Reviewed By Liz

Today’s featured author is Charles Kelly. PAY HERE is Kelly’s first novel and we read, enjoyed, and reviewed his book and you can read our review here.

Decades in the desert have made reporter Michael Callan hard as a sun-bleached skull. But mutilated migrants and his ex-flame keep causing Callan trouble… even if they’re six feet under.

Mix an innocent beauty with a savage one, add an assembly of killers, thugs, and a surgeon. Stir vigorously, and you’ve got a bloody cocktail - lethal for an Irishman who doesn’t drink.

Charles can be found on the web at at crimespace and at hardboiledjournalist.com. At the latter, you can read the first chapter of PAY HERE and read about A TRIO OF GOLD MEDALS, three hard-boiled novels that will be re-issued by Stark House Press in the fall. The novels include Dan J. Marlowe’s THE VENGEANCE MAN and Fletcher Flora’s PARK AVENUE TRAMP, for which Charles wrote the introductions. Also included will be Charles Runyon’s THE PRETTIEST GIRL I EVER KILLED, with an introduction by Ed Gorman.

You can find an interview with Charles at Website Fusion View and a long article he wrote on the hardboiled writer Dan J. Marlowe appears on Noir Originals, the Website run by Scottish novelist Allan Guthrie.

Inside his book, there is a great little blurb by the author - “He admires film noir characters, but personally prefers to avoid self-destruction.” I like that!

If you haven’t signed up for the Summer Mystery Reading Challenge yet, click here for directions. You are welcome to read along on your own, of course, but only registered participants are eligible for the prizes.

If you would like to comment on a book by a featured author or ask them a question, please leave the comment on their daily page so they can find it easily. Comments about what you are reading, books you have finished, requests for readalikes or recommendations, or mystery related links can be made on the SMRC post for that day so we can all see them. Thanks!

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2007

ISBN 0-8095-7244-3

Noir mysteries are the tragedies of the genre. The main character is usually a man with a mysterious past, marred by violence and memories of lost love, both of which still haunt him. This jaded character is brought out of his self-absorption by a mission, and during the course of the mission, he meets an innocent. The tension in the story is less about solving a mystery than the contrast between the world-weary and naive characters and the foreshadowing of a tragic ending. The reader is glued to the pages in the hope that the ending won’t be as tragic as the author is hinting. Because you would really like for everyone to live happily ever after, but you just know it isn’t going to happen. I am pleased to say that in PAY HERE, Kelly takes the standard noir formula and does an excellent job with it.

PAY HERE starts with a funeral. Our innocent, Daly Marcus, arrives in Arizona to meet up with her old friend, Rhea Montero, only to discover that Rhea died the day before. A shaken Daly makes her way to the funeral, where she meets our tragic hero Michael Callan. It quickly becomes clear to Daly that Callan isn’t asking questions about Rhea because he is a fellow mourner, but because he is an investigative reporter and he is trying to pump her for information about Rhea’s shady dealings for his planned newspaper story.

In Callan, an Irish reporter transplanted to Phoenix, Arizona, Kelly has created a man who possesses both beautiful words and a heritage of violence – the almost poetic description of the world around him emphasizes the despair he carries within him. Callan is a man who does what he needs to in order to survive, but he still recognizes innocence and longs for what he might have been if his life had been different. He tries to protect the naïve Daly when, without realizing it, she sets off a lethal chain reaction. Callan is both worried about her safety and pleased that events are moving his story forward. The question is, when the bodies start piling up, will Callan protect Daly or use her as bait to draw out the big fish?

PAY HERE is a short book with a simple, but well-executed plot. And Kelly displays his talent for description and dialog by not belaboring it. With one or two powerful lines he gives intriguing glimpses into Callan’s past or character and draws the reader deeper into the story. There are several one-liners that are just gutwrenching. Those are my favorite parts of PAY HERE - you’ll know them when you get there.

Favorite character? Callan. Did I guess it? Yes. This one you read for the writing. Will I read another? Yes. The classic noir story, the concise writing, the modern setting, and the timely plot all make PAY HERE an interesting and very good read. Frankly, he sucked me in and I am not usually a noir fan.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2007

Available at Amazon!