Drive - James Sallis

 Drive (2005) is the best known novel by James Sallis, mainly thanks to the 2011 movie, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling.   It's the story of the unnamed Driver who runs away to Hollywood as a teenager with dreams of being a stunt driver in the movies.   With the help of established stunt man Shannon, he gets a chance.  Driver himself develops a sideline as a getaway driver.   He doesn't want to know about the crime; he just drives.   One heist goes badly wrong.  Crime boss Nino refuses to pay Driver's fee.  Bad idea...

Drive  is contemporary US noir at its very best.  James Sallis is the best US writer of noir crime since James Ellroy.   Some of us would argue that he is as good as Ellroy in the early novels, a lot better than Ellroy this century.  Drive is short, taut, cleverly structured, and packs a terrific punch.

The Long-Legged Fly - James Sallis

 

The Long-Legged Fly (1992) is New Orleans noir in which PI Lew Griffin searches for lost women over four decades.  Only he doesn't find them all and in the end he turns to writing New Orleans noir crime fiction featuring a shambolic PI called Lew Griffin.  Like, I mean, wow.  Post-modern or what?

The trick is, though, Lew Griffin, despite his drink problem and penchant for life's losers, is and remains a compelling character.  You can't help but side with him.  He has a bad news background but has improved his mind over the years and believably winds up with a lecturing gig on the back of his success as a writer.  The son of his first marriage is also a writer-academic.  He disappears in the last section.  The love of Lew's life, who lives in Paris, joins in to help Lew investigate.  The trail runs cold back in New York and Lew doesn't find his son, at least not in this novel.  So it's one last failed investigation.

I was startled by this book - startled mainly that I hadn't come across Sallis before.  He is extremely good and deserves to be as big as, for example, James Lee Burke.  Highly recommended.