Turns out it’s not the same badass — each book starts with a (different) felon being released from prison, so the novels are thematically tied, but not necessarily directly linked in terms of plot or character, so perhaps I should have started with the most recent book. Small Crimes leaves me uninclined to investigate further. It is at least a little Huston-esque in its assured first-person voice and fetishistically lean prose, with nary a metaphor nor simile in sight. Of course, much of what made Huston’s Caught Stealing so compelling is that Hank Thompson doesn’t start as a badass; Zeltserman’s job is maybe a little harder out of the gate. But Caught Stealing also worked because it was funny, and a lot of that funny came out of Thompson’s relationship with baseball. Zeltserman doesn’t provide anything comparable to make Joe Denton more sympathetic or — and here’s the real fatal flaw — more interesting. (Denton does have a backstory, and something of an emotional internal life, but it’s strictly color-by-numbers; his most distinguishing trait is that he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.) Huston’s plot played around with the conventions of noir suspense, where Zeltserman’s plays straight through them, leans awfully hard on coincidence, and has at least one twist that won’t seem twisty to any alert reader.

It’s probably not a fair comparison — Zeltersman was clearly striving for an updated take on Jim Thompson in this novel, and it’s maybe worth mentioning that my appetite for Thompson isn’t boundless either. But a point-by-point comparison with Jim Thompson’s novels wouldn’t do Small Crimes any favors either.

needs more demons? at least needs to put the demons into some less standard configurations.

Odd Girl Out drops the detective elements almost completely in favor of action-adventure, which is less to my personal taste. Even more unfortunately, it more-or-less reprises a set piece from an earlier books (there’s even some dialogue along the lines of “remember the last time we had to fight in a baggage car?”). Once again, I saw the big reveal coming way before agent Frank Compton figured it out. Rather bafflingly, the stage was clearly set for another twist, but the penny was never dropped. And although Odd Girl Out certainly advances the overall plot arc, the characters are more static than in the previous novels.

I still enjoyed it, and I will get around to reading the recently-published fourth volume sometime. But I worry that the schtick may get exhausted — or my patience with it, anyway — before the story is concluded.

needs more demons? maybe.

Zahn’s rail-connected universe is by no means hard sf, but as in the previous book, Zahn delivers some solid science fictional twists to the mystery. One of them is so obvious that I got a little impatient waiting for the penny to finally drop, but I think that may have been in part a diversionary tactic on Zahn’s part.

Somewhere in the build-up to the climax I got a little confused about which planetary system everyone was off to and why, but my favorite plot twist snapped me back to full alertness.

I’m wrestling with myself over whether I want to read the final book now! of wait another month to prolong my enjoyment of the series. Now! may win.

needs more demons? nope.

Zahn is clearly aware of the sources he’s riffing on — at one point Compton and his maybe ally/maybe femme fatale actually watch Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes — but two attributes of the novel save it from sinking into parody. The first is Compton’s narrative voice, which seems to be modeled on Hammett’s Continental Op. He’s quietly competent, eschewing the misogyny and personal demons of Chandler’s Marlowe, and Compton always takes his own situation seriously, even when Zahn’s tongue slips into his cheek. The second is that the unraveling mystery works fairly well in science fiction terms. (There’s a point where the seasoned SF reader may find a conclusion obvious well before light dawns on Compton, but on the other hand Zahn finds more-or-less credible explanations for some of the flimsier tropes of detective/espionage fiction that he borrows.)

Night Train to Rigel wraps up with a lump of exposition before a pair of predictable (if emotionally satisfying) set-pieces, a minor flaw in a novel that seems tailor-made for the description “ripping yarn.” There are two more novels in the series (although this one is complete in itself) and I look forward to reading them once I dig out of my soon-to-be-overdue library book pile.

needs more demons? no.

I went through Dragon and Thief like it was a tub of movie popcorn. It reminded me pleasantly of the uncomplicated space action yarns I devoured as an adolescent from the likes of Bischoff, Chalker, and Foster, although it was more kid-friendly than several of them. (Heinlein’s juvenile novels also came to mind, although Zahn’s milieu is more cosmopolitan than I think of as characteristically Heinlein.)

Dragon and Thief struck a fair balance between wrapping up some narrative threads and setting up future novels in the series. I will read more.

needs more demons? no.

In her acknowledgments Crystal Zevon writes,

Over the three years [of writing the book] I … fell in and out of love hundreds of times. There were weeks when I was sure I’d hate him forever; nights when I’d cry myself to sleep missing the sound of his voice; and many moments when I wondered how I could expose what he’d asked me to expose … I’d made a promise to tell the whole truth — “even the awful, ugly parts.”

I suspect that many readers will have an experience similar in character, if less intense and personal. I’m glad I read Miles Davis’ autobiography Miles first; that was a formative experience for me in resolving conflict between enormous respect for a musical talent, and repugnance at the man behind that talent sometimes being a real shit. There were many points in Zevon’s story before he got sober where it was hard to have any sympathy for him at all. Even the sober Warren Zevon was hell on anyone he was romantically with, and often hard to deal with for most who knew him. It seems unlikely, for instance, that the world would have had any of his “comeback” records from the mid-80’s on, if not for the perseverance of Andy Slater:

..when [the record company executives] got to Warren, somebody said…”We’re going to terminate him.”
I stood up and said, “Terminate him? He’s the best artist we have.”
There’s all this harrumphing and one of the principles said, Slater, he’s 180,000 dollars in debt [to the I.R.S.], he doesn’t live her anymore, he has no record deal, and he doesn’t want to work.” I said, “Yeah, but he’s a great artist. And he’s the best writer here.” This guy says, “Then you manage him.”

After weeks of coaxing, Slater gets Zevon started on the road that led to his album Sentimental Hygeine, and his first substantive experiences with sobriety. Throughout their association, Zevon continues to use Slater hard:

I got a call from Warren. He said, “I’m in big trouble, Andy. You’ve got to help me. This girl is pregnant. I’m not in love with her, and I don’t want to be with her, and she’s going to have the kid. You’ve got to come here and explain my life to her.” I said, “Okay.”

but ultimately, even Slater gets fed up:

When I went to rehab, Warren was finally in good financial shape, sober, had a healthy touring base, and was about to release a new record. I called him from treatment… I said “What’s going on? How’s the record? blah blah blah.” He said, “Yeah, it’s going fine. I’ve got to talk to you about something.” He says, “Look, Andy, I just got off the phone with Irving [Azoff]. He said that if I fire you … he’ll really work my record and I’ll get better promotion and marketing… I think I’m going to do it.”
I hung the phone up, and thank God I was in treatment…It was devastating to me because here was somebody I had been friends with for almost ten years. I had … made it my mission to get him back in the record business when he was drunk and living in Philadelphia. I had taken him to rehab three times…Then, when I had a problem, he wasn’t there.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is subtitled “The Dirty Live and Times of Warren Zevon.” Like all of the chapter titles, it’s a phrase drawn from one of Zevon’s song titles. Crystal Zevon admits to drawing a veil over the most baldly pornographic of Zevon’s reminisces, but there are racy bits a-plenty:

I invited Jeanette over and we made love, wonderful. Feel great. Went to the tanning place. Sure enough, there was Susan & before I knew it we were fucking on the carpet, then on the tanning bed.

But in addition to the typical trashy rock star excesses of sex, booze, and tax woes, and the less typical excesses of Calvin Klein gray shirts, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead offers more than the usual share of insight into Zevon’s artistic process. And that’s ultimately what makes it a compelling and moving read.

Needs More Demons? Ye gods, no.