Jake HinksonReseñas

Set in Conway, Arkansas, just a half hour's drive from Little Rock, the story opens with a pregnant teenager looking for her fiancé, who has gone missing just a few days before they were supposed to be married. She tries reporting his disappearance to the police, who just laugh and state the obvious conclusion, a conclusion shared by the man's mother. But Lily refused to give up, although as a member of a fundamentalist Pentecostal church who has never cut her hair or owned a cell phone, she's not at all prepared to go out into the world to look for him. But she finds an unlikely ally in one of Peter's co-workers, who may not fully agree that Peter didn't run off, but who sees the danger in letting Lily wander into dangerous places unwittingly. He's willing to be the one to drive her into Little Rock and to let her know what is going on around her.

"Annnnd you ruined it," Allan says, grimacing like he tastes something sour. "Look, Lily, I'm not here to be a stand-in for all the gays, ok? You ain't Kimmy, and I ain't Titus."

"What does that mean?"

"Do you even own a television?'

"No."

But for all the charm of a mismatched duo on a quest, this is not a novel looking to make anyone feel warm and happy. Peter and Allan were working in a motel where drug dealers and human traffickers were operating and Allan is fully aware of how dangerous these men are and of the bad things going on in the back annex. He knows that even asking around for Peter could get them both killed. But he's a man with a heart despite himself and he liked the seemingly straight-laced Peter, and he's got a clear idea of what could happen to a naive girl like Lily.

So this isn't a novel with a happy ending, but it's also not a hopeless one. What makes this book shine is the complex characters Hinkson has created here. No one is entirely good or bad, and there's a nuance to his portrayal of the members of Lily's church that is rare to find. Allan, an intelligent gay man stuck in a small Southern town caring for his FOX News-watching father, while filling his apartment with books and old movies, is a fantastic character. And Lily may know nothing about the world, but she does know that her child will need a father and she refuses to let her shame at what happened, and for which she is blamed far more than Peter, prevent her doing what she thinks is right.

This is the second book I've read by Hinkson and it won't be my last. It's good stuff.

This book is Outstanding white trash Hillbilly southern noir.
Richard a pastor at the largest church in the county is the only character who isn’t white trash. Instead he is a conservative hypocrite with murky sexual proclivities.
This was a great book.

Un "polar" très percutant, avec un fort sentiment d'inéluctabilité.½

Effective, though not particularly believable, story of a Baptist preacher who is being blackmailed in a small Arkansas town. The narrative shifts between most of the main characters (and the audiobook uses multiple narrators to good effect) as events start to spiral out of control until the "shocking!" conclusion. The individual scenes here stand out more than the overall plot, and the attempt to weave in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election, with talk of Trump vs. Cruz in the primary, seems tacked on and just a shorthand to stereotype a character or two, such as the preacher's oldest son. The younger characters are ultimately the more interesting ones--and the more sympathetic ones as well, despite their criminal actions.½

Interesting and yet very predictable. Especially the last few chapters. At least the characters were written with depth even if all of them were completely unlikable.

A small town preacher in Arkansas is being blackmailed. He's at the forefront of the fight to prevent a referendum on whether the county should remain dry and so he makes an offer to the man with the most to lose if the vote doesn't happen, a man hoping to open a liquor store in town. He, in turn, decides to get the money by stealing it from a shady businessman.

If you like your crime novels noir, your characters compromised and plenty of things going wrong, you'll love this one. Hinkson's spare writing style suits the subject matter, and he manages to make each of his many characters surprisingly complex and nuanced. Taking place during the 2016 presidential primaries, Hinkson makes even the tertiary characters feel like actual people, no small task when writing about desperate people willing to do just about anything to protect what's theirs, or to escape to a better life. In this novel, the most sympathetic characters are the pair of blackmailers who set a whole series of crimes and disasters in motion. It's a well-told story that has a ton of tension and a very satisfying ending. I'm excited to read more from this author.

Génial ! Noir c'est noir !

Published by All Due Respect Books one knows that The Deepening Shade: New and Collected Stories by Jake Hinkson is not going to be one of those light and happy books. All Due Respect is known for their anthologies and other projects where the happy people and cozy cats would be killed and their bodies buried upside down in that old rock quarry outside of town. There are no happy people in The Deepening Shade: New and Collected Stories where the tone of the tales is dark and where religion and/or alcohol often play a role. Sometimes their role is minor and other times their role is major. Often times neither is the answer as events grind along with a certain inevitability due to fate and the choices these characters make. Finding the line between fate and personal choice is rarely easy and such is the case here.

The read opens with “Maker’s and Coke.” Stopping by Knight’s Liquor Store on the way to work was a possible mistake. Certainly drinking on duty was a definite mistake.

Dancing as Dixie Delight at The Fur Trap doesn’t change the fact that she is “The Big Sister.” Janie has a huge problem and needs her help.

The girl is not only pregnant, but has been roughed up a bit in “The Girl from Yesterday.” The guy who walked into the homeless shelter with her did not look like the kind of guy who would do that, but the bad guys who do that sort of thing are not always obvious. Marie Porter, one of the people who runs the place, wants to know a lot more.

Not only is Randy considered Mister Employee of the Month” at Alltel he is also more than willing once prompted to talk about “Randy’s Personal Lord and Savior.” The backstory of why he does not drink and is so religious is the point of the tale.

Just after noon on one August afternoon three robbers come into the restaurant looking for money and more. Marianne’s attention on her potential client is destroyed. In the “Aftermath” of the robbery her perspective and maybe even her world is changed.

She never had children and now, in a strange twist of fate, she lives in a nursing home across the street from a daycare. What might have been is the ache of memory as well as physical pain in “The Empty Sky.”

Graham has a major problem and needs Larry’s help in “Cold City.” Since both are cops the problem is worse than for a normal citizen. Then too, because they are cops, they have certain options.

There are problems that the McDonalds Corporation doesn’t pay enough for one to deal with minutes before going off duty. A customer is publicly making a big deal about one such problem in “Microeconomics” so now it has to be dealt with before things get worse.

A Police Sniper is hard at work in the very short “Good Cover.”

Handling snakes as a test of religious faith is just part of the deal at work in “The Serpent Box.” It is not news to crime readers that serpents come in many forms.

He’d known that night after she screamed in her sleep that being with her had been a mistake. In “Night Terrors” the waking hours afterwards are worse and the stuff of nightmares.

When your wife is cousins with somebody you have to do things with folks would prefer not to do. Such is the case here in “Dinner with Friends.” If only they all knew what you were capable of and had done you might not have to sit around and listen to these idiots.

It was just supposed to be funny. The ad was supposed to be a way to blow off some steam. Then things got really serious in “Casual Encounter.”

Attending the meetings of recovering alcoholics was a means to an end in “The Theologians.” He might not be the only one using the group meetings for a far different purpose.

Summer heat in Arkansas is just part of the background in “Our Violence.” So too is the legacy of family as well as unresolved childhood issues that could be based on genetic as much as nurturing.

A read containing stories of characters dealing with the blows of life, The Deepening Shade: New and Collected Stories” is a work that resonates on many levels. A hard scrabble way of life is the background to many of these tales as folks deal with events of various types. Dark humor is at work here as is religion, desperation, and crime. Whether choice is really at work in each of these tales, as some would argue, is a question that often is not easily answered. These stories feature people dealing with events where fate and choice are the opposite sides of the same coin and it is up to the reader to determine which way the coin landed.

The Deepening Shade: New and Collected Stories by Jake Hinkson showcases a complexity and a variety not seen in many short story collections or even anthologies for that matter. Much is at work in each of these tales in a book that is not for everyone. A mighty good read and one well worth your time both as a reader and as a writer.

The Deepening Shade: New and Collected Stories
Jake Hinkson
http://www.jakehinkson.com
http://www.TheNightEditor.blogspot.com
All Due Respect Books
http://www.allduerepectbooks.com
January 2015
ASIN: B00RUBIHLQ
E-Book (Paperback available)
238 Pages
$2.99

Material supplied by the publisher last fall for my use in an objective review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2015

J’ai vu cette nouvelle collection sur plusieurs blogs mais j’avais résisté, toujours à cause du fameux Sukkwan Island, aux éditions Gallmeister. Sauf que je suis allée au Divan à Paris. Et il était dans les coups de cœur des libraires. J’ai donc acheté le livre et l’ai lu rapidement. Et c’était du pur bonheur ! Vraiment.

Je l’ai commencé mardi, en lisant les 150 premières pages, et terminé mercredi, en lisant les 80 dernières. Cela m’a confirmé que les transports en commun (surtout les gens qui sont dedans en fait) gâchaient mes lectures parce que sur les 80 dernières pages, j’en ai lu 50 dans le RER et 30 à la maison. J’ai trouvé que pour les cinquante pages le rythme avait changé, que cela s’essoufflait, qu’il n’y avait plus d’humour alors que pour les trente dernières pages, cela reprenait. Ce qui n’a absolument aucun sens. J’en suis donc venue à la conclusion que c’était un problème de concentration. Je vous raconte tout cela car je me suis achetée un nouveau carnet de lecture où il faut noter tous ces éléments qui peuvent jouer sur l’avis que l’on peut se faire d’un livre.

Commençons maintenant. La première partie est une sorte de courte introduction. Un homme en fuite tente de braquer quelqu’un pour manger et avancer dans sa fuite. Après avoir écarté plusieurs proies potentielles, il porte son choix sur Geoffrey Webb, un homme obèse qui semble facile à braquer. Celui-ci se révèle en réalité très difficile à braquer car il a du bagou. Il persuade notre braqueur de monter avec lui pour faire un bout de route, le temps qu’il lui raconte son histoire. À la fin du trajet, il lui donnera tout son argent (3000 dollars tout de même).

Le braqueur accepte d’aller à destination, c’est-à-dire Little Rock en Arkansas. La confession commence. Geoffrey Webb n’a pas toujours été l’homme qu’il est aujourd’hui. Un jour, il a été jeune et fringant ! Si, si ! Il a eu une enfance difficile, a un jour été emmené dans une église baptiste par un oncle où il a découvert sa vocation, inspiré par le Frère Leonard : entrée en religion mais non par conviction. Jugez plutôt :

J’avais aussi découvert une profession. Le Frère Leonard devint mon modèle, et en le regardant travailler pendant les années qui suivirent je commençai à comprendre que son boulot était une arnaque écœurante.

Le ministère peut être un métier dur, j’en suis sûr. Les prêtres voient les gens dans leurs pires moments, et on fait parfois appel à eux pour jouer les médiateurs dans des litiges d’une rare violence et être les témoins des plus affreuses tragédies humaines. On attend d’eux qu’ils apportent la lumière dans les ténèbres les plus obscures.

Mais c’est exactement la raison pour laquelle la religion, pour l’essentiel, est une escroquerie. En dépit de toute son histoire et de son prestige, de tous les bâtiments construits pour l’honorer et de tout le sang versé pour la diffuser, la religion n’a rien de différent de la lecture des lignes de la main ou de l’interprétation du marc de café.

Leonard, l’homme au grand cœur et au large sourire, ne travaillait probablement pas plus de trois heures par semaine. Mais il était payé comme s’il en faisait cinquante ! Il entretenait une femme et deux enfants adolescents en lisant des histoires de la Bible le mercredi soir. Cet aspect ne fut pas sans importance à mes yeux.

Cela me frappa de plein fouet, comme une inspiration divine. La religion est le boulot le plus génial jamais inventé, parce que personne ne perd d’argent en prétendant parler à l’homme invisible installé là-haut. Les gens croient déjà en lui. Ils acceptent déjà le fait qu’ils lui doivent de l’argent, et ils pensent même qu’ils brûleront en enfer s’ils ne le paient pas. Celui qui n’arrive pas à faire de l’argent dans le business de la religion n’a vraiment rien compris.

Donc une fois sa vocation déterminée, il ne lui reste plus qu’à faire les études qui vont avec et trouver un travail. C’est ce qu’il va faire avec brio, en se retrouvant après quelques années aumônier à Little Rock, Arkansas, dans une église baptiste gérée par Frère Card. Il est en charge du groupe des jeunes, et en particulier d’animer une réunion le mercredi soir. Il fait la connaissance de Frère Card, de sa femme, de leur fille Angela mais aussi des paroissiens qui sont soit des bien pensants en puissance ou des trafiquants. Les premiers sont bernés par le bagou de Webb mais les seconds le percent assez rapidement à jour. Par contre, on ne rencontre pas beaucoup de « gens normaux » dans ce livre.

Comme vous l’aurez vu à la couverture, il s’agit d’un roman noir. Il y aura donc des crimes et des meurtres (et pour le coup vraiment beaucoup), mais cela je ne vais pas vous en parler.

Le roman en lui-même est excellent : l’histoire, les personnages … Tout est absolument original et personnel. Trois éléments m’ont particulièrement intéressée dans ma lecture : l’humour de l’auteur et le rythme qu’il donne à son récit mais aussi le thème de la religion traitée de manière si irrévérencieuse (j’espère que vous l’avez vu à l’extrait).

L’auteur a un humour un peu pince sans rire. Ce n’est pas la franche rigolade mais plutôt une remarque, une manière de dire quelque chose qui détend l’atmosphère. Cela fait sourire pendant la lecture. C’est donc un peu comme du sport. Le rythme est ce qui m’a tout de suite scotché au livre. Les idées et les actions fusent sans pause. Je vous mets le premier paragraphe pour que vous puissiez juger :

Je travaillais depuis trois semaines dans une usine de plastiques dans le Mississippi lorsque le contremaître – un bouseux à la dentition en décapsuleur du nom de Cyrus Broadway – commit l’erreur de me traiter de connard feignant. Alors bon, je suis peut-être feignant, mais je suis aussi méchant comme une teigne. J’ai fréquenté des prisons et des cellules de dégrisement partout dans ce pays, depuis les cachots poussièreux à la frontière du désert Mojave jusqu’aux cabanes humides sur une île au large de la côte du Maine. Et personne ne peut m’insulter impunément, même si, pour ce gars-là, ce n’est qu’une plaisanterie. Le temps qu’on me sépare de Cyrus Broadway, je lui avais tellement écrasé la gueule qu’elle n’était plus de la chair à saucisse. Ses grandes dents de cheval étaient dispersées sur le sol de l’atelier, à côté de lui.

Je ne me suis pas donné la peine d’attendre les flics du Mississippi pour leur raconter. Je suis parti le soir même. J’ai traversé la Louisiane en catimini, je me suis infiltré au Texas, et j’ai fini par me retrouver à traîner autour d’une station Texaco à la sortie de Sallisaw, dans l’Oklahoma.

Je pense que cet extrait permet aussi de voir l’art de l’auteur pour dresser des portraits, situer des personnages.

J’espère que vous avez aussi été, comme moi, frappé par la manière de traiter la religion. J’ai déjà lu des ouvrages qui critiquent ou qui dénoncent en montrant, mais je n’avais jamais lu ce genre de phrase, surtout dans le livre d’un auteur américain. C’est irrévérencieux et assez violent (on peut diverger sur le fait que cela soit vrai ou non). Il y a une sacrée liberté de ton pour le coup. Cela a l’air assez caractéristique de cette collection car je suis en train d’en lire un autre, Cry Father de Benjamin Whitmer et c’est un peu la même chose.

Je vous recommande donc très fortement ce roman noir, sauf si la religion est un élément très important de votre vie et sur lequel vous ne supportez pas que l’on parle.

Loved this idea when I first heard about it - a set of fictional adventures for a real-life movie star. And one that even I've heard of!

Making a man like Lee Marvin star in these adventures obviously means that these are going to be noir stories, hard-boiled as a rock, with a dark sense of humour in some cases. Based, it seems, on events from his real life, the stories range through a varied set of scenarios, timeframes and locations, although there is a propensity for hard-drinking and dedicated womanising to show up frequently.

A collection that is obviously going to work better for fans of Marvin, it also worked well for this reader - whose knowledge of the man himself is sketchy at best. Alternatively, if you are a fan of darker, noir styled story telling, this is a clever concept that's executed very elegantly.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-lee-crime-factory

Ever have one of those days where you have no idea how you ended up in the middle of a huge mess but there you were. And it keeps getting worse? That is what happens in this book. It is a somewhat interesting read. I picked it up because it starts in Little Rock, AR and I'm from AR. I could imagine these things happening to someone, well, not really, but in a story at least, but overall, there were no redeeming characters in the book. Everyone was seriously flawed or did terrible things. I really wanted to like the book, but alas, the best I can say is the book is OK. I hate the ending though. It just... stops. I wouldn't read it again, nor would I recommend it to friends.

Things often don’t go as planned. Elliot Stilling had planned out his suicide and it should have worked. As far as he is concerned as this novella from author Jake Hinkson opens, it is exceedingly unfortunate that he didn’t stay dead. He had been dead for about three minutes when the emergency room staff at a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas screwed up everything and brought him back to life.

The only thing he really remembers is seeing a black star tattooed on the wrist of a nurse with beautiful blue eyes. That same nurse by the name of Felicia Vogan shows up in his room hours later. Not only did she make an impression on Stilling as he lay dying, the former reverend made quite an impression on her. They have some sort of connection that will draw them together in ways neither saw coming in this intense noir style novella.

Considering that this read comes from the publisher “Beat To A Pulp” one already knows before starting the book that it will be dark, twisted, and feature multiple murders as well as at least one other major crime of some type. The Posthumous Man features all of that and more as well as a consideration of theology and the state of the world and the people in it. It is also an intensely good read.

The Posthumous Man
Jake Hinkson
http://thenighteditor.blogspot.com/
Beat To A Pulp
http://www.beattoapulp.com/
December 20, 2012
ASIN: B00ARL5MBY
E-Book (also available in print)
190 Pages (estimated)
$0.99

Material was picked up last month during publisher’s free read promotion.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2014

"Then again, the third fundamental truth of life is this: to 99.9% of the world you don’t exist. I’m not being self-pitying when I say that because I’m talking about you. You do not exist to most of the rest of the world. How many people even know you’re alive? Of those, how many care? Don’t add it up if you’re the type that gets easily depressed."

While leaving a corner store and getting into his vehicle, Geoffrey Webb is shocked to see a man sitting in the passenger seat brandishing a hand gun. The would-be attacker demands Webb’s money but rather than going along with it, Webb decides to take the offensive. He doesn’t attack his assailant but rather chooses to go on a long drive and recount his days as a youth minister of a small Arkansas town. Threatening to crash the car if the crook doesn’t listen, Webb is finally able to clear the air surrounding his time in the cloth.

This is one hell of a debut novel, let me tell you. Jake Hinkson has unleashed a story that will stick with me for years to come. I was so engrossed in the story, that I lost sleep after I finished it. I couldn’t help thinking about the way Hinkson writes violence – it was just so damn raw. Hey, I can’t speak to the authenticity of a murder scene but I truly felt right there in the room when it was happening. You know that feeling when you’re watching a horror movie and the cheerleader is about to walk into a room and even though you can’t communicate with her, you just want to will her not to do it. Hinkson takes that feeling and dials it up to eleven.

I shouldn’t throw all the praise on the suspenseful or violent scenes as there’s lots in here to shed a spotlight on. Webb wasn’t exactly interested in being a youth minister, as at heart, he’s a con-man. He looked at a career in religion as being a job where you can get the most out of doing the least amount of work. Our narrator is a cynical man believing that people only want to talk to someone who shares their prejudices or someone who is going to tell them exactly what they want to hear, he thinks he has it all figured out and truthfully, he does, until everything goes awry.

"There's a level of trouble you can't talk your way out of," he said. "Some trouble is like a cancer. It just grows inside you. Nothing stops it. It just keeps growing and growing, eating everything it touches."

While he’s excellent at deceiving those around him, Webb soon learns how hard it is to perform damage control. Getting his roots into the community and becoming the mindless, suck-up that everyone loves happens quicker than walking up an escalator, the true talent comes in keeping up the act when something outside of his plan materializes. For this, all that is needed is one person to doubt his sincerity, to see him for who he truly is, to drive him mad in an attempt to keep everything together. There’s nothing a con-man can’t stand more than someone who is immune to his charm. Webb’s interactions with those who see through him are intense and add so much to his character.

Hell on Church Street is the second novel I’ve read from publisher New Pulp Press. If both this novel and Matthew McBride’s Frank Sinatra in a Blender are any sign of the quality of work this company is putting forth, I need to get some more of it.

Cross Posted @ Every Read Thing

I interviewed Jake!

Elliot Spilling wakes up in a hospital to discover he succeeded in killing himself. Well, for three minutes anyway. A chance encounter with a nurse leads to Elliot injecting himself into a plan to steal millions in drugs from a hospital shipment. Will Elliot and his new found associates reap the rewards of a successful plan or will everything come crashing down around them?

Having just finished Jake Hinkson’s first novel, Hell on Church Street, I was hungry for more. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to wait. For a criminally low price, Hinkson’s follow-up The Posthumous Man is available as an e-book on the Kindle Store. Coming in at a brisk 148 pages, Hinkson takes us to a small town in Arkansas shortly before a gang of wannabe heisters steal a load of Oxy to earn a cool two million dollars. Comprised of a bankrupt businessman, a cop and his twin brother, a nurse and a man recovering from a failed suicide attempt, there’s no way the plan can fail!

In an attempt to avoid spoilers – and believe me, with the way this novel turns out, the less you know the better – I’ll leave it at that. Hinkson uses his talent for creating likable scumbag characters by throwing out this rag-tag collection of losers you can’t help but root for. Even when everything is falling apart, you’ll still pulling for a victory.

Just like with Hell on Church Street, the violence is swift and coarse. There’s no sugar coating anything here – Hinkson rips open a wound and forces you to look at it. It’s good to know that after reading crime fiction for all these years, there are still authors out there that can shock me with a certain way of writing brutality.

If you’re looking for a rapid read that’s hard to put down, look no further than Hinkson’s The Posthumous Man.

Cross Posted @ Every Read Thing

I interviewed Jake!

Since his incarceration, Daniel has been dubbed Saint Homicide by fellow cellmates. The man does not believe he is innocent; he fully understands why he’s locked up. Declaring that he acted only in the service of God, Daniel did something very, very wrong and he’s going to explain why.

Daniel believes he is a good man. He studies the bible, cares for his ailing wife, and protests outside of abortion clinics by declaring the procedure murder. He says he allows the Lord to work through him, giving him strength and providing him with guidance. It isn't until the disappearance of his sister-in-law, that his life begins spiraling out of control.

I’m a big fan of Hinkson’s first two efforts, Hell on Church Street and The Posthumous Man, and Saint Homicide brings with it an author at the top of his game. Hinkson weaves together some outstanding storytelling and clocking in at only fifty-six pages, you get a sense that not a word is wasted. Throughout the story, I was carrying a sense of dread for what laid ahead for these characters and if a writer can grab me like that, they've got to be doing something right.

Easy five stars.

Also posted @ Every Read Thing

"Fresh Meat" by Eric Beetner for Criminal Element

Aside from a few times on airplanes, I don’t read books in a day. I started Hell on Church Street in the morning and before the clock rolled over to tomorrow, I was done.

I’ve admired Jake Hinkson’s writing for a while now. His short story Maker’s and Coke is one of the finest pieces of contemporary Noir I’ve read. He gets it. The pathos, the desperation, shadows that come off the page. And character. Hell on Church Street has that in spades.

(Read the rest at http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2011/12/fresh-meat-hell-on-church-street-by... )