Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos (Back Bay Books 1995)

 

Like most of the trouble that’s happened in my life or that I’ve caused to happen, the trouble that happened that night started with a drink. Nobody forced my hand; I poured it myself, two fingers of bourbon into a heavy, beveled shot glass. There were many more after that, more bourbons and more bottles of beer, too many more to count. But it was that first one that led me down to the river that night, where they killed a boy named Calvin Jeter.

Tomorrow Is Another Day by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Mysterious Press 1995)

Elmo looked around his alley domain. Cars beeped and chugged on Main Street beyond the Farraday. Elmo seemed to listen and then touch his face.

“Just need another tomorrow,” he said. “And who’m I trying to impress, I ask you.”

“You’ve got a point,” I said. “But if you put the shave together with a bath, some clean clothes from Hy’s or Chi Chi’s Slightly Worn on Hoover, you might be able to line up a job.”

“Had one once,” Elmo said with a smile. “Makes me itch. Got no patience. Most guys out here …” He looked around, but there weren’t any guys. “Most guys have a story. What they were. What they walked away from. You know?”

“I know,” I said.

Elmo jangled the coins in his pocket. 

"I got no story. No ambition. What the hell. You’re born one day. Sixty, seventy years later you’re dead. You know?”

“I know,” I said.

Elmo shook his head.

“So,” he went on, “the way I figure it, why waste the sixty, seventy with work, trying to get something you can’t keep anyway. I’m not starvin’. I’m not cold or wet most days. I get plenty of time to read over at the library or wherever.”

“I get your point, Elmo.”

“You think I could really get a job?” he asked, looking away from me. “I mean if I cleaned up okay?”

“Lot of jobs, Elmo. The gravy’s in the navy.”

Born Guilty by Reginald Hill (St Martin's Press 1995)

'My oh my,' said Merv Golightly as Joe got into his taxi. 'It's a dressy up party, is it? Have to hurry, don't want you to be any later.'

'I'm not late,' protested Joe.

'Oh yes, you are. About thirty years in that suit, I'd say!'

Merv, who appreciated a good joke, especially his own, laughed at this one for the first five minutes of the journey. Even Joe had to admit there was a real point to it. What to wear at Willie Woodbine's party had exercised his mind greatly. The balding cord jacket was obviously out, though he had hopes if it got much smoother, it might eventually pass for a blazer in the dark with the light behind it. This left either the casual look, which meant his blue leather jerkin over a Gary Glitter T-shirt; or the formal look which meant his funeral, wedding, and choir performance suit.

It was a good suit. He'd had it so long it had come back into fashion twice, and there was hardly a mark on it. Unfortunately, with its broad lapels, slanting pockets, triple-buttoned jacket and seventeen-inch trousers with a two-inch turn, it was at the bottom of its fashion cycle just now.

Poet in the Gutter by John Baker (St. Martin's Press 1995)

Sam went to the men’s group because it was winter and cold in the flat, and because he was off the booze, and because another marriage had gone bust. There’s this place runs groups of all kinds, every night of the week. It cost ninety pence to get in, and that particular night Sam had the choice of Esperanto or the men’s group or going back on the booze. He walked in on them and sat down in the circle. They were talking about fairy stories and Iron John and about how women were in touch with the earth and men in the twentieth century were alienated. Sam thought about switching to Esperanto or walking fifty yards down the road for a beer and chaser. But he stayed put.

Cycle of Violence by Colin Bateman (Arcade Publishing 1995)

I'm not stupid, not stupid at all. I'm just not qualified at anything. I've no exams. Wasn't much cop at school. But I'm bright enough. I'm wasted here. I mean, I can't be a bloody waitress all my life. I can't get a degree in waitressing. I can't go on University Challenge reading menus. What Jamie was doing for me, as well as being my lover, was educating me. I'd never wanted to read before, but he schooled me in it, sitting here talking about the great writers. But it was a curious kind of schooling, all done through a drunken haze, a kind of second-hand education in which I picked up on the enthusiasm but only half picked up on all the facts. Half remembered names and titles. There's nothing like walking into a bookshop in Belfast and asking for Dr. Chicago by Doris Pasterneck."

"It's easily done . . ."

"Or The Day of the Jack Russell."

"Well, I . . ."

"A Pitcher of Dorian Grey. The list goes on. What I want to do well is write. Write my book."

"You've started?"

"A thousand times."

"It's hard, isn't it?"

"You've tried yourself?"

"Many's a time. I wrote a novel once, sent it off to a publisher. They kept it. Sent me back a copy of the Northern Ireland telephone directory, said it had marginally fewer characters and a better plot. I haven't written much since then."

Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman (Arcade Publishing 1995)

"I don't think it would be a good idea to call the police."

"Why?" He stared into my face. "We've just been shot at. We could be dead." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "You think they were the police?"

I shook my head. "They were Protestant paramilitaries."

"Protestant? How can you tell?"

"Two ways, really. One: they fucked up. Proddies have a habit of fucking up operations like this. They outnumber the IRA ten to one but couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. Correction. They usually do organize a piss-up in a brewery before they try anything and that's why they fuck up."

"And two?"

The skinhead who shot at us. He had FTP written on his head."

"FTP. Tattooed? What's it mean?"

"No, just written. Like with a felt pen. It stands for Fuck the Pope. It's a dead giveaway. Actually, they're improving. Usually they can't spell FTP."

The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner 1995)

Brownlow went on with his packing but kept stopping to look at Shahid - who was turning the aubergine in his hand - like he wanted to say something. "The thing is, this religion - the superstitions, cults, forms of worship, prayers - some are beautiful, some interesting, all have their purposes. But who'd have imagined they'd survive rationalism? Yet just when you thought God was dead and buried, you realize he was merely awaiting resurrection! Every fucker's discovering some God inside them now. And who am I to challenge this?"

"Exactly. I'd say you're just a weak bastard, Dr. Brownlow."

"Thank you. Are they the fools or am I the fool? Where does that leave me?"

Where could it leave you?"

"Because, because, you i-idiot, everything I believed has turned into shit. There we were, right up to the end of the seventies, arguing about society after the r-revolution, the nature of the dialectic, the meaning of history. And all the while, as we debated in our journals, it was being taken from us. The British people didn't want e-education, housing, the a-arts, justice, equality . . . "

"Why's that?"

Because they're a bunch of fucking greedy, myopic c-cunts."

"The working class?"

"Yes!"

"A bunch of cunts?"

"Yes!" Brownlow struggled to contain himself. "No, no, it's more complicated. Very complicated." He was sobbing. "I can't say they've betrayed us - though I think it, I do! It's not true, not true! They've b-b-betrayed themselves!"

He untucked his shirt and wiped it across his drenched face. He threw down his hands, put his head back and, with his lips quivering, angled his thinker's forehead at the ceiling.
"C-c-cut my throat. Please. Lost in more than my fortieth year - no direction home! End me before things get w-w-w-worse!"

Shahid leapt up and rushed to the window. Thinking he'd heard Chad coughing, he concealed himself behind the dusty curtain and peered outside.

"You don't have to plead, Brownlow, the throat-cutters are checking the address right now. They'll be coming up the front path. If you stay in that position, redemption will be on the way!"

Shahid could see no one. But it was dark, and if his enemies did reach him, he'd be trapped here; and Brownlow gibbering like Gogol's madman awaiting the straitjacket, would hardly provide cover.

The Borough by Michael Cannon (Serpent's Tail 1995)

I came here by accident. It took me a while to realise that the Borough was unique, even for Glasgow. It is poor, and yet it lives cheek-by-jowl with the wealthiest districts which ring the University precincts. This is a strange symbiosis. The University surmounts the hill, its Gothic pile silhouetted by day and floodlight by night. The spire is a landmark for miles. Many of the academics live within walking distance. Small mews flats off cobbled lanes now fetch exorbitant prices. People with more money than sense pay for the prestige of living where a horse was once stalled. This is the city's Bohemia. Across the Kelvin immense town houses, built for the tobacco barons when Glasgow was still the second city of the empire, have been converted into student residences.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (Riverhead Books 1995)

Now, she works for a City law firm (hence, I guess, the restaurants and the expensive suits and the disappearance of the spiky haircut and a previously unrevealed taste for weary sarcasm) not because she underwent any kind of political conversion, but because she was made redundant and couldn't find any legal aid work. She had to take a job that paid about forty-five grand a year because she couldn't find one that paid under twenty; she said that this was all you need to know about Thatcherism, and I suppose she had a point.