Snowy Saturday Smatterings

• It was three years ago yesterday, on February 12, 2018, that prolific Texas mystery novelist Bill Crider died, brought down by prostate cancer at age 76. But only this week did Down & Out Books release a volume of short stories in tribute to that Anthony Award-winning creator of Sheriff Dan Rhodes. Titled Bullets and Other Hurting Things, and edited by Rick Ollerman, it features 20 original short yarns, all penned by Crider’s friends and fans. As the publisher explains, “William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace, the Cork O’Connor series) brings us a story of romance and grift. Bill Pronzini (the Nameless Detective and Carpenter & Quincannon series) offers a taut episode of a midnight raid. Joe R. Lansdale (The Bottoms, the Hap and Leonard series) tells a tale of two hit men working through their differences. James Sallis (Drive, the Lew Griffin series) shows us how a deadly figure once helped out a man called Bill. Charlaine Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse and Midnight, Texas series) reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski series) shows how truly deadly a terrible storm can be.” James Reasoner, who describes Crider as “one of my best friends for more than 40 years,” says, “The story I wrote for this anthology is a sequel to ‘Comingor,’ the first story ever published under my name, and my second published story overall, 43 years ago. It’s set in the same part of Texas as Bill’s Dan Rhodes novels, in the next county to the east, in fact. I also think it’s one of the best stories I’ve written.” Angela Crider Neary, the late author’s daughter and a fictionist in her own right, supplies this volume’s introduction.

• Yesterday, February 12, brought us Chinese New Year, marking the start of this latest Year of the Ox. (The last Ox year was 2009.) By way of celebrating, Mystery Fanfare brings us this short list of “mysteries that take place during Chinese New Year.” Included are The Shanghai Moon, by S.J. Rozan, and Kelli Stanley’s City of Dragons, both of which I have enjoyed, without recalling their spring festival links.

• In Reference to Murder notes that submissions to the McIlvanney Prize/Scottish Crime Book of the Year contest are now open, “with a deadline of Friday, April 9. The winner of Crime Book of the Year will receive £1,000, while the winner [of] the Debut of the Year will receive £500. Entries come from full-length novels first published in the United Kingdom between August 1, 2020, and July 31, 2021. When considering the entries the judges will take into account quality of writing, originality of plot and potential durability in the crime genre.”

​• I’m a sucker for posts about vintage paperback covers, so George Easter’s new collection—at the Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine site—of dusty softcovers bearing “great titles” drew me immediately. My favorite of his bunch: Don Von Elsner’s Don’t Just Stand There, Do Someone (1962). Von Elsner (1909-1997) was, in fact, known for his clever titles. Among his series of novels starring lawyer David Danning, for instance, are Those Who Prey Together Slay Together (1961), Just Not Making Mayhem Like They Used To (1961), Pour a Swindle Through a Loophole (1964), and A Bullet for Your Dreams (1968).

• In Too Much Horror, Will Errickson brings the sad news that artist Rowena Morrill, known for her science-fiction and fantasy illustrations, has “died at age 76 after a long illness.” (She passed away on February 11.) Not surprisingly, given his blog’s name, Errickson’s post showcases various Morrill horror-fiction fronts, including “her stunning debut, 1978’s Jove paperback original Isobel,” by Jane Parkhurst.

• And was Body Heat, director Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 neo-noir picture, really “the greatest erotic thriller ever made”? Literary Hub’s Dan Sheehan certainly thinks so.

Sizzle and High Stakes

The 1981 trailer for Body Heat

(Editor’s note: The following essay comes to us from author Kathleen George, the author of Simple--a novel set to be released today by Minotaur Books--and the editor of Pittsburgh Noir [Akashic]. A previous novel of hers, 2009’s The Odds, was an Edgar Award finalist. George teaches theatre and writing at the University of Pittsburgh. This marks her first appearance in The Rap Sheet.)

A few weeks ago, I happened upon 1981’s Body Heat already well in progress on television. I was bouncing around, exercising, when I realized I could no longer count repetitions. Even though I had seen it before, the movie demanded my full attention. I decided later to order it and watch the full film properly.

Critics have called Body Heat neo-noir; it stands up very well to the great noir films that came before it.

I think what I’m most in awe of is the sexiness of the movie. Many X-rated films later, nothing competes with the sizzle of this one. Strangers, danger, illicitness, beautiful bodies, booze, and heat, heat, heat. I watched it, wanting to write something like it--the physicality is so palpable. It was a great film to watch during this very hot, record-breaking summer.

Body Heat may be Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut, but it reads like the masterwork of a seasoned director. Glistening faces. Sweat. Clothes that stick to the body. Sweat. Necks moist. Ties unbuttoned. Necklines plunging. Clothing (no tank tops) crying for air; anything will do, another button undone, a skirt that swishes. Cool drinks--glasses with ice cubes--pressed to the forehead. Wind chimes that signal more hot air on the way in. Cigarettes. People at the edge, self-destructive.

Actress Kathleen Turner has the beginnings of a whiskey voice. Her Matty Walker drinks and smokes a lot, as do other characters. They give off an “I don’t care anymore” message, flirting with death. They are hungry for relief, any sort.

William Hurt’s character, Ned Racine, is a fool and a slacker. We’re not only told he’s poor, but we see the cheesy clothes, the worn bottoms of his shoes. At first Matty Walker seems too beautiful to be within his reach, but he tries for her anyway, willing to play the fool. He’s used to a small hot room; he moves around wonderingly in her grand mansion. I love the detail of his worn shoes.

The sound of this world is not television, radio. Instead it’s the motors of cars, the clink of ice cubes, occasional telephones, the voices of two people in the throes of lust, and when we don’t get those sounds, we get a wonderful jazz score. Other voices in this movie seem wrong, intrusive. Matty Walker (“relentless,” “keeps coming,” “will do whatever has to be done”) destroys Ned Racine as he realizes what is happening to him, but the others (Ted Danson, J.A. Preston, Richard Crenna) make the real world seem harsh, coarse, and uninteresting. We get to obsess along with these two main characters; everybody else, the real world, comes off as unwelcome.

Great job, Lawrence Kasdan. To think this film was made in cold temperatures with spray-on sweat!

Warm Ocean Breezes, Ominous Wind Chimes

If you can remember where you were when you saw a particular film, then for you it must be a classic. I can recall very clearly a Saturday night at Indiana University, sitting in a crowded theater in the student union building, watching a new film starring actors I didn’t know, and written and directed by an unfamiliar name. This film has stayed with me ever since.

All of this was brought back to my attention recently when I read on The New Republic’s Web site that Body Heat is now 25 years old.

For the uninitiated, Body Heat tells the story of Ned Racine, the ultimate slacker lawyer, with a moribund practice in Miami. He coasts along with his personal-injury cases and plea-bargain criminal defense work. One night at a band concert, he catches a glimpse of a stunning woman with chestnut hair in a tight skirt that hugs a lean and mean body, and a “back off, pal” demeanor--the classic femme fatale. It’s Matty Walker, the unhappy wife of a very rich and older man. To say that Racine is obsessed with Matty is an understatement; rather, he consumes every ounce of her being until he decides to sacrifice everything in a plot to kill her husband. Racine is not so much a stupid guy as he is criminally gullible. Even the dimmest member of the audience knows that Racine is being set up to take a fall, and that he’s out of his depth with this black widow. The beauty of the film is the surprise ending and how it arrives.

Body Heat introduced us to various artists who went on to bigger careers (although, writing for The New Republic, Christopher Orr points out that those careers have had their highs and lows). Lawrence Kasdan, fresh from writing Raiders of the Lost Ark, used his original script as his directorial debut. In a television interview with Bob Costas years ago, Kasdan told the story of his first day on the set--when he was preparing to direct relative unknown William Hurt (Racine) and TV soap actress Kathleen Turner (Matty) in what is probably the most erotic scene of the film. Racine follows Matty to her huge home, only to find himself locked outside on the wraparound porch, unable to access her, even though he can see her through the numerous windows. After a minute of furiously pacing (the camera tracking his every step), he gives in to the mounting lust and heaves a chair through the French doors, then bounding through the wreckage and taking her. The camera doesn’t pull away and does not shy away from the nudity that follows, which was bold for its time.

In addition to the director and the two leads, this film was our first glimpse of Ted Danson, playing a local prosecutor who tries to save Racine from himself, and Mickey Rourke, playing Teddy the arsonist, who helps Racine concoct the explosive booby trap for Matty’s husband, who was played by that great acting workhorse Richard Crenna. It is Rourke who delivers the best line of the film as he tries to talk Racine out of his murderous plot:

I got a serious question for you: What the fuck are you doing? This is not shit for you to be messin’ with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: Any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you’re gonna fuck it up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you’re a genius … and you ain’t no genius.

It’s a film well worth screening again. The South Florida setting, the highly charged dialogue, and the unblinking depiction of pure and desperate lust all complement the plot as it rolls, abruptly turns on a dime, and then begins to roll again, even faster.

Body Heat is a keeper, and it certainly makes me wish Kasdan would someday return to crime films.

Read Christopher Orr’s entire essay here.