Suckers by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand (independently published) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Stupid. Ridiculous. Brilliant.

This collection alternates stories between comedy horror masters J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand, then culminates with “Suckers,” a cowritten longer piece in which their recurring characters Harry McGlade (Konrath) and Andrew Mayhem (Strand) meet and undertake an absurd caper. 

Though each author’s work is distinctive, what unites them is playfulness with language, an avoidance of pompous prose, a comedian’s recognition of everyday absurdities, and often, a deliberate imbecility. “The pain was painful,” observes Konrath’s detective, while Strand’s protagonist, more of a sharp albeit regular guy playing at detective work, questions “fun size” Halloween candy – if it was fun, it would be enormous. Throughout the collection, the action moves quickly, and the dialogue stays tight and rapid fire. 

McGlade is the ultimate jerk. He’s also highly amusing. He’ll check out a woman’s legs while she’s crying or insult someone at their first meeting. He makes fun of others, whether they’re wearing too much makeup or have a face resembling a percussion instrument. He’s a chauvinist and a womanizer, and he doesn’t pay attention to others. At one point, he even admits to lying to the reader. 

Mayhem, on the other hand, is analytical and talky. He points out contradictions in things people say to make them look foolish. He’s also inventive when it comes to defending himself, whether that means using a hardcover copy of Stephen King’s The Stand or a box of grape juice. And Mayhem is more of a family man… but he’s not beyond showing his young son a movie called Blood Blood Blood. 

The differences between the two authors surface in the first two stories. Konrath’s “Whelp Wanted”, in which McGlade is tasked with finding a missing dog, takes place over multiple days. He does shoddy research and makes several mistakes. “Poor Career Choice” by Strand is a dialogue-heavy but by no means dull exchange between Mayhem and a would-be assassin who shows up at his home. The action takes place in real time.

McGlade gets more entertaining as the collection progresses. “Taken to the Cleaners” introduces another incompetent hitman. An attractive young woman who is the wife of a chicken king wants McGlade to kill the man her husband hired to kill the man she hired to kill him. 

In “A Bit of Halloween Mayhem”, Strand’s protagonist and a friend decide to explore a supposedly haunted house. Strand demonstrates the silliness of two grown men doing something kids are more likely to do. 

Next up is Konrath’s “The Necro File”, a magnum opus of humour, disgustingness, and authorial mischief. Client Norma Cauldridge, to whom McGlade repeatedly refers as “Drawbridge” (not to be funny but rather because he’s sloppy), wants him to follow her necromancer husband. This is Richard Laymon level stuff topped with a hearty portion of urine, barf and poop. Moreover, the story exemplifies that going off on tangents isn’t always ineffective. McGlade, for instance, rambles on about the unappetizing look of hot dogs before eating three of them. 

“The Lost (For a Good Reason) Adventure of Andrew Mayhem” recounts how the protagonist met his friend Roger in school detention at age thirteen. They get into trouble when they discover a naked neighbour thrusting around a butcher knife while talking to himself. 

In “Suckers”, the two characters inadvertently meet when Mayhem, running an errand involving spaghetti sauce and mushrooms, confronts McGlade intent on rooting out some “pires” (aka vampires). The reader gets the best of both worlds with the witty Mayhem and the not-as-smart-but-still-absorbing McGlade, who often bends the truth to make himself seem more heroic than he is. 

The story takes a giddy sidetrack when it introduces email communications between the protagonists and their editor Chad. Mayhem begins commenting on the falsity of McGlade’s version of events. When the story resumes, McGlade mocks his coauthor by engaging Mayhem in over-the-top actions inspired by his email comments.

The book ends with Strand interviewing Jack Kilborn (Konrath’s pen name) via email about a forthcoming novel. The exchange has them poking fun at each other and getting silly.

Both authors brought their A game to this collection, whose adventurousness and friskiness enthral the reader’s inner child. Douglas J. Ogurek *****

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales | review by Rafe McGregor

McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales by Michael Chabon (editor)

McSweeney’s #10, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, paperback, £4.10 (used), 1 March 2003, ISBN 9781400033393

 

Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is an award-winning American literary journal that was founded by award-winning and bestselling author Dave Eggers in San Francisco in 1998. Eggers has a long and varied bibliography, but is probably best known for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoir published in 2000. More important than any of this is the fact that McSweeney’s was Stephen Theaker’s inspiration for TQF, which he launched with John Greenwood in Birmingham in 2004. As regular readers of TQF (but probably not McSweeney’s) will know, Stephen’s secondary goal (after keep it going) was to catch McSweeny’s up, which he achieved in 2011. At the moment, TQF is in the lead – but only just – with seven-seven issues to McSweeney’s seventy-six. The next issue of McSweeney’s, which is due in February, will see a new editor, novelist and academic Rita Bullwinkel, take the helm. One of the features that distinguishes McSweeney’s from other literary journals is Eggers’ novel approach to editing and production:

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern continues to publish on a roughly quarterly schedule, and each issue is markedly different from its predecessors in terms of design and editorial focus. Some are in boxes, others come with a CD, still others are bound with a giant rubber band, and perhaps someday an issue will be made of glass.

Why the hell not!

The inspiration for TQF is not just any old McSweeney’s, but issue ten, McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, which was guest edited by champion of genre fiction Michael Chabon and published in February 2003 (a little over a year before the launch of TQF). It is easy to see why…from a garish cover borrowed from the October 1940 issue of Red Star Mystery Magazine to Chabon himself as editor to four hundred and eighty pages’ worth of twenty stories, some great illustrations, and contributors that include: Michael Crichton, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and Michael Moorcock. I’ve no idea how deep McSweeney’s pockets are, but one would be hard-pressed to compile this kind of lineup with literally unlimited resources. Most of the tales don’t disappoint regardless of the stature of their authors and I agree with Stephen that this is one of – if not the – best collections of short fiction ever published for pulp fiction fans.

My favourite tale is the first, Jim Shephard’s ‘Tedford and the Megalodon’. As a shark story enthusiast, I wondered how much of the visual horror and signature suspense would be retained in the short story format (on which note the illustration, by Howard Chaykin, is a perfect accompaniment, breathtaking without being a spoiler). Simply stated, neither the horror nor the suspense are lost and the last sentence is one of the most chilling conclusions to a narrative I’ve ever read, all the more remarkable because it is not unexpected. Honourable mentions above and beyond Shephard’s illustrious peers go to Hornby, for ‘Otherwise Pandemonium’; Kelly Link, one of the pioneers of the New Weird, for ‘Catskin’; and Moorcock, for ‘The Case of the Nazi Canary’. Moorcock’s contribution is an outing for his occult detective, Sir Seaton Begg, AKA the other Baker Street detective, Sexton Blake. King’s contribution, ‘The Tale of Gray Dick’ features Roland Deschain, protagonist of The Dark Tower series, although as I’ve only read the first two books, I’m not sure where it fits chronologically (he is already missing some fingers, if that helps anyone work it out). I was only disappointed twice: Eggers’ contribution is, to my mind, out of sync with the rest, too slow and too long, and I found Ellison’s contribution insubstantial and just not very funny (assuming the aim was comedy). McSweeney’s #10 is now out of print (along with the rest of the first thirteen issues), but used copies remain available from the usual vendors and are, at the time of writing, still relatively cheap (the upper end of the range I saw was £20, postage excluded).

Having set such an incredibly high bar, has TQF ever come close? No doubt I’m biased because it featured one of my Roderick Langham stories, but I don’t think TQF#50, which was published in January 2015, was too far off. Aside from the eleven stories in three hundred and twenty-four pages, which include a few of my personal favourites, I very much enjoyed its showcasing of so many of the magazine’s regular contributors, including several whose collaboration with Stephen and John predates my own (which began with a single and somewhat scant review in TQF#23 in 2008). That said, I have particularly high hopes for TQF#80, which is due shortly. The last page of McSweeney’s #10, the source of my quote above, states that (only) fifty-six issues were planned. When McSweeney’s #56 was published in 2019, the (true) goal was revealed as one hundred and fifty-six. Perhaps when that issue is published, it will be two hundred and fifty-six. Let’s hope that day comes and that, as Stephen puts it, both McSweeney’s and TQF keep going.

The Gingerbread Girl by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster Audio) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Novella mixes grieving mother with giddy maniac and turns up the heat.

Emily, whose relationship with her husband has soured after the loss of a child, travels to her father’s beachside residence on the fictitious island of Vermillion Key, Florida. She takes up running – a near obsession that will play into the story later – with hopes of healing. Soon, however, a murderous brute will engage Em in an extended cat and mouse chase.

Em first learns about villain Jim Pickering from a friend of her father’s. Each year, she is informed, the wealthy tech guy arrives in his red Mercedes and brings a young, attractive “niece” (eyeroll) to his place. At the end of their stay, they leave via boat. 

Because The Gingerbread Girl is a novella, King acts quickly. Thus, this isn’t the typical scenario in which a gullible female falls for a dapper gent who eventually turns on her. Pickering is bad news from the start. Thus, Em gets drawn into the villain’s clutches not through his charm but rather by witnessing something he doesn’t want her to see. The story then sprints along at an exhilarating pace. Survival for Em means leveraging her strengths and her pursuer’s weaknesses. 

Mare Winningham’s audiobook narration endows Pickering with a cheerful bordering on giddy – listen for the yapping laugh – disposition. He finds unpleasant things funny, talks to himself, and has zero concern for Em.

Despite his story’s fairy tale-inspired title and straightforward narrative, King manages to inject depth into the work. Yes, Em is fleeing a madman, but she’s also trying to run away from her pain. Perhaps Pickering is even an embodiment of that pain, a pain that must be confronted to be overcome. Will the Gingerbread Girl crumble? Or will she prove herself a tough cookie? Douglas J. Ogurek****

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi (DH Press) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in TQF73 (April 2023).

Far in our future, long after a nuclear apocalypse, the effects of which were leavened by the intercession of vampires (who then ruled us for millennia), a seventeen-year-old girl, Doris, finds herself at the centre of attention. Count Magnus Lee, an ancient vampire, wants to make her his wife, to his own daughter's dismay. The mayor's oafish son also wants to marry Doris. And Rei-Ginsei, the boomerang-wielding leader of a bandit troupe, takes a fancy to Doris too.