Customer Reviews

Krapp's Last Cassette: A Novel

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Since the Argula pen name is out of the bag anyway, I'm gonna talk about the real deal here, Darryl Ponicsan, because he has been a favorite author of mine since the early 70s. Ponicsan's greatest strength in his writing has always been dialogue, a skill that served him well as a screenwriter in Hollywood for 25 years or more. (Look him up; all those stars he name-dropped in this book were people he actually worked with.) That skill was evident in his first novel, The Last Detail, which resulted in the much-praised Jack Nicholson film of the same name. Another novel, Cinderella Liberty, enjoyed similar success both in print and on the big screen. There is a continuity in Ponicsan's early novels. Perhaps my favorite was Goldengrove, the sad tale of Ernie Buddusky, who was the brother of Billy "Badass" Buddusky of The Last Detail. And there was another, Beef Buddusky, in The Accomplice. There is also a real facility demonstrated with the regional dialect and slang of the Pennsylvania coal-mining country that gave us Ponicsan and his many colorful characters, which now includes PI Quinn of the Argula novels.

Thirty-some years ago I wrote a review of Tom Mix Died for Your Sins, Ponicsan's sixth novel. In it I pointed out how the author followed a rather fascinating pattern of rewriting earlier classic works of literature. The Last Detail was a modern version of Melville's Billy Budd; Andoshen, PA mirrored Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio; Goldengrove paralleled Updike's The Centaur; Cinderella Liberty was a navy tale of The Book of Job; The Accomplice - Bernard Malamud's The Assistant; and the Tom Mix book was a beautifully crafted fictional memoir that made you remember Twain's Tom and Huck books. I was careful to point out in my review, published in the now-defunct BestSellers magazine, that this observation was in no way meant to detract from Ponicsan's considerable talent. Quite the contrary. Darryl Ponicsan can write like nobody's business! Back in the early 70s I was teaching freshman English in a small college, and I used The Last Detail and Billy Budd in tandem for a couple of years in class. Ponicsan beat out Melville in popularity every semester. Students loved Billy Buddusky more than Billy Budd, which was probably predictable, given the contemporary nature of the book and its Vietnam era setting.

Here's the thing. If Ponicsan used this device of rewriting the classics, both ancient and modern, in his 70s novels - and they were all excellent - then odds are probably pretty good that his female alter ego, "Anne Argula", may be doing the same thing. I must admit I did not explore that possibility in the first two Quinn books, but I may have to go back and reread them now. Because Krapp's Last Cassette is not an arbitrarily chosen title. Take a look at the book's epigraph, a quote from playwright Samuel Beckett. I think I may have read something by Beckett back in college, but I have, perhaps mercifully, forgotten whatever it was. But one of Beckett's many plays is one called Krapp's Last Tape, which is, incidentally, referred to towards the end of this Quinn book. If the Beckett play is one about a man in his late sixties listening to tapes he has made at earlier stages of his life - reflecting somewhat sardonically on that life - then think about what's going on in this latest Argula book. Alex Krapp is a man who spent twenty-some years in Hollywood after having written several novels - a man who is now reflecting on all those years. Think Darryl Ponicsan, gentle readers.

I know I have said very little about the ingenious and creepily compelling plot and characters of Krapp's Last Cassette here, not to mention all that great dialogue, "ain't"? If you've already read the book, then I don't need to tell you how good it is. And if you haven't read it, here's a hint: it is damn good! No, what I wanted to tell all you really serious readers out there is this: if, after reading only two or three Anne Argula books you find yourself a fan, then do yourself a favor. Find the Ponicsan novels and read them. They are great too. Sadly, most are now out of print and can only be found used. But if you like Quinn, then you will like the Buddusky clan too - and John Baggs and Tom Mix and Kid Bandera and all the other colorful and memorable characters Darryl Ponicsan created so many years ago. I for one look will look forward to the next book, whether the spine reads Ponicsan or Argula, because this is a writer who will grab you on page one and not let go til the last page. - Tim Bazzett, author of Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA; and Pinhead: A Love Story

One of the ways in which I judge how good a book is, is whether I remember it a year after reading it, or how much of it I remember. If memory alone determined rating, I would give each Harry Potter book five stars. Ditto for each Stieg Larsen novel. Rowling and Larsen are able to create characters and plots that stay with me. This novel doesn't fall into that category, at least for me. I remember almost nothing about it. I do remember that I finished it, and I have a vague memory of thinking that the detective should have figured things out more quickly.

As always I enjoy her humor. I can relate!
This book left you wondering at the end.
Fast reading. I liked it.

I wasn't aware that Argula is a pseudonym so I just accepted the book at face value as a murder mystery with an appealing female protagonist. I loved the description of the heroine and the Seattle landmarks.

But I don't understand why Argula took 68 pages to tell us why Quinn was hired by a screenwriter who seems to have more money than sense. Somewhere around page 30 I figured out the problem. Someone as smart as Quinn would have seen it coming in about five minutes.

The plot isn't original. The type of situation that the screenwriter experiences -- i.e., what he asks Quinn to investigate -- has been described in countless novels. I've seen a write-up in the Journal of Consumer Research. No doubt psychologists have analyzed the phenomenon. We don't get new or novel insights here.

Quinn's personality and the author's ability to craft suspense kept me turning the pages (although sometimes quite fast). Maybe there's some hidden meaning but I didn't get it.

Highly regarded and connected Hollywood screenwriter Alex Krapp asks Seattle private investigator Quinn to come to Southern California to discuss an inquiry. Krapp wants Quinn to find fifteen year old Danny Timpkins, who survived the abuse of the satanic cult his parents belonged to.

Last year, the teen wrote a memoir that Krapp wants to adapt into an HBO film. He has never met the teen but has talked with him over the phone. However, a Vanity Fair reporter claims Danny the star of the memoir does not exist as the work is fiction. After learning why her client flew in an outsider, Quinn leans in the direction of the reporter even when she hears Danny talking to "Poppa" Alex over his speakerphone. There are too many holes in Danny's tale of woe; starting with Danny's past paralleling the infamous Merck pedophile-rape case that she worked when she was an LAPD cop.

Quinn's third investigation (see WALLA WALLA SUITE and HOMICIDE, MY OWN) is an excellent thriller filled with twists including an incredible climax and prologue. The inquiry is top rate as Quinn increasingly believes a fraudulent memoir has been perpetrated with a follow-up scam taking advantage of Krapp who displays a fatherly adulation to Danny. Readers will appreciate KRAPP'S LAST CASSETTE as Quinn tries to prove the lad exists as described for Alex's emotional sake.

Harriet Klausner