Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Too Cool For School

Shortcut Man by p.g. sturges

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You know a book you read and enjoy while acknowledging it’s not that good? I’m not talking about a “guilty pleasure” read, a term I’ve always found to be condescending anyway. I’m talking about something that you know is probably not well-written but it meshes with your taste and you wind up enjoying it? That’s how I feel about p.g. sturges’ (sic) Shortcut Man. sturges writes in an absurdist, Chuck Palahniuk-esque style that I don’t often enjoy. And he has no running plot, rather a series […]

Two Duds

The Wounded and the Slain by David Goodis

Doctor Lovebeads by Gary Reilly

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How much does it suck when you read two books concurrent with one another by authors you normally like…and they turn out to be complete duds? I took time to write this review after finishing both books to wonder if it was just me. Nope. Both were not good and very close to bad. The Wounded and the Slain There are good ideas in this David Goodis noir tale: ideas about marriage, accountability, colonialism, loss, sense of place and justice. But they’re buried underneath Goodis’ […]

Mailing It In

Pick-Up by Charles Willeford

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I don’t know what really to make of Charles Willeford’s Pick-Up in 250 words. It’s a good book but having seen another book do the same trick the author does here, and more effectively in my opinion, it’s tough to really have sentiments about it. On the one hand, the tale itself is interesting on face value before the last two sentences. A familiar noir fable of two losers playing out the string. The art angle is interesting as Willeford’s art fascination is not something you see […]

Apparently, They Do

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy

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First things first to any concerned animal lovers, no horses are harmed in this book. Or animals. Only people. Secondly, this is considered one of the great works of American noir and I definitely get why. It is bleak as heck. I don’t know Horace McCoy’s story but apparently the dude had it in for Hollywood. The only other book I’ve read of his is I Should Have Stayed Home and that was another Hollywood-is-bad tale. This one takes on the world of exploitation of Hollywood wannabes through […]

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Black Friday by David Goodis

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A few months ago, a journalist whose newsletter I follow posted about how much he loved David Goodis’ books. We had exchanged e-mails in the past; he turned me on to the fabulous Martin Beck series (bless him forever). Hearing him laud Goodis made me want to read more of the man’s work. When I saw a Black Lizard (bless them forever) copy for sale, I pounced. My favorite avenue to explore existentialism is not in the philosophical novels of graying old men but in […]

Back to the Beginning

Grifter's Game by Lawrence Block

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I continue to collect Hard Case Crime novels, even though I barely buy the new ones anymore. I worry sometimes about the spirit of the product but I know Charles Ardai and the folks there do good work to keep the imprint alive. Because I have a backlog of HCC books, I’ve made a commitment to read once at least once a month. This month, I decided to start where it all began: Grifter’s Game, book #1 in the series. Originally published as Mona, it was one […]



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