SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL - Book review

The University: Book One by Terrence McCauley is like it says on the cover, a fast-paced thriller. Highly original too.

Way back in the early 1970s there was a sci-fi detective series called Probe starring Hugh O’Brian as agent Hugh Lockwood. The series concerns the so-called World Securities Corporation, a high-tech international private investigation company that employs field operatives—the elite of whom are aided by implanted audio receivers and who carry Scanners, tiny video camera/telemetry units which can be attached to tie clips or other jewellery. The most common method is to wear the Scanner on a ring, enabling it to be discreetly aimed. Two other agents Tony Franciosa and Doug McClure. They’re in constant contact with the probe technical staff. At the time I thought this was great stuff.

Now move to the present and we have an agency that is ten or even a hundred times better than depicted in Probe. The University is a non-government intelligence network. OMNI – the Optimized Mechanical and Network Integration protocol – was now far-reaching, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and satellite assets.

Heading The University is the Dean.

One of the Office Heads is James Hicks; he’s ex-special services and knows how to handle himself. He has worked for the Dean for almost two years but had never met him.

Hicks has access to the OMNI satellite feeds, able to spy on and listen to suspects and enemies alike. And of course OMNI can perform instant translation of languages overheard. Omniscient, indeed.

Hicks also has access to all kinds of useful people, one of whom is Roger, who is a master at interrogation. Quite a chilling creation, is our Roger.

For this latest mission Hicks is thrown by the fact that an asset has seemingly been turned against the University. Many of the assets he recruited were unsavoury men and women, but they all had something in common: they could be useful when called upon for certain tasks required by The University. In fact, as Hicks observed, ‘They’d all done things that had opened themselves to University pressure and blackmail. Any dirt he had on them was their own fault. He’d sooner have sympathy for the devil himself than for any of his potential recruits’ (p8)

There is plenty of non-stop action throughout so that the 323 pages sped by. This could become an addictive series.

Although this is a contained story, it leaves the reader wanting more – and happily there is more. Book Two is A Murder of Crows. Two other books follow... so far.

Noir Nation #3

NOIR NATION
International Crime Fiction #3

The India Issue

If you like crime fiction, then you might like this. Its 368 pages are value for money. The editor, Eddie Vega, says in his introduction, “Noir Nation is a search for beauty, dark and brutal. We can hear the initial call in these lines from W.B. Yeats’ masterful poem “Easter 1916”:
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
“There is a turning away from the light and the banal, the casual comedy, and a turning to the murderous passions and dark depravities of human nature and transgressive political bodies. In real life, such turns result in death, disfigurement, and prison. In literature, we can live and relive the mechanics vicariously and safely through the prism of the imagination.”

With over 1.2 billion residents, India is not only the world’s most copious producer of crime pulp, it is also its hungriest consumer. Even in her chirpy feel-good Bollywood films, guns and gangsters vie with the singing and the dancing. Although the work of many Indian writers of crime noir are not to be found in fashionable bookstores—next to the hardcover books of Jhumpa Lahiri, Salmon Rushdie, and Vikram Seth—they are in much more popular spots: the stalls and book carts of A. H. Wheeler & Co. found among the 8,000 railway stations that serve India’s 25 million daily commuters, riding 71,000 miles of uneventful track. That is India’s open secret: crime novels stay close to their devouring readers. This needs commemorating. Hence Noir Nation No. 3: The India Issue—with stories that are dark, brutal, and beautiful to the eye that loves the shadows—where the dark angels flock.

Illustrated with stunning Mehndi tattoos, Noir Nation's India Issue contains over thirty entries from some of the very best literary crime fiction writers in the world, among them Suparn Verma, Samrat X, Yaeer Talker, Bianca Bellova, JJ Toner, Richard Godwin, Simon Rowe, Graham Wynd, David Siddell, and Meeah Cross-Williams; and ace contributions from emerging noir writers Alastair Keen, Terrence P. McCauley, Frauke Schuster, Ryan Gattis, Chelsea L. Clemmons, Gila Green, Paul Alexander, Carmen Tudor, and Anthony Pioppi; and established hard-boiled wunderkinds Jonathan Sturak, Ed Lynskey, Mark Mellon, Christopher L. Irvin, and Nik Korpon, The issue also includes essays on noir-related poetry, music, and the visual arts by Atar Hadari, Vicki Gundrum, and Robert Brunet and two works of classic noir: "The Turkish Brothel" by the late Cortright McMeel and "The Perfect Courtesan" by Kshemendra.

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Cortright McMeel (1971-2013),  ‘Co-founder of Noir Nation, visionary writer & publisher of dark tales, loving husband & father, luminary teacher of writing, literature, and life.’

Amazon.com e-book here

Amazon.co.uk e-book here

You can buy the paperback with all those gorgeous colours here post-free worldwide

Next up is #4, surprisingly. The Canadian Issue.

 

Boxing Day

If anyone had told me a year ago that I’d be writing a story about boxing, I’d have thought they were punch drunk. Still, I was asked to contribute to an anthology of boxing stories and have written a boxing tale set in Chicago that should appear in the Fight Card series early in the new year. I was inspired by reading this book by Terrence McCauley, writing as Jack Tunney (a house name for the Fight Card series, inspired by Paul Bishop and Mel Odom).

AGAINST THE ROPES

 

New York, 1925. Terry Quinn is another orphan protégé of Father Frawley from the Gym at St. Vincent’s, Chicago. He’s close to the big fight against Jack Dempsey. Just two more fights, maybe… Genet was tough, but he managed. Next in line was Whitowski, a big bull of a contender. And the Tammany boys wanted Quinn to take a dive, let Whitowski win. A lot of money was riding on that. No way. Trouble was, ‘no way’ meant ‘no exit’ for Terry and his trainer, Augie…

The Tammany boys included Corcoran and Doyle: ‘If Manhattan was an island surrounded on all sides by an ocean of dirty money, Fatty Corcoran was Moses, able to part the dirty waters and make them go any way he wanted.’ Whereas Doyle ‘had a growing bootleg booze operation that almost took in half the city… Doyle was tougher than he looked and he looked plenty tough already.’

This short novel provides all of the atmosphere, the ambiance and the thrills of the 1920s. Combine that with the stupidity of Prohibition, the rackets and the fight game and this becomes a bout of heart-pounding excitement where the audience is rooting for the good guy Quinn, yet realising that the odds are severely stacked against him. The dialogue is as sharp as a toothpick, as foreboding as the next incoming storm of punches, and full of character. By the end, I was punch-drunk, the fight sequences were so gruelling and realistic. Great stuff. You can get it here

McCauley is a writer to watch. He can certainly capture the period. You might want to try his 1930s style novel Prohibition, also.

PROHIBITION

The year is 1930 and New York is a city on the edge. The Roaring '20s ended with the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression is only beginning. Banks are failing. Companies are closing their doors. Breadlines grow longer by the day. The only market making money is the black market: racketeering, rum running, and speakeasies. But when even those vices begin to weaken, the most powerful gangster on the Eastern Sea-board, Archie Doyle, sees the writing on the wall. He launches a bold scheme that, if successful, will secure his empire’s future beyond Prohibition. Beyond even the Great Depression.

But when a mysterious rival attempts to kill Doyle’s right hand man, a dangerous turf war begins to brew. With his empire under attack, Doyle turns to his best gun, former boxer Terry Quinn, for answers. Quinn must use his brains as well as his brawn to uncover who is behind the violence and why before Doyle’s empire comes crashing down.

Terrence McCauley whips up a fast paced pulp thriller ripe with Tommy-gun blasting hoods, corrupt cops and deadly dames in this original novel reminiscent of the classic gangster movies of old. Brilliantly illustrated by Rob Moran with designs by Rob Davis, PROHIBITION is a tough-guy blow to the literary gut readers will not soon forget. You can get this here