Books to Die For Read online

  I was hooked by the first line, surely one of the most attention-grabbing opening sentences ever: “Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.” I defy anyone, having read that, to put the book down! It made me realize just how important the first sentence of a book is. I think of that line every time I start a new book, and try to come up with one that is as grabbing. And it is not just that first sentence, either: Brighton Rock has an equally strong last line, devastatingly clever and extremely dark. It makes you put the book down with your spine tingling, your imagination soaring.

  Greene captures so vividly the dark side of Brighton and Hove, and in many ways his writing is as relevant now as when the book was first written. As a teenager growing up there, I was scarily aware of the criminal undertow that permeated every street and every passageway. There were certain crime families whose names brought a shiver. Historically, they had terrorized the place with their protection rackets, their nascent violence, their weapons, their sheer impunity. In the 1930s the police, it seemed, were powerless and irrelevant to Greene’s chilling wise guys.

  And yet, far more than being just an incredibly tense thriller, Greene uses this novel to explore big themes of religious faith, love, and honor. As a bonus, it is also unique for being one of the few novels where the original film adaptation, with Richard Attenborough playing Pinkie, is so good that it complements rather than reduces the book.

  The characters are wonderfully human, deeply flawed, and tragic. The story is told almost entirely through the eyes of the villains and two women, the garrulous tart with a heart Ida and the dim, fervent Rose: “She . . . was about to mutter her quick ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Hail Marys’ while she dressed, when she remembered again . . . What was the good of praying now? She’d finished with all that: she had chosen her side: if they damned him they’d got to damn her, too.”

  Pinkie is a masterly creation who, in my view, rates alongside the great villains of fiction, a teenaged gangster who sees his chance to seize control of the gang of much older, more experienced men. A cunning, nasty, ruthless killer he may be, yet one thing haunts him: the fear of eternal damnation from the Catholic faith he cannot shake off. You loathe him but you are mesmerized by him, and at times you even feel sympathy toward him.

  What I have always loved about Graham Greene’s writing, in all his books, is that he has a way of describing characters, in just a few sentences, that makes you feel you know them inside out and have probably met them. The one thing that makes any novel compelling is the characters created by the author; if they are people about whom you care enough, you would stay with them while they read three hundred pages of the phone directory out aloud. Graham Greene is one of the grand masters of this. Within a few brushstroke lines he makes you feel you would recognize a character walking down the street. Look at flawed but vivid Ida: “Life was sunlight on brass bedposts, Ruby port, the leap of the heart when the outsider you have backed passes the post . . . Death shocked her, life was so important.”

  The big bonus for me is the palpable sense of place conveyed by Greene, who was not a native of Brighton. I strive for this in my Roy Grace novels. The city of Brighton and Hove is as much a character as are Roy Grace and his team. I have a theory that the common denominator between all the most vibrant cities of the world is a dark undertow of criminal activity. In the U.K. we have plenty of pleasant seaside resorts, but only one has global iconic status: Brighton, for seventy years blessed—or cursed—with the unwelcome soubriquet of “Crime Capital of the UK.” Graham Greene put it on the criminal map. I guess I’m doing my best to keep it there . . .

  Peter James is best known for his series of Roy Grace police procedurals, which are set in Brighton on England’s south coast. The first, Dead Simple, was published in 2005; the most recent is Not Dead Yet (2012). James made his debut in 1981 with the stand-alone title Dead Letter Drop. In total, he has published twenty-six titles, with a collection of short stories to be published in 2013. Peter James won the Krimi-Blitz Award for Best Crime Writer in Germany in 2005, and the Prix Polar in 2006. He won the Crime Novel of the Year Award in the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards 2011. Visit him online at www.peterjames.com.

  Too Many Cooks

  by Rex Stout (1938)

  ARLENE HUNT

  * * *

  Rex Stout (1886–1975) wrote serials for various magazines for more than fifteen years before publishing his first novel, How Like a God, in 1929. After writing a political thriller called The President Vanishes (1934), he published Fer-de-Lance (1934), his first novel in the Nero Wolfe series, all of which are narrated by Wolfe’s assistant, Archie Goodwin. Stout’s prodigious output included novels, novellas, and nonseries novels, with forty-seven titles in the Nero Wolfe series. Stout was awarded the Silver Dagger by the Crime Writers’ Association for The Father Hunt in 1959, while the Nero Wolfe corpus was declared Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon in 2000. In 1959, Rex Stout received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award.

  * * *

  Over the course of his career, Rex Stout wrote more than forty stories based around the character of Nero Wolfe, world-class detective, and his sidekick, Archie Goodwin. Too Many Cooks is the fifth novel in the series and was first published in 1938.

  Nero Wolfe is fifty-six. He has brown wavy hair and weighs, according to Archie, one seventh of a ton (although that rises to well over three hundred pounds in some books). Mercurial, verbose, usually unflappable—unless hungry, or a woman threatens tears—Nero Wolfe is a highly sought-after detective, gourmand, orchard fancier, and virtual shut-in. He is a man who guards his privacy and his daily routine with remarkable audacity, so much so that it’s something of a marvel the great detective ever gets a lick of work done. Had he no need for the vast sums of money required to run his household, it is doubtful that he would ever task himself with the whims of the hoi polloi. Even when he has accepted a commission, he generally treats his clients with barely contained contempt. Nero is difficult and peevish at times, but he is loyal and steadfast when committed. He is also a genius—a lazy genius, but a genius nonetheless.

  Archie Goodwin, Nero’s assistant and foil, lives with Nero at his New York brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street, New York. Archie is in his early thirties. He’s handsome, debonair, witty, an excellent dancer, and an all-round good egg—as long as you stay polite around him. All Nero Wolfe stories are told from Archie’s perspective, and I feel that it is he and not Nero who is the true heart of the novels as he races round doing his better’s bidding, usually in a quite clueless manner, breaking hearts and the occasional jaw in the process.

  I think it is fair to say that the relationship between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin is complicated. Indeed, Nero explains this to Archie in one of the books: “You are headstrong and I am magisterial. Our tolerance of each other is a constantly recurring miracle.” But this yin and yang of detection is central to the novels for, without Archie, Nero could not function, and without Nero, Archie would be all at sea, redundant. Their bickering and verbal swordplay do not detract from their mutual respect, and dare I say it, their mutual affection.

  Though I am incredibly fond of all the Nero Wolfe novels, I chose Too Many Cooks for two reasons. Firstly, the great Nero, siderodromophobic and loath to travel, is forced, due to circumstance, to leave his brownstone and travel by train to West Virginia. Secondly, Nero, peevish and stubborn as ever, needs to be shot and wounded in order to engage his prodigious brain.

  Too Many Cooks opens with a twitchy, nervous Archie Goodwin, pacing a railway station platform, smoking. He says:

  I lit a cigarette with the feeling that after it had calmed my nerves a little I would be prepared to move the Pyramid of Cheops from Egypt to the top of the Empire State Building with my bare hands, in a swimming-suit; after what I had just gone through.

  Thus, we learn Nero has accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address at the gathering of Les Quinze Maîtres (the
Fifteen Masters, a group of renowned chefs), being held at the Kanawha Spa in West Virginia.

  Attending the gathering are Marko Vukcic, Nero’s longtime friend and a fellow Montenegrin, and Jerome Berin, a man who has long withheld a recipe for sausage that Nero desperately wants. Archie is along for the ride and spends a great deal of his time making googly eyes at Miss Berin, Jerome’s very young and very beautiful daughter.

  Phillip Laszio, a much-reviled man of questionable standing in the group, now married to Marko’s ex-wife, is also at Kanawha, and it is he who initiates a “friendly” competition whereby the collected gourmands must guess the ingredients of various sauces. Unfortunately, between these courses of haute cuisine, Laszio is found murdered, with a serving knife wedged deep in his back. The police are called: everyone is a suspect.

  Nero himself shows little interest in the dead man, and longs only to return to New York; or at least he feels that way right up until the moment someone tries to shoot him through a window. After that, rancor and pride set in motion what cold-blooded murder could not, and with relish Nero turns his formidable attention to uncovering the culprit.

  I should say something about the language of Too Many Cooks. The novel is written in 1938, a time of great upheaval in American history, and some of the attitudes found in its pages might jar heavily with the modern reader. The servants of the spa are mostly African American men, and are spoken to and treated in a highly racist manner by the local police and some of the characters. They are referred to as boys, niggers, and shines. One of the guests has a Chinese wife, and she, too, is given short shrift.

  Happily, though Stout does not shy away from displaying many of the prevalent attitudes of the time, Nero has other ideas on how to talk to the assembled servants, some of whom are openly hostile to his intrusion:

  That’s what I mean when I say I’ve had limited experience in dealing with black men. I mean black Americans. Many years ago I handled some affairs with dark-skinned people in Egypt and Arabia and Algiers, but of course that has nothing to do with you. You gentlemen are Americans, much more completely than I am, for I wasn’t born here. This is your native country. It was you and your brothers, black and white, who let me come here to live, and I am grateful to you for it.

  By treating the men with dignity and respect he opens the door for a frank discussion, and through this unearths a vital clue that ultimately leads him to uncover the killer.

  Too Many Cooks is an excellent whodunit, rich in language, absorbingly detailed, yet never lacking pace. Nero’s circuitous route to the truth is seldom obvious and never dull.

  Finally, a word of warning: do not read Too Many Cooks while hungry. As Nero is a gourmand, many of Stout’s novels are filled with luscious descriptions of food, and Too Many Cooks is no exception. Trust me on this: a rumbling stomach will only distract you from the entertainment.

  Arlene Hunt is the author of seven crime-fiction novels, five of which feature the popular QuicK Investigation duo, John Quigley and Sarah Kenny. She is also the co-owner of Portnoy Publishing. She lived in Barcelona for five years and now resides in Dublin. Her books have been translated into three languages, and her current novel, The Chosen, a stand-alone set in the United States, was voted TV3’s Book of the Month for November 2011. An earlier novel, Undertow (2008), was short-listed for best crime novel at the Irish Book Awards. Arlene has also contributed to many anthologies, including Down These Green Streets, Requiems for the Departed, and Console. Visit her online at www.arlenehunt.com.

  Rogue Male

  by Geoffrey Household (1939)

  CHARLAINE HARRIS

  * * *

  The author of almost thirty novels and seven collections of short stories, Geoffrey Household (1900–88) graduated from Oxford with a BA in English literature and served with British Intelligence during World War II. The author of novels for adults and young adults, he is best known for the thriller Rogue Male (1939), which was filmed twice, first as Manhunt (1941) and later as Rogue Male, starring Peter O’Toole, in 1976.

  * * *

  I could have picked any one of three books by Geoffrey Household as the novel I think everyone should read. He’s that good, and his books are still fresh despite the passage of time and the passing of the social structure about which he wrote. Dance of the Dwarves and Watcher in the Shadows would have been equally good choices—both of them are suspenseful, even terrifying—but Rogue Male is an essential novel for any serious reader in the mystery and thriller genres.

  In 1939, Geoffrey Household published a book that became the template for many, many books to follow. Household’s unnamed protagonist is a well-known and definitely upper-class Englishman. His name is recognizable. He’s a notable hunter and a fine shot. And he makes an abysmal mistake.

  In his short, spare narrative, Household hits the ground running, almost literally. The protagonist is caught by security forces as he’s aiming a rifle at a dictator (not named, but clearly Hitler) while the dictator is standing on the terrace of his country home. Our Englishman underestimates the guard’s sharp instincts, and this error in judgment leads to his capture.

  During his interrogation, the Englishman maintains that he was simply motivated by the sport of seeing if he could get close enough to the dictator to make the shot, and he sticks to his story. Our hero is tortured, but he manages to escape, and despite his grievous wounds and lack of transportation, he makes his way back to England. There he slowly realizes that he cannot surface and resume his life. His own government cannot accept him, either, since that would imply approval of his act. And the dictator’s agents are baying at his heels.

  The Englishman concludes that he must hide from everyone, not just his pursuers. So he makes his painful way to an area of the country that he knows and loves, though we don’t learn the true reason for this until later. There he establishes a burrow—literally, a hole in the ground—to live in until the pursuit dies down. He’s had to kill one man in London, and he doesn’t want to kill more.

  But he’s still being tracked, and by someone who’s as good a hunter as he is—the fake Englishman who calls himself Major Quive-Smith.

  There are so many interesting points to consider in Rogue Male that it’s hard to know where to start. First, the character of the protagonist—he’s a man’s man. He’s not much of a talker, he’s matter-of-fact about the seamier sides of life, and he has a hard time admitting his true motives and emotions, even to himself, despite his evident intelligence. He loves the outdoors, he loves shooting, and he has a thorough knowledge of the English countryside and the English character. He’s a detailed observer, which makes his decisions more informed. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and of the obligations of class. He’s a strategist.

  If I were to mention every spy, secret agent, or action hero who exhibited these same characteristics, it would be a long, long, list: Quiller, Jason Bourne, and a strange combination of Claude Lebel and the Jackal from Frederick Forsyth’s justly famous novel The Day of the Jackal. I could make a case for the nameless stranger in the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns as being a brother under the skin to Household’s rogue male.

  It’s obvious that the laconic but thoughtful hero hit a powerful nerve in the mind of readers everywhere. And why not? He’s dangerous, brave, resourceful, informed, and fit. He has huge reserves of physical endurance and a practical fund of knowledge that never seems to be exhausted.

  Emotionally, however, he isn’t so educated. The most interesting part of Rogue Male comes close to the end of the book when the protagonist, through the journal he’s been keeping, admits to himself that he would have pulled the trigger on the dictator. He may have pretended to himself that he was stalking the dictator simply to see if he could get close enough to make the shot, and he may have pretended to his captors that he had no intention of going through with the assassination, but neither of those things is true.

  Why? As we learn when he’s running for shelter from his pursuers in Engla
nd, he’s lost the woman he loved. Furthermore, as he reveals to us bit by bit, she has been shot as a direct result of the dictator’s policies. When he first mentions the woman, he denies he was truly in love. As he comes closer to the truth of himself and his own motivations, he admits that he’s been deceiving himself in a massive way. In the terrible confinement of his self-built burrow under the ground, now sealed by enemies waiting outside, this forces our hero to turn inward.

  Yet with all these revelations, the shocker that propels the final action of the book is not the death of the hero’s fiancée, but the shooting of Asmodeus, a feral cat befriended by the hero over the course of his sojourn in the burrow. The murder of Asmodeus, and the careless tossing of the cat’s body down into the burrow, has a galvanic effect on the suffering hero. It’s through Asmodeus’s death that the hero reclaims his life. Asmodeus’s body provides the materials to effect revenge for his murder, and the rage and guilt the hero feels provide the impetus to devise a plan to confound his enemy, the bogus Major Quive-Smith.

  It’s the hero’s own personal code of honor that is triggered by the shooting of the animal. The cat was befriended by him, and tamed (to some extent) by him. It’s his fault that the cat approached Major Quive-Smith, our hero reasons, since the hero has taught him that men who keep still are men who have food. It’s interesting to speculate what kind of turn Rogue Male might have taken if Asmodeus had lived.

  This remarkable book, written so long ago, has clearly provided a blueprint for the action hero ever since its great success when it was originally published. If elements seem familiar to the modern reader, it’s because Household’s tight, tense narrative showed subsequent writers how the job should be done.