Finished: "Suicide Squeeze" by Victor Gischler

Finished: Suicide Squeeze by Victor Gischler, 2006 (paper), 9780440241706 (paper).

What is it with his novels? I come away feeling sticky and gritty with a need to shower and brush my teeth. A feeling of low grade nausea grips me through most readings. I am uncertain what causes the feeling. Is it the poor, amateurish writing? The unbelievable and poorly designed plots? Or the knowledge that Gishler is unable to physically satisfy a woman?

Don't worry Gischler. No one ever reads this blog except self-googling authors, people searching for either Ditch Medicine or In Deadly Combat, and Patti Abbot googling her daughter.

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This was more polished than Gischler's first three novels. Or was it the first two? Is this the third? No matter. There was a greater continuity and several call-backs throughout the novel that helped tie things together. I thought the craftsmanship was better all the way around. I did not like the nymphomaniac angle, that was a stretch and unneeded.

Conner Samson is a bum living in Sarasota. Conner has been in a rut ever since losing a baseball scholarship ten years ago. He's loping through life doing repossession work, lives in a crap apartment, bounces checks at the local tavern, and has a long-lasting hard-on for a former college classmate who married a rich art professor. Desperate for work, Conner gets a job to repossess a sailboat. The current owner is a local comic-book store owner, Teddy, who torched his business building, hid his remaining assets, dumped his wife, and stopped paying on his boat in anticipation of fleeing to the Caribbean.

Turns out Teddy pulled some insurance fraud on a DiMaggio baseball card signed by DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, and Billy WhatshisName.YouKnow?TheDirector? Wilder Thatsit.Wilder. The card is deeply desired by a billionaire Japanese businessman who collects Americana. Japanese Yakuza thugs come to get card for billionaire, blood is spilt, competing interests compete, Conner hunts for baseball card, finds out card's worth, more blood spilt, two sex scenes, one masturbation scene, much alcohol consumed, unrequited love, revenge, etc.

Conner's love interest storyline is okay but Gischler sticks in this nymphomaniac sex addict angle that is just worthless. Conner's would-be-gal is in love with an idolized version of Conner andis unable to screw him or love him. Baloney. The story would have been better with a usual loveless-marriage-to-older-guy-and-not-wanting-to-leave-for-younger-guy subplot. Can't blame Gischler for trying something new though.

Comic book author Gischler alternately lampoons the nerds attending a comics and SciFi convention and praises their self-assurance in knowing who they are, what they like, and not afraid to show and embrace it.

There was a Maltese Falcon reference made by the fat Japanese bad guy. There are some parallels to Maltese: fat bad guy looking for a lost treasure, good guy robbing the bad guy's pad, slutty vixen, dangerous henchmen, maybe more. I suppose someone could do a paper comparing the two novels or The Continuing Influence of the Maltese Falcon on Modern Noir Literature type thing. It won't be me though.

Recurrences: Macanudo cigars, Rockford Files reference.