This Wicked World

Boone is keeping his nose clean. He's got a not-great job as a bartender, but he has a job. He has an apartment where he's also the handyman and he's intent on not going back to prison. Then a friend asks him to come along with him as he looks into the death of an undocumented immigrant for the man's uncle. The search leads him into some bad places, gets him saddled with a dog and puts his tentative relationship with an ex-cop in jeopardy.

This is just about everything I want in a crime novel. The setting is gritty, the characters are all well-developed and feel like people, the plot is well paced and holds together right through the final moments. Boone is an easy man to like, even as he tries hard not to make connections or care about show more the people around him. I'm eager to read more by this author. show less

"Los Angeles was not its haughty self in the rain. It was like a wet cat: humiliated, confused. People stepped gingerly on suddenly slippery sidewalks, looking like they'd been lied to. The gutters, clogged with garbage,overflowed, and water puddled in busy intersections."

This sentence appears on page nine of Richard Lange's new novel This Wicked World. It is about this point that Raymond Chandler came to the forefront of my mind. Richard Lange, like Raymond Chandler, can really write. I admired his first collection of short stories, Dead Boys, published in 2007 very much. So I was on the lookout for his next book. And it is a good thing, because I basically read literary fiction, subscribing to Edmund Wilson's point "Who cares who show more killed Roger Ackroyd" and I nearly had to ask for directions to the Crime/Mystery section of my local bookstore. However, Richard Lange, as did Raymond Chandler, transcends the genre.

The story evolves around ex-marine Jimmy Boone. Only four years ago Jimmy was a body guard for the rich and famous, living the Southern California dream. A house in the Hollywood Hills, a Porsche 996 Turbo, and a bevy of beautiful women. Only 30 years old and he couldn't imagine much more to ask for. But now, he's an ex-con, tending bar, somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard and trying to stay out of trouble.

Well, guess who can't stay out of trouble? He actually tries to do the right thing but ends up involved with a ex-police officer, involved in a dog fighting ring, involved in a counterfeit double-cross shakedown scheme, and much, much more. I suppose, the particulars of the story are basic, traditional crime novel fare, but his language and particularly his character development is all first rate. For example, one of his primary female characters is driving across the desert in a broken down van to join her former boyfriend where she plans to double cross him and steal $150,000.00 of his money. She spots an casino off the highway and imagines what would happen if she stopped. She only had a few dollars in her pocket, so she thought she would probably lose that rather quickly and she would be flat broke walking across the parking lot which was filled with parked long haul truckers. Mr.Lange takes it from here, "One of them will ask if she's working,and if she's drunk and desperate enough, she'll turn a trick, then pass out in the van until she wakes up sweaty and hungover to a sun so bright it shows every secret." The initial image is quite vivid, but the important thing is how it completes itself. That to me is writing.

His characters are even more stunning. The most ancillary character is interesting to the extreme. Characters like punk bass player Eton Dogfood, parole officer Dee Andra Cummings, and the unnamed homeless man in the epilogue. None of these characters, except maybe Eton, has more than twenty words dedicated to them. Yet each character is crafted with such extreme precision that I quite possibly will never forget them.

I don't have the colors vivid enough in my vocabulary to adequately express my admiration for this novel. It is simply wonderful in all aspects. To paraphrase from the novel, we may not hear from Richard Lange for a couple of years of more. But I will like to think of him now and then, and I'll be happy just knowing he is somewhere out there in the world writing another anxiously awaited book for us all. show less

Thank goodness once again for Marilyn Stasio's column on crime in the New York Times Book Review. In the past she's turned me on to wonderful but under the radar writers such as Garry Disher and S.J. Bolton.

In the case of Richard Lange, I have a copy of his first book, a collection of short stories, "Dead Boys." But I had no inkling that he had a first novel coming out. "This Wicked World" is a page-flipping treat that toggles between mystery and the noir genre. While many have compared Lange to James Ellroy, I find him to be a kinder, gentler version.

This does not mean Lange can't mix it up with the best of them. His story of Jimmy Boone, a gentle ex-con whose big heart earned him four years in the joint, is brimming with savage show more characters and violence. Boone's helping hand for a co-worker leads him into a world of Mexican immigrants and dog-fighting, despite his desire to stay clean. A blossoming romance with a former cop isn't Lange's strong suit but he manages to keep that part of the story believable.

I admit to flipping through a page or two when dog-fights took the spotlight but so will other animal lovers. Now my fervent hope is that Lange will consider giving us another peek into Boone's quest for a good, honest life combined with just a touch of dark justice. show less