No Comebacks – Frederick Forsyth, 1982 ★★★★

Forsyth in a Different Vein

Why didn’t Frederick Forsyth become the biggest name in thriller writing?

This short-story collection, published toward the end of a great run of commercial and critical success, posits the idea that while forging an approach to his genre others like Ludlum and Clancy would pursue more diligently (if with less talent) what Fred really wanted was to be O. Henry.

People who picked up No Comebacks in the spring of 1982 expecting ten quick doses of the sort of top-notch thriller writing Forsyth had been producing since 1971’s The Day Of The Jackal (which continued up through 1984’s The Fourth Protocol, his last great novel) were disappointed. I know I was. A few stories offer suspense of this kind, but the overall body count is low and tension is of a more everyday variety.

Secrecy And Power: The Life Of J. Edgar Hoover – Richard Gid Powers, 1987 ★★★★

The Making of a Swamp Thing

Sometimes without trying, I pick up a book with present-day relevance. What better way to delve into that mysterious monstrosity of the moment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, than with this old biography of its legendary founder?

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens, 1837-39 ★★★½

Waif Takes on the Big Bad City

A cruel disposition can be a positive quality when writing a novel. Case in point: Oliver Twist.

Charles Dickens’ torture test for his titular boy hero saves his book from mawkish excess and, along with its brilliant depiction of a harsh urban landscape, imparts readability and drive, not to mention a steady undertow of savage black humor. The result, marred at times by bathos and coincidence, is a bracing change-up from the author whose prior, first novel was the whimsical, often-pastoral The Pickwick Papers.

The Ninth Configuration – William Peter Blatty, 1999 ★★★½

Nuttier Than a Wagon Load of Pralines

In the last 30 years of rewatching The Ninth Configuration, something about the shock of my first viewing has never worn off.

Like Jake and Elwood Blues, screenwriter-director William Peter Blatty was on a mission from God. If he left a few overturned cars or crushed motorcyclists in his wake, it was a feature, not a bug. Wonder what was going on in his head? Too late to ask now; he died last year. But we do have this book featuring the original shooting script.

Escape To Adventure – Fitzroy Maclean, 1950 ★½

All This and World War II

Woody Allen once said 80 percent of life is just showing up. Fitzroy Maclean validated that maxim if reading his memoir of life as a diplomat, soldier, and other in the 1930s and 1940s is any clue. Whether sitting ringside at a Soviet show trial or joining a commando raid in Benghazi, there’s a bit of Zelig in the old boy.

Long Time No See – Ed McBain, 1977 ★★½

Shaking Up the Old Eight-Seven

Breaking out of an old formula sounds fine in theory, but can result in career death for a successful fiction writer. Ed McBain found himself in the mid-1970s with a need to shake things up, though, and so he gave his 87^th Precinct police procedural series a major retooling.

The Year They Called Off The World Series – Benton Stark, 1991 ★

Everybody Loses

The New York Yankees have amassed more World Series rings than any two other baseball franchises combined, but weren’t always the sport’s overlords. The year 1904 found them in the unique role of outsiders and underdogs chasing after their first championship.

They weren’t even the Yankees then, but the Highlanders. How might a Highlander World Championship team be enshrined at Monument Park? We will never know, because they didn’t win the 1904 Series. Nor did anyone else that crazy season, the titular subject of this book.