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Dance Macabre
Unknown Binding
About the author
Robert Reeves
107 books38 followersBorn and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, I currently live in Denver where I practice law and am a single parent to my 8-year-old adopted son. Life in the Rockies provides ample road trips, fly-fishing excursions, and other adventures usually shared with my son, along with our silver labs, Cooper and Cassie.
Away from the courtroom or the pen, I can usually be found traveling rustic foreign locations (Africa, Amazon, Australia), camping/hiking, cooking or just enjoying a new book find with a drink.
Some of my favorite cities I frequent include:
Atlanta
Cape Town
Charleston
Chicago
Denver
JoBerg
LA
London
Melbourne
New York
Portland
Sydney
Have an event, club or just a request to hang? Let me know, I love to travel and if I don't have plans already, I will attempt to lock something in. As Uncle Jessie once said, "A stranger is just a friend you never met."
Away from the courtroom or the pen, I can usually be found traveling rustic foreign locations (Africa, Amazon, Australia), camping/hiking, cooking or just enjoying a new book find with a drink.
Some of my favorite cities I frequent include:
Atlanta
Cape Town
Charleston
Chicago
Denver
JoBerg
LA
London
Melbourne
New York
Portland
Sydney
Have an event, club or just a request to hang? Let me know, I love to travel and if I don't have plans already, I will attempt to lock something in. As Uncle Jessie once said, "A stranger is just a friend you never met."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 25, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
Book/Novella 60 (of 250)
According to Otto Penzler, editor of the "Big Book of Pulps," Robert Reeves is "one of the forgotten authors of the pulp era." I agree, and here's to a hope that today's readers sit up and take notice.
Hook=4 stars: "Outside, the neon sign styled Jugger Callahan as the 'King of Swing' but since Jugger owned the Tango Palace and conferred the title on himself, not many people believed it. The sign also described the 48 hostesses as glorious, glittering, glamorous, and that, absolutely nobody believed-not even the girls," reads the first paragraph. Once-beautiful youth worn down by endless, lecherous, rotten men. (Yea, I know, too much of this in the news lately: sometimes nothing changes.)
Pace=3: As crisp as a perfect two-step.
Plot=4: The title and the opening paragraph offers so many possibilities. We do get a jewel theft. Plus arson/insurance fraud. Perhaps money-laundering. And definitely "Dead Feet", the title of chapter 2 of this novella. There is much going on: a surprise is that an editor somewhere didn't ask Reeves to up the word count. But trust Reeves to deliver a very good novella.
People=3: "Firpo Cole" is an interesting name. So is "Ephraim Tuttle". But as far as what they have to do with the story, well, upon closing the book I can't even recall. It's the nameless girls who could tell many interesting stories and do closely orbit the main characters. Yes, it's the many women driving the plot itself.
Place/Atmosphere=5:...very original set, beautifully described. Reeves takes us there, and oh, how our feet ache along with the dancers. If you've seen the sanitized film version of the stage show, "Sweet Charity", the song "10 Cents a Dance" might come to mind. (I've not seen the stage show itself, but I do know that on stage, the dancers are also hookers. 1960's American musical films did NOT have hookers.)
Summary: My average rating is 3.8, or 4 stars. Even though this story is a very good one, it could have been great with better character development of the women driving the plot. To me, this is a case in which the author worked hard on the perfect opening paragraph: I see him struggling and struggling to perfect those first few lines. Then, Reeves delivers a great closing line also: "Then he sighted carefully and pulled the trigger six times." Reeves comes in and goes out with a bang. Sadly, his life was short (1911-1945) and there are so many good-to-great authors of pulp fiction who never received their dues: this genre was an opportunity for many writers to be published, a great thing, and these opportunities are seldom available today. Again, seek out this author!
Book/Novella 60 (of 250)
According to Otto Penzler, editor of the "Big Book of Pulps," Robert Reeves is "one of the forgotten authors of the pulp era." I agree, and here's to a hope that today's readers sit up and take notice.
Hook=4 stars: "Outside, the neon sign styled Jugger Callahan as the 'King of Swing' but since Jugger owned the Tango Palace and conferred the title on himself, not many people believed it. The sign also described the 48 hostesses as glorious, glittering, glamorous, and that, absolutely nobody believed-not even the girls," reads the first paragraph. Once-beautiful youth worn down by endless, lecherous, rotten men. (Yea, I know, too much of this in the news lately: sometimes nothing changes.)
Pace=3: As crisp as a perfect two-step.
Plot=4: The title and the opening paragraph offers so many possibilities. We do get a jewel theft. Plus arson/insurance fraud. Perhaps money-laundering. And definitely "Dead Feet", the title of chapter 2 of this novella. There is much going on: a surprise is that an editor somewhere didn't ask Reeves to up the word count. But trust Reeves to deliver a very good novella.
People=3: "Firpo Cole" is an interesting name. So is "Ephraim Tuttle". But as far as what they have to do with the story, well, upon closing the book I can't even recall. It's the nameless girls who could tell many interesting stories and do closely orbit the main characters. Yes, it's the many women driving the plot itself.
Place/Atmosphere=5:...very original set, beautifully described. Reeves takes us there, and oh, how our feet ache along with the dancers. If you've seen the sanitized film version of the stage show, "Sweet Charity", the song "10 Cents a Dance" might come to mind. (I've not seen the stage show itself, but I do know that on stage, the dancers are also hookers. 1960's American musical films did NOT have hookers.)
Summary: My average rating is 3.8, or 4 stars. Even though this story is a very good one, it could have been great with better character development of the women driving the plot. To me, this is a case in which the author worked hard on the perfect opening paragraph: I see him struggling and struggling to perfect those first few lines. Then, Reeves delivers a great closing line also: "Then he sighted carefully and pulled the trigger six times." Reeves comes in and goes out with a bang. Sadly, his life was short (1911-1945) and there are so many good-to-great authors of pulp fiction who never received their dues: this genre was an opportunity for many writers to be published, a great thing, and these opportunities are seldom available today. Again, seek out this author!
Displaying 1 of 1 review