My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Library of America for an advance copy of this collection of crime stories from the latter end of the 1960's that deal with many of the problems that people were dealing with, and how sometimes the stopper on the bottle that was full of turmoil would suddenly explode in different ways.

Crime fiction in the late 1960's reflected the oddness, the weariness of a country that was in the midst of many problems, problems that America's inability to deal with still trouble us today. Add to that the violence that seemed all around, from Presidents, to students, to moral leaders and people trying to make a difference. Violence seemed to be the go to solution for a lot of what ailed America. And violence was everywhere, on the news, the papers, outside the door, in entertainment. At the same time woman were demanding rights, black Americans were demanding acknowledgement and a war was building that would divide more people, mostly those who had to fight in it, and those who started it, but never feared the consequences. Literature of all types was showing this new vision of the American Dream. However crime novel understood it best. There was a sickness in America, but it had always been there, no one wanted to address it, or show it. Like a married couple having separate beds on I Love Lucy, or the movie Psycho showing a toilet, crime novels begin to probe at the darkness all around, and create stories that resound to this day. Crime Novels: Four Classic Thrillers 1964-1969 (LOA #371) edited and introduced by Geoffrey O'Brien features stories that seem as disturbing today as they must have been over 50 years ago, full of violence, drug use, crimes of passion, and crimes that make sense at the time to the person committing it.

This collection features four stories from the end of the century, introduced by Geoffrey O'Brien with a biographical sketch of the writers at the end along with a section on where the stories came from, and why certain things have been edited. The collection starts with The Fiend, a sticky icky story that would be familiar to many watchers of television today. Written by Margaret Millar the story features the disappearance of a nine-year old girl, the creepy man who has been accused of crimes before, and the ugliness that exists even in the finest of communities. Ed McBain's Doll is next a book from his 87th Precinct series about cops in a city that seems very reminiscent of New York City, and changed the idea of police procedurals. This is a grim violent story about a killer, the modeling industry, and the cops who are determined to figure out who killed a young woman in front of her daughter. Run Man Run by Chester Hines is a chase novel about a young black man who sees a murder, and being pursued by the racist, drunk cop who committed the crime, a story that still has the power to stun. Finally Patricia Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery about a man whose life is falling apart writing a book in Tunisia about a man whose life is falling apart called the The Tremor of Forgery. A tale that is both psychological, weird, and yet very very compelling and page turning.

Besides being about crime, these books are about the darkness that lies deep in the human soul. The one that acts out, or the one that is so close to breaking down do to life, love, or lack of either of these. With few exceptions many of the characters are not people you want to know, or have to deal with. They are people who society is more of a burden than something that has to be followed or obeyed. They answer to an inner voice that tells them what to do, no matter how bad. There is also a level of violence that is starting to show in the companion book to this series, dealing with the early part of the 60's. Doll and The Fiend show the inner mind of the killers so well and so disturbingly that is must have been a shock for many readers, maybe just expecting a men's adventure tale of private eyes and gangsters. A lot of this has carried over to novels of today, but the early books seem more raw, and real.

Another outstanding collection. One can't go wrong in picking up book one or two. Both offer great stories, and stores that seem so of today, that still stun and disgust in a few ways. Perfect for fans of crime novels, or for people who want to get started.

The Library of America does it again with this second volume of 1960s crime novels.

While I’m familiar with all of the authors represented, I wasn’t aware of any of these novels outside of Ed McBain’s Doll. All the selections are great and I’m very happy that LOA is bringing these novels out of obscurity.

As is usual for these collections, the supplementary material, including the introduction, are worth the price of admission alone.

My profound thanks to The Library of America and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of this great collection.

Another sterling LOA collection. I still prefer my late-1960s crime fiction in paperbacks with lurid covers, but anything that preserves such first-rate examples of craft is a laudable effort.

Margaret Millar's THE FIEND is a chilling tale of SoCal domestic suspense, depicting two nine-year-old girls and the man with a troubled history who has taken an intense interest in their friendship. Their interactions implicate multiple parties, with more than one well-tended house of cards collapsing by the time this heartbreaking novel is over.

Any excuse to return to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct is worth taking, but DOLL is a white-knuckle trip. Detective Steve Carella asks a grieving, on-the-ropes Bert Kling to work with him on a case involving the murder of a fashion model, a decision with fateful consequences for both. Tough and harrowing, even by McBain's standards.

RUN MAN RUN was inspired, as editor Geoffrey O'Brien notes in his introduction, by author Chester Himes's encounter with a drunken police officer. Himes spins this event into a suspenseful Manhattan manhunt. Featuring some vivid, evocative scenes of men of different races and social stations at work in mid-century America.

Patricia Highsmith's THE TREMOR OF FORGERY is the darkest and most internal of the quartet, following a writer who travels to North Africa to work on a film project. When his collaborators never arrive, he begins to lose his bearings, with only his typewriter to anchor him. More literary fiction than crime novel, but still haunting.

This Library of America compendium of four crime novels written and set in the late 1960s comes at an interesting time. The era depicted has come to be regarded through music, films, and TV, as an age of (to pick up Paul Simon’s song title) feeling groovy. It was not. These four books provide varying perspectives on a period when fashions and social and moral codes were in transition, with influences and attractions felt from two opposite poles.

I was unfamiliar with the work of the first author, Margaret Millar, and didn’t immediately take to her style. That said, “The Fiend” (1964) proved well worth sticking with, and indeed is a book far ahead of its time, touching on themes of alienation, gender roles, and family politics. It’s like a perfect mashup of Joan Didion and Ross MacDonald, and it may not come as a surprise that author Millar was the spouse of MacDonald, a.k.a., Kenneth Millar.

“Doll” (1965) is middle-period Ed McBain, book number 20 in his series of crime procedurals, and it’s always a pleasure to revisit the cops of the 87th Precinct.

“Run Man Run” (1966) is Chester Himes’ semi-autobiographical comic thriller, and it’s simply a corker. The works of Patricia Highsmith enjoyed a resurgence following the popularity of the Ripley films. “The Tremor of Forgery” (1969) rounds out this collection perfectly, and encapsulates the mood of these times. Geoffrey O’Brien, who collected and edited this volume, gets high marks for selecting and juxtaposing four entirely diverse voices that blend quite wonderfully. They make the very opposite of a joyful choir, but they provide an unforgettable tour through the anxieties and uncertainties of changing times.

In this review I will talk about some of the books in the overall omnibus.

The Fiend
Margaret Millar

There are multiple perspectives, but the transitions are smooth, sometimes I didn't really realise the change, like changing gears by a good driver, there was nothing to notice.

This was more about the intricacies of life, marriage and divorce, the breakdown of relationships. The upkeep of them. How things can thrive in the pressure pot of life. I found myself enthralled with the local dramas between divorcees, marriages and children, feeling sorry for them but ultimately understanding them. This was more than a simple crime novel, it was a study of relationships, with a main focus on romantic relationships and all the tolls which are taken on them. Children. Work. Alcohol. But ultimately always coming back to children. Protecting them, caring for them, guarding them. Who gets to say what is good for a child? We see characters who are not parents get to give their opinions freely, one is viewed as nosy, the parents them them because they pity her. One is viewed as authoritative and they listen and respect, only because of the position and power, but do not hede their advice. The other is Charlie, someone on the outside looking in, who gets to say what? Does a stranger get to tell you what to do with your child? Why not? What about a stranger with training? Does that change anything? Does a qualification change things? It's an interesting take on modern life. I found myself looking at relationships in a new way, sometimes often cynically. I found the breakdowns and dramas depressing and was warped into a bleak world, not of knife crime, or robbery, murder of rape, but the constant tide of an ever flowing familial sea. Love. Marriage. Relationships. I saw the happy, and the sad I saw children growing up, learning things they shouldn't, but why shouldn't they? Protected and safe guarded because they're children. I saw something sinister beneath the water and due to the nature I was alert and ready for plot 'twists' I developed my theory.
But mainly the real crime in family pressure. Upkeep, maintenance , appearances. I was so fed up with modern society reading the page, it's enough to make you give up on society.

The Doll Ed McBain

Murder is to you, what? Harrowing yes, but when reading, when watching a film and a murder scene is happening, there is some excitement, isn't there? Some interest. Never should you become bored with murder. That's what I felt reading the opening scenes of this book. A murder was taking place, but due to expositional extracts within the scene and large metaphors, with too many long sentences which just didn't flow, I found myself bored. Instead of wondering who the killer was, or what was going to happen, I just wanted the flowery pretense to end. Then after the murder scene, I was plunged straight into more exposition, about life, about criminal proceding, about the person behind the investigation. The narrator took over and instead of showing me all these things, I was told about them. I was told about exhaustion of police officers and detectives, I was told how bad crime and its effects were, I was told so many things I put down the book because I was sick of the lecture. I just witnessed a murder, cold blooded, and then straight onto my next class, lecture about police exhaustion. I soon lost interest. Especially after such a good sociological study of mankind before it with The Fiend. Sure sometimes I was told things in character thoughts, but more often I was shown. Shown a world of normal people, who were hiding dark secrets. Normal people who could turn into criminals, if their child was withheld from them. Normal people who would do anything to protect themselves. The monster in the closet was not some cold blooded killer, but in fact your next door neighbour. Someone passing you on the street. Someone sitting next to you on the bus. After such a good story, I couldn't stomach The Dolls. Maybe that's a weakness of omnibuses, not only am I critiquing the story and writing, but also judging the next book to the last. If it doesn't live up to it, how can you stomach it? You'll be forever thinking the previous book was better, which it was.

Run man run Chester Himes

Chester deals with racial prejudice in this novel, one word against the other and he does it well. You see the murder and ultimately know who the murderer is throughout the book. But the premise of this story is, will they be caught? Although it was a decent book, I don't think it was as good as The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes.

Overall this omnibus is an okay collection, however I think it's predessecor was a better collection.

So! Four novels in one. I'm fairly well-read in all things Chandler, but I'm not all that familiar with 60's crime fiction, most of which isn't availabe in e-book format (my preferred mode of reading these days), so I was very happy to find out about this offering from Library of America.
Here's how it went.
First, Margaret Millar, "The Fiend": Of the four books, this was the one I was looking forward to most. A clever psychological crime tale involving a cast of characters, each with their own sets of secrets, and how they play off of and interact with each other -- yay! Turns out this wasn't quite what I got. All in all this was a solid but fairly unengaging read -- I was not a fan of the shifting POVs (sometimes they'd change in the middle of the paragraph, like we're jumping characters' heads like lice or fleas... not cool), and of course a lot of the ideas and general circumstances are pretty dated, especially in regards to women and their role/place in society. There's some snappy dialogue, but not much plot to go around. In fact, I'm not 100 per cent sure this actually qualifies as a crime novel, if you want to be strict about it -- nobody really commits a crime, unless you count adultery and some criminally bad decision-making. It's more of a cultural study of mid-60's West Coast suburban life and all the ways expectation moulds people's ways of thinking and behavior. Everybody in "The Fiend" is a keeper of secrets, either their own or other people's, and Margaret Millar takes great care in peeling off one layer of onion skin after the other, which is fun, but this is still a novel that was written about six decades ago, and like I said, it shows, not least in some pretty creative psychology that probably wouldn't fly in this time and age unless we're talking dumb streaming series.
Not to spoil anything, but to me, there really wasn't any Fiend in "The Fiend" (well, okay, maybe that train track person); just a lot of over-emotional women in the throes of existential frustration and the men who are at the root of it and/or have to deal with them -- if that qualifies as a crime novel, so be it, but I thought that whole aspect fell a bit short.

Next, "Doll", by Ed McBain. Interest-wise, this came in third for me (after "Run Man Run" but ahead of Ms. Highsmith) when I read the description, but boy, was I wrong. I'd never read Ed McBain before, but now I have to search out the other 87th Precinct titles as well, which is no small feat as there are about 864 of them and of course most of them are not available for Kindle where I live (THANKS FOR NOTHING, AMAZON), so now I can choose between shelling out for smelly old OOP paperbacks or (ahem) downloading them illegally. Yay.
Anyway. This was fast, furious and very funny, also clever, and an absolute joy to read. After trudging through the stiltedness of "The Fiend", it was great to dive into a book that actually *wanted* to be read and made me feel at home in its world, so much so that I literally couldn't stop reading, which is something I usually don't get from books very much anymore.
Also, of the four books included in "Crime Novels", this one felt most "modern"; while the others show their age, this one is still fresh and kicky. McBain even lets his female characters be characters instead of, well, just Females with a capital F.
Loved it. Am now waiting for (a yellowed, icky, no doubt smelly paperback of) #21 to arrive on my doorstep.

"Run Man Run", by Chester Himes: Sounded so exciting. A bad cop chasing an innocent Black man through NYC, intent on eliminating the only eyewitness to a horrendous double murder, what's not to like, story-wise? The description made it sound like this was a very tight, fast, compact story, likely playing out in the space of a single night.
Well.
Turns out this is NOT what's inside the box. The described chase is over after the first chapter or so; what follows is lots of hand-wringing, and talking (mostly variations on "he's out there, he'll get me, will no one believe me", which gets old a lot sooner than seems humanly possible, mostly due to prose that seemed barely competent to me and the fact that the hunted man is so, SO unlikable), and weird interactions between strangely unformed characters. This novel goes on and on and ON, long past the point where I lost interest and, later, much of the will to live, or at least to read.
I also found it in questionable taste, to put it this way; I mean, what's going ON in that Harlem nightclub?? Let's see: "The atmosphere was both sensual and animal, thick, dense, odorous, pungent and perfumed. Bulls herded their cows. They were domesticated bulls but they were dangerous. [...] Every bull had his cow with heavy udders filled with sex, smelling of the breeding pen, cows that had been topped again and again and wanted to be topped again indefinitely." WTF? Also, can I please go home now?
Some of the prose doesn't border on the purple so much as downride straddle it and push it to the ground: "His panic-stricken muscles were straining in incredible frenzy like a wild stallion in a fit of stone-blind terror." Or what to make of this: "The fear came up into her loins like sexual torture." (Of course the lady in question will go to bed with the fear-inducing gent within a couple of pages, because this is simply that kind of book. In fact, they'll screw like jackrabbits. It's all a bit, okaaaay...) The eroticism generally feels like it's been sitting out in the sun too long: "Then she went as sweet as sugar candy. Her big brown eyes got limpid and her mouth got wet. Her body folded into his. He could feel her pointed breasts through the thickness of their coats." Ouch! Talk about pointed...
Women are treated in a way that you might want to call old school if you were feeling generous (nothing like a slap in the face when the broad gets hysterical with fear); the one recurring female is basically in a state of perma-arousal when she's around men, which made for some, um, interesting reading. Her main function seems to be a fairly worrisome fixation on her man; she only exists in relation to him, and of course to deliver the verbal cues that let him spool off his interminable loop of fears, convictions and suspicions, 99% of which are so underwhelming and pedestrian as to make the reader (well, me) howl with exasperation.
Just not for me, I guess.

As was Patricia Highsmith. "The Tremor of Forgery", well. I guess I just didn't feel it. I'm not a big Highsmith fan (the lady as well as her works); every now and then I decide to maybe give her another try, but I have yet to come across a Highsmith novel I'm able to finish, and this one proved no exception. I tend to fare better with her short fiction, but apparently this one clocks in at around 250 pages -- nope. I only made it a handful of pages in before giving up. Life's too short. I'm leaving this one to the other reviewers.

All in all, this was an enjoyable experience, and I even came out of it with a new favorite author, so I'd definitely recommend this collection -- even if I didn't love every single novel, I don't regret reading them, as they all proved entertaining in their own way (except for the Highsmith one, but that's just personal taste).
My sincere thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for the opportunity to read this tome in exchange for an honest review.

Crime Novels, Four Classic Thrillers 1964-1969(Vol.2)(LOA)-A continuation of Library of America’s exploration into the exceptional noir classics of the 1960’s. These four are a very good example of how that genre flourished during that decade.
The Fiend by Margaret Millar- A known sex-offender is put on alert when a local child goes missing, but the community soon begins imploding revealing many suspects.
Doll by Ed McBain(Evan Hunter)- The 87th Precinct begins a desperate search for one of their own as Steve Carella is kidnapped by murderers, who turn his plight into a game of death. I’ve read all the 87 Precinct books and this is one of the best and darkest read.
Run, Man, Run by Chester Himes- A rough, ragged, profane tale of murder, deception and fear that is mostly psychological and superbly done. I’m definitely going to read more Hines,
The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith-A man is trapped within a crumbling mind, in a strange country he cannot leave as he forgets everything about his past life, even the possible death he might have caused. Great stuff! Thanks NetGalley for this dark and deadly ARC!

Nice selection of stories by a wide array of writers. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this enjoyable anthology