High Life by Matthew Stokoe

First published 2002; reprinted by Akashic Books in 2008

Jack lives in a seedy part of LA, works at Donut Haven, is married to a hooker named Karen, and dreams of being a celebrity.  It doesn’t surprise him when Karen disappears after selling her kidney for $30,000. Expecting her to be on a prolonged bender, Jack goes looking for Karen and instead finds the police, in a park, examining a gutted body.  Jack soon enters into uncomfortable relationships with a police detective named Ryan and a seductive surgeon named Bella.  His life is about to become much better -- or much worse -- than he ever imagined.

High Life is noir on steroids. It has the blunt and gory mixture of sex, drugs, and violence that animates American Psycho, but it almost makes that novel resemble Winnie the Pooh by comparison. If you're put off by scatology, necrophilia, incest, and gruesome descriptions of death, you might want to give High Life a pass. On the other hand, if you can stomach the violence and the bizarre sexual appetites of the principle characters, you'll be rewarded with a masterful piece of writing, as well as an insightful examination of the seedy underbelly of Hollywood and the craving that certain outcasts feel for the well publicized lives of wealthy celebrities.

Matthew Stokoe makes the novel's first person narrator into a likable sociopath--no small feat, and a tribute to his authorial abilities. The tightly plotted story is credible, the characters are fully realized, and the atmosphere is a rich mix of the darkness of noir and the superficial sunshine of Hollywood. High Life is hard to put down and hard to forget.

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The Last Goodbye by Reed Arvin

First published in 2004

I picked this up at an airport, knowing nothing about the author, on the basis of cover blurbs that promised an absorbing plot. I wasn't expecting much, but the novel kept me engrossed during a four hour flight.

Jack Hammond is fired from his job at a law firm for having sex with a client, then hangs out a shingle and survives on the court appointments he gets from his buddy, who is a clerk in a judge’s office.  One of Hammond’s clients dies, and in cleaning out the client’s apartment, Hammond learns that the client was a hacker who was obsessed with an opera singer named Michele Sonnier.  Sonnier is married to a wealthy man who is about to become ultra-wealthy when the IPO for his drug company is launched.  Hammond doesn’t believe his client injected himself with an overdose, and while investigating the death, he falls in love with Sonnier, who enlists him to help find her daughter, taken from her when she was a wayward kid in the Atlanta projects.  All of these plot threads eventually weave into a smart story.

I recommend the novel for a couple of reasons. The plot, while wildly improbable, is fast paced and interesting. It follows the typical arc of a thriller and does it well: the protagonist (Jack Hammond) stumbles onto a mystery, starts poking into it, is repeatedly foiled in his attempts to unravel it, and finds that he's put his life in jeopardy. The ending is satisfying and in some respects uplifting. The novel's resolution is quite clever.

Arvin does a fine job of bringing his characters to life. Hammond is a bit seedy, bordering on down-and-out, but finds a way to redeem himself, as does his love interest, opera singer Michele Sonnier, whose guilt about her lost daughter is the plot's driving force. As a way to pass the time on an airplane, you could do much worse than to pick up The Last Goodbye.

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Catch a Falling Spy by Len Deighton

First published in 1976

Catch a Falling Spy (also published under the title Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy) is a well crafted spy thriller that incorporates elements of dark comedy with gritty action, suspense, and a noir atmosphere. The characters lack the depth of Bernard Sampson, the star of many of Deighton's later novels, but they are nonetheless convincing.

British agent Harry Palmer teams with CIA agent Mickey Mann to help Bekuv, a Russian scientist, defect.   Their mission leads them to a dangerous encounter in the Sahara Desert.  Once they finally have him in a place of safety, Bekuv refuses to cooperate unless his beautiful young wife, Katerina, joins him.  An assassination attempt and the emergence of a secret society of Ruyssian scientists contribute to the intrigue.  Added to the ever growing list of characters who may or may not be traitors are a U.S. senator, the senator's aide, and Harry Dean, a washed up CIA operative who is found with an embarrassing amount of cash in his private stash.  Is anyone to be trusted?  Only by reading to the conclusion of this exciting story can the reader answer that question.

Deighton mixes credible, fast-moving action scenes with psychological drama in a novel that takes the reader on a wild journey.  While not as complex as Deighton's later work, Catch a Falling Spy offers an early example of this fine spy novelist's talent.

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The Light of Day by Eric Ambler

First published in 1962

Arthur Simpson--petty thief, unemployed journalist, and occasional tourist guide--is one of Eric Ambler's finest creations. The son of an Egyptian mother and British father, Simpson is embittered by the unwillingness of either nation to claim him as one of its own.

When caught in the act of burglarizing a hotel room in Athens, Simpson is blackmailed into driving a Lincoln to Istanbul. Of course, the plan does not go well for Simpson, who soon finds himself caught between the schemers who induced him to make the trip and the Turkish police, who want to use him for their own ends. This well-paced thriller is sprinkled with moments of levity, nicely balancing the darkness that enshrouds Simpson as he becomes embroiled in a criminal plot. While the criminal characters are not as fully developed as Simpson, the novel works because Ambler makes the reader see the world through Simpson's eyes and feel his mounting sense of dread as events unfold.

Ambler creates an effective atmosphere.  Even when there seems to be little action, Ambler keeps the story in motion -- there's always something happening that holds the reader's attention.  There are elements of a mystery in the story as Simpson tries to discover the purpose of driving the Lincoln to Istanbul, but that secret is revealed well before the novel's end. At that point, suspense builds as Simpson finds himself caught between the desires of the police and the crooks. The suspense is palpable, and for that reason I recommend The Light of Day as a true thriller.

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Hit Man by Lawrence Block

Published by William Morrow on January 21, 1998

Hit Man is the first in a series of books starring J.P. Keller, a laid-back assassin who, save for his profession, is just like the rest of us:  he walks his dog, goes out on dates, wonders about the lives of strangers he passes on the street, and takes up stamp collecting to alleviate his boredom.  Hit Man isn't a conventional thriller; it's an unconventional portrayal of a remorseless killer as an ordinary guy.

Block started writing about Keller in short stories that mostly appeared in Playboy.  Hit Man collects many of those stories and adds more material, but it still reads like a series of related stories rather than the novel it purports to be. There is no central plot. Keller gets a call from Dot in White Plains, who works for the old man; Dot relays an assignment to Keller, or Keller gets it directly from the old man; and Keller travels to wherever and makes the hit. Along the way Keller philosophizes and muses about his life and the lives of others, whether clients, victims, or total strangers. Some hits are more difficult than others; some present Keller with ethical dilemmas, creating interesting situations for a man who operates outside the boundaries of ethical behavior.  Toward the end the old man becomes a bit dotty, forcing  Keller to decide whether he wants to continue working in his chosen profession.

The interplay between Dot and Keller is often hilarious. Keller is an affable killer; the stories are surprisingly lighthearted and amusing, given the subject matter.  Readers looking for a thriller or a mystery might be disappointed with Hit Man.  This isn't a mystery and it isn't exciting; it's a series of scenes from a man's life.  The man happens to be a killer.  On that basis, the book works.

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