Lighting the Pipes

Robert Siodmak's gem from 1949 goes under the microscope in this episode. Motivations for this classic plot involve an armoured car heist, an old flame and axes to grind. Good natured sap, Burt Lancaster, is the inside man on the job whilst making time with his ex, turned gangster’s moll, Yvonne De Carlo. Unfortunately for him, head-heavy Dan Duryea is as violent as he is jealous. Josh takes you t...

In this episode we hoist, brail and kedge our way through Erskine Childer's 1903 prophetic spy thriller, The Riddle of the Sands . Published in 1903 and foreshadowing the great conflict of nations only a decade away, "Riddle" has held its place among the pantheon of influential spy mysteries for well over a century now. We start our voyage with Josh navigating the short, tumultuous waters of the a...

A staple of the first-person confessional, James M Cain's debut novel has really lasted the test of time. Now knocking on 90 years of age, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" delivers a ruthless plot at an unforgiving pace. Frank Chambers is an unemployed rambler possessed of a loose moral compass and an appetite for opportunity. Once he drifts upon the Twin Oaks Tavern and into the life of the restl...

LTP Noir returns, this time to the mean streets of Samuel Fuller’s New York City at the height of the McCarthy era. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Thelma Ritter star in "Pickup on South Street", a brutish and caustic yarn where common criminals are considered heroes compared to those stinking Reds! Collect your tickets, friends, and hop aboard as Josh steadies the train through this underrated f...

"The Triumph of the Spider Monkey" is the chaotic narrative of Bobby Gotteson, whose repressive lust and murderous rage reach their fever-pitch following a hubris-led journey to California. All but disowned by its author, Joyce Carol Oates, we crack the covers on a new season of LTP with a look at this stylish, often brutal novel, recently resurrected from obscurity by Hard Case Crime. We also tak...

In 1943, Alfred Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" delivered a sinister sucker-punch of a conundrum to naïve North American audiences: What happens when the sleepy, mundane routine of a secure society unwittingly welcomes in maniacal, chaotic forces? Playing on one of Hitchcock's favourite themes, this microcosm of a film has aged exceptionally well. In this episode, Josh breaks down the complex film...

“Dark Passage” is one of Film Noir's most unique thrillers. The 1947 film boasts an all-star cast, innovative use of first-person subjective camerawork and some remarkable on-location shooting. What's more, it was the inspiration for "The Fugitive" TV series of the 1960s as well as its 1993 feature film remake (...minus the plastic surgery of course!). In this episode of our cinematic side-series,...

Our first Agatha Christie read takes us to Gossington Hall where the body of a young woman is found, dead and spread, upon the floor of Colonel Bantry's library. Invited to snoop and sleuth by the Colonel's wife, the quiet and calculating Miss Marple lends her expertise when the investigation moves from country manor to seaside hotel. Published in 1942 and featuring a complete set of supporting pl...

In this episode Josh discusses the troubled and time-pressed production of George Marshall's "The Blue Dahlia". Penned by hard-boiled novelist, Raymond Chandler, and starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix, the story behind this gritty man-on-the-run thriller is as compelling as the adventure itself.

Better know, perhaps, for his writing in the expanded universes of Star Wars, Star Trek and Blade Runner, K W Jeter is nevertheless one of the pioneers of cyberpunk fiction. The sub-genre's gritty, challenging tropes are equal parts prophetic and perplexing for readers. Into its tech-heavy milieu of corrupt appetites and dispossessed culture, Jeter situates John McNihil, a singular detective with...

Otto Preminger's "Laura" from 1944 is considered a classic of the noir genre. Expertly cast and masterfully directed, "Laura" has remained among cinema's most stylistic of psychological thrillers for nearly 80 years. So set your clocks and hide your shotguns - in the second feature of this intriguing side-series, Josh explores the context behind Laura's production and considers the factors of its...

Ten years after propelling his protagonist off the page via Reichenbach in "The Final Problem", Arthur Conan Doyle returns Holmes to his adoring public. Published in Autumn of 1903, "The Empty House" gave eager readers what they'd been seeking for a decade - key answers to the past, a wild villain of the present and much hope for the future. First released in November 2017, this episode has been l...

Good news, Sherlock fans! Summer has arrived (in the northern hemisphere at least) and that means the return of our world-famous "Sherlock Selects" Summer Series! Last year, we featured four classic stand-alone installments. This season we're tackling the Holmesian mythology with revamped presentations of "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House". First up, Conan Doyle's intrepid attempt to bid fa...

Inspired by real events, Robert Traver's 1958 novel was the first of its kind - a true "courtroom thriller". Showcasing the genial narrative perspective of every-man defense attorney, Paul Biegler, "Anatomy" couldn't be better named as it guides readers through the crooks and crevices of the legal corpus of a murder trial. Groundbreaking and controversial in equal measure for its detailing and con...

In this pint-sized episode, we reach into the archives and present a conversation from July 2016 on Ian Fleming's "Quantum of Solace". A divisive short story that had James Bond fans scratching their heads, Fleming's narrative experiment positions 007 as after-dinner audience to a morality tale of greed, revenge and marital conflict. It's a curious short story and well worth checking out!

In this engaging side-series, Josh flies solo in exploring the production, features and influences of Film Noir. Taking the shape of compact film reviews, the first of these complementary capsule episodes sets the stage for the genre's American premiere by looking at its European origins. Informative context then gives way to review as John Huston's 1941 adaptation of "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashi...

Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" wastes no time cutting shapes and setting angles in its pursuit of modelling the hard-boiled genre. The opening sentence alone produces enough sharp edge to slice through a striploin at Herbert's on Powell Street: "Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting V under the more flexible V of his mouth." However, in spite of its influence, the whett...

"The Moonstone" is regarded by many as the progenitor of the detective novel in English. Published in 1868, it marks, perhaps, the peak of Wilkie Collins's career as a novelist and emerged onto the scene at a time of great change for Scotland Yard and the British Empire at large. Steeped in foreign intrigue and trapped within a casing of disguise, mistaken identity and class conflict, "The Moonsto...

In 1955 Patricia Highsmith introduced the world to Tom Ripley, a young and ambitious con-man who gets the break of a lifetime when serendipity (in the form of an acquaintance's rich father) sends him to Italy on a rescue mission. Haunted by insecurities and struggling against his own ego, Tom "fakes it till he makes it", drawing on deep reservoirs of charm and industry, and for a while his many de...

Edgar Allan Poe's contributions to literary form can hardly be overstated. Among many accomplishments, he is widely regarded as the progenitor of the detective story. His character, C. Auguste Dupin first appeared in 1841's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and returned the following year for "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and again in 1844's "The Purloined Letter". These three stories had an enormous imp...

In Michael Connelly's debut novel, readers meet Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD. Bosch is haunted by several demons from his past, each of which comes out to play in "The Black Echo". First, there's the tragedy of his mother's murder and the childhood wounds of growing up in the system. Then there's his time as "tunnel-rat" in Vietnam as part of the 1st Infantry Division. Finally, his fumble ove...

What do you get when an adventurous British writer combines suspension of disbelief, war-time propaganda and a patriotic dose of daring-do? John Buchan's "The 39 Steps", of course, a "shocker" that pleased troops and arm-chair generals alike and introduced the literary world to the character of Richard Hannay. In 1915, this novella seemed to strike all the right chords with British (and allied) au...

In 1955, Graham Greene published "The Quiet American", part character confession and part political allegory, set amidst the changing of the colonial guard in Southeast Asia. As the French powers puff their last breaths in Vietnam the American agenda starts making its strident moves and there, observing all from the inside, is cynical British journalist Thomas Fowler. Forced into defending his own...

Our "Sherlock Selects" summer series concludes here with a real show-stopper! "The Copper Beeches" is one of Conan Doyle's most atmospheric and engaging mysteries, featuring a female client with moxie and a country manse full of fear. We had a great time talking over this story back in May of 2017 and proudly re-present it here today in wrapping up our seasonal series.

When old age hands you lemons... it's time to take monkey gland injections from a quack Czech doctor! Or, at least, that's what Professor Presbury might have once suggested. This curious tale is as close as Conan Doyle ever gets to showcasing the hardships of graceful aging to the love-struck pensioner. Yes, "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" is full of crazy moments but it is not bereft of relev...