Hard Case Crime and "A Sound of Distant Drums"

I only recently discovered that there's a thread that ties together a number of the novels published by Hard Case Crime — and it's not just the distinctive cover design. Here's an explanation from HCC editor Charles Ardai from 2005:

"Back in the PBO era, a number of writers, including Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block, made an in-joke out of including references to A Sound of Distant Drums in their books.... So when the time came for [Max Phillips and I] to write our books for the line, we carried on the tradition."

Here are the occurrences I've found so far:

Lawrence Block: I found a good restaurant where they served me a blood-rare steak and very black coffee. I lingered awhile over a second cup of coffee, then went out and found a movie. [It] was lousy, a historical epic called A Sound of Distant Drums, a technicolor cinemascope package with pretty girls and flashing swords and people getting themselves killed flamboyantly. I dozed through most of it.
— from Grifter's Game (a.k.a. Mona), p. 39.

Donald E. Westlake: A little after midnight, we went down to 42nd Street and saw an important movie that had been made from a Broadway play called A Sound of Distant Drums. It was about homosexuality and what a burden it was, but the hero bore the burden girlfully. It didn't convert me.
— from 361, p. 95.

Lawrence Block: It was evening. Joe was lying on a bed, book in his hand, a western entitled A Sound of Distant Drums, by James Blue. Anita was sitting on the edge of the other bed and staring emptily across the room.
— from A Diet of Treacle (a.k.a. Pads Are for Passion), p. 179.

Donald E. Westlake: Cy Grildquist?... He's got a play on Broadway right now. A Sound of Distant Drums. A good money-maker.
— from The Cutie (a.k.a. The Mercenaries), pp. 147–148.

Max Phillips: "You're Billy Metz," I said.... "William R. Metz. Production design at Paramount. You were really up there for a while.... Catherine the Great's palace in Scarlet Monarch. That big, ah, that kind of desert fortress in A Sound of Distant Drums. Lemme think."
— from Fade to Blonde, p. 141.

Richard Aleas (Charles Ardai): A video store was promoting the latest Chow Yun-Fat import, a film whose two-character Chinese title was translated as A Sound of Distant Drums.
— from Little Girl Lost, p. 133.

Ardai explicitly states that there were other authors involved in this literary game, so any additions to this list will be greatly appreciated, whether HCC books or not. This is a fun little piece of trivia, and I'm interested in pursuing it with your help.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell (unabridged audio book read by Robert Petkoff)

Peter Brown is an intern at New York's Manhattan Catholic Hospital, but he used to be Pietro Brnwa (a.k.a. "Bearclaw"), a hired assassin for the mob, and now he's hiding out with the help of the Federal Witness Relocation Program. While doing his usual rounds, he comes across a familiar face: Nicholas LoBrutto (a.k.a. Eddy Squillante, a.k.a. Eddy Consol), who immediately thinks they've sent Peter to kill him.

But Eddy soon realizes the true situation and proposes a deal (of sorts): keep him alive (Eddy has signet-cell stomach cancer), and Eddy won't pass along Peter's location to David Locano, the father figure Peter turned over to the Feds (which got him put in WITSEC in the first place).

Beat the Reaper is the debut novel from author Josh Bazell. Titled after a Firesign Theatre skit, this book has the same sort of frenetic nature as the work of that comedy troupe. The main plot is pretty thin (I just summarized it entirely), so just like life, the book consists mostly of the stuff between events: flashbacks, various medical crises, and Peter's darkly humorous philosophy on the happenings.

We get to learn all about Peter's backstory, including the murder of his grandparents, his search for revenge, his "adoption" by David Locano and antagonistic brotherhood with Locano's son "Skinflick," his love for the beautiful Magdalena, and why he doesn't care much for sharks. Bazell slips from present to past tense with the ease of a more seasoned writer. This is especially impressive considering that he reportedly wrote Beat the Reaper while finishing his own residency (Bazell has an M.D. in addition to a B.A. in creative writing). This makes him the latest in a line of doctors/writers that includes two of my favorites, F. Paul Wilson and Somerset Maugham.

Bazell's medical expertise gives us lots of educational tidbits throughout the many footnotes in Beat the Reaper. (These footnotes are included seamlessly in the audio version.) And the medical details such as the arrangement of the bones in the forearm actually serve to make the surrounding narrative that much funnier (though we're later warned away from taking any of it as factual — and I'm not sure that the LD₅₀ of defenestration will come in handy any time soon, anyway).

I've also never learned so much about the camps at Auschwitz in one sitting; this novel is definitely much more than it seems — and so entertainingly written. The jabs at the mafia are particularly astute ("The Godfather [is] a movie from the 1970s about the 1950s that mob guys model their lives on to this day").

Beat the Reaper is a wholly modern venture into crime fiction with Peter Brown (you'd think WITSEC would've given him a moniker not quite so close to his own; that's purely old-style Ellis Island–quality naming right there) as the currently preferred hardcase antihero who is only likable in comparison to everyone else (and because of his biting, cynical sense of humor). Yet it retains a mainstream appeal and should draw anyone from fans of classic noir fiction to horror aficionados (with its incredibly gut-wrenching finale).

Narrator Robert Petkoff pulls all this off admirably in his reading of the unabridged audiobook of Beat the Reaper, especially his integration of the footnotes into the running text. His world-weary delivery fits the character so well that one could be excused for thinking it was Bazell himself at the microphone. Also, the two musical pieces that open and close the audiobook (one jazz, one hip-hop) perfectly bookend the experience with percussion that both sets up and carries off the "badass" feel of the novel.

The storyline requires a good deal of suspension of disbelief, and the love story is the weakest portion — two guys having a close friendship with little in common is a regular occurrence, but I seriously doubt any woman would put up with Peter's garbage — but the narrative voice is so strong that it carries the reader or listener smoothly over any of Beat the Reaper's bumps in logic. Josh Bazell is definitely an author to keep an eye out for. He makes writing a novel this layered look easy, and his style is one that could translate to many different tales, though how he can follow this debut is anyone's guess.

The Maze by Catherine Coulter (audio book read by Susan Ericksen)

Seven years ago, Lacey Sherlock's sister was murdered by a serial killer that the newspapers dubbed the String Killer for his tactic of making his victims follow a string to the center of a maze before killing them. Now Lacey is an FBI agent determined to use her access to find the perpetrator. But when she offers herself up as bait, the String Killer has a surprise for her....

The Maze was my first venture into the so-called "romantic suspense" genre. I had not originally intended to take this trip down a previously untraveled road, but I found the audiobook on a table of free stuff at work and decided it would be an experiment that was relatively free of risk.

My low expectations led to a pleasant surprise. I had feared that The Maze would be basically a romance novel with suspense overtones, but Coulter actually does a fine job capturing all the nuances I've come to expect from the serial-killer subgenre (if not the explicit violence a horror fan like myself would anticipate).

Of course, given the target audience, Lacey's relationship with her boss Dillon Savich instantly turns into antagonistic flirting (which everyone recognizes but them) and quickly progresses beyond that (albeit with unrealistic speed). But that is a minor quibble, and the existence of sequels featuring the pair told me that would happen, anyway. The Maze is actually quite suspenseful and fast-paced and kept me guessing to the end. And that's all I was looking for.

Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (unabridged audio book read by Rene Auberjonois)

Respected New York Times journalist William Smithback Jr., best known for his exposés, has been murdered. His wife Nora Kelly, archeologist with the Museum of Natural History, was brutally attacked as the killer left. But this is an open and shut case. The perpetrator, the couple's neighbor Colin Fearing, was identified by five witnesses and was captured clearly on security cameras. There's only one problem: Colin Fearing's death certificate was signed ten days ago.

When voodoo artifacts are found at the scene, the press cries "Zombie!" And when DNA testing confirms that the killer was indeed Fearing, things start to get really strange. Is there really some form of zombi voodoo involved, or is the solution as simple as a local multimillionaire paying for a hit on Smithback, the reporter who smeared his name? And what does a well-hidden Manhattan commune (connected by Smithback in the press to animal sacrifices) have to do with it all?

Both angles are thoroughly investigated by FBI Special Agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast and New York police lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta (the heroes of several of authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's previous novels), with the added incentive that Smithback was a friend of theirs and accompanied them on previous cases. But you can be sure that the authors will not let us off with an easy answer.

Cemetery Dance is my first of the Preston/Child collaborations. I had previously enjoyed Preston's solo novel The Codex (one of the best books I read in 2008), and it's great to learn that he and Child work together equally well. Readers interested in voodoo and other similar practices will find a lot of good information here, as Pendergast's mentor arrives and acts as a veritable encyclopedia on the various forms, specifically obeah.

But Cemetery Dance is not all talk. There is plenty of action, and no character is ever truly safe. One particular highlight is a chase through a large museum storage room housing dozens of plastic-covered whale skeletons. And Preston and Child manage to leaven the intensity inherent in a murder being investigated by the friends of the deceased by including some slower scenes delving into D'Agosta's other personal struggles, particularly his relationship with fellow cop Laura Hayward. In the process, this makes him much more fully developed than the sometimes chimerical Pendergast. (A Sherlock Holmes type, Pendergast is prone to unconventional methods of investigation, often leaving D'Agosta to clean up the mess, and D'Agosta is getting a little tired of this role.)

The authors' highly descriptive style immerses the reader in a richly drawn, though unfamiliar, world. And their intelligent approach appeals to more literate readers while their plot operates solidly within the confines of the thriller genre. This includes, of course, a number of cliches that must be expected, if not necessarily welcomed, such as how, no matter what information is needed, Pendergast magically seems to have access to it. (Perhaps Cemetery Dance will boost sales of the works of Wade Davis, whom Pendergast references by name.)

In addition to D'Agosta and the fascinating Pendergast (though flawed, surely one of fiction's great idiosyncratic investigators), Cemetery Dance is peopled with other terrific characters — people like Bill Smithback, Nora Kelly, and Laura Hayward — who I am eager to encounter again. Luckily, most or all of them are featured in the many previous Preston and Child novels, like The Cabinet of Curiosities (the one I'm most likely to try next).

Actor René Auberjonois — probably best known for his television work on Benson (for which he was Emmy-nominated), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Boston Legal, as well as in the film version of M*A*S*H — shows off his impressive vocal range in the unabridged reading of Cemetery Dance. Auberjonois makes each character different while retaining a familiar thread throughout (though he doesn't quite achieve the "mellifluous" tone frequently attributed to Pendergast).

Delving into their world for the first time, I did not expect something so akin to a horror novel coming from this duo. But I'm not complaining. Preston and Child walk the line of mainstream thriller and zombie horror deftly in Cemetery Dance, and it makes me wonder if perhaps the zombie subgenre is not as over and done with as it would seem, if such a literate and intelligent plot can be gleaned from it. Maybe more authors need to go back to the original roots of the phenomenon.

History Is Dead edited by Kim Paffenroth (zombie historical fiction)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form in the Spring 2008 issue of Dead Reckonings. Copyright 2008.

Kim Paffenroth is a theologian and a zombie aficionado whose work also includes Gospel of the Living Dead (which won the Bram Stoker Award for nonfiction) and two novels, Dying to Live and its sequel. Wearing the editor's hat this time around, Paffenroth combines the living dead with an entirely different academic discipline to compile a consistently impressive parade of the undead throughout time. Presented in chronological order, the 20 tales in History Is Dead provide individual historical snapshots spanning from prehistory to the close of the 19th century.

Though largely written by up-and-comers (with three authors published for the first time), the quality of the stories in History Is Dead is remarkably high, especially for a micropress anthology. None are truly awful; the worst are merely ineffective. For example, Derek Gunn’s and Joe McKinney’s stories stop just when they get interesting.

The best entries work by combining the expected elements of horror with humor and heart. Among the highlights is the debut of Raoul Wainscoting, as a scourge of "postvitals" invades opening day at the Globe Theatre. Also worth singling out is Jenny Ashford’s story about a vengeful father and a son with his own idea of duty, from which both Rembrandt and posterity benefit.

Leila Eadie deposits an outbreak of the "sickness" into Regency society and juxtaposes the priorities of the time with the actions necessary for survival: to wit, the heroine’s father’s lament that her firearm skills leave her little chance of finding a husband. Rebecca Brock employs well-worn Southern-fiction tropes in a moving story of another woman and her father during Restoration. John Peel cleverly twists the myths surrounding the Lone Ranger with genuine wit, and his story is the most purely fun.

But all of the stories possess considerable intelligence and commendable detail, with their respective periods presented with authenticity. With its fascinating "what if" scenarios that allow for a wide range of speculation, History Is Dead offers a highly coherent anthology-reading experience ... and a cover disturbing enough to be brought out when houseguests overstay their welcome.

You've Been Warned by James Patterson and Howard Roughan (unabridged audio book read by Ilyana Kadushin)

Kristin Burns is a photographer, but until she can make a living from her pictures, she works as the nanny to Michael and Penley Turnbull's two children, Dakota and Sean. She's also having an affair with Michael, a successful businessman with international connections, but she refuses to let him ease her own path to success.

Sounds like she thinks she's got her life all worked out at age 26. But just like Hamlet said to his childhood friend Rosencrantz, "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space — were it not that I have bad dreams."

And Kristin has a doozy: a recurring nightmare that causes her to scream herself and her neighbors awake every morning. Who needs an alarm clock? (Interestingly enough, the neighbor that complains the most is named Mrs. Rosencrantz.)

When the nightmare — which involves the Falcon Hotel and four body bags — seems to be coming true, Kristin wonders if she's losing her mind. Is she? After all, she sees her father (dead for 12 years) on the streets of Manhattan and hears a repetitive snippet of music coming from inside her head. And she doesn't know what to make of the strange "warnings" she's getting from a guy in a ponytail, or the homicide detective who follows her, even out of state.

But authors James Patterson and Howard Roughan (Honeymoon, Sail) aren't going to let us off with an easy answer like "she's crazy." They've got something very different in mind for You've Been Warned. And it's not something usually encountered in a mainstream bestseller.

Ilyana Kadushin (who also narrates the Twilight saga — maybe you've heard of it? — in addition to being half of the music duo Lythion) gives a tour de force performance in You've Been Warned, personifying every one of Kristin's idiosyncrasies without judgment (something the authors cannot claim to do). Her sweet-sounding voice makes it easy to root for Kristin, even when we realize she has a serious impulse-control problem and really needs a best friend to talk some sense into her.

You've Been Warned is a totally gripping psychological thriller whose ending lifts boldly from two familiar films in that genre (in fact, so familiar that if I named them, it would give the whole game away, and the ride is too good to spoil). The ending has disappointed many readers, and I guessed part of it early on. But Patterson and Roughan have created such memorable characters, and the rest of the book is full of such fantastic twists and turns — including questions that only seem to lead to more questions — that I don't begrudge them.