THE HOT BEAT
science fiction & fantasy
Silverberg, Robert Hard Case Crime (240 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sept. 13, 2022 978-1-78909-992-8 In a sinful city, an aspiring actress teams up with a crime columnist to clear her boyfriend of a murder charge. At sleazy Carrol’s Bar & Grill on South Main Street, world-weary police detective Brady commiserates with Gazette columnist Ned Lowry—who writes a column called “The Seamy Side”—about the unsolved murder of Doris Blair, as they watch barfly bandleader Bob McKay, who’s recently fallen on hard times, get in a fight while bemoaning Doris’ fate. Silverberg’s storyline veers in surprising directions, recalling the classic noir of Hammett and especially Chandler, with colorful, hard-bitten characters lurking in every dark cranny and plot detour. At the Dumas, a marginally classier nightspot, rugged, charming Jack Colin flirts with lovely B-girl Terry Stafford, who’s dancing with male customers while hoping for an acting career. Terry’s fallen hard for the wounded McKay, and a romance is blossoming. After McKay is arrested and aggressively questioned for the murder of Doris, who worked alongside Terry at the Dumas but kept to herself, Lowry returns, following the story to assess McKay’s guilt, and Brady returns as one of the cops on the case. When Terry reads Lowry’s column about the case, she senses a sympathetic ear and tells him about her subtle plan to investigate, and they decide to work together. Gathering pieces of the puzzle will require interviews and wrangles with a colorful collection of tenderloin lowlifes. Previously published in 1960 under a pseudonym, Silverberg’s novel isn’t a modern homage but the real thing; he brings the same vigor and imagination to noir that characterizes his award-winning science fiction. Bonus: three additional Silverberg detective stories from the same era. Genuinely juicy pulp noir from 60 years ago.
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15 july 2022
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fiction
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kirkus.com
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THE FINAL STRIFE
El-Arifi, Saara Del Rey (608 pp.) $28.99 | June 21, 2022 978-0-593-35694-4
In the first of a trilogy, three women disturb the social order of a rigidly castebased society poised on the brink of disaster. The red-blooded Embers command, the blue-blooded Dusters work, and the transparent-blooded, mutilated Ghostings serve. Sylah is a secret Ember, stolen as a toddler by the rebellious Duster sect known as the Sandstorm, who left a Duster in her place and raised her to revolution. Soldiers slaughtered the Sandstorm, and Sylah has spent the past several years as an aimless drug addict and fighter in an underground betting ring. A fellow Sandstorm survivor reenters her life and encourages her to enter the Aktibar, the fierce competition to become an heir to the empire’s ruling wardens. Due to some poor choices, Sylah ends up training another competitor instead: Anoor, a young woman everyone believes to be the Warden of Strength’s daughter when in fact she is one of the Duster children left by the Sandstorm. As Anoor advances in the Aktibar, Sylah must decide whether to rejoin the new Sandstorm or follow a different path to rebellion. Meanwhile, Hassa, a trans woman Ghosting who’s a friend of Sylah’s, seeks freedom for her people, all the while hiding secrets which strike at the Empire’s very foundations. The concept of people having different blood colors seems implausible and basing prejudice on it, ridiculous; but then, this is the same genre in which enormous dragons fly and breathe fire in sheer defiance of physics, appearing in stories written by authors from a world that foolishly constructs prejudice around skin color. Racism based on blood color also leads to some interesting possibilities for “passing,” which the author exploits to their fullest extent. The message is hardly subtle, but our current climate does not support much subtlety, and this blunt allegory—which also draws from Ghanaian and Arabian tales—is crafted into a compelling story with sympathetic characters. The depictions of Anoor, overcoming both the naïveté of a woman brought up in a pampered bubble and the bruised self-esteem of an abuse victim, and of Sylah, battling confused loyalties and a devastating addiction, are particularly well done. Timely themes and a gripping narrative draw the reader in and keep them there.
