To The Last Page

Roger Keen's writing has a way of getting under your skin. That's undoubtedly down to the nature of the approach that can be seen in the hugely ambitious semi-autobiographical and metafiction works The Mad Artist and The Empty Chair , books that are practically designed to enfold and wrap you in their rich complexity, but there are similar rewards to be found in the dark imaginings of genre work like Literary Stalker . A collection of some of his short stories confirms the impression that no matter what style he works in, Keen has the ability to draw you in, exploring his own experiences and ideas while at the same time invoking and attacking the reader's own sensibilities, sensitivities and insecurities from every conceivable angle. Once you start on any of these tales, you are no longer on safe ground. So much so that I confess that halfway through the first title story I immediately checked the contents page to see if Triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) conta...

Opening line: "She still had all her clothes on and was standing in the blue light from a baby spot when I came in, but I knew it wasn't going to last because the way she was moving I could tell it was that kind of dance. I was glad it was that kind of dance" Finding a woman isn't usually any trouble for Private Investigator Shell Scott. In fact, lovelies wearing very little clothing, keen to get undressed and practically throwing themselves at him is not an uncommon occurrence. Such a detective should have no trouble finding Sweet Lorraine, an exotic dancer at the Pelican Club, and things are looking promising. " At no time in the history of 'Sheldon Scott, Investigations', had a case started in a more interesting fashion ", he notes. Unfortunately getting to see her backstage is a little more of a problem, and that's even before he starts speaking to her about the actual missing girl in his investigation, Isabel Ellis. That's when his troub...

Charles Willeford's first short novel High Priest of California (1953) has some common characteristics, themes and characters that are developed further in The Woman Chaser (1960). Russell Haxby here even has the same initials as Richard Hudson the narrator of the latter book and he is also a used car salesman with a fairly high opinion of himself. The title High Priest is a term that the novel sees applied to car salesmen in a land that worships the car, and like Hudson's view of 'feebs', Haxby sees himself as above ordinary people. He certainly thinks he's better than a rather naïve young woman he meets at a Dance Parlour, Alyce Vitale.  Alyce is attractive enough, not normally his style and he's not too keen on her complicated home situation, but she intrigues him enough to take her up on another date. Alyce may be enthusiastic in response to Haxby's interest, but less so when it come to romance and sex, freezing up whenever Haxby tries anything on. It ...

" The fact is, it's almost impossible to run a proper bus service in this city. The forces ranged against success are just too numerous. " The Maintenance of Headway was written in 2009, which is not that long ago but times change fast, so Magnus Mills's idea of petty English rules and regulations that over-complicate something that should really be quite simple to might seem old fashioned and nostalgic, but it still speaks to us in the age of spreadsheets and statistics that are divorced from everyday reality of human behaviour. " People aren't important, only bus movements ", one of the bus drivers here observes. The idea might be preposterous - as most things seem to Jeff, a new driver on the route - but it does reflect how things are viewed from the lofty, detached heights of officials in power.  Here it's the Board of Transport who are responsible for the maintenance of headway: the notion that a fixed interval between buses on a regular servic...