Artie Wu and Quincy Durant in Ross Thomas's Out on the Rim (Century/Mysterious Press, 1987), Sequel to Chinaman's Chance

NB: Proffered as part of this Friday's Forgotten Books. And a quick aside to anyone directed here as a result of FFB: I'm running a competition at the moment to win one of three copies of brand new illustrated book The Art of Movie Storyboards, so if that tickles your fancy, go here for more details.

Cast your minds back to the dying days of 2012, when I posted Existential Ennui's Review of the Year in Books and Comics (I'm going to assume here you follow Existential Ennui slavishly and have read every single thing I've ever posted), in which, among other matters, I lamented the lack of Existential Ennui posts on Ross Thomas over the preceding twelve (at least) months. See, despite thoroughly enjoying the half-dozen Thomas novels I'd read prior to 2012, I didn't manage to crack the spine of a single Thomas book last year. And so when I vowed, in a post titled On Reading (and Books Blogging) in February of this year, that henceforth I'd be basing my reading not around which books I reckoned would make for good blog posts, but around those I simply wanted to read (a fine distinction, I know, but hopefully I explained it a bit better in that post), one of the authors I had in mind was Ross Thomas.

That it's taken me an additional six or seven months to finally get round to Thomas will give you an idea of how many must-read books I have on my shelves clamouring for my attention (the arrival of little Edie had something to do with it too), but if I'm only going to be able to find time for one Ross Thomas novel a year (a reasonable assumption, on the available evidence), I might as well pick the ones I'm keenest to read. Which brings me to Out on the Rim:

published in this edition by Century Hutchinson in the UK in 1987 (dust jacket design uncredited) and the same year by Mysterious Press in the US. It's the second in Thomas's three-book series featuring grifters Artie Wu and Quincy Durant (the third being 1992's Voodoo, Ltd.), and therefore the sequel to my favourite of the Thomas novels I've read thus far, 1978's Chinaman's Chance (which I loved so much I consequently acquired a signed edition). So you can see why I've been anticipating diving into Out on the Rim ever since I bought this copy three years ago... actually, in truth, I have and I haven't – because there's always that sense of trepidation with sequels to much-loved originals that they might not live up to expectations – or rather, that they might live down to them.

You'll be unsurprised to learn, then, that Out on the Rim isn't quite the equal of Chinaman's Chance. The elements are all in place: the long con; the cast of colourful – and colourfully named – characters; the double- and triple-crossing. But as Ethan Iverson notes in his mammoth overview of Thomas's oeuvre, there's so much obfuscation on the part of Thomas that it's hard to get a handle on exactly what's going on, even though what is going on is never less than agreeable, not to mention intriguing and frequently gripping.

The sometimes opaque and certainly labyrinthine plot centres on Booth Stallings, a terrorism expert tasked by... somebody (precisely who only becomes clear at the close of the story) with enticing guerilla-turned-terrorist Alejandro Espiritu – alongside whom Booth fought in World War II – down from the Philippine mountains with five million dollars – a sum which Booth, with the assistance of Wu and Durant, intends instead to steal. As with Chinaman's Chance, however, it's the characters who are the chief attraction... at least some of them – Booth in particular, who acts as the conscience (as far as that goes) of the book, but also loathsome bit-part hustler Boy Howdy (ah, those delicious Thomas names...) and, making a return from the first novel, Otherguy Overby, here exhibiting a steely determination that lifts him from supporting artiste to one of the most engaging players in the novel (I found the guessing game over where his true allegiances lie one of the more captivating aspects of the story).

By comparison Wu and especially Durant suffer somewhat. Artie is granted a few "smartest guy in the room" moments but poor old Quincy ("that fucking Durant") is relegated almost to the role of hired muscle, reduced to leaning against a succession of walls and glowering. And somewhere in the middle falls Georgia Blue, Quincy's one-time lover and Booth's right-hand woman, who for me never quite comes into focus as a protagonist in her own right.

Still, let's not get carried away with the criticism: this is, after all, Ross Thomas we're talking about, an author who to my mind is up there with Donald E. Westlake and Elmore Leonard in the American mystery writer pantheon – exalted company indeed, and with whom he shares certain sensibilities: a litheness of prose, an ear for dialogue, a way with character. And Out on the Rim amply displays all of those, and more. Don't take my word for it: Elmore Leonard himself blurbed the book, calling it "really good" and adding for emphasis: "I mean it's really good. Ross Thomas takes us Out on the Rim with a stunning array of characters working a plot that twists and slithers, never stops." Well said that man.

Appropriately enough, it's to Elmore Leonard that I'll be (re)turning next, with two classic 1970s novels, both in scarce editions, one of them incredibly so.

WIN!!! Brand New Illustrated Book The Art of Movie Storyboards!

NB: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED.

As trailed at the end of last week, it's competition time! Woo! I've only run competitions on Existential Ennui twice before, so you know I'd have to have something pretty darn special to give away in order for me to use up valuable blogging time and energy on such an endeavour. And indeed I do – in fact I can personally vouch for the excellence of the prize, as I had a hand in its creation.

There are three copies of this up for grabs:

The Art of Movie Storyboards, published this week by The Ilex Press in the UK and next week by Chronicle Books in the US (where it's going under the title of simply Movie Storyboards). Written and researched by Fionnuala Halligan, it's a great big 240-page hardback exploring the rich history of movie storyboards, from early pioneers like William Cameron Menzies (Gone with the Wind, Spellbound), Saul Bass (The Birds, Psycho), Hein Heckroth and Ivor Beddoes (The Red Shoes) to modern day artists like Temple Clark (Cold Mountain, The Invisible Woman), Jane Clark (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and David Allcock (Anna Karenina). In amongst those are storyboards from such film classics as, deep breath, Spellbound, Rebel Without a Cause, Spartacus, West Side Story, The Longest Day, To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, The Crow, Brazil, Caravaggio, Animal Farm, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Oldboy, Pan's Labyrinth and Gladiator.

As I say, I can testify to all this because I edited the book, in my day job capacity as managing editor at Ilex – although I should further point out that any credit should go to author Fionnuala and picture editor Katie Greenwood, who between them managed to source and secure artwork from all of the above films, plus more besides (no easy task, let me assure you). Still, it was nice to be involved in the process – slavering over the scans of Akira Kurosawa's gorgeous painted storyboards for Ran when they arrived; poring over Martin Scorsese's own simple but fascinating boards for "Sugar Ray 3", an entire fight sequence from Raging Bull; puzzling over whether we'd got the order right for the sequences from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pather Panchali (we did – I think) – and I can take some satisfaction in having played a minor part in the creation of such a splendid tome.

And having sung its praises so thoroughly, the least I can do is tell you how you can get your hands on a copy (aside from purchasing one, obviously). To be in with a chance of winning one of the three copies I have to give away, answer this question correctly: above you can see Wiard B. Ihnen's evocative storyboards for Fritz Lang's 1941 film Man Hunt, but which 1939 novel is the film based on? As a clue, I've blogged about the book multiple times on Existential Ennui – in fact, you could say its author is a household name round these parts.

Answers, along with your name and address, should be emailed under the subject line "Movie Storyboards" to:

existentialennui@gmail.com

The competition closes Sunday 20 October at midnight EST; all entries will go into the nearest available receptacle to be drawn at the start of the following week, with the winners announced shortly thereafter. The giveaway is open to pretty much everyone – whether based in the UK, the US, Australia, Belgium, wherever – although it's probably best if no one related to me enters (I'm looking at you, Edie). Don't forget you can read more about the book here:

Ilex Press: The Art of Movie Storyboards

read a Q&A with the author here:

Q&A Time with Fionnuala Halligan

get an idea of what Total Film think of the book here:

'Pure Eye Candy' – Total Film

and buy the thing here and here. Good luck!

Competition Time... Competition Time...

A wee announcement before the weekend: next week I'll be running that rarest of beasts on Existential Ennui, a competition. Up for grabs will be three copies of this:

The Art of Movie Storyboards by Fionnuala Halligan, soon to be published in the UK by The Ilex Press, and in the US under the title of simply Movie Storyboards by Chronicle Books. It's a splendid 240-page 10" x 11" hardback beast of a thing, featuring little-seen storyboard art from over forty of the greatest films ever made, including Gone with the Wind, Psycho, Rebel Without a Cause, The Red Shoes, To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Brazil, Ran, Oldboy, Pan's Labyrinth... well, you get the idea. It is, by any estimation, a sumptuous visual feast, but it's also a darn good read, with enlightening info on the films and the storyboards and commentary from the artists. I know all this for a fact because I edited the thing, in my capacity as managing editor at Ilex, and I'm immensely pleased with how it turned out; there's been a copy on my desk for a while now, which every now and then I pause from my chores to fondle lovingly. (The book, not the desk. That would be weird.)

You can read more about The Art of Movie Storyboards by heading here:

Ilex Press: The Art of Movie Storyboards

and there's a Q&A with the author, Finn, here:

Q&A Time with Fionnuala Halligan

I'll be back next week with details of how you can win a copy, plus maybe some musings on how the book came together. (And in the meantime, and if you haven't already, why not go read this week's Existential Ennui posts, on my most recent permanent page, the Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery; Richard Stark's Parker crime novel Run Lethal; and Tom Clancy, who passed away earlier this week.)

Tom Clancy (1947–2013), Jack Ryan, and Red Storm Rising (Collins, 1987): a Friday Forgotten Book

Events, I'm afraid, have rather overtaken me here. I've been promising – myself as much as anyone else – that I'd do a series of blog posts on Tom Clancy for bloody ages, so it was a bugger to learn on Wednesday that he'd gone and died (at the not overly ripe age of sixty-six), thus denying me the opportunity to do so while he was still with us (the swine). Not that Clancy would have cared or even noticed, I'm sure – as, say, Elmore Leonard probably didn't notice anything I wrote about him before he carked it a couple of months back – but even so, it would have been nice, as I managed with Leonard, to post something while he was still alive, given that so few of the authors I blog about are, and also given that I've been reading Clancy for longer than most of them.

There was a period in the 1990s when it felt like the only fiction I was reading was Clancy's. It was, I think, the movies wot did it. As an admirer of well-crafted action flicks and thrillers, I had a lot of time for two of the three Clancy film adaptations that had been released by the mid-'90s: John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October (1990) and, especially, Phillip Noyce's Clear and Present Danger (1994). (I was much less keen on Noyce's earlier Patriot Games, which lacked the light and shade of his later effort.) Naturally, those two films led me to the source texts: the Jack Ryan (no relation) series of novels, of which Clancy penned eight instalments proper, plus a bunch of spin-offs starring CIA agent John Clark, his partner Domingo Chavez and, latterly, Ryan's son, Jack Jr.

The Ryan books are mostly great big bricks of things, even in paperback, which was how I originally read them. (More recently I've been picking up UK Collins hardback first editions in Lewes charity shops, with that aforementioned, now likely abandoned, series of Clancy posts in mind; you can see them, with their David Scutt-illustrated dust jackets, scattered about this post; they're more akin to breeze-blocks than bricks.) Even so, I tore through them in the late-1990s and early 2000s, from The Hunt for Red October (1984) to The Bear and the Dragon (2000). (I haven't yet read the 2002 Ryan prequel Red Rabbit, which you can spy lurking in the background in the top photo, again bought in a Lewes charity shop.)

That they became, in one respect, increasingly far-fetched – the machinations necessary to elevate Ryan from CIA analyst (Patriot Games, 1987), to Deputy Director of the agency (Clear and Present Danger, 1989), then National Security Advisor, Vice President (Debt of Honor, 1994) and finally, outrageously, President of the United States (Executive Orders, 1996), left Clancy's authorial strings ever more visible – almost didn't matter: they were efficient, dense but incredibly pacey thrillers, turning on plots – Soviet defections, the war on drugs in South America, conflict between Russia and China – with more than a passing nod to real world tensions (and with an eerie prescience in the case of Debt of Honor), and narratives that were never weighed down by the technobabble Clancy loved to lace his thrillers with.

It's for the Ryan novels that Clancy will chiefly be remembered – there's a Kenneth Branagh-directed rebooted Ryan movie on the way which will doubtless help to cement that rep – but for me, Clancy's best book is one of the very few not set in the Ryanverse – his second novel:

Red Storm Rising, co-written with war gamer Larry Bond and published in the States in 1986 by Putnam's and in the UK the following year by Collins (the edition seen here). A plausible account of a hypothetical shooting war between Russia and NATO over oil reserves, its power resides in its breathless, irresistible sweep, in the way the narrative affords a swooping, God's eye view of the theatre of conflict. The action leaps from locale to locale with brazen abandon: Iceland, the north Atlantic, Europe, West Germany, back and forth, surging from one nerve-shredding military encounter to the next, and with the threat of nuclear escalation ever-present.

Admittedly the characterisation is tissue thin – the protagonists are little more than cyphers, and years later I struggle to recall a single thing about any of them (whereas I can still just about conjure up the odd bit about Jack Ryan and John Clark and Ding Chavez) – but that's a relatively minor quibble: for sheer scope and scale, the book can't be beat. Certainly it deserves not to be overlooked in the torrent of Clancy eulogies and obituaries that are sure to ensue, which is why I'm commending it (a day early, as is my wont, but also so that this post doesn't appear too far behind the news of Clancy's demise) to this week's edition of Patti Nase Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books, in order that it should, I hope, escape that eponymous fate.

Parker Score: Run Lethal by Richard Stark (Coronet, 1972), alias The Handle, and the Parker Retitles

NB: A version of this post also appears at The Violent World of Parker.

I hope to have something up on Tom Clancy – who passed away yesterday – shortly, but ahead of that, and fulfilling my Violent World of Parker contractual cross-posting duties, a return, belatedly, to the Parker Mega Score – that stack of Coronet paperback editions of Donald "Richard Stark" Westlake's Parker novels I acquired over the summer – with this:

Run Lethal, published in the UK by Coronet/Hodder Fawcett under a Raymond Hawkey-designed "bullet hole" double-cover in 1972 – the second wave of those covers I guess you could say, the initial Coronet bullet hole editions – The Steel Hit, The Outfit and so forth – having been published in 1971.

Like The Steel Hit, Run Lethal was retitled from its original appearance. Indeed, of the twenty-four Parker novels, six have been retitled at one time or another, one of them twice. Four of those retitlings were the result of publishers responding to movie adaptations: The Hunter (Parker #1, 1962) became Point Blank in 1967 (Gold Medal edition here, Coronet edition here) and then Payback in 1999; The Seventh (Parker #7, 1966) became The Split in 1968 (Gold Medal edition here, Coronet edition here); and earlier this year Flashfire (Parker #19, 2000) became Parker.

But the other retitlings – The Man with the Getaway Face (Parker #2, 1963), which became The Steel Hit; The Score (Parker #5, 1964), which became Killtown; and The Handle (Parker #8, 1966), which became Run Lethal – appear to be the result of nothing other than publisher preference... and it seems they were all the fault of Coronet. See, for a long time I assumed it was Berkley, the American paperback publisher of the Parkers in the early 1970s, who retitled at least The Score and The Handle (I'm not sure if they ever got round to issuing The Steel Hit, even though it's listed, under that title, under "By the same author" in my Berkley reprint copy of The Outfit). But I own a copy of Berkley's edition of The Score, or rather Killtown:

and it was published in 1973 (November of that year, to be precise); whereas Coronet's edition of Killtown was first published in 1972. And it's the same deal with The Handle/Run Lethal: Berkley's edition of Run Lethal arrived again in 1973, and Coronet's in 1972. Which means that Berkley adopted the new titles from Coronet, not the other way round. Which in turn means that in the cases of at least two retitlings, Parker fans have us Brits to blame.

I'm not quite sure where I'll be going next with the Parker Mega Score; I think I might take a look at a bullet hole edition of a Parker Coronet had already published once, but I may change my mind, mercurial bastard that I am.

Introducing a New Existential Ennui Permanent Page: the Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery; plus the Patricia Highsmith Papers

Well, I surprised myself with this one. I sort of figured that if I ever got round to setting up a new permanent page, a la Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s, it would be focused on one or other of the artists featured in Beautiful Book Jacket Design – Val Biro, say, or Denis McLoughlin; either that, or I'd set up a paperback cover page. Instead, Existential Ennui's second permanent page has ended up being devoted not to an artist or a format, but an author.

In a way, that's rather fitting. I've been collecting Patricia Highsmith in first edition longer than any other writer – longer than Donald Westlake, or Kingsley Amis, or any other of the literary reprobates wot litter Existential Ennui. The 1974 Heinemann first of Ripley's Game at the top of this post was, I think, the first first edition I ever bought – purchased on London's Cecil Court, no less, from a secondhand bookshop the name of which escapes me and which has since vanished anyway – while my inaugural visit to the Lewes Book Fair upon moving down to Lewes in 2008 netted me Heinemann firsts of The Cry of the Owl and The Two Faces of January. Highsmith, then, is in large part responsible for all that's followed – my book collecting habit and consequently this 'ere blog, basically – so it's entirely apt, I feel, and given that I now own first editions of all sixteen of the Highsmith novels initially published in the UK by Heinemann, that she should get her own permanent page:

Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery

The gallery can be accessed by clicking the link above, or via the permanent link in Existential Ennui's sidebar, just below the link to Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s. Note that I've titled it simply a first edition gallery, not a British first edition one, or indeed a Heinemann first edition one (which was what I originally thought of assembling – as a post, not a page – when the notion occurred to me last week). For while the page does currently consist of British editions, and the vast majority of those were published by Heinemann, I reserve the right to add in American – or even foreign – first editions should I come into possession of them – and I certainly reserve the right to include Cresset Press firsts of Strangers on a Train, The Blunderer and The Talented Mr. Ripley, in the unlikely event that I ever find affordable copies of them.

If you're a fan of Highsmith's work, you'll find all manner of stuff to look at – not just jackets and cases but uncorrected proofs and a few intriguing, little seen editions of her novels – but even if you're not a fan, the gallery is interesting as a demonstration of how dust jacket design changed over the course of five decades, from the kind of hand-lettered, illustrated wrappers that were prevalent in the '50s and '60s (and which are also featured on the aforementioned Beautiful British Book Jacket Design page), to photographic and typographic treatments and, finally, back to illustrations again.

Incidentally, in the course of researching my own Highsmith archive I stumbled upon another Highsmith archive – one I dimly recall having encountered before, actually, but which I don't believe I've ever blogged about: the Patricia Highsmith Papers at the Swiss Literary Archives (part of the Swiss National Library, where a Highsmith exhibition was held in 2006). The site is essentially a catalogue of material that's archived elsewhere – manuscripts and notebooks and scrapbooks and the like, which Highsmith's biographers, Andrew Wilson and Joan Schenkar, must have drawn on heavily – but it's still well worth a rummage, especially Highsmith's photo albums, pages from which can be viewed online.