the pilot (looking for a friend’s daughter, Hank and Britt stumble on a much larger real estate mystery) is concluded in the season/series finale (which also, sort of subtly, sets up who the “big bad” for the start of season two would have been). But not every episode features the season arc up-front. There are several episodes in the middle where the case of the week is the central concern and the season-arc is either barely mentioned or moves along incrementally, and those episodes work to relieve tension for the characters and the viewers (the aforementioned “Missing Persons” and “Pimp Daddy” are excellent examples). The mini-arcs (Hank’s sister’s mental illness; Gretchen’s impending re-marriage; Britt and Katie’s relationship speed-bumps) are spaced out well and feed each other. There’s never a sense that too much is going on, never a sense that any particular storyline isn’t getting the room it needs. If anything, my one complaint/regret is that Maggie Lefferts and Mark Gustavson, while fully-realized characters played solidly by their respective actors, are more clearly around to Move Plot Along or Create Complications. I hope that, had the series gone to season two, they would have been given mini-arcs of their own.

Tonally, Terriers is absolutely modern noir. The setting may be the sunny San Diego area and the clothes may be lightweight and warm-weather appropriate, but Hank and Britt could just as easily be operating out of 1930s Los Angeles. They’re the main characters, they’re the “nice guys,” but they walk a very morally grey line throughout the series. Like the best noir detectives, they’re our protagonists but they’re not always good guys. Hank may have a handle on his alcoholism, but he’s impulsive to a fault, his recklessness making situations worse more often than fixing them. Britt may be happy-go-lucky but he’s got a dark streak that rears up at the worst times. They have blind-spots where their families and friends are concerned. They want Justice to prevail, but they’re often willing to cut corners to make it happen. They’re all heart, but they’re also downtrodden: Hank’s truck looks like it could stop working at any moment, and Britt’s motorcycle doesn’t look much better. Money is always an issue for both of them, and creates numerous complications. Still, you can’t help but root for them. Their hearts are in the right place even if their methods are sometimes a little suspect. And man, are they both charming.

Terriers ultimately didn’t get picked up for a second season, which is a shame. Friends Dave and Jim theorize that had the show debuted just a couple of years later, in the midst of Peak TV, it might have made it at least through season two if not three. But would it have been the same creature if it was picked up a few years later? Would it even have had the same cast? By 2014, Donal Logue had moved on to starring in the proto-Batman series Gotham, while Michael Raymond-James was appearing somewhat regularly on fairy-tales-in-the-real-world series Once Upon A Time. No, I think it’s preferable that Terriers was produced when it was, with the cast it had. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone else at all playing Hank and Britt with such chemistry. I also wouldn’t be adverse, since reunions are all the rage, for another 10-13 episode run taking place now and showing us where the guys and gals have ended up, provided the writing is as complex and sharp as we’d expect.