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'The Next Time You Die' and `The Sweet and the Dead' delight in devilish details |
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Written by Charles Ealy, MCT
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
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REVIEWS FOR THE BOOKS:
"The Next Time You Die''
by Harry Hunsicker;
Thomas Dunne
($23.95)
"The Sweet and the Dead''
by Milton T. Burton;
Thomas Dunne
($23.95)
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Lovers of genre mysteries know that the books follow a formula. But it doesn't matter. The fun lies in the devilish details.
Two yarns from Texas authors this month prove the point.
 Both Harry Hunsicker's "The Next Time You Die'' and Milton T. Burton's "The Sweet and the Dead'' focus on hardboiled private eyes or detectives who are able to tangle with the toughest of characters. Both have heroes with average looks but still manage to attract the ladies. And both have evil manipulators with powerful connections. Still, each manages to delight in its own way.
In "The Next Time You Die,'' a private detective with the unfortunate name of Lee Henry Oswald sets out on a search for a file that's missing from a foul-mouthed, Jim Beam-swilling Baptist preacher's office.
Naturally, the search leads to all sorts of characters, and the initial assignment becomes far more complicated than it first appears.
But Hunsicker, who made his literary debut in 2005 with "Still River,'' has a wonderfully ironic sense of Dallas society and an even funnier take on those pretensions.
Most of the trenchant commentary comes from Oswald, the narrator, who surveys the town while exercising a dry wit: "I drove ... past the latest attempt at pretending a suburban city could have a thriving downtown. I drove by churches and a couple of old buildings where I had been told several nice brothels and opium dens had operated in the decades bracketing the dawn of the twentieth century."
When describing a neighborhood that sounds suspiciously like Dallas' West Village, Oswald calls it Chelsea Tribeca Meadow and says it's "some bourbon-swilling developer's idea of what an urban environment would look like stuffed on the Texas plains." Then he notes: "All of the structures orbited around the most important feature of the project, a six-story parking garage."
Amid such humor, Hunsicker creates a fine cast of supporting characters, including his romantically frustrated female partner, Nolan: "As time passed and the quality of her dating declined, her interest in weaponry grew."
The only drawback to "The Next Time You Die'' is that Hunsicker occasionally introduces characters who don't seem to be crucial to the plot. But that's a nitpick, not a major flaw.
 Burton's "The Sweet and the Dead'' lacks the humor of "The Next Time You Die'' but makes up for its shortcomings with Southern gothic literary flair.
Manfred Eugene "Hog" Webern, a retired Dallas deputy sheriff, is at the center of the action, most of which takes place in 1970s Biloxi, Miss., long before the Katrina disaster.
Hog's partner in Dallas has been killed, and some people think Hog may have been involved, so he has a nefarious reputation that allows him to go undercover and infiltrate Biloxi's "Dixie Mafia," which is planning a big heist.
While in Biloxi, Hog falls for Nell Bigelow, whose daddy owns half the Delta. So Hog must figure out how to bring down the bad guys while protecting Nell. The only problem is that the identity of the biggest bad guy becomes quite unclear.
Burton, a Tyler, Texas, resident who made his literary debut last year with ``The Rogues' Game,'' minces no words about Biloxi, Dallas and the denizens therein.
In describing Biloxi hoodlum Sam Lodke, Burton writes: "Historians claim that Napoleon called his foreign minister, the Marquis de Tallyrand, a wad of dung in a silk stocking. With Lodke you didn't even get the stocking."
And when Burton turns his attention to Dallas, he isn't any kinder. Describing the 1950s, he writes: "Such a society always needs outlets for its tensions, and the well-heeled could find relief at a half dozen swank bordellos, including Illa Marlette's palatial establishment on Turtle Creek. ... The common people had to make do with what they could pick up on the street in Oak Cliff."
Unlike Hunsicker, Burton doesn't have much use for humor. Instead, ``The Sweet and the Dead'' is powered by a retribution of almost biblical intensity. It's as hardboiled as they come.
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Charles Ealy:
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