Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Rating:
Summary: Love and murder on the Iowa plains
Review: Ed Gorman's dimunitive detective, Sam McCain, has his hands full in this latest entry in the mystery series. Sam has loved, and lost, and loved again, and the concept of missed opportunities runs through this novel as a unique backdrop to the murder mystery within it.

The great Red Scare is in full swing and even McCain's beloved Black River Falls with its quirky citizens and unique history fall to the whipped up hysteria.

Sam keeps his cool, though, despite tripping over more bodies than a medical examiner trainee. A fatally wounded man stumbles to his office to die; a famous man, or as famous as a man from Black River Falls gets. Richard Conners -- rich, successful, and connected -- had wanted to hire McCain to "hold something" for him, and comes to McCain's office to die.

McCain doesn't expect the bumbling police to solve the murder so he begins to look into it and almost immediately runs into a buzz saw in the form of Karl Rivers, a professed FBI agent looking for communists and communist sympathizers. When Rivers turns up dead in McCain's closet, Sam realizes there's somthing really serious going on in Iowa.

The novel is introduced with a quote attributed to W. H. Auden: "I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen."

Gorman does a marvelous job delivering the late 1950s to us as seen through the prism of a modest-sized Iowa town. The Red Scare is not limited to big cities. There are witch hunts everywhere, even in small town Iowa where a spinster teacher is seen as possibly subversive and has to publicly defend herself.

Gorman populates his stories with interesting and engaging characters and does more than tell a good yarn. He leaves you feeling reminiscent of those long ago days when you could get a good breakfast for 60 cents, where a triple feature at the drive in costs a buck, and where a man could make a decent living as a private investigator in a small town, solving a murder.

The story moves quickly and is satisfyingly layered. ....

Rating:
Summary: Great writing, superb characterizations
Review: In 1959 throughout the heartland, everyone knows the Ruskies are coming with Khrushchev visiting Iowa. The Soviet Premier's visit stirs up much activity as the anti-Communists shout "Better Dead than Red." Right wing activists target left wing sympathizing Americans such as noted local writer Richard Conners.

Taking the threats to his life seriously, Richard turns to attorney-sleuth Sam McCain. However, someone still kills Richard painting a hammer and sickle on the victim's forehead. Sam begins to investigate his client's murder with the biggest problem being there is plenty of rabid suspects in Black River Falls.

The third McCain trip back to the fifties is a wonderful trip back in time especially for the older members of the boomers. The story line is fun, the mystery is complex and taut, and the milieu is perfect as Ed Gorman presents Cold war bogeyman number one Khrushchev (with shoes on) visiting Iowa. Sam is a fabulous guide to the era. The historical tidbits add to the feel of a great novel that vividly brings to life an intriguing historical moment that only Mr. Gorman and perhaps the Chambers Brothers would understand.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Could we have SOME verisimilitude, please? Just a LITTLE?
Review: On the jacket of this book there is this recommendation: "No writer captures the mood of 50's America... better than Gorman." (EQMM)

Now there's a statement doubtless composed by a bird born AFTER 1960!

Look, I don't know where Gorman spent the fifties (he looks old enough to have been alive then) but if it was in America at all, he is deliberately decieving us. I was about the protagonist's age at the time of this book (1959) and I was in the midwest myself (Oklahoma, Missouri), but his world bears little or no resemblance to that all-too-real one. (About the only thing he gets right is that KOMA was indeed America's all-time greatest rock and roll station!)

Talk about anachronism! Gorman's "fifties" is some kind of bizarre, revisionist dystopia where a 26 year old lawyer listens to Eddie Cochran, buys MANHUNT magazine, has 5 Harry Whittington Fawcett paperbacks on his bedstead at once, quotes W.H. Auden and E.M. Forster, and pickets a segregated diner! In Iowa, for pity's sake!

It is a non-world where a deputy SHERIFF is made to say (in SINCERITY, no less) the following:

"This is a man who's put a lot of brain hours into readin' up on commies. Plus he sees I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI ever' time it's on at the drive-in." (Page 37)

PUH-LEEZ!!

You might think I'm a bit too aggravated, and you're right. It's prbably not as bad a book as it seems. Still, I'm getting tired of these kinds of books passing for modern hard-boiled fiction. We deserve better.

Now, really, to a certain extent, all these newer hardboiled writers are guilty of all of this-- this half-researched revisionism; this annoying product name-dropping; this political-correctness-with-a-vengeance (especially when they try a period piece)-- but Gorman has taken it an extreme I honestly did not dream possible.

Gorman's prose is so stilted and self-conscious and condescending that I can only assume the target audience is OTHER mystery writers. In fact, I am beginning to believe that that's how these guys win their various Edgar, Shamus, and Spur awards: by sitting around writing for EACHOTHER!

The REALLY sad thing is that Gorman could definitely do better. (And has.) There are parts of this book that achieve real humor. (The lawyer's secretary is a good, funny character.) Also, the plotting is not bad, and the denouement is even a bit better. I think Gorman needs to take his idols (John D. MacDonald, W.L. Heath, et al) a bit more seriously as actual models. The old pulpsters wrote without pretension and concentrated on story above all. The fact that some of them were sensitive men and keen observers of what was around them will make their yarns live forever. Don't give me a brand name in every paragraph and forget your transparent political agenda. Concentrate on REAL working characters and a good story.

After all, it's what Hammett would do.

Bill Fish

Rating:
Summary: Could we have SOME verisimilitude, please? Just a LITTLE?
Review: On the jacket of this book there is this recommendation: "No writer captures the mood of 50's America... better than Gorman." (EQMM)

Now there's a statement doubtless composed by a bird born AFTER 1960!

Look, I don't know where Gorman spent the fifties (he looks old enough to have been alive then) but if it was in America at all, he is deliberately decieving us. I was about the protagonist's age at the time of this book (1959) and I was in the midwest myself (Oklahoma, Missouri), but his world bears little or no resemblance to that all-too-real one. (About the only thing he gets right is that KOMA was indeed America's all-time greatest rock and roll station!)

Talk about anachronism! Gorman's "fifties" is some kind of bizarre, revisionist dystopia where a 26 year old lawyer listens to Eddie Cochran, buys MANHUNT magazine, has 5 Harry Whittington Fawcett paperbacks on his bedstead at once, quotes W.H. Auden and E.M. Forster, and pickets a segregated diner! In Iowa, for pity's sake!

It is a non-world where a deputy SHERIFF is made to say (in SINCERITY, no less) the following:

"This is a man who's put a lot of brain hours into readin' up on commies. Plus he sees I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI ever' time it's on at the drive-in." (Page 37)

PUH-LEEZ!!

You might think I'm a bit too aggravated, and you're right. It's prbably not as bad a book as it seems. Still, I'm getting tired of these kinds of books passing for modern hard-boiled fiction. We deserve better.

Now, really, to a certain extent, all these newer hardboiled writers are guilty of all of this-- this half-researched revisionism; this annoying product name-dropping; this political-correctness-with-a-vengeance (especially when they try a period piece)-- but Gorman has taken it an extreme I honestly did not dream possible.

Gorman's prose is so stilted and self-conscious and condescending that I can only assume the target audience is OTHER mystery writers. In fact, I am beginning to believe that that's how these guys win their various Edgar, Shamus, and Spur awards: by sitting around writing for EACHOTHER!

The REALLY sad thing is that Gorman could definitely do better. (And has.) There are parts of this book that achieve real humor. (The lawyer's secretary is a good, funny character.) Also, the plotting is not bad, and the denouement is even a bit better. I think Gorman needs to take his idols (John D. MacDonald, W.L. Heath, et al) a bit more seriously as actual models. The old pulpsters wrote without pretension and concentrated on story above all. The fact that some of them were sensitive men and keen observers of what was around them will make their yarns live forever. Don't give me a brand name in every paragraph and forget your transparent political agenda. Concentrate on REAL working characters and a good story.

After all, it's what Hammett would do.

Bill Fish

Rating:
Summary: McCain's Back and Better than Ever!
Review: September 1959, Khrushchev is visiting Iowa and the citizens of Black River Falls are caught up in the "Red Scare". Richard Conners, a left-leaning professor, political writer and the town's biggest success story is murdered and found with a hammer and sickle painted in blood on his forehead. Sam McCain, a young lawyer who's just getting started and still earning most of his money with his private investigator's license is taking this crime personally. It seems Conner's body ended up dead in his office. Between the anti-communists and left-wingers, a jealous wife and various other citizens, not too fond of Conners, McCain doesn't lack for suspects. But when some of them start turning up dead, too, Sam knows this isn't just about politics. It's starting to look way too personal..... Ed Gorman has done it again. Taken you back to small town life in the nostalgic 1950s with a murder mystery that's just pure fun to read. His quirky, unrivaled cast of characters are wonderful. His writing crisp and smart and full of witty and irreverent dialogue and his vivid scenes, laugh-out-loud funny. This is the third book of a terrific series. If you're new to McCain and gang, start at the beginning with The Day the Music Died. If you're already a fan, you won't be disappointed. Easily read in one sitting, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is a winner.

Rating:
Summary: McCain's Back and Better than Ever!
Review: September 1959, Khrushchev is visiting Iowa and the citizens of Black River Falls are caught up in the "Red Scare". Richard Conners, a left-leaning professor, political writer and the town's biggest success story is murdered and found with a hammer and sickle painted in blood on his forehead. Sam McCain, a young lawyer who's just getting started and still earning most of his money with his private investigator's license is taking this crime personally. It seems Conner's body ended up dead in his office. Between the anti-communists and left-wingers, a jealous wife and various other citizens, not too fond of Conners, McCain doesn't lack for suspects. But when some of them start turning up dead, too, Sam knows this isn't just about politics. It's starting to look way too personal..... Ed Gorman has done it again. Taken you back to small town life in the nostalgic 1950s with a murder mystery that's just pure fun to read. His quirky, unrivaled cast of characters are wonderful. His writing crisp and smart and full of witty and irreverent dialogue and his vivid scenes, laugh-out-loud funny. This is the third book of a terrific series. If you're new to McCain and gang, start at the beginning with The Day the Music Died. If you're already a fan, you won't be disappointed. Easily read in one sitting, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is a winner.