I stop to lovingly caress the spine of “Just Before Dark” when it catches my eye.
By the time this fiasco starts I’m pretty much in the bag and growing nostalgic, none of this year’s crop really impressed me, and I begin browsing my bookcases, looking at the logos and considering the elite teams each publisher has assembled over the years, their draft committees well-prepared with ample research having been conducted to see who would best complement their roster. I’m just sitting there on a Sunday tossing back a few brews waiting for Fox Sports to air the draft, and soon enough, Commissioner Oprah Winfrey (who has inexplicably ascended to the rank of “Head Honcho” in this absurdity) announces that this year’s draft is beginning. I’m sure most of these operate under the umbrella of some larger company, like Zebra is published by Kensington, but I’m not taking that into account, real business practices aren’t invited to my fantasy.
Martins, Tor, Ace, Bantam, Leisure, Plume, Houghton Mifflin, hell, this year Del Rey and Guild Press were even invited. I fondly gaze at the publishers’ imprints on my books, and pretend that there is some sort of event similar to the NFL Draft going on in the publishing industry, in which all the upcoming talent is shrewdly examined by the crafty scouts representing Penguin, Pocket, Zebra, City Lights, Signet, Harper Collins, St. When it’s standing on the bookshelf, you’d never be able to tell just what the hell it might be without a proper look at the cover, although the dilapidated condition immediately announces to me exactly what book it is.īut each time I see “Just Before Dark”, it inspires some strange imaginings. The binding somehow does its job, even though you’d never suspect it by looking at the spine. My copy of this unsung gem is battered to hell, having purchased it back in the early 90’s and having read it three or four times and treating it like crap. With a story like that, disappointment is nigh impossible. File Under: Stories in which a sloppy hitman bungles the assassination of the judge presiding over his mob boss’s trial and is duly rewarded for his incompetence by being fed into a car compactor at the junkyard which fronts as the legitimate business for this ridiculous mob, at which point his spirit lingers in the junkyard with an insatiable thirst for vengeance and begins getting retribution on his former associates responsible for his horrific demise.
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