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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unexpectedly rewarding,
By
This review is from: Straight Cut (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)
Is Hard Case Crime trying to expand its audience? Madison Smartt Bell isn't exactly famous for his crime noir fiction, but is probably best known for his novel, All Souls' Rising (the first of a trilogy of novels on the Haitian Revolution), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a National Book Award finalist. Not exactly the rundown of the average Hard Case Crime author.
A thriller with literary aspirations (the cover quote from Walker Percy, author of The Moviegoer, clued me in to that), Straight Cut gives us the best of both worlds -- although for genre fans, the first two-thirds will essentially feel like exposition. With an opening that will re-break the heart of anyone who's ever had to put a pet to sleep, Straight Cut tells the story of Tracy Bateman, freelance film editor, before, during, and after he is sent to Rome for a cutting job. Offered the job by his best friend / romantic rival and the film's director, Kevin Carter, Tracy is suspicious from the beginning, but the money is too good to refuse (another reason for his suspicion). His Italian is poor, but he manages to make a go of it in Rome. He teaches an assistant, Mimmo, the ropes of film editing while dealing with the recent death of his dog, and his stormy relationship with his wife, Lauren (who married him for an American green card and occasionally runs off with Kevin), while spending a lot of time in trattorias drinking grappa. His reliance on the philosophies of Danish existentialist Sřren Kierkegaard doesn't help things. Neither does meeting up again with Lauren, which wasn't exactly on his agenda, but she shows up unexpectedly, carrying a mysterious briefcase, a false identity, and instructions from Kevin. Tracy is conflicted because he doesn't trust that Lauren will ever be the person he needs her to be (though their physical relationship has never been a problem), but he can see what she is getting herself involved in and doesn't want her to get hurt. That Kevin is so obviously careless about putting Lauren in danger only aggravates Tracy's love / hate relationship with him. This leads to what most Hard Case Crime readers will have been waiting for the whole time: a continent-hopping drug-and-money exchange, with all the border-crossing problems, fistfights, and gun-crazy Bulgarians that implies. It only covers the final third of the book, but Bell's prose is so sparse as to make it feel like a novel unto itself. Tracy's thought processes are fascinating to watch and whether he will get himself out of this situation is always in doubt, making the suspense quotient even higher than expected. On the whole, however, Straight Cut is a novel of character, not of plot. Go into it expecting a tense page-turner on the level of Bust or Grifter's Game, and you'll likely be disappointed -- but exercise a little patience, and you'll be greatly rewarded.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Well-written but ever so boring..,
By J. Krall "Horror/Bizarro/Noir Author" (Noir Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Straight Cut (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)
Yes, maybe I was expecting something different from Hard Case. I devoured the previous books in the series and enjoyed most of them. But this one stopped me dead in my tracks. It was well-written, no doubt about that. The author has a way with words. But as far as plot goes.. Cliche after cliche. *spoiler* (and as if by the first chapter, after we are told about his dog, we aren't supposed to EXPECT him to sacrifice someone at the end? come on..). *end of spoiler* It was a real chore to get through this book. When I want high literature, I want a layered plot with atypical characters and situations. This book, however, had a plot right out of a Europe-based crime movie complete with idiot foreign gangsters. I probably could have dealt with the cliche plot if the narrator didn't just go ON and ON about philosophy and about film theory (though the chicken thing was interesting, I'll admit) and film editing. Very tedious. Boring. If I wasn't collecting every Hard Case Crime book, I'd through this one right in the trash. I also think HCC was stretching it by releasing it under their name.. This was a mild crime novel that was mostly about friendship and love (not a thriller as the cover blurb says).
So yeah, if you enjoyed the other Hard Case Titles, just skip this and get any of the previous ones. You've been warned.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Defies convention.,
By
This review is from: Straight Cut (Mass Market Paperback)
Straight cut is narrated by its main character, the highly introspective Tracy Bateman, a melancholy film editor who frequently quotes Kierkegaard. While in Rome, editing a TV documentary, he is reunited with the beautiful Lauren, his estranged wife. The overpowering feature of Straight Cut is its richly detailed first person narration which has the effect of making the reader privy to the nuances of Tracy's emotional state as he experiences this working "Roman holiday".
About midway through, Straight Cut turns, somewhat abruptly, into a story about the dark, nasty world of international drug smuggling. Tracy's deeply introspective narration continues through this part of the book, even as the novel's tone changes from slice of life to action adventure. In writing Straight Cut, author Madison Smartt Bell has created an artfully crafted work of fiction which ignores convention while daring to combine genres. Interesting and original.
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