By Craig
Douglas, Darren Sant, Ryan Bracha, editors
266
pages
(Gritfiction
(England); May 29, 2015)
ISBN-10:
1782805249
ISBN-13:
978-1782805243
By now it
probably comes as no surprise that I am inordinately fond of stories about
criminals that are chronic underachievers.
I suppose it has
something to do with the true-life crime magazines that were stacked around our
8 by 35 foot trailer house by my parents when I was growing up. You know the
kind of periodical I’m talking about: the sort in which every detective is
intrepid and insightful and each female victim is described as a gorgeous babe,
regardless of how butt-ugly she seems to be in the photographs accompanying her
story.
It also may be
related to the real criminals I wrote about during the 30-odd years that I
worked for daily, weekly and fortnightly magazines and newspapers, including Saga,
Argosy,
The
Berkeley Barb and The San Francisco Chronicle. There’s
no question those mokes were the stars of their own screenplays, but the
scripts they followed were so thin they wouldn’t have even made a decent
YouTube video, let alone a 90-minute “B” feature or a half hour television
drama.
Whatever the reason
may be, I am attracted to the cheap and sensational criminality that occurs in
rural redoubts like back-country Arkansas, Texas and Indiana. I like my
criminals to be members of the broken chromosome brigade, sort of the way the
guys from Dumb and Dumber would be if they had the aptitude to get their
photos stapled up on post office walls.
So take this as
gospel: if you are anything like me, Rogue, the first-rate antho that is
being released this week by the editors of Near to the Knuckle, the on-line
pulp magazine, will give you enough brain-dead criminals and hapless capers to
keep you busy for many hours.
![]() |
Craig Douglas |
![]() |
Darren Sant and friend |
![]() |
Ryan Bracha |
In his foreword
to the collection, Mark Wilson, the author of Head Boy (CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform, 2013), deftly sums up the operating principals
of the Near to the Knuckle crew: “Producing quality literature without
constraints, or middle-management foibles, or decisions based on what will
appeal to this demographic of best reflect that group.”
It is, as he
says, a middle finger aimed squarely at the nervous Nellies who run today’s focus-group
driven, largely gutless publishing industry. Wilson is right on the money when
he calls Rogue “raw, uncompromising stories . . . by a group of writers,
writing in a spectacularly diverse myriad of styles at the very top of their
game.”
Rogue
contains 22 exceptional stories. Most of them have English settings and
characters, though a few, like “Old Times” by Benedict J. Jones, track through
the darker parts of the American wasteland.
Some of these
yarns, like “Route 66 and All That” by Paul Brazill, are lightweights aimed at
drawing a graveyard chuckle from readers like me who enjoy tales about the
misadventures of petty felons so inept that if called upon to get out of their
own way, they would probably end up in hospital.
![]() |
Paul D. Brazill |
Others – like the
aforementioned “Old Times” are as dark and grim as the Winter Solstice in
Helsinki. Still others, including “The Brat Snatcher,” Craig Furchtenicht’s
novel spin on O. Henry’s classic, “The Ransom of Red Chief,” serve violence up
with a side order of laughs – or vice versa, depending on how you look at them.
In it’s own way,
each tale is as hard-boiled as one of the pickled eggs Howie White “would
murder” in Brazill’s hilarious tale. All are a treat to read, filled with
gritty dialogue, raw descriptions and an ear for the spoken word.
Consider Tess Makoveski’s
“Singing from the Same Song Sheet,” a story about a man who believes the adage,
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” but readily lends the Almighty a helping
hand when the need arises. At one point in the tale, Makoveski’s protagonist
tracks down a gangster whose relationship with the Lord requires ministration:
He doesn’t have a front door on the street
like the rest of us. He has gates, and a long winding drive through conifer–
dotted grounds. Never believe that crime doesn’t pay. It pays all right, just
not in ways I like or understand.
I loved Makoveski’s
story; it is splendidly crafted to mislead readers about who the protagonist is
and what he does for a living before kicking them in the gut with the truth at the
end.
Or ponder this
snippet from “The Wedge” by Keith Nixon, in which two hard boys show up in a
seaside resort looking for the woman who botched a robbery at a neighboring community’s
bookmaking parlor:
To his left, white-capped waves rolled out a
seaweed strewn beach beneath a lead grey sky, the sun levering itself over the
horizon as if a drunk were getting out of bed. To his right was the
multi-colored flicker of the amusement arcades. They were like a faded tattoo
on an aged prostitute’s arm, marking far better days long gone.
A nice noirish
touch there – one that fits perfectly with the tone of the rest of the story.
In another terse
passage, here’s Brazill introducing one of his low-watt low-lifes from “Route
66:”
Mikey Mike Calloway was so far up his own
arse he could give himself an enema.
Or how about this
passage, in which Brazill describes the location where a caper is being planned?
The pub looked even gloomier and more wan
during the daytime than it did at night. Even though the smoking ban had been
enforced for years, the King John’s Tavern still had a nicotine sheen and the
beige carpet was more than somewhat frayed; as were most of the customers, who
seemed to be old school friends of Methuselah.
One of my
favorite stories is Godwin’s “Doing Prince,” in which Mandy, a lesbian who
formerly danced at a strip club, runs into a series of complications after she is
hired to steal a lascivious painting from a yegg’s living room wall. At one
point, her employer attempts to force sex on her, only to be interrupted by his
bisexual wife, Lucy. After he retreats, Lucy hits on Mandy, herself:
“Did he threaten you?” Lucy inquires.
“He wants to screw me.”
“Well, that’s cause he ain’t getting much out
of me. He has hookers round while I’m out, you see, mutual convenient
arrangement.”
“Thanks for coming when you did.”
“I haven’t tonight, that’s why I couldn’t
sleep," adding, slyly, "Think you could help me out?”
Later Lucy tells
Mandy, “I used to swing both ways.”
“And now?” Mandy
replies.
“I think my door’s
jammed when it comes to men.”
That's the kind of writing I find myself thinking about hours or even days later. Grab a copy. It’s
$7.99 in softcover – and worth a good deal more.