Know Me From Smoke

by Matt Phillips

Stella Radney, longtime lounge singer, still has a bullet lodged in her hip from the night when a rain of gunshots killed her husband. That was twenty years ago and it’s a surprise when the unsolved murder is reopened after the district attorney discovers new evidence.

Royal Atkins is a convicted killer who just got out of prison on a legal technicality. At first, he’s thinking he’ll play it straight. Doesn’t take long before that plan turns to smoke—was it ever really an option?

When Stella and Royal meet one night, they’re drawn to each other. But Royal has a secret. How long before Stella discovers that the man she’s falling for isn’t who he seems?

A noir of gripping suspense and violence, Know Me from Smoke is a journey into the shadowy terrain of murder, lost love, and the heart’s lust for vengeance.

Genres: Crime

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 12, 2018

About the author

Matt Phillips lives in San Diego. His books are A GOOD RUSH OF BLOOD, QUIET AND THE DARKNESS, TO BRING MY SHADOW, COUNTDOWN, KNOW ME FROM SMOKE, THE BAD KIND OF LUCKY, ACCIDENTAL OUTLAWS, REDBONE, BAD LUCK CITY, and THREE KINDS OF FOOL. His short fiction has been published in Tough, Mystery Tribune, Retreats from Oblivion, Shotgun Honey, and Out of the Gutter. More info at www.mattphillipswriter.com

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Does the past ever stay where it should?"

This started out as a 5-star book for me, with writing and subject matter that was right up my alley, telling the story of a lounge singer who's got the blues because of her murdered husband and the .45 caliber bullet in her hip, an ex-convict trying to go straight after being in prison for 20 years, and their efforts to pull each other out of the muck they've found themselves in. I love reading about troubled characters like this and these two were particularly compelling. It was bittersweet seeing them fall in love with the knowledge that soon I would have to watch it all fall apart when the kept secrets between them begin to blow things apart in true noir fashion. But the final half of the book dropped a star once it started to get a bit repetitive and I also couldn't understand why someone that seems as smart as Royal is would allow himself to get so caught up and controlled by someone like Phoenix. But maybe that's the point...maybe Royal not as smart as he should be, and destined to go down the bad path again.

"The fishmonger smells like fish and the bartender smells like sex. And what is it, Stella asked herself, that the devil smells like?

Like a match struck and shaken back into darkness—that old devil smells like sulfur."

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baby, I Got The Blues

Like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Stella and Royal have got the blues so bad. Stella is a blues singer in a nightclub who's got a missing molar, a bullet in her hip, and an aching hole in her heart. Royal is an ex-con living in a halfway house thinking he's going to go straight. Their star-crossed lives cross paths in the bluesy darkness of the San Diego night, each trying to duck the sucker punches being thrown their way. A fitting tribute to the noir prose of yesterday. A modern-day fable.

[Ross Cumming · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have come straight from reading Matt Phillip’s excellent ‘You Must Have a Death Wish’ to reading his equally excellent novel ‘Know Me From Smoke’. Although both noir novels their plot lines could not be more different if you tried, with ‘Know Me From Smoke’ being part love story, part pulp thriller.
Stella Radney is a longtime lounge singer, whose husband was gunned down some 20 years previously in a bar robbery which also left Stella with a bullet in her hip. Royal Atkins has just been released from prison on a technicality after serving 20 years for murder and is determined not to go back and intends to walk a straight line. On his release he moves into a half way house and while out for a drink he encounters Stella and they both hit it off and find there is a mutual attraction between them. However Royal has a secret that he can’t reveal to Stella and he also starts to get drawn back into his old life, mainly due to the influence of Phoenix and Markie, two other residents of the half way house. Stella reluctantly acknowledges Royal’s drift back into crime because she has eventually found love for the first time since her husband died but for how long can Royal’s secret remain hidden ?
This is a real page turner of a novel and one that I found I just couldn’t put down and read it in about a day. I felt like I had a knot in my stomach throughout reading it, as you sort of know that things aren’t going to end well and even though you know that Royal’s secret will eventually be revealed, you don’t know how or when and what the repercussions will be. Although the novel is quite contemporary, it feels timeless and had more of an old time feel for me and if it was a movie it would definitely be filmed in black and white. There were also some interesting supporting characters such as the mysterious Wally (and his wife) who owns one of the bars Stella sings, who has a penchant for dropping ecstasy and collecting guns. Also got to mention Phoenix, a criminal, with no apparent redeeming features, who drags Royal back into a life of crime, somewhat unwittingly at first but then he forces Royal into abetting him.
Looking forward to reading more of Matt Phillip’s work and must also mention that this like ‘You Must Have a Death Wish’ are both published by the excellent Fahrenheit Press.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stella struck a match, lit her cigarette, shook out the flame and dropped the match onto the sidewalk. Her nose twitched. The fishmonger smells like fish and the barman smells like sex. And what is it, Stella asked herself, that the devil smells like?
Like a match struck and shaken back into darkness-that old devil smells like sulphur.


A well written, contemporary homage to 'noir'.
3.5*

[Scott Cumming · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is cool, smoky, jazzy, poetic and timeless noir. 20 years ago, Stella lost her husband in a bar hold-up and carries a constant reminder with the bullet that is lodged in her hip and Royal Atkins was jailed for murder. In the present day, Stella has come out on the other side and works as a lounge singer in various bars around San Diego and Royal has just been released from prison due to a technicality with his case. Lo and behold on his first night out he meets Stella and the two feel a connection for one another, but Royal is harbouring a secret as he was Stella's husband's murderer.

My criticism of other Phillips' books has been that he telegraphs things too much in his plots and he does here too, but on this occasion it's the glue that holds the book together as you need that event to feed into everything that is happening. The book takes it time getting to the point of the two characters meeting and sets them and their surroundings up.

This is a book focused as much on the characters' past as they meditate on how they got where they are while yearning for a better future. They are the essence of noir characters and the novel feels timeless because of that. It gives it a poetical feel that is not realised in a lot of noir fiction even when it is striven for.

It doesn't hurt too that the cover is gorgeous and their is a t-shirt of the same available at the publisher's website, which I owned long before reading, so I'm glad I loved it!!

[Hobart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
If you're looking for an example of noir -- in the classic sense -- look no farther than Matt Phillips' Know Me from Smoke. You can tell that's going to be the case from the opening paragraphs. The first chapter builds on those first three or four paragraphs and sets the atmosphere, the mood, the tone for the rest of the book -- and pretty much casts a spell on the reader, too. The second chapter -- where we meet our second protagonist firms that up, and from there Phillips builds on this foundation to deliver a book that will stay with you long after you're done with it.

But let's step back from that for a minute -- we begin by meeting Stella Radney. She's in her mid-40's, a lounge singer, and a widow still grieving her murdered husband twenty years after his death. During the robbery that left Virgil dead, Stella was shot as well and the bullet's still in her hip -- a constant reminder that her loss and pain are physical as well as emotional. Both pains seem a bit fresher in the beginning of the book because Stella's been informed that new DNA technology (unavailable 20 years ago), has led the DA's office to reopen the case and they hope to have an arrest soon. Stella's feeling a little raw, hanging on only by more alcohol than is probably good for her and losing her self regularly in the music she performs.

Royal Atkins is a free man, a man with a second chance -- a convicted killer released on a technicality and determined to make the best of his second chance. Sadly, a couple of men at his halfway house decide that the best thing for Royal would be to join them and pull a few stickups -- and a few other forms of robbery as well. Royal resists -- but it's as clear to him as it is to the reader that this won't last.

Stella and Royal meet and the chemistry is instantaneous. The chapter where they meet for the first time is possibly the best chapter I've read this year -- just magic. For obvious reasons, Royal edits the personal history he tells Stella, and his associates from the halfway house use this to blackmail him into going along with them. He's trying to build a new life, she's trying to rebuild her life, and neither of them want to be alone in the process.

So we get to watch the growing love story of Stella and Royal, Royal's history being used against him, the crime spree, and the certainty that this is going to all going to come to a messy end. A little before the halfway point, I put in my notes, "if I stop, some broken people get to live a decent life. If I read another chapter or two, everything will fall apart and lives will be ruined. So tempted to walk away from it." I really was -- I liked these two so much, I wanted to let them have this chance.

But there was no way I was going to stop, Phillips' prose was too good to abandoned, and I had to see what actually happened to these characters (no matter how inevitable the end seemed). Seriously, I'd have kept reading just so Stella could think about her relationship to music and songs some more -- those sections of the book are practically poetry.

There's conversation between a couple of characters about Pulp Fiction -- and Tarantino's work feels appropriate to this book. But not that movie. Jackie Brown is the movie that this feels like. Maybe the novel, too, but I haven't read Rum Punch. They're both from the same species of sweet, second-chance at love story in the middle of a story of crime, criminals and ex-cons.

This is going to go for my entry for "Read a book you chose based on the cover" in the While You Were Reading challenge -- it's not entirely true, but the cover is fantastic and got me to read the blurb a few times, so it's close enough.

I love that title, too.

There's just so many things that are right about this book, and so little that's wrong. This is a winner -- it'll grab you by the heartstrings, will pull you along through the highs and lows of this story, and only let you go some time after you finish (I'm not sure how long that effect will last, but it's been almost a week and it really hasn't let go yet).

[Jo Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phillips's noir novel is beautiful, relentless, and close to perfect. A fateful collision of love and revenge, courage and cowardice, past and present, desire and lust proceed with the efficiency of the bullets that begin and end a book that hits its target-the reader's heart–with gorgeous precision and power.
Just brilliant.
A knockout.

[Jose Jimenez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptional. Highly recommend. Fresh and unrelenting noir.

[Jason Beech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Know Me from Smoke is the kind of book you have to put down every so often. It's not the violence which gets you, though there's plenty - it's the emotional violence which overpowers. Here's a book which cuts you, lifts a slice of skin, and then burrows deep before you know it.
It's a noirish love story about a widow whose husband was killed twenty years before by a man she never knew, who has now come out of prison after a lengthy sentence, and has wrangled his way into her bed.
It's not a twisty-turny book. The ending feels inevitable, but that just adds to the sometimes unbearable unease which this story builds. You like the ex-con, Royal, you hate the ex-con, you love the ex-con, you want to beat the ex-con with a baseball bat - all at once. Is he capable of reform, or has his past got its claws in him? Is being a criminal just who he is?
The real soul of the book is the widow, Stella. She's lived with the loss of her husband for so long, drowning her sorrow in song at the local restaurant. She's full of doubt about her new love. There's something eerily familiar about him, but she's been alone so long it's time to let herself have some happiness. She's such a beautiful character from the start that what you can see ahead grinds your stomach sick. She throws, through many conversations with her lover - but especially with her pianist partner at the restaurant - some philosophical pearls. I loved the one towards the end about dealing with life's sucker punches, about how her husband's death was not a sucker punch - not really - that he is and always will be a part of her life.
It's a great book, with a terrible villain - Phoenix - who pulls Royal into a nightmare just as he's come out of prison. It has protagonists to pull for, and an atmosphere you'll swim through. I bought the beast in ebook form, but I know I'll buy it as a paperback and read it again sometime.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something so bracing, almost thrilling about a noir that feels like an actual story. Too often these books and movies can come off as mere exercises of style rather than compelling narratives. A lot of shadows does not a bleak noir worldview make. Phillips gets noir right in this tale of a depressed lounge singer with a .45 caliber slug in her hip and the ex-con with a secret she falls for. Their love affair is as doomed as it is tempestuous, creating a thrilling tension as the reader waits for it to crash down around them.

Much classic noir found the dark squalor behind the Los Angeles sunshine. Similarly, Phillips here takes his hometown, San Diego, and locates a suitable backdrop for this story of longing and loss. He has produced a book that honors the spirit of noir while blazing its own path.

[David Flinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt did a hell of a job with this novel. I absolutely love the noirs from the sixties and seventies, and that's how this novel felt to me. Stylistically this novel is just deep as hell, borderline philosophical with a focus on existentialism. And while the novel had those slow moments akin to those older noirs (because they would look deeper into the character than a standard story would), when the action took over it was fast-paced and brutal like it should be in this genre!

I miss reading novels like this from authors who I feel actually belong in the world of noir.

[Beau Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt Phillips Know Me From Smoke is a love story that never should have been. It's dark, the mood set early, and could only end the way it did. I felt for Stella, I did, and in a way I guess I felt for Royal some too, but evil is evil, and no matter how much time a man might serve, he can never outrun the choices he makes.
Go forth. Seek out. Purchase and enjoy.

[Thomas Trang · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fourth Matt Phillips novel I've read now. All of them are punchy crime stories with great characters and dialogue. Of all the writers doing their thing at the moment, Phillips comes the closest to Elmore Leonard. High praise of course, but the proof is on the page.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the cover of this book. I had to re-read some sections of the story because I loved the writing so much. The love story was good, and Stella was a fabulous character.

[Nohemi Villa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the second half of the book more than the first. At the beginning it felt a bit predictable but ended quite well. I was very pleased with the ending and in fact very shocked. I wasn’t expecting Stella’s reaction. Her love for Royal seemed to have been something that she’s been yearning for since her husbands death. The author does a great job and making you gasp at some of the scenes, kept me wanting to read more. I definitely recommend this book.