Mistral by Raoul Whitfield

Originally published December 15, 1931 in Adventure; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

PG

(L, D, V)

Coarse Language (PG)

Drug Use (PG) {Tobacco, alcohol}

Violence (PG) {Only one incident toward the end, dramatic and tense but not graphic}

Representations

Gender:

Male protagonist, male characters.

Sex:

Not noted.

Race & Ethnicity:

Mostly (presumed-)white European, some US. According to the story intro, the writer has a Spanish-Filipino detective but I don't think he's the lead here, and if the lead's ethnicity were indicated I missed it.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character has a scar. That seems to be all.

Awards

Not found.

Notes

I liked this one. Not sure what to say about it, I suppose I found the detective character intriguing and am curious to read more of him, except I think he was a one-off. I rather felt the growing empathy and guilt wert the other guy.

Round Trip by W. R. Burnett

Originally published 1929 in Harper's; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

PG

(D, L)

Drug Use (PG) {Tobacco and alcohol}

Coarse Language (PG) {Not strong, I suppose not too frequent for so short a story}

Representations

Gender:

Tight third-person on male protagonist, only men have speaking parts.

Sex:

Vaguely heterosexual, in the sense that dancing with girls happens.

Race & Ethnicity:

Italian Mafiosi vs Irish cops.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

The protagonist catches a random cold. That is all, I think.

Awards

Found no sign of any. Don't expect to find any before the second half of the century.

Notes

This was very short. Kind of darkly amusing with the contextually innocent Mafioso being turned around by the police.

A few weeks ago I finished reading Don't Let Her See Me Cry: A Mother's Story, an autobiography by a Victorian woman of the sort that ends "and then I wrote this book".

Anyway, I found it interestingly jarring the way she used 'straight' to mean 'person who is not a drug-user', rather the use I am accustomed to of 'person who is heterosexual'. Not new to me as such, but definitely not what I am used to. It was weird to see sentences like "As I drove away I couldn't believe that a 'straight' person seemed to be attracted to me!" Referring of course to her first relationship with another woman after being released from prison.

What was a new word to me was 'wangle', which I had initially taken to be a mispelling of 'wrangle', but apparently is actually a word.

So there you go.

The Scorched Face by Dashiell Hammett

Originally published May 1925 in Black Mask; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

MA15+

(V, S, L, D)

Violence (MA15+) {Mostly obscured, too frequent and in some places I think too nasty to get away with M)

Sexual References (M) {Sexual activity implied}

Coarse Language (PG) {Mild, infrequent, only in instances of strong emotion}

Drug References (PG) {Qualifications for this don't change between PG and MA}

Representations

Gender:

Narration is first-person from a male perspective. Other characters almost exclusively male, except interviewees.

Sex:

Sexuality is hetero male oriented, any implication of sexual interaction between women in context of male-centred group sex. Said orgies being depicted as sufficiently shameful to ruin the participants' lives.

Race & Ethnicity:

West-coast US, almost entirely white. Some characters referred to by ethnicities of European origin, e.g. Italian. Small number of black characters appear in servant / bodyguard role, referred to alternately as 'black' or 'Negroes'.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

None noticed.

Awards

Unknown, presumed none.

Notes

I started reading this story on a short break during my one of my shifts. Even reading just a few pages I was impressed by Hammett's technique. Feels like I could learn a lot about brevity in mystery construction. Very taught, effectively written. Can see why he would have been such an influential figure.

Volume 1, Mission 1: The Initiation of a Legend by Rikdo Koshi

Originally published 1997 by Shonengahosha Co.. Ltd, Tokyo; this edition July 2003, September 2003 printing

Publisher: Viz

M

(V, S, L)

Violence (M) {Mainly off-screen, for comedic purposes}

Sexual References (PG)

Language (PG)

Representations

Gender:

Female protagonist, not particularly tightly bound camera. Mostly male extras, all others with speaking parts are men.

Sex:

One panel indicates Excel's past jobs have included sex work. Elsewise, she has an apparently romantic obsession with Lord Il Palazzo, to the point of talking to his photo when she is home as if they live together. No other indications of romance or sexuality.

Race & Ethnicity:

All characters presumed Japanese

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

None, unless one counts Excel's tendency to rewrite her memory so that she was the victim of conspiratorial violence rather than fatally incompetent at work.

Awards

None found.

Tropes

Evil Overlord

Bishōnen

Take Over the City

Villain Protagonist

Genki Girl

Companion Cube

Passed Over Promotion

Punch Clock Villain

Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?

Conspiracy Theorist

Notes

Running late due to belatedly realising I had an assignment due this morning. That was unfortunate.

And here we have our emergency back-up story, Excel Saga. We would have run into this problem earlier if I'd been on time with the previous two ratings, as I've caught up on my reading with these. I did actually finish reading one book since The Saints of the Sword, but as that was an autobiography I don't feel right rating it (if I did, it would probably be R18+ or RC due to descriptions of drug use). Anyway, Excel Saga. I bought the first volume of this series early in the millennium or possibly at the beginning of the previous one, after watching the anime series based on it. Because graphic works are relatively quick to read, and I've been trying to get myself to read through and decide if I want to keep collecting the series, it seemed an excellent choice of back-up for when my regular reading patterns leave me unsupplied with a story to rate.

Very short, though. Not much happens in the first story. Mainly we meet the dangerously incompetent protagonist Excel and the mysterious, sadistic would-be conqueror Il Palazzo she has pledged herself to. And the pit he drops her into, repeatedly. Minor appearance by Watanabe (unnamed) at the end, and single-panel cameo by dog / future emergency food supply Menchi / Mince (also unnamed). Plot mainly consists in this case of illustrative distractibility and incompetence on the part of our protagonist for humour.

There you go.