Happiness Is A Book: The Mourner by Richard Stark

 Happiness Is A Book: The Mourner by Richard Stark

Barry Ergang's FFB Review: A JADE IN ARIES (1970) by Tucker Coe

 

From the archive... 

A JADE IN ARIES (1970) by Tucker Coe

 

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

 

 

When I was twelve years old I read my first Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, and I was hooked. I read a dozen more, one right after another, until I was over-saturated with Erle Stanley Gardner’s style and approach in this particular series. (He had a multitude of series, and his style varied accordingly, as I learned over time.) Many years went by before I picked up another Mason novel. As a result of that experience, I generally made it a point to avoid consecutive readings of works by a given author, lest I burn out on him or her. There were probably a few exceptions, but I never binged on anyone else to the extent I did with Gardner.

 

I mention this because I read the book under consideration here, which was written by Donald E. Westlake under his Tucker Coe pen name, immediately after finishing Drowned Hopes. The books are radically different in style and approach—A Jade in Aries is not remotely comical, whereas Drowned Hopes emphatically is—and each is, in turn, very different from the novels he wrote under his Richard Stark pen name.

 

A Jade in Aries is the fourth in a five-book series narrated by former NYPD detective Mitchell Tobin, a man disgraced and punishing himself for it by literally and figuratively both digging a hole to retreat into and walling himself off from society as much as possible. He does not have a private detective’s license, but has occasionally undertaken investigations to supplement the money his wife Kate earns from a part-time job.

 

This story begins when Tobin is approached on Wednesday, January 7^th, by a young gay man, Ronald Cornell, owner of a men’s boutique. He insists that his partner—personal and professional—Jamie Dearborn, was murdered, and that the police detective, Aldo Manzoni, won’t do anything about it, having written it off as what he calls a case of the “Changeable Sailor.” Disbelieving this, certain that Jamie’s killer is someone he and others in his circle know, Cornell is determined to identify him. He is seriously into astrology, and only needs Tobin’s help to find out the exact dates and times of birth of the six men he’s narrowed his list of suspects to. Tobin calls an old cop friend in Missing Persons, tells him what he needs, and then tells Cornell to call the friend directly the following Monday.

 

Over breakfast Tuesday morning, Kate Tobin reads a newspaper story she shares with her husband, he having told her about his meeting with Cornell. The story says Cornell is in the hospital after an attempted suicide. Based on the alleged method and what he observed about Cornell, Mitch Tobin refutes the story, sure that Cornell was assaulted, but refuses to get involved. When Kate subsequently—trying to wear down his resistance—tells her husband that she visited Cornell in the hospital, that he has made an extremely generous offer in exchange for Mitch’s help—and they can certainly use the money—that the bigoted, homophobic Detective Manzoni insists Cornell is emotionally unbalanced and should be institutionalized, Tobin caves in and undertakes the investigation. The result is an absorbing character-driven story as Tobin deals with a variety of personalities, including the oppositional Manzoni, from the Cornell/Dearborn social circle to solve Cornell’s assault and two murders.

 

Homophobes are unlikely to read A Jade in Aries. More enlightened readers will probably have to make, as I did, reactive adjustments concerning the context of the time in which it was written, specifically with regard to language and attitude. I was 23 when it was published and don’t recall gay being a synonym for homosexual back then. Thus, homosexual is the term used throughout, unless someone disparagingly says queer or faggot, as some characters do. One who uses faggot a couple of times is Tobin himself, which I found somewhat disconcerting since he’s sympathetic to Cornell’s plight, and treats those in Cornell’s coterie the same way he’d treat heterosexuals: with respect or contempt based on how they comported themselves and responded to him.

 

In Chapter Eight, looking at his fifteen-year-old son, Tobin briefly wonders whether the boy might become homosexual, as if it were a matter of choice or upbringing: “I don’t know if I can be proved right or wrong, but I hold to the belief that homosexuality almost always shows a failure of some kind on the part of the parents. The failure of the father to be a man, or of the mother to be a woman, or of both to give their child security and love. Whatever the particular style of the failure, I think it almost always lies in the parents when the son emerges to adulthood as a homosexual.”

 

Reading that, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was strictly Tobin the fictional character speaking, or if it was Westlake the author using Tobin as a conduit for his own beliefs. If the latter, I wonder if Westlake’s attitude changed during the decades prior to his death as more became known about human sexuality.

 

I found A Jade in Aries engrossing, compelling, and hard to put down, even though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “great” mystery novel, and can recommend it to those who don’t object to a major aspect of its subject matter.

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4hHWruV 

 

  

Barry Ergang ©2015, 2025

  

Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. Some of it is available at Amazon and at Smashwords. His website is http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/ and he can be reached there for your editorial needs.

Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: DIRTY MONEY

Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: DIRTY MONEY: Dirty Money  by "Richard Stark" (Donald E. Westlake)  (2008) The is the final novel that Westlake wrote about master criminal Park...

Barry Ergang's FFB Review: THE JUGGER (1965) by Richard Stark

 

The late Donald E. Westlake was a versatile writer whose output ranged over a number of fields. But it is crime fiction for which he is most famous, for which he was deservedly acknowledged by the Mystery Writers of America as a Grand Master, and in which he wrote under his own name and under a variety of pseudonyms. Under his own name he will always be remembered as one of the greatest exponents of the comic crime novel with titles that include The Hot Rock, God Save the Mark, I Gave at the Office, What's the Worst That Could Happen?, and Two Much.

 

As Richard Stark, probably his best-known pseudonym, he produced a very successful series of ultra-hardboiled novels, several of which were filmed—see The Thrilling Detective website for more information. The books starred Parker, a professional thief: "Once or twice a year, Parker was in on an institutional robbery...It wasn't out of humanity that he limited himself to organizations, it was just that organizations had more money than individuals....

 

"Parker wasn't a single-o. He always worked with a pickup group gathered for that single specific job. Every man was a specialist, and Parker's specialties were two; planning and violence. Other men were specialists in opening safes or scaling walls or making up blueprints from nothing more than observation, but Parker was a specialist at planning an operation so it run smoothly, and at stopping any outsider who might be thinking of lousing things up."

 

The premise of The Jugger, the sixth book in a series which does not necessarily have to be read in order, is fairly simple. Joe Sheer is a jugger, a safecracker, living in the small town of Sagamore, Nebraska under the name Joseph Shardin. Now retired, he sometimes acts as an intermediary between Parker and others in his particular line of work. He writes to Parker who, when not pulling heists, lives in Miami under the name Charles Willis, an identity he has painstakingly constructed over a period of years. Sheer's first letter indicates that he's in some kind of trouble, that he'll handle it, but that Parker shouldn't try to contact him until the matter is settled. A month later a second letter arrives, this one asking for Parker's help. Parker packs a bag and, as Charles Willis, goes to Sagamore. He does so not out of loyalty or friendship toward Sheer—there is nothing noble about him; he does so for the sake of self-preservation. "Joe Sheer could crucify Parker, he could nail him to the wall with a hundred nails...He knew him by his old face...He knew Parker's cover name, he knew twenty or twenty-five jobs Parker had been connected with, he knew enough about Parker to skin him alive."

 

Simple premise, right? All Parker has to do is find out what kind of jam Sheer is in and either help him out of it or kill him to protect himself. But not long after he arrives in Sagamore, things quickly become complicated. Sheer is dead, but nobody will level with Parker about how he died. A man named Tiftus, who "claimed to be a lock man" whom "Parker had never worked with...because he was too unreliable" shows up at Parker's hotel room, wanting to partner to find something valuable he's certain Sheer had hidden somewhere.

 

Parker goes to Sheer's house to look around for himself and is knocked unconscious by someone wearing a burlap bag for a mask. Not long afterward, Tiftus is found dead—in Parker's hotel room. Now Parker must deal with the corrupt Captain Younger, local head of the police department, and the honest, earnest state police investigator Regan—while trying to tie up loose ends, absolve himself of a connection to Tiftus's murder, find the actual killer, and ditch an unwanted new associate. 

 

 

To say anything more would be to spoil the excitement in this taut short novel. The Jugger is as hardboiled as anything Mickey Spillane ever wrote, but without the posturing. Parker is cold, efficient, and ruthless, the complete anti-hero. He lets nothing and no one stand in his way when he's trying to accomplish something. Even readers who think they're inured to fictional criminal activities might be surprised by  some of Parker's. Although he's repellent to anyone with moral sensibilities, he's so intriguing that readers who go for noir fiction will want to follow his adventures, a testament to Westlake's authorial skill.

 

As the quoted passages demonstrate, the author doesn't waste words, doesn't indulge in the kind of verbal pyrotechnics that can dilute and obstruct a narrative. Thus, the story's relentless pace infuses it with a raw power. The no-nonsense style reflects Parker's no-nonsense approach. A further testament to the author's skill is his ability to portray breathing, individualized characters—this despite the fact that the reader is given background information only about Parker and Captain Younger.

 

The Jugger will not appeal to readers who only like stories about heroes with noble codes of honor and conduct, nor will it appeal to readers who dislike onstage violence. Fans of rapid-fire hardboiled fiction will greatly enjoy and possibly even love it. To them I highly recommend it.

 

 

Barry Ergang ©2012, 2023

 

Derringer Award winner Barry Ergang’s own fiction can be found at Amazon and Smashwords.

FFB Review: A JADE IN ARIES (1970) by Tucker Coe Reviewed by Barry Ergang

For this Friday in August, I am running Barry Ergang’s 2015 review of A Jade In Aries by Tucker Cole. After you read the review, make sure you head over to Patti Abbott’s blog and see what she recommends as well as Happiness Is A Warm Book where Aubrey Nye Hamilton has her own selection.Don’t let the news of the world make you crazy and enjoy your weekend.

A JADE IN ARIES (1970) by Tucker Coe

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

When I was twelve years old I read my first Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, and I was hooked. I read a dozen more, one right after another, until I was over-saturated with Erle Stanley Gardner’s style and approach in this particular series. (He had a multitude of series, and his style varied accordingly, as I learned over time.) Many years went by before I picked up another Mason novel. As a result of that experience, I generally made it a point to avoid consecutive readings of works by a given author, lest I burn out on him or her. There were probably a few exceptions, but I never binged on anyone else to the extent I did with Gardner.

I mention this because I read the book under consideration here, which was written by Donald E. Westlake under his Tucker Coe pen name, immediately after finishing Drowned Hopes. The books are radically different in style and approach—A Jade in Aries is not remotely comical, whereas Drowned Hopes emphatically is—and each is, in turn, very different from the novels he wrote under his Richard Stark pen name.

A Jade in Aries is the fourth in a five-book series narrated by former NYPD detective Mitchell Tobin, a man disgraced and punishing himself for it by literally and figuratively both digging a hole to retreat into and walling himself off from society as much as possible. He does not have a private detective’s license, but has occasionally undertaken investigations to supplement the money his wife Kate earns from a part-time job.

This story begins when Tobin is approached on Wednesday, January 7^th, by a young gay man, Ronald Cornell, owner of a men’s boutique. He insists that his partner—personal and professional—Jamie Dearborn, was murdered, and that the police detective, Aldo Manzoni, won’t do anything about it, having written it off as what he calls a case of the “Changeable Sailor.” Disbelieving this, certain that Jamie’s killer is someone he and others in his circle know, Cornell is determined to identify him. He is seriously into astrology, and only needs Tobin’s help to find out the exact dates and times of birth of the six men he’s narrowed his list of suspects to. Tobin calls an old cop friend in Missing Persons, tells him what he needs, and then tells Cornell to call the friend directly the following Monday.

Over breakfast Tuesday morning, Kate Tobin reads a newspaper story she shares with her husband, he having told her about his meeting with Cornell. The story says Cornell is in the hospital after an attempted suicide. Based on the alleged method and what he observed about Cornell, Mitch Tobin refutes the story, sure that Cornell was assaulted, but refuses to get involved. When Kate subsequently—trying to wear down his resistance—tells her husband that she visited Cornell in the hospital, that he has made an extremely generous offer in exchange for Mitch’s help—and they can certainly use the money—that the bigoted, homophobic Detective Manzoni insists Cornell is emotionally unbalanced and should be institutionalized, Tobin caves in and undertakes the investigation. The result is an absorbing character-driven story as Tobin deals with a variety of personalities, including the oppositional Manzoni, from the Cornell/Dearborn social circle to solve Cornell’s assault and two murders.

Homophobes are unlikely to read A Jade in Aries. More enlightened readers will probably have to make, as I did, reactive adjustments concerning the context of the time in which it was written, specifically with regard to language and attitude. I was 23 when it was published and don’t recall gay being a synonym for homosexual back then. Thus, homosexual is the term used throughout, unless someone disparagingly says queer or faggot, as some characters do. One who uses faggot a couple of times is Tobin himself, which I found somewhat disconcerting since he’s sympathetic to Cornell’s plight, and treats those in Cornell’s coterie the same way he’d treat heterosexuals: with respect or contempt based on how they comported themselves and responded to him.

In Chapter Eight, looking at his fifteen-year-old son, Tobin briefly wonders whether the boy might become homosexual, as if it were a matter of choice or upbringing: “I don’t know if I can be proved right or wrong, but I hold to the belief that homosexuality almost always shows a failure of some kind on the part of the parents. The failure of the father to be a man, or of the mother to be a woman, or of both to give their child security and love. Whatever the particular style of the failure, I think it almost always lies in the parents when the son emerges to adulthood as a homosexual.”

Reading that, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was strictly Tobin the fictional character speaking, or if it was Westlake the author using Tobin as a conduit for his own beliefs. If the latter, I wonder if Westlake’s attitude changed during the decades prior to his death as more became known about human sexuality.

I found A Jade in Aries engrossing, compelling, and hard to put down, even though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “great” mystery novel, and can recommend it to those who don’t object to a major aspect of its subject matter.

© 2015 Barry Ergang

Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. Some of it is available at Amazon and at Smashwords. His website is http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/ and he can be reached there for your editorial needs.

FFB Review: "A JADE IN ARIES" (1970) by Tucker Coe-- Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Barry is back again this week for FFB. Make sure you check out the full list of books over at Patti’s blog.

A JADE IN ARIES (1970) by Tucker Coe

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

When I was twelve years old I read my first Perry Mason mystery, The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, and I was hooked. I read a dozen more, one right after another, until I was over-saturated with Erle Stanley Gardner’s style and approach in this particular series. (He had a multitude of series, and his style varied accordingly, as I learned over time.) Many years went by before I picked up another Mason novel. As a result of that experience, I generally made it a point to avoid consecutive readings of works by a given author, lest I burn out on him or her. There were probably a few exceptions, but I never binged on anyone else to the extent I did with Gardner.

I mention this because I read the book under consideration here, which was written by Donald E. Westlake under his Tucker Coe pen name, immediately after finishing Drowned Hopes. The books are radically different in style and approach—A Jade in Aries is not remotely comical, whereas Drowned Hopes emphatically is—and each is, in turn, very different from the novels he wrote under his Richard Stark pen name.

A Jade in Aries is the fourth in a five-book series narrated by former NYPD detective Mitchell Tobin, a man disgraced and punishing himself for it by literally and figuratively both digging a hole to retreat into and walling himself off from society as much as possible. He does not have a private detective’s license, but has occasionally undertaken investigations to supplement the money his wife Kate earns from a part-time job.

This story begins when Tobin is approached on Wednesday, January 7^th, by a young gay man, Ronald Cornell, owner of a men’s boutique. He insists that his partner—personal and professional—Jamie Dearborn, was murdered, and that the police detective, Aldo Manzoni, won’t do anything about it, having written it off as what he calls a case of the “Changeable Sailor.” Disbelieving this, certain that Jamie’s killer is someone he and others in his circle know, Cornell is determined to identify him. He is seriously into astrology, and only needs Tobin’s help to find out the exact dates and times of birth of the six men he’s narrowed his list of suspects to. Tobin calls an old cop friend in Missing Persons, tells him what he needs, and then tells Cornell to call the friend directly the following Monday.

Over breakfast Tuesday morning, Kate Tobin reads a newspaper story she shares with her husband, he having told her about his meeting with Cornell. The story says Cornell is in the hospital after an attempted suicide. Based on the alleged method and what he observed about Cornell, Mitch Tobin refutes the story, sure that Cornell was assaulted, but refuses to get involved. When Kate

subsequently—trying to wear down his resistance—tells her husband that she visited Cornell in the hospital, that he has made an extremely generous offer in exchange for Mitch’s help—and they can certainly use the money—that the bigoted, homophobic Detective Manzoni insists Cornell is emotionally unbalanced and should be institutionalized, Tobin caves in and undertakes the investigation. The result is an absorbing character-driven story as Tobin deals with a variety of personalities, including the oppositional Manzoni, from the Cornell/Dearborn social circle to solve Cornell’s assault and two murders.

Homophobes are unlikely to read A Jade in Aries. More enlightened readers will probably have to make, as I did, reactive adjustments concerning the context of the time in which it was written, specifically with regard to language and attitude. I was 23 when it was published and don’t recall gay being a synonym for homosexual back then. Thus, homosexual is the term used throughout, unless someone disparagingly says queer or faggot, as some characters do. One who uses faggot a couple of times is Tobin himself, which I found somewhat disconcerting since he’s sympathetic to Cornell’s plight, and treats those in Cornell’s coterie the same way he’d treat heterosexuals: with respect or contempt based on how they comported themselves and responded to him.

In Chapter Eight, looking at his fifteen-year-old son, Tobin briefly wonders whether the boy might become homosexual, as if it were a matter of choice or upbringing: “I don’t know if I can be proved right or wrong, but I hold to the belief that homosexuality almost always shows a failure of some kind on the part of the parents. The failure of the father to be a man, or of the mother to be a woman, or of both to give their child security and love. Whatever the particular style of the failure, I think it almost always lies in the parents when the son emerges to adulthood as a homosexual.”

Reading that, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was strictly Tobin the fictional character speaking, or if it was Westlake the author using Tobin as a conduit for his own beliefs. If the latter, I wonder if Westlake’s attitude changed during the decades prior to his death as more became known about human sexuality.

I found A Jade in Aries engrossing, compelling, and hard to put down, even though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “great” mystery novel, and can recommend it to those who don’t object to a major aspect of its subject matter.

© 2015 Barry Ergang

Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. Some of it is available at Amazon and at Smashwords. His website is http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/.

FFB Review: "THE JUGGER (1965) by Richard Stark" Reviewed by Barry Ergang

THE JUGGER (1965) by Richard Stark

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

The late Donald E. Westlake was a versatile writer whose output ranged over a number of  fields. But it is crime fiction for which he is most famous, for which he was deservedly acknowledged by the Mystery Writers of America as a Grand Master, and in which  he wrote under his own name and under a variety of pseudonyms. Under his own name he will always be remembered as one of the greatest exponents of the comic crime novel with titles that include The Hot Rock, God Save the Mark, I Gave at the Office, What's the Worst That Could Happen?, and Two Much.

As Richard Stark, probably his best-known pseudonym, he produced a very successful series of ultra-hardboiled novels, several of which were filmed—see The Thrilling Detective website for more information. The books starred Parker, a professional thief: "Once or twice a year, Parker was in on an institutional robbery...It wasn't out of humanity that he limited himself to organizations, it was just that organizations had more money than individuals....

"Parker wasn't a single-o. He always worked with a pickup group gathered for that single specific job. Every man was a specialist, and Parker's specialties were two; planning and violence. Other men were specialists in opening safes or scaling walls or making up blueprints from nothing more than observation, but Parker was a specialist at planning an operation so it run smoothly, and at stopping any outsider who might be thinking of lousing things up."

The premise of The Jugger, the sixth book in a series which does not necessarily have to be read in order, is fairly simple. Joe Sheer is a jugger, a safecracker, living in the small town of Sagamore, Nebraska under the name Joseph Shardin. Now retired, he sometimes acts as an intermediary between Parker and others in his particular line of work. He writes to Parker who, when not pulling heists, lives in Miami under the name Charles Willis, an identity he has painstakingly constructed over a period of years. Sheer's first letter indicates that he's in some kind of trouble, that he'll handle it, but that Parker shouldn't try to contact him until the matter is settled. A month later a second letter arrives, this one asking for Parker's help. Parker packs a bag and, as Charles Willis, goes to Sagamore. He does so not out of loyalty or friendship toward Sheer—there is nothing noble about him; he does so for the sake of self-preservation. "Joe Sheer could crucify Parker, he could nail him to the wall with a hundred nails...He knew him by his old face...He knew Parker's cover name, he knew twenty or twenty-five jobs Parker had been connected with, he knew enough about Parker to skin him alive."

Simple premise, right? All Parker has to do is find out what kind of jam Sheer is in and either help him out of it or kill him to protect himself. But not long after he arrives in Sagamore, things quickly become complicated. Sheer is dead, but nobody will level with Parker about how he died. A man named Tiftus, who "claimed to be a lock man" whom "Parker had never worked with...because he was too unreliable" shows up at Parker's hotel room, wanting to partner to find something valuable he's certain Sheer had hidden somewhere.

Parker goes to Sheer's house to look around for himself and is knocked unconscious by someone wearing a burlap bag for a mask. Not long afterward, Tiftus is found dead—in Parker's hotel room. Now Parker must deal with the corrupt Captain Younger, local head of the police department, and the honest, earnest state police investigator Regan—while trying to tie up loose ends, absolve himself of a connection to Tiftus's murder, find the actual killer, and ditch an unwanted new associate.  

To say anything more would be to spoil the excitement in this taut short novel. The Jugger is as hardboiled as anything Mickey Spillane ever wrote, but without the posturing. Parker is cold, efficient, and ruthless, the complete anti-hero. He lets nothing and no one stand in his way when he's trying to accomplish something. Even readers who think they're inured to fictional criminal activities might be surprised by  some of Parker's. Although he's repellent to anyone with moral sensibilities, he's so intriguing that readers who go for noir fiction will want to follow his adventures, a testament to Westlake's authorial skill.

As the quoted passages demonstrate, the author doesn't waste words, doesn't indulge in the kind of verbal pyrotechnics that can dilute and obstruct a narrative. Thus, the story's relentless pace infuses it with a raw power. The no-nonsense style reflects Parker's no-nonsense approach. A further testament to the author's skill is his ability to portray breathing, individualized characters—this despite the fact that the reader is given background information only about Parker and Captain Younger. 

The Jugger will not appeal to readers who only like stories about heroes with noble codes of honor and conduct, nor will it appeal to readers who dislike onstage violence. Fans of rapid-fire hardboiled fiction will greatly enjoy and possibly even love it. To them I highly recommend it.

Barry Ergang ©2012

The Jugger is one of the many titles Barry Ergang is selling from his personal collection. You can see the lists at http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/

You can find his fiction at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005GXMF86  and

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/cassidy20

.