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Books that proudly proclaim on their book covers their awards pedigree always make me a little suspicious. First of all, I don't know who the judges were, and whether their tastes in writing coincide with mine. How many times have I read a Pulitzer Prize winner and thought to myself, "my, what a bad year in publishing THAT must have been?" Scott Phillips' debut, THE ICE HARVEST, is one of those books. A finalist for both the Edgar and the Hammett Prize, the quotes and blurbs on the jacket proudly proclaim this to be a "hard-boiled classic;" " a noir along the lines of James M. Cain," and so forth. As an avid fan of hard-boiled novels, and those of James M. Cain in particular, I was therefore looking forward to reading the debut of this heir to Cain's literary legacy. The only explanation I can come up with for the Cain comparisons is perhaps the blurbee was a big fan of the films made from Cain's books--he certainly could not have read Cain's books. No, I am afraid I didn't like THE ICE HARVEST. The book takes place on Christmas Eve in Wichita, 1979, with the snow falling, and follows the protagonist, Charlie Arglist, on an odyssey from bar to bar, strip joint to strip joint; his encounters with patrons of the bars and the workers. Everyone drinks too much or is drugged up; marital fidelity and happiness obviously does not exist in this world, and Arglist, a lawyer, is apparently about to run off with one of his cohorts with a lot of his underworld boss' money. But while Cain was able to create empathy for his amoral characters by taking us along for the ride, making us root for them while they planned crimes with the building of suspense, Phillips doesn't. The first three quarters of the book are frankly boring. Nothing happens. Why is Arglist committing this crime? WHy did he leave the side of the angels and become aligned with the criminals? Phillips offers no answers, and so it is difficult to feel anything for anyone when things start to go wrong. And when things do start to go wrong, all the action and plot developments happen so quickly in the final fourth of the novel that when it finishes, one is left to wonder--well, what was the point? This is not to say Phillips is a bad writer--he isn't. He's a very good one. His dialogue is crisp; his sense of scene and setting is top notch. One can feel the bitter cold, almost see the snow falling. But this was not a good book. The lack of character development, the complete lack of suspense; one wonders how this can even be considered a mystery novel. And the plot twists at the end simply don't work.
Reviewed by Greg Herren, February 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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