crime – Page 27

Aural Noir Review of The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown

Aural Noir: Review

[This audiobook was created by Wonder Audiobooks which is owned by SFFaudio contributor and a past reviews editior Rick Jackson]

SFFaudio Essential The Fabulous Clipjoint
By Fredric Brown; Read by William Coon
Audible Download – 5 Hours 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible.com / Wonder Audio
Published: 2009
Themes: / Crime / Mystery / Murder / Alcoholism / Noir / Carny / Chicago / Janesville /

You’ll hear the soft, lazy voice of a dame who’s been around, and you’ll meet up with a beautiful heller. You’ll learn the lurid secrets of a man’s locked past, and you’ll prowl dark alleys with two men–two men turned hunters. And you’ll wonder–why Ed and his Uncle Am didn’t level with the cops; what business a gang would have with Ed’s dead father; and where the killer thought the hunters would go wrong. Here are your answers, in this fast-spinning, two-fisted mystery about thugs, molls, and carnival folks.

Ed Hunter is 18, an apprentice linotype operator in 1940s Chicago. He works with his father. One morning Ed gets up to work only to find his father missing, having not come home the night before. This can only mean one thing – MURDER! The cops aren’t too interested, his alcoholic stepmother and oversexed step sister aren’t up for it, so it’s up to Ed to get justice. But to get the job done he’ll need help so For he enlists his uncle, a carny with more brains and experience than any man Ed knows.

Rick Jackson, the man behind Wonder Audiobooks, is a good friend of mine. It’d be hard to say I’m 100% objective about reviewing his stuff. The problem mostly being that he and I have such similar tastes in audiobooks and fiction that to praise one of his audiobooks is very much like saying how cool I am! But he is cool damn it! And more importantly this is a truly awesome audiobook. I will stake my reputation on you loving it. If you’re twice as apt to like an old crime novel as a new one, then you’re three times as apt to love The Fabulous Clipjoint. The mystery is not hard to follow, the story is told in first person, but conversely it was devilishly hard to solve. I pride myself on being an excellent armchair detective, but I was happily baffled right up til the big reveal. That’s really saying something. William Coon sounds like a wise teenager. But then whenever he’s tasked with another character’s voice he switches: Falsetto, gruff, kindly, Coon does them all. Highly recommended.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Aural Noir Review of Drive by James Sallis

Aural Noir: Review

Drive
By James Sallis; Read by Paul Michael Garcia
Audible Download – 3 Hours 26 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2007
Provider: Audible.com
Themes: / Crime / Noir / Los Angeles / Hollywood / Arizona /

“Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward him, Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake. Later still, of course, there’d be no doubt. But for now Driver is, as they say, in the moment. And the moment includes this blood lapping toward him, the pressure of dawn’s late light at windows and door, traffic sounds from the interstate nearby, the sound of someone weeping in the next room…”

Drive starts with an important dedication. “To Donald Westlake, Ed McBain and Larry Block.” If an author is going to choose any three modern crime writers as inspiration for a book they could pick no better three than these dudes. Drive starts off with an opening sentence that could have been written by Richard Stark (a pen-name of Donald Westlake), proceeds to punch-out clean and clinical prose like McBain’s 87th Precinct novels and punches the story along like Lawrence Block at his best. Drive stars “Driver”, a nameless Hollywood stunt driver by day and a criminal getaway driver by night. We get how he started in the business of stunt-driving, a few scenes of him pulling off those incredible feats of automotive control, and how he got involved in the punishing business of criminal getaway driving. It’s fast, but it ain’t furious, it’s more of a simmering sizzle.

Blackstone narrator Paul Michael Garcia, who I last heard as the reader of Starman Jones, has a young voice – I knew I’d enjoy his reading of something in this genre. Garcia’s narration made it an incredibly solid listen. What’ll keep it from being a classic of the niche is that same anonymity of the protagonist. I enjoyed the ride with the guy, the “driver”, he has an incredible story to tell, but it was like I got hypnotized by the road somehow – I got to the end, refreshed and exhilarated but not particularly aware of what route we took. Perhaps this makes Drive the ideal summertime, top down, high-gear audiobook? It’s a novella so it’s short and you’ll zip through it practically before the commute is over. I think its worth giving a try.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Blake’s 7 – When Vila Met Gan (Vol. 1.1)

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Blake’s 7 – When Vila Met Gan (Vol. 1.1)
By Ben Aaronovitch; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 50 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Media
Published: October 2008
ISBN: 9781906577056
Themes: / Science Fiction / Crime / Dystopia /

Earth. 2230 AD. A time of social and political turmoil. Olag Gan wants to marry the woman of his dreams. Vila Restal wants to steal anything that isn’t nailed down. When they form a partnership, a perfect combination of strength and skill, it seems that nothing stands between them and the easy life. But fate hates to give a sucker an even break and the course of true love never did run smooth.

Though set after the events of the Blake’s 7 – Audio Adventures (Trilogy Box Set) |READ OUR REVIEW| When Vila Met Gan is primarily a prequel showing Gan and Vila back on Earth. There they work in the criminal underworld, Vila as a burglar and Gan as syndicate muscle. This is where the show shines, with Ben Aaronovitch having carefully constructed even more of the world he illustrated in the Trilogy Box Set. Very little of Earth was shown in the original television series – so Aaronovitch makes the tyranny of Earth actually tyrannical by drawing heavily upon the culture and lexicon of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The story on Earth is set within a framing sequence in which a post-Trilogy Box Set Vila and Gan are visiting a colony world. They are there to take some much needed shore leave – but after they’ve spent all their money boozing up the planet Gan gets misty, and pines for his lost love back on Earth. It is at this point the narrative jumps back to Pre-Trilogy Box Set London (Rog Blake is still just a reformer candidate in upcoming planetary elections).

The story itself runs 30 minutes. The writing is fresh and funny with Gan and Vila make a terrific pair. Michael Keating, reprising the role he created in the original TV series, sounds just like he did on the show (even 30 years on). Owen Aaronovitch plays Gan. Also noticeable in this script is Ben Aaronovitch’s addressing of the original TV series “teleport” capabilities. The TV B7 “teleporter” and Star Trek‘s “transporter” technologies have been seen by SF fans as a kind of deus ex-machina. I think that’s why they were left out of the Trilogy Box Set. But, in When Vila Met Gan, our stranded heroes bemoan the lack of teleport technology. It verges on self-parody, but in the context of the framing story it works very well. This is a serial audio drama series of the highest caliber.

Also included on the CD are the Season 1 trailer, and the Season 2 trailer!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Forgotten Classics: The Hiccup Flask by James Powell

SFFaudio Online Audio

First published in the October 1985 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Hiccup Flask is another jewel from the typewriter of James Powell. Now, thanks to the good Julie D. of the Forgotten Classics podcast, we have an excellent audio version of Powell’s wonderful tale.

The plot concerns: An intractable caliph, his incurable hiccups, an untrustworthy alchemist and the Thief of Baghdad.

For your listening pleasure…

The Hiccup Flask
By James Powell; Read by Julie D.
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Forgotten Classics
Podcast: August 22, 2009
A tale of wonder in which we encounter a caliph, a thief, an alchemist, and a hiccup … from the mind of James Powell.

For more James Powell stories in the paperbook format check out his recently released collection A Pocket Full Of Noses.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Free @ Harper Audio: Richard Matheson, Neil Gaiman, Marcia Talley

SFFaudio Online Audio

Harper Audio, as part of their “Summer of Books” promotion, is giving away three must download short stories from their recent and upcoming audiobook releases. These are “limited time” releases, so download them right away.

Duel (from Road Rage)
By Richard Matheson; Read by Stephen Lang
1 |MP3| – Approx. 63 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: February 2009
“Driving to San Francisco, a businessman finds himself the victim of a deadly game being played by the driver of a huge, mysterious truck. Later to become Steven Spielberg’s classic 1971 film.”

A Study In Emerald (from Fragile Things)
By Neil Gaiman; Read by Neil Gaiman
1 |MP3| – Approx. 50 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: September 2006
Alluding to both the Sherlock Holmes canon and the Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, this Hugo Award winning short story will delight fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, and of course, Neil Gaiman. A Study in Emerald draws listeners in through carefully revealed details as a consulting detective and his narrator friend solve the mystery of a murdered German noble. But with its subtle allusions and surprise ending, this mystery hints that the real fun in solving this case lies in imagining all the details that Gaiman doesn’t reveal, and challenges listeners to be detectives themselves.

Can You Hear Me Now (from Two Of The Deadliest)
By Marcia Talley; Read by
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Harper Audio
Published: July 2009
“Need can make men desperate, but greed, in my experience, makes men stupid.” – From a new collection of short stories featuring “Lust, Greed, and Murder from Outstanding Women of Mystery”

[via Mary Burkey’s Audiobooker blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – Bradbury, Knight, & Brown – from Wonder Audiobooks

New Releases

Ray Bradbury’s fantastic tale of hyper-accelerated life spans of forgotten humans on an alien world.

The Creatures That Time Forgot
By Ray Bradbury; Read by Mark Douglas Nelson
1 hr, 48 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

Mad! Impossible world! Sun-blasted by day, cold-wracked by night – and life condensed by radiation into eight days! Sim eyed the Ship – if he only dared reach it and escape! … but it was more than half an hour distant – perhaps the limit of life itself! From the author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. Originally published in the Fall 1946 issue of Planet Stories. It was later reprinted under the title Frost and Fire.

And part of the Noir Masters series and the author of The Fabulous Clipjoint:

The Wench is Dead
By Fredric Brown; Read by William Coon
57 min.- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

Howard Perry has become a drunk – a skid row bum. It wasn’t always so, and he has hopes of returning to be a respected university student. But now he spends his days washing dishes to buy enough booze to hopefully blackout at night. His only friend is a prostitute name Billie the Kid. But Billie is just a working girl, and it would be stupid for him to care too much for her.

Of course Perry isn’t exactly making the smartest choices as he continues his downward spiral. And when he goes to borrow a drink from Billie’s neighbor, who soon turns up murdered, things are looking even worse for Perry.

A wonderfully bizarre tale by SF Grand Master, Damon Knight.

Rule Golden
By Damon Knight; Read by William Coon
3hr- [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Wonder Audio
Published: 2009

Available at Audible & iTunes

As a newspaper publisher, Robert James Dahls found the news disconcerting; in fact, inexplicable. News items like two boxers simultaneously knocking each other out, prison guards sick and unable to guard the prisoners, policemen shooting fleeing culprits and collapsing themselves, battered wives with husbands suffering the same injuries that they inflicted.

Dahl catches wind of a large experimental facility that is being led by the U.S. Department of Defense. His suspicions coincide with the strange, beyond-coincidental behavior that he’s been observing. For what’s on the grounds of the facility is much more radical than anything that was claimed to be found in Roswell. Not just an alien but one that has a strange effect on the human race, where the Golden Rule works in reverse: Be done by as you do to others.

How can we get along without conflict? What will happen to the human race? Dahl soon finds himself a fugitive helping a bizarre alien save or destroy the Earth!

Did you know you can get either of these titles, as well as any other Wonder Audio title for just $7.49? Just sign up at Audible.com/WonderAudio

Posted by Rick Jackson