Toros & Torsos [Paperback]

Craig McDonald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2008

Hector Lassiter is a legendary crime novelist who writes what he lives and lives what he writes. But Hector frequently goes a step beyond, drawing friends and lovers into the tawdry and turbulent territory of his fiction. Now, the large-living pulp author has at last met his match in the ultimate performance artist: a phantom killer committed to the art of murder… a blood-thirsty provocateur who leaves a string of macabre tableaus modeled on famous works of surrealist painting and photography…

Against the vivid backdrops of a killer hurricane that nearly destroyed the Florida Keys in 1935, the Spanish Civil War, post-war Hollywood and the first days of the Castro regime in Cuba, Hector engages in a decades-long duel against a cabal of killer artists…

As in its Edgar-nominated predecessor Head Games, history and myth merge, drawing on recent scholarship pointing to the existence of a dark underground of artists, photographers and art collectors that flourished in Europe and United States through most of the Twentieth Century.

In a blood-limned haze of love, deception, murderous metaphor and devastating betrayal, nothing is what it seems and obsession and creativity collide in a wicked and unexpected climax that will shake the art world to its foundations…

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spanning the years from 1935 to 1959, Edgar-finalist McDonald's second novel to feature crime novelist Hector Lassiter (after 2007's Head Games) deftly mixes myth, history and a serial killer who arranges dead bodies to resemble surrealistic art. Lassiter, whose work embodies the write what you live and live what you write ethos, loves hard, drinks hard and keeps an eye on avenging the loss of the beautiful blonde he meets in a Key West bar on page one. As a popular author, Lassiter interacts with such notables as Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, whom the author skillfully animates. Other celebrities of the day make cameo appearances. Solidly grounded in such actual events as the Key West hurricane of 1935, the Spanish Civil War and Cuba's last days before Castro, McDonald's imaginative tale takes an enjoyably different approach to art and murder. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

In Hec Lassiter’s debut (Head Games, 2007), the raffish crime novelist was menaced by Mexican federales and wizened banditos, CIA agents, and lunatic Yalies, all determined to wrest from Hec the head of Pancho Villa. Head Games was an over-the-top road trip through the history and myth of mid-twentieth-century America. Toros and Torsos is similar but very different. This time Hec is palling with Hemingway in Key West and preparing for what proves to be the devastating 1935 hurricane. A young woman there is disemboweled, and her torso is stuffed with machine parts. Hec immediately connects the murder to surrealist art and journeys to the battlefront of the Spanish civil war, Hollywood, and Cuba in search of the artistic murderer. Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Salvador Dalí, and John Dos Passos all turn up in juicy cameos, and the details on the hurricane, the Spanish war, and surrealism are the product of careful research. This is less of a romp than Head Games, darker and richer, with Hec less a cartoon action hero and more a fully fleshed lead character. --Thomas Gaughan

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Bleak House Books (September 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606480006
• ISBN-13: 978-1606480007
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,965,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edgar-nominee Craig McDonald is an award-winning novelist, editor and journalist. His debut novel, "Head Games," was a finalist for the Edgar, Anthony, Gumshoe and Crimespree Magazine Awards for best first novel.

McDonald's second novel, "Toros & Torsos," (2008) was picked for several "year's best" lists. The third and fourth novels in the Hector Lassiter series, "Print the Legend" and "One True Sentence," were published by Minotaur Books. A standalone thriller, "El Gavilan," will be available from Tyrus Books in autumn 2011. McDonald's novels have been translated and published to critical acclaim in numerous countries.

His nonfiction works include "Art in the Blood," a collection of interviews with 20 major crime authors that appeared in 2006, and "Rogue Males: Conversations & Confrontations About the Writing Life" (2009), a second collection of interviews with authors including Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis, James Crumley, Elmore Leonard and Pete Dexter. A third collection of author interviews is forthcoming.

McDonald was a contributor to the NYT's nonfiction bestseller "Secrets of the Code." His short stories have appeared in several anthologies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History and Mystery and Noir, oh my!, October 3, 2008

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toros & Torsos (Paperback)

McDonald's follow up to last year's quirky but delightful Head Games finds his series character Hector "The writer who lives what he writes" Lassiter caught up in an adventure which spans several decades as he tries to discover the identity of a serial killer seemingly inspired by surrealist art. Beginning in 1935 in the Florida Keys, and concluding in 1959 in Cuba, the novel also features the Black Mask contributor's famous associates and friends, folks like the volatile Ernest Hemingway, directors Orson Welles and John Huston, and the alluring Rita Hayworth.

Belying its strange and slightly offputting title, McDonald's sophomore effort is loads of fun, as the author seamlessly incorporates his fictional characters and storyline into historical events like the tragic Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the Spanish Civil War, the filming of The Lady from Shanghai, and the Black Dahlia murders, providing a fresh and involving take on these happenings. McDonald effectively exploits nearly every noir cliché and trope in the book to do so, producing an engrossing and riveting read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hands down the best crime read this year ..., September 19, 2008

By 

Charlie Stella (Fords, New Joisey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toros & Torsos (Paperback)

Being a bit of a history buff with a definite interest in significant figures in Americana (spanning the gamut from Presidents to writers to murderers, human monsters, their victims, etc.), I'm finding myself reading more and more historical non-fiction these days ... but every once in a while (at least every other book), I need a jolt of fiction the way a junkie needs a fix. Sometimes I luck out and get a combination of pretty much everything I enjoy ... significant figures of Americana, history, humor and pure darkness ... and this time I got to learn a little bit more about things I'm just not up on (the list is endless, but here at least I took a first step), like surreal art and artists ...

Craig McDonald's Toros & Torsos had me googling one artist after another--some guy (Emmanuel Radnitzky) really called himself Man Ray? ... and the lug was from Brooklyn by way of Philadelphia? Toros & Torsos was another wonderful trip back to the Hemingway-Welles history with cameos by John Huston and Rita Hayworth against the wonderful fictional character Hector Lassiter; the relationships/interrelationships between Lassiter and the formidable cast mentioned above make Toros & Torsos another engaging and illuminating read. This go we start in the keys (a few days before the worst hurricane disaster there on record), cross the Atlantic for some fun during the Franco war in Spain, slip into Cuba immediately after Batista takes a powder and with a few quick trips out to LA/Hollywood interspersed we eventually wind up in Idaho (where Papa Hem takes his bow). Even Elizabeth (Betty) Short (the Black Dahlia murder victim) makes an historical appearance and the way the novel is strung together through the surrealist art form is just another wonderful learning experience that is an extra, extra bonus to reading Craig McDonald. The dialogue (all the characters) is convincing and pitch-perfect. McDonald has quickly shot to the top of my very short A+ list of crime writers that include Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis and James Ellroy.

Wanna feel some American history? Read Toros and Torsos ... a scary trip down memory lane with Papa Hemingway, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth and a woman (or is it two women?) with a serious identity crisis (and penchant for murder), a group of artists unable to distinguish the real from the surreal and your guide for this cross-continent chase is the honorable, loveable and fearless Hector Lassiter. A lotta innocent victims are the prelude to at least a few really bad guys getting their just desserts. McDonald shoots to the top of the crime writing heap with this well-researched and excellently written masterpiece of Americana.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original, ambitious and satisfying., October 12, 2008

By 

Lily Courthope - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toros & Torsos (Paperback)

The story here spans more than two decades and yet is not an historical epic. For all the many famous historical figures in the book, everyone from Orson Welles to Ernest Hemingway, the focus rightly and tightly remains fixed on fictional protagonist Hector Lassiter. 'Lasso,' as Hemingway calls him, is very much a man's man, and a lady's man, too. But he's a far, far cry from being a Travis McGee or a Jack Reacher. Lasso has a cold-blooded streak McGee would flinch from owning; and Jack Reacher has stepped aside from social interaction while Lasso is steeped in it.

Author McDonald has created a surreal story in which surrealism itself goes on trial and is found very, very guilty. Dual identity, debauchery, fascists and anarchists, film stars and critics, hurricane, civil war, spying, McCarthyism...all of that and more gets wrapped around a series of murders that shows up 'cute' psychopaths such as Showtime's Dexter as the pretenders they are.

It's difficult to discuss this book without major spoilers, but let me just say that if you get the right book club members together, the discussion could go on all night.