Behind The Black Mask: Mystery Writiers Revealed Podcast Goes Live Today!

The most anticipated podcast in AuralNoir.com history is a go! Investigators Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards, the two university professors behind the engaging Out Of The Past: Investigating Film Noir podcast have, as promised, launched their new show today. Behind The Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed #1 is live! The show will focus on the creators behind your favorite literature, mystery fiction!

Check out the new podcast's domain NoirCast.net. You can subscribe by doing a search using the term "Behind The Black Mask" in the podcasts section of the iTunes music store.

Show # 1 is a conversation with author Paul Malmont about his new "throwback pulp novel" entitled The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Click HERE to download episode #1 directly.

posted by Jesse

Review of Money For Nothing by Donald E. Westlake

Money For Nothing
By Donald E. Westlake; Read by Michael Kramer
5 Cassettes - Approx. 7.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Books On Tape Inc.
Published: 2003
ISBN:0736693572
Themes: / Crime / Thriller / Espionage / New York /

"I am from United States Agent. You are now active."

Robert A. Heinlein popularized possibly the longest acronym anybody actually uses: TANSTAAFL (T.here A.in'ts N.o S.uch T.hing A.s A F.ree L.unch). Unfortunately for Josh Redmont, he didn't beleive it. When the first check arrived, back in Josh's salad days, it was for $1,000 and issued by something called "United States Agent." Josh hadn't earned it and didn't know who sent it, but he really needed the money. When he later did a cursory investigation into the mysterious cheque's origins he managed to discover only that it came from an untraceable bank and an indeterminate address in Washington, D.C.. His big mistake was to keep cashing the cheques after he didn't need them - they continued to arrive once a month, even after Josh had to change addresses. For seven years, each month, he'd recieved free money, with no strings attached. But on the day he was finally approached by a smiling stranger - he knew he'd now regret every last cent of it.

If you're a Westlake fanatic, like me, you'll be pleased to hear this is another of D.E.W.'s solidly entertaining standalone crime thrillers. In terms of tone, Money For Nothing falls somewhere in between Richard Stark's hard-boiled Parker series and D.E.W.'s light-hearted Dortmunder tales - fitting nicely on a shelf beside the serio-comic classics like The Fugitive Pigeon and God Save The Mark that he wrote in his early career. Josh Redmont is a plain character, a typical executive and certainly a reluctant player, forced into a plot by circumstances few could have forseen or protected against. When you are having trouble paying your rent, have no prospects of serious cash anytime soon and a nice big cheque comes with your name on it - well, I understand how it'd happen - this ramps up our emnpathy for Josh. While Josh is married, a devoted father and husband in fact, his wife and child play only a subordinate role as motivator, a kind of novelized McGuffin. The crisis is exaserbated by their existence, but their jeopardy isn't the focus of the action. Westlake's love for characters with theatrical backgrounds brings in a character remeniscent of Grofield, from the Parker series. There are a few fun villians, a senile heiress and a sexy femme fatale. Also present is the foreign intrigue Westlake's been known to use from time to time. As usual there are a lot of excllent psychologicial details for all the major characters, we at all times understand and sympathize with their various POVs. The narrative hook is planted early on, the final line of chapter one being the clincher. This isn't going to be remembered as the definitive Westlake novel, but it is funny, extremely well read and massively diverting.

Michael Kramer who'll be very familiar to anyone who's listened to either the Westlake or Stark series of novels from Books On Tape, (Kramer did every single title they released) starts off reading this like a comic caper. The villans have suitably villanous accents, and Josh, the hero, sounds like a high-pitched incompetent - but about three quarters through the novel's plot, when Josh Redmont finally has to take control of the figurative runaway train that he's on Kramer slowly pours ice all over the place. With a vocal focus he turns an unready yuppie into a hard-case-in-the-making. It is super-cool transition.

posted by Jesse

Online Audio - Mystery Radio Show features Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

Mystery writer and anthologizer Elizabeth Foxwell produces and hosts It's a Mystery a radio show on WEBR featuring interviews with authors, booksellers, and others in the mystery field; details on new and classic whodunits; and mystery-related news, especially about events in Northern Virginia, in pursuit of answers to the age-old question, "What should I read next?" Also featured are "music from mystery-themed films and TV shows" and "old-time radio mystery programs".

It's a Mystery airs Mondays from 11am to Noon ET on WEBR in Fairfax, VA. It can also be streamed on the web HERE.

The latest offering is quite a treat, a special celebrating James M. Cain's birth, included in the broadcast is a 1948 old time radio version of Cain's masterwork Double Indemnity starring Burt Lancaster! Download it HERE.

posted by Jesse

New Podcast: Behind The Black Mask Mystery Writers Revealed

The talented professors responsible for the stupendous Out Of The Past: Investigating Film Noir podcast (Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards) are teaming up once again for a whole new show! This one sounds even more promising! The show #1 will air July 15th 2006 and will be called Behind The Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed. The show will focus on the creators behind your favorite literature, mystery fiction!

You can check out the new podcast's domain HERE. You can pre-subscribe by doing a search using the term "Behind The Black Mask" in the podcasts section of the iTunes music store. But first be sure to check out the terrific PROMO MP3 that teased loyal Out of The Past podcast listeners recently.

posted by Jesse

Review of The Hindenburg Murders by Max Allan Collins

The Hindenburg Murders
By Max Allan Collins; Read by Jeff Woodman
6 Cassettes or 7 CDs - 7 hours 45 minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2001
ISBN: 0788754513 (Cassette), 1402510101 (CD)
Themes: / Mystery / Air Ships / Disaster / Murder / World War II / Nazis / Sabotage /

An inevitable fact - You know this one is going to end with a bang. A big bang!

Max Allan Collins, winner of two Shamus Awards and numerous novels, has created a series of novels based on famous historical disasters. His second novel in the series deals with the Hindenburg explosion. Each novel is a stand-alone work with a different "real-life" protagonist at the center. In The Hindenburg Murders that protagonist is Leslie Charteris author of The Saint stories.

The Saint was, and is, an immensely popular noir-styled Robin Hood-like character who's stories have been adapted into the movies, comic strips, and TV shows. Collins uses the character of Charteris of as a passenger on this final doomed flight of the Hindenburg. Charteris was a flamboyant, monocled Englishman who loved women. As a character he is as unpretentious as a monocled Englishman can be. When he is asked by the Captain to help solve the mystery of the murder of an undercover Nazi agent, Charteris is up to the task.

Collins does a great deal of research to make this mystery hum with authenticity. The giant airship creates a unique setting filled with details that fill our senses. A luxury liner in the sky, with even smaller cabins, aptly describes what it must have been like to fly on this giant aircraft. The cast of characters actually come from real travelers that were aboard that fateful trip.

Before you're through with the yarn, you'll be wondering what is historically accurate, and what is reasonable conjecture, and what is pure fiction. There's a nice afterward written by the author that describes exactly what he used, borrowed, and made-up from the actual story of the Hindenburg's last flight. There's also a lengthy interview with the author, exclusive to the audiobook. This is a great addition to an already rewarding listen.

Jeff Woodman reads the novel with a flair for the many accents used. I found myself easily distinguishing between each character in the shipload of travelers. If you're like me, you'll be wishing for more audiobooks with Leslie Charteris written by Max Allan Collins and read by Jeff Woodman.

Posted by The Time Traveler

Podcast Fiction from BMW... and it is GOOD!

Put on your seatbelt and prepare for highs, lows and plenty of twists and turns. BMW, in conjunction with Random House, brings you BMW Audio Books, a unique series of specially- commissioned short stories showcasing the work of some of the finest contemporary writing talent. Each gripping audio book is yours to download for free. Listen to them on your MP3 player, your laptop or ideally, in the car. So sit back, hit play and enjoy the ride.

BMW does Audiobooks! That's right, Bavarian Motor Works, the German guys who make cars, have released a batch of excellent podcast short stories. This is a promotion like their BMW Films promotion from a few years back. Solid name authors have been hired to create short stories with a specific model of BMW automobile at the center of the action. I've listened to all four of the released stories and I've liked each, the product placement is blantant and oddly pornographic, it makes you feel dirty, but kind of in a good way.

"Inspired by the success of BMWfilms.com and “The Hire” internet series of short films, BMW-audiobooks.com showcases some of the finest contemporary writing talent today, including Karin Slaughter (Kisscut, Faithless, Indelible), Don Winslow (The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life), James Flint (The Book of Ash, 52 Ways to Magic America), and Simon Kernick (The Crime Trade, The Murder Exchange). The four debut short stories mix the best in BMW product with contemporary original literature."

Each story runs about an hour and was written exclusively for BMW Audiobooks. They can only be found in audio format, and haven't been released as a hard copy collection as of yet. This is download only folks. Here's the complete skinny...

The stories are:

Cold Cold Heart
By Karin Slaughter; Read by Megan Dodds
1 MP3 File - [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: BMW Audiobooks
Podcast: 03/23/2006:
"Best-selling author Karin Slaughter spins the dramatic tale of Pam and her ex-husband Jon, the now famous self-help guru who is also now dying. When on his death bed, Jon reveals deep, dark and painful secrets about his past, Pam exacts the ultimate revenge – for his next life. In this podcast, author Karen Slaughter reveals the real-life inspiration for this dramatic story."


The Debt
By Simon Kernick; Read by Burn Gorman
1 MP3 File - [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: BMW Audiobooks
Podcast: 03/23/2006
“The Debt is a gripping tale about a good-hearted former boxer who is caught untangling the troublesome webs of others. In this podcast, author Simon Kernick offers his personal techniques for short story writing, including plot pacing and making every word count."


Master Of The Storm
By James Flint; Read by Forbes Masson
1 MP3 File - [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: BMW Audiobooks
Podcast: 02/28/2006
“You” are the central character in James Flint’s Master Of The Storm, a gripping tale of new business success followed by familiar encounters – all too familiar. And just when you think you are out of the storm, you find yourself pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery which seemingly has no exit."

Beautiful Ride
By Don Winslow; Read by Kerry Shale
1 MP3 File - [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: BMW Audiobooks
Podcast: 02/28/2006
"Back then he was looking at a fat IPO and a boat. Back then he was rich. Back then he had a condo overlooking the ocean, a wife, and had just bought the BMW Z4 convertible. Cobalt blue, like the ocean on a clean, clear day in early spring. Now what he has left is the car. Ted's a real estate investor in Laguna Beach, California. He's been kicked out by his soon-to-be ex wife, his assets have been frozen by the IRS, he's holding on to his Beemer, but the car company's repo men want it back, and he's living in a tent. He's falling through the cracks of the 'Gold Coast' life, until he turns to money-laundering to get back in the game. Then things get worse..."

Now how to get them, you can download them directly from the BMW-Audiobooks website (but a free registration is required) or you can just do a search on iTunes using the search term "BMW."

posted by Jesse

Review of The Valley Of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Valley Of Fear
By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Read by Tim Aldrich
22 MP3 Files - Approx 6 Hours 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: PinkGeekAudio.net
Podcast: 2005
Themes: / Mystery / Sherlock Holmes / Secret Societies / Organized Crime /

The Valley Of Fear is one of the least adapted of the original Sherlock Holmes novels, it has only appeared on screen three times, as opposed to the eighteen adaptations of The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Likely much of the reason for the disparity lies in the structure of The Valley Of Fear, which breaks the traditional narrative mystery to go into a massive backstory that preceded the crime in question, this backstory includes neither Watson nor Holmes and so when adapted it would have the primary characters off-screen for more than half the film!

Looked at as a novel and a mystery on its own The Valley Of Fear works very well. There are in fact two mysteries in it. The first mystery I was able to ratiocinationalize quite satisfactorily but the second which took me by surprise, it was by means of a clever misdirection. The story itself is set in 1888 London and in the USA a few years prior to the extended flashback sequence. In the first half of the novel Holmes and Watson employ their typical inductive detection strategy, then after solving the primary crime we are treated to a lengthy explanation as to how the murder they have solved came to happen in the first place. The second half, was inspired by true events and is quite enjoyable once you get into the change of pace.

Now to the audio production itself. This is an all amateur production, the reader is just a guy, not a professional reader. Tim Aldrich, has no interest in editing, re-reading flubbed lines or even eliminating background noises. You can hear phones ringing, people coughing animals and street noises. That said the recording volume is decent and I never missed a word he spoke (or misspoke). Aldrich only a partial ability to do an English accent. He puts on a deep basso for Watson and uses his more natural speaking voice for Holmes. This is really amateur hour recording. But on the other hand he's enthusiastic and he's doing it at a terrific pace! Tim Aldrich has already recorded A Study in Scarlet, The Adventures of Sherlock, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Last Bow and The Sign of Four! I'm loath to admit this, given I consider myself such an audiophile, but Tim Aldrich can teach a lesson to us all - enthusiasm and genuine drive to voice a story can make up for a whole lot of background noises, flubbed lines and mediocre accenting. I enjoyed the heck out of this FREE novel. Keep up the great work Tim!

posted by Jesse

Review of Chase by Dean Koontz

Chase (The Strange Highways Collection)
By Dean Koontz; Read by Chris Sarandon
4 Cassettes - Approx. 6 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Time Warner AudioBooks
Published: 1995
ISBN: 1570422990
Themes: / Suspense / Psychology / Mystery / NeoNazi / Pedophilia / Noir Fiction /

"Everybody's damaged, some are just damaged too much, far too much. Open wide for me."

Koontz throws almost everything but the kitchen sink at his titular character Benjamin Chase... he's got post-traumatic stress disorder, rampant alchohlism, paranoia, suicidal depression and oh ya, someone threatening to kill him on top of all that. A Vietnam vet, Chase won the congressional medal of honor and was honorably discharged. But he left the military with a strong suggestion of intensive psychological therapy. Possesing a local celebrity he'd rather not have Chase is being treated, but his psychiartrist isn't only concerned with Chase's mental health. Worse, after Chase finds himself atop a notorious lover's lane hangout he rescues a young woman from a close call with a psychopath. When he returns home a myserious voice on the phone threatens him. Balancing all this out is a decent woman who offers Chase a calm he hasn't had in years. Originally written as a short novel back in 1972 Chase was re-written for this collection. I never read the original (written back in 1972 under Koontz' K. R. Dwyer psuedonym) but this version is is a tight and smoothly written. Also included in this set is a short story from 1980s entitled Down In The Darkness. It is the first person story of a seemingly innocuous Latino resturant owner, another Vietnam vet by the way, and the terrible door that leads to his basement. Yup, it is pure Koontz! The two tales run interesting parralells and this is a good match up. If you're a fan of noir endings, these two have got em.

Screen actor, and narrator Chris Sarandon doesn't try to wring all the accents he could out of these two stories, but the story flows well under his narration. Koontz is just as good in small does as he is in large. Crisp writing, clever characterization. This one's worth tracking down.

posted by Jesse

Rick Kleffel of the terrific website/podcast The Agony Column just did an amazingly in-depth interview with Joshua Spanogle, author of Isolation Ward a new medical/noir novel inspired by such authors as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. You can download the full MP3 interview HERE.

posted by Jesse

Last Saturday BBC Radio 4 started a new limited three-part series entitled Music To Die For hosted by mystery writer Ian Rankin! Rankin, along with other noted crime writers John Harvey, Mark Billingham, John Connolly, Robert Crais, George Pelecanos, James Sallis and Karin Slaughter, talk about how music has had a profound influence on their writing. Two more shows are set to follow.

You can listen to part I right now: HERE

posted by Jesse

Altered Carbon
By Richard K. Morgan; Read by Todd McLaren
14 CDs or 2 MP3-CDs - 14 Hours 54 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1400101379 (Retail CDs), 1400131375 (Library CDs), 1400151376 MP3-CDs
Themes: / Mystery / Murder Mystery / Science Fiction / Cyberpunk / Immortality / Artificial Intelligence / Galactic Civilization / Conciousness Uploading / Hardboiled Fiction / Noir Fiction /

"Fuelled by every crime noir novel I'd ever read, plus swabs of French and Japanese cinema, the work of William Gibson and M. John Harrison, early Poul Anderson and Bob Shaw, and last but not least the colossal impact of Bladerunner, this was my take on future noir. Fast forward to middle of the new millenium, and down where it counts, nothing has changed, because neither have we. Enter Takeshi Kovacs."
--Richard K. Morgan

Altered Carbon is a stunning debut novel. A near classic, it boils over with solid SF ideas all encased in violent and vivid prose as told in a hardboiled first person narration. Set a few hundred years in the future, humanity has started colonizing the galaxy under the supervision of the United Nations. From one such world comes Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-U.N. Envoy (interplanetary special forces) who's been brought to Earth in order to work as a private detective for a murdered "Meth". Meths are the ultra rich, able to afford new cloned bodies so that they can live forever. This is achieved by means of the "cortical stack" technology, a backup harddrive for one's mind, implanted in the skull shortly after birth. Most people can't afford to be "re-sleeved" after they die, and so languish in storage for centuries. Convicted criminals have their bodies sold out from under them.

Interplanetary travel is done by way of "needlecast", a form of faster than light transmission of data. No bodies are transported - visitors from distant planets are re-sleeved in a local body. With these technologies many of society's values have changed. "Real death" is rare, "organic damage" is far more common. And even real death, the destruction of a cortical stack, isn't necessarily the end since the ultra rich keep backups. Needlecast transmission of stack's data on a regular basis makes one virtually immortal. Like working with any fallible system though you just have to remember to backup, and frequently.

Laurens Bancroft, a centuries old tycoon brought Kovacs to Earth in order to investigate his apparent suicide, something the Meth thinks was really a murder - though he can't say for sure as he was backed up 48 hours before his death. The investigation leads Kovacs into a tangled web of politics, prostitution and power games with stakes as high as an immortal lifespan can offer. Thrown into the mix is a dirty cop, his driven parter, an artifically intelligent hotel, and a whole lot of bloodshed.

Though at first blush this appears to be a straight out neo-cyberpunk novel, it has more depth. The mystery and hardboiled elements are a direct homage to Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep with Kovacs in the Philip Marlowe role. Like The Big Sleep, Altered Carbon is complicated and hard to follow, with many characters double and triple-crossing each other. SF elements, like the conciousness uploading, are not particularily new, but Morgan's take is, and it is well integrated into the plot. One scene which has Kovacs "cross-sleeved" into a female body for investigative purposes illustrates just how wild the concept of this kind of mind swapping can be.

There are several lengthy sex scenes and even more combat scenes. I liked the way they were handled (some of the descriptions were positively Gibsonian) but I grew fatigued at their numerousness and frequency. Another problem was the over-use of "neuro chem" as a cure all for crisis situations. UN Envoy training allows envoys to battle harder and smarter than anyone without such training, so whenever things get rough for Takeshi, and they get rough frequently, he falls back on his "neuro chem." The problem there is it ends up working like an inexaustible turbo boost - he's too powerful, too skilled for sustained anxiety on the part of the reader. Like Neo in the second and third Matrix movies, we stop caring. On the other hand, the plot twists delightfully defy expectation and are cleverly rendered. The way the story is told is reminiscent of the best kinds of noir fiction. It is as solid a modern science fiction novel that reads better than any first novel has any right to be.

Tantor sent us the Library bound CD edition, which came in a clamshell stlye plastic case. Durable and easily accessed. Sound quality is near flawless with high recording levels. Narrator Todd McLaren is Takeshi Kovacs, and his reading is cool and smooth like the confident interstellar hard-case he's portraying. There are at least a half dozen female roles he's equally adroit with, some of which required breathy libidinousness, some irate rage. I look forward to an encore performances in the sequel, Broken Angels.

Incidentally, Tantor Media has dozens of other mystery and thriller titles, you can check them out HERE.

posted by Jesse

More revelations on the origins of Noir again from station KZSU, the Univeristy of Stanford's radio station and its show Entitled Opinions (hosted by Robert Harrison). Likely many fans of modern Noir haven't read the unfinished poem The Aeneid written in the first century BCE by the Roman poet Virgil, if you enjoy the classics you probably should find a copy, it has a very noirish ending, startlingly modern and powerful despite its antiquity. In the meantime you can have a listen to the file that discusses it, with spoilers. Again make note, the scholars make no reference to modern noir literature - I see the connection, perhaps you will too.

You can download the MP3 of the show HERE.

posted by Jesse

I've always known there was some connection between Noir and Mythology, but the bridge between the two has always eluded me, until now. Tonight I heard an instalment of the Entitled Opinions podcast, which originates as a show on KZSU, the University of Stanford radio station. On the October 4th 2005 show there is a conversation between the show's host professor Robert Harrison and a retired Stanford professor, Rene Girard. Together they talked about Girard's theories of religious ritual and mythology, and in turn their connection with the scapegoats and sacrifice. Girard's initial studies of the literary texts of Cervantes, Proust, and Dostoyevsky in terms of "triangular" or "mimetic" desire lead to a subsequent study of primitive religions from the standpoint of the mimetic concept, and he saw that mimesis usually led to collective violence against a single victim, the scapegoat. In this podcast he never mentions Noir, though he touches on one of it's root concepts Nihilism, he also doesn't talk of fiction, but his analysis, made it clear, at least for me that the deep within the unreflective mind of the human animal is a need for a scapegoat. This conversation bridged the gap between Mythology and Noir, between and the myth of Oedipus and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Maybe it will blow your mind too.

You can download the MP3 of the show HERE.

posted by Jesse

Hey, speaking of Elmore Leonard, There's an ElmoreLeonard.com podcast! Four shows were made in 2005, all are hosted by Elmore Leonard's researcher and webmaster, Gregg Sutter: Check 'em out:

PODCAST #4 - A conversation with Elmore Leonard and Michael Wallis in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Elmore and Michael discuss the lives and times of Pretty Boy Floyd, the oil business and The Hot Kid.

PODCAST #3 - Elmore Leonard talking about the movies made from his books recently and reads the “Bad Guys at Home” scene from Killshot.

PODCAST #2 - Elmore Leonard at home in Bloomfield Village, Michigan reads two selections from The Hot Kid and his Ten Rules of Writing.

PODCAST #1 - Gregg Sutter interviews Elmore Leonard at home in Bloomfield Village, Michigan about his fortieth novel, The Hot Kid.

posted by Jesse

Elmore Leonard, his novels are almost like Jazz, when they work they work in the off-beats. My experience is that about every second novel is a winner. His, Hot Kid came out just a short time ago, I still haven't listened to it - but already, hot on it's heels there's a sequel, called Comfort To The Enemy. It's already appeared in the New York Times. And now HERE's a New York Times MP3 podcast that talks about the sequel, and with it a mini interview "Dutch" Leonard himself. With music by Jonathan Coulton!

posted by Jesse