1960s Noir or an Extended Male Sexual Fantasy? Much More the Latter...

Dark Blonde: A Mike Angel Mystery - David H. Fears

In the old days if a publisher wanted to sell a book by a new or unknown author, the company would send galley proofs to a newspaper’s book reviewer and lift complimentary lines from ensuing reviews for the dust jacket. They’d hope for a rave from the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle, but would settle for a positive mention from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel or the Sacramento Bee, if that’s what they could get. Too few newspapers have their own reviewers now, so publishers began to prevail on established authors to pen a blurb for the cover, most of which turned out so generic as to be curiously uninformative. Now, they simply cite the number of five-star reviews at amazon.com. That’s how Dark Blonde (David H. Fears) came across my desk – that, and it was free.

Now I happen to think that Amazon’s reviewers have little or no taste, and it’s rather hard to trust reviewers like the infamous Harriet K, whose daily review output was often in double digits (one reason I have my own collection of reviews that pan books…). And, as usual, I was right: no matter how many five-star reviews (38) or the average star count (3.6 of 5), this book is definitely a stinker.

Every Woman Mike Angel Meets? [Alberto Vargas]

Mike Angel (né DiAngelo), Korean War vet and defrocked New Jersey cop left the Garden State for unspecified reasons. He now plies his trade in a Mad Man-era Chicago (1962, to be precise). His partner is his late (murdered, of course) Dad’s patrol partner on the NYPD and the obligatory gal Friday is the beauteous Molly, who shares his bed and whom he claims to adore. That does not, however, stop Angel from doing the horizontal bop any woman who crosses his path. 

Dark Blonde is ostensibly a mystery – the only woman in the plot with whom Angel does not share lascivious leers was found murdered in the gatehouse of a potential senatorial candidate; the client is the politician's beauty-queen wife (the titular dark blonde), the corpse’s sister. The ensuing investigation turns up no clues. Instead, there’s a string of beautiful women who clearly want to bed Angel (two of which succeed); and a drawerful of tropes, including the pederast politician and the dirty cop. Angel simply assumes he knows the killer's identity (based on… who knows?) and almost immediately finds him. Clearly all that steaming sex makes Angel clairvoyant, because he didn’t do any actual detective work (this protagonist is more of a porn star than a PI).

The author of this little tome claims to have been influenced by Spillane and Chandler. Well, Angel’s clearly cut from noir cloth like Mike Hammer et al., down to fedoras, snappy Bogart dialogue and an endless string of coffin nails. The similarity ends there, however. Where those authors crafted tightly-plotted mysteries leavened with a little sexual fantasy, this dreck reads more like a chapter in Fifty Shades leavened with a little mystery – very little. There’s not a single red herring or hidden clue, just a straight line from “I know who did it” to the final obligatory shootout. Feh.

Where in time is Carmen Ghia? [Michael Spiller / wikimedia]

Another thing that’s changed in the era of self-published novels is an overall decrease in factual basis and an overall increase in grammatical errors and outright goofs. Dark Blonde is no exception. For instance, the author’s biography suggests he’s never lived in Chicago, which explains the thin, flat scene setting and hackneyed references to government corruption. The text is sprinkled liberally with greengrocers’ apostrophes and anachronisms. My favorite goof is Angel’s reference to his partner Rick’s “puke-green ‘Carmen Ghia,’” a description that probably gave the folks at Karmann Body Works a bout of indigestion. 

And then there's the needless inclusion of a supernatural element: psychic warnings from his dead father (apparently budgeted to a certain number per month) and a little spidey sens-like tingle in his scar when there's danger nearby. Of course, the little head always knows when there's a hottie in the vicinity - and every damned woman he sees is a hottie! talk about your escape from reality...

Save your 99 cents: this one wasn’t a good buy at free.