Blackjack (Signature Weapon)

 This is my new post in the Signature Weapons series. Today's weapon is an oldie: the blackjack. I don't think I have seen one in real life, but they do pop up from time to time in old crime fiction stories, generally in pulp stories. Generally wielded, as far as I remember, by villains, when they knock the hero unconscious with one. Because yes, it's a bludgeoning weapon. It's quite a nasty one too, from what I read, as it is capable of causing permanent injuries, even death. So don't let its small size fool you. Because it can easily be concealed, I can easily see it making a come back. I still think the blackjack fits a villain more than a hero. That said, I must make a confession here: there is one think I love about blackjack, and that its name. It just sound elegant and cool. Like the eponymous card game (which I think I played once or twice), it just has a sort of posh aura, in complete contrast with its true nature. This is another why I think it would fit a crime story nicely and enhances its atmosphere somehow.

An Evening of Murder (pulp style)

 I am blogging again about An Evening of Murder, the murder party series which I really enjoyed when I was younger. This is the back cover from Beyond the Grave, the second box we played, but the very first game of the series. I will share its front cover another time, this post is not about the specific plot, but about the art on the back cover. I always loved its aesthetic, but it is misleading. The games are all whodunits, yet this image calls back to pulp fiction and hardboiled stories, with private eyes, gangsters and femmes fatales. I love it to bits all the same, but it is misleading. Anyway, my two cents.

Pulp Fiction for January

Once upon a time on this blog, I used to upload every month an inspiring cover of pulp magazine Detective Tales and comment on it. It is a tradition which I have not followed, but I have decided to do it again today, as January is about to end. So here is the Detective Tales cover for January 1948. And what a great cover it is. A bloody one too, with a murdered man stabbed by a pair of scissors (!) about to have his clothes and gun stolen by his murdered, a thuggish looking escaped convict. This is what we can safely assume from the stripy clothes the villain is wearing. I don't know what the story of this image is, but it looks like a great one. And on a side note, how strong, desperate, committed and downright ruthless you must be to be capable of stabbing someone to death with a pair of scissors?

I want a fedora

It has been fairly hot these last few days and it made me think of last summer when I wore a hat borrowed from my father-in-law. I was thinking that a hat could reallt be useful in the coming weeks and months, even though I am not really sure I have a head for hats. What I wore then was a Panama hat, but I thought it would be really nice to buy a fedora. I prefer it looks and shape, and also because its association with hardboiled crime fiction and film noir. But I have no idea of my head size and measuring it is always iffy if I cannot try the hat itself. So I am not comfortable buying it online (and I am being careful with how much I spend online as well these days). I will probably have to visit a shop to buy one, when the pandemic is over. In any case, I now know that I really want a fedora.

Pulp cover for #Noirvember

Once upon a time, I used to display a cover from the old pulp magazine Detective Tales and comment on it, as a sort of monthly tradition. I thought this would be something perfect to do for #Noirvember. I decided to go for a stereotypical pulp fiction cover, from the November 1938 edition: a damsel in distress, a hero and a few villains in a dramatic action scene. The setting is what appears to be an exotic temple or palace. The damsel in distress is a blonde, gagged but curiously not tied up. There is a henchman holding her and towering over them what appears to be the leader, all clad in white and sporting a devilish looking goatee. The villains seem to be of Middle Eastern or Asian extraction, and they use old fashioned knives. There are three of them. The hero (private eye?) is already wounded and is fighting the biggest one, a thuggish looking guy with a bloody curved knife. Things are grim for the good guys. I wish I could find the story linked to that image, if there is one.

#Noirvember: time for crime (fiction)

When November comes, I change my reading genre and go from horror to crime fiction (which is actually the main genre I read all year round). This is nothing new for the month, or at least nothing unique: I learned on Twitter that there is a hashtag for it: #Noirvember. I am currently reading The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler, which features legendary private eye Philip Marlowe. I was in the mood for a good old fashioned hard-boiled thriller and I want to be up to date with the crime classics (as I am not, to my great shame). What I love about Chandler, it is how he slowly builds the settings and characters to create atmosphere and suspense. I might blog more about it, until then if you have any crime read suggestions for #Noirvember, please let me know in the comments.

"Counting flowers on the wall..."

I don't know why, but there are moments in the year when I particularly enjoy the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. I haven't even seen the movie that often, it's not among my favourite or even among the movies I own. But the soundtrack, around this time of year especially, it always gets me. So today I decided to share one song here. It's Flowers on the Wall by The Statler Brothers. I know nothing about them, but this song is the epitome of farniente, which can be freely translated as pleasant laziness. It's been a bank holiday weekend and so far we have done diddly squat, or very little indeed, but we have enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

The Long Goodbye

Sometimes I wonder if Vraie Fiction should not be renamed Crime Fiction. Anyway, I recently finished a novel which I wanted to recommend to my readers: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. His longest novel, his most autobiographical, maybe the most literary, maybe also the most existentialist.It was also the one Chandler considered to be his best. In it, private eye Philip Marlowe befriends Terry Lennox, alcoholic married to the daughter of a media mogul and reluctantly helps failed writer Roger Wade, also alcoholic. Both plots intertwine and merges seamlessly, death and violence abound, in the end the dead have little to envy the living, who manage to survive but at a heavy price. They are wounded, scarred, both emotionally and physically. It's more than four hundred pages, but it never feels like it, in fact you would wish the story to last a little longer, so as not to say goodbye too early.

Reading The Big Sleep again

"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display a handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue socks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed detective ought to be. I was calling on four millions dollars."

Philip Marlowe, describing himself and his environment in The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

The books we re-read are more important than the ones we read. This is the case for me right now, as I had been wanting to revisit this crime fiction classic for ages, since I had read it the first time in college/cégep in our class of American literature. Now I am reading it solely out of pleasure, and in the original language. The start of the novel is still pure hardboiled crime fiction bliss and maybe the best the genre ever gave. There were private eyes before, but none truly defined the genre like Marlowe did. I might blog about the novel more in the weeks to come, right now I just wanted to share its first few lines, because they are that good. I also wanted to encourage my readers to discover or rediscover The Big Sleep.

The killer at the window

Remember the time when I used to upload a cover from pulp magazine Detective Tales and comment on it? I used to do it once every month or so. Well, I haven't done it since Fenruary 2014. I thought that I would try to revive the monthly tradition. This cover, from the April 1953 issue, I have actually uploaded before, in April 2008. So it is the first time I reuse an image from Detective Tales, but back then I had not commented on it much (I had written a quick post in the library as the internet had stopped working at home). It is maybe my favourite DT cover ever. It is so simple: one marskman looking at what may be his victim from the darkness of his room. The man in the street  might be a bodyguard of the killer's true victim, a private eye, a man of importance, he might even only be a bystander. The marksman is nothing more than an extension of his weapon which takes center stage. The atmosphere is sinister and ominous. I mentioned before that I always wanted to write a story based on that image. I still do.

With love and bullets! (?)

I did not upload a cover from Detective Tales since November. I was not sure to continue this tradition, but for some reason today I decided to give it a go. It is Valentine's Day, and people might want to read something appropriate for the day. Instead of some soppy romantic stories, how about some crime fiction? Something old with a healthy cocktail of Eros and Thanatos. With love and bullets. So I found this cover, from February 1953 and it has this great title, fitting the day (and hence I used it for my own post title): "With Love and Bullets!" The title is worth the cover. I have no idea if this image is related to the story itself. But it is a neat one: an exotic beauty cornered by two men, one police officer in uniform and another one in civilian clothes. Is she a femme fatale, a damsel in distress? Is she both? Are the policemen corrupted, or doing their duty by cornering her and I guess threatening her (the one in civilian is holding a menacing finger, in a warning gesture). It is deliciously ambiguous.

The Detective Tales cover for November

I have skipped this tradition in October, but I thought I would respect it before the end of November: as I do (almost) every month, it is now time to upload on this blog a cover from Detective Tales and comment on it. This is the cover from the November 1939 issue. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a million. Like the one I uploaded in November 2012, it is overly melodramatic, with three archetypal characters: the hero, the villain and the damsel in distress. The damsel in distress is about to be crushed between the wall bed and the wall, tied down to it, the villain, a somewhat thuggish yet soberly elegant looking man with a receding hairline, is being prevented from shooting (who?) by the hero, who is holding his wrist and about to punch him in the stomach. The elaborate method of execution for the blonde damsel in distress, tied down to the bed (Murphy bed, tells me Wikipedia), mixed with the ripped off red dress and the rather deep cleavage charge the scene with sadoerotic elements. Freud would have had a field day with this. I have to say, I am impressed. This is really edgy, in so many ways. I wonder if there is any plot going with it, or if this is just the artist's imagination responsible for this cover. If there is a story this image is based on, I want to read it.

The Detective Tales cover for September

The month is almost over, and I had not yet uploaded a cover from Detective Tales. It is time to follow the tradition again. So here it is. The cover from September 1937. I am wondering about its story, because there is something ambiguous about it, or one of its character. Most of them are easy to identify: the blonde heroin, the square jawed hero at the center. In periphery, two thugs: one holding a butcher's knife, in butcher's clothes looking every bit the brute he is, guarding the exit the heroes are trying to get through, and one further away, being gunned by the hero. But it is the figure that the blonde is holding that makes me wonder. The tall, thin, ageing man with white hair. He has been hit on the head and is unconscious. But was he kidnapped by the thugs and the heroes are rescuing him, or is he a villain that the heroes are kidnapping? The tuxedo is often the suit of choice for criminal masterminds in pulp fiction, always more elegant than their minions. Yet he could be an innocent victim. So tell me what you think.

The Detective Tales cover for August

Well, August is almost over, and I thought it was time for me to carry on the tradition of downloading a cover from Detective Tales and commenting on it. This one is from August 1939. You see the hero, dashing in his evening suit, very elegant, and his blonde, red wearing partner, trying to save a damsel in distress from being buried in coal. The villain, a massive, thuggish looking bald goon, is about to club the blonde with a wrench. So you have two damsels in distress for one cover, although only one may be aware of her status. But with her haggard gaze, I think she may have been drugged, or is in shock. In a classic pose, the hero is shooting at an unknown party out of the frame. I love this cover because the rough environment and the look of enemy is in sharp contrast with the elegance of both the hero and the heroine. So here it is anyway.

The Detective Tales cover for July

This is again the time when I upload an image from a cover of Detective Tales and comment on it. As I mentioned last year and before, finding a good cover for July is getting increasingly difficult, because I already used many. So I chose the ultimate cliffhanger: the cover for July 1944. The heroine is in a very uneasy position, hanging in the air, held by a single hand (her private eye love interest?) while she is taking hold of a purse, the MacGuffin of the story. And there is a hoodlum who saw everything, on the right side of the window, lurching at it with a gun. How she got there must be quite a story. And from (I am assuming) such height, in such a light dress, she must be quite cold. But I guess it is to her a secondary aspect of her predicament.

The Detective Tales cover for June

This is again this time of the month when I upload a cover from Detective Tales and comment on it. I have chosen an odd one this time, from June 1936. I say odd one because it has a villain literally leashing out of a bookshelf, while the damsel in distress jumps away from him. The hero is gunning away at an unknown adversary, a common trope in pulp magazines, at least in Detective Tales. His shirt is teared apart on his left arm. What strikes me about the this cover is of course the mustachioed villain showing up like a jack-in-the-box from a hidden door/secret passage. Not so much how he looks like, he looks like a a stereotypical elegant villain, or what he is trying to do, grabbing the heroine (does he want to hold her to death?), but where he comes from, or rather what camouflaged the secret door. A bookshelf. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but I find it a nice little mise en abyme, evil jumping off the books.

The Detective Tales cover for May

This is time again in the month when I upload and comment a cover from Detective Tales. I might try to find other pulp magazines to do the same thing at some point, because the choice from some months is starting to run thin. I hesitated to upload this one because, well, it is racist, like unfortunately many pulp stories were back then. It is the cover from May 1939. All prejudice against China aside, it is quite a good cover, ridiculously dramatic. So you have both the squared jaw hero and the heroin, a damsel in distress, in a very tight spot. The hero, maybe a private eye, is shooting at an unseen enemy off frame, holding with his free hand his bloodied upper arm, while the blonde is being held by... the mechanical arm of a metallic Buddha.And she is crying on top of her lungs for his attention, as a Fu Manchu looking Chinese (he is probably Chinese, although I guess he could of any Asian denomination) is about to strike him with a hatchet. The villain is bald and has long thin mustaches. And he is emerging from a secret passage or a tunnel, or some arched alcove. What more can I say? I don't think the story can be nearly as good as the cover.

A new exhibition on Fabian Perez

Sometimes I receive bits of news that get me excited. Like recently, I received a mailer from a local art gallery about an upcoming exhibition of Fabian Perez's new paintings. The very same gallery that made me discover his work two years ago. The gallery has sadly moved from my town, but they relocated in a nearby town, so I can still visit them. I love his paintings for many reasons, the main one being that they often look like scenes taken from a crime fiction story, old pulp magazines with a Latin twist. Pulp magazines, but not cheap ones, images that would have abandoned naïve imagery for lush and unapologizing glamour, even when he paints a man offering to light a woman's cigaret at a bar. I have decided to upload this painting to accompany my post. Sadly I have no idea of its title. I hope to take some pictures of my own when I visit the gallery.

The Detective Tales cover for April

I thought I would carry on today the tradition of uploading a cover of a Detective Tales. It is getting more and more difficult for April, because back in April 2008, I uploaded a few of them. This time, I have chosen a far more sober cover than usual. Nevertheless, it is very suspenseful. It it from April 1951. You have the hero, most likely a private eye, at night, rummaging through papers with a flashlight, on what appears to be a dark and stormy night (I don't mind clichés in pulp magazines), while a hand holding a gun. Simple, efficient, dark and, as I said, very suspenseful. On the bottom right side you see the title The Deadliest Game. I don't know if the image is for this story, but it is certainly fitting.

The Detective Tales cover for March

Now the time has come to upload again on Vraie Fiction a cover from Detective Tales. This time from March 1943. The selection is getting more and more difficult, both in 2012 and 2013 I took very melodramatic covers, with the frame completely filled with characters and full of action. This cover could almost belong to the whodunit genre as well as the hardboiled one. You have the investigator/hero, a squared jaw atheltic man, holding a... magnifying glass, the tool of sleuths from detection fiction, holding a piece of cloth that is being clutched by a dead man's hand (a hand turning to green for sinister effects, I might add). The piece of red cloth belong to the sleeve of a woman's dress, who is now, of course, holding a gun by the hero's head. I wonder how the hero will get out of this situation, with a magnifying glass as his apparent sole weapon. I am dying to read this tale, like many other from this pulp magazine.