Nobody Move

Starred review from January 12, 2009
National Book Award–winner Johnson (Tree of Smoke
) goes lean and mean in this slick noir, originally serialized in Playboy
last summer. Jimmy Luntz, a chain-smoking, fast-talking addictive gambler, is in the hole several grand to underworld bad dude Juarez, and he knows his kneecaps have a date with a tire iron when enforcer Gambol nabs him in Bakersfield, Calif. But perennial loser Jimmy gets a lucky break when he escapes, having shot Gambol in the leg and taken off with Gambol's cash-fat wallet. Soon enough, he meets alcoholic vixen Anita Desilvera. She's barreling toward oblivion, having been set up by her prosecutor husband and a corrupt judge in a $2.3 million swindle. As Jimmy and Anita hide out and plan a caper to get the millions, Gambol and Juarez track down Jimmy and learn of the big money at stake. Fates collide in the brutal last act, and, naturally, not everyone makes it out alive. With its crackling dialogue and mercilessly bleak worldview, this stark and darkly funny chronicle of a four-way race to the bottom is a testament to Johnson's sublime sympathy for lowlifes.

March 15, 2009
After his award-winning Vietnam epic, Johnson takes a busman's holiday with this hard-boiled genre exercise.

While his previous novel Tree of Smoke (2007) elevated Johnson to a new level of renown, here he seems to take great delight veering toward the gutter in a fast-paced, dialogue-driven crime novel that explores the baser instincts of some California grifters. Instead of more glamorous Los Angeles or San Francisco, Johnson sets his novel in the environs around Bakersfield, where petty gambler Jimmy Luntz finishes as an also-ran in a barber-shop chorus competition. Then he realizes he's an even bigger loser, as he stumbles into the too-obviously named Gambol, who has tailed Luntz to collect a gambling debt. Luntz leaves Gambol with a wound that Johnson describes as"a purple lipless exploded mouth in his flesh" (Mickey Spillane has nothing on this novel) and escapes to encounter a ravishing divorce who is also on the run."You're interesting every way there is," he tells her, after drunken sex and a revelation concerning her involvement in the disappearance of two million dollars. She later tells him,"I like a bad man who hates himself." There are no good guys, or gals, in this novel. And there's no mystery, with police peripheral to the plot. Instead, Johnson seems to be paying homage to and subverting the conventions of the era of pulp fiction at its seediest. Originally published in Playboy, the novel serves as a stopgap before his return to greater literary aspirations. As one character tells another after learning about the death of a third,"In a hundred years we're all dead."

There's some dirty fun here, but plenty of authors are better at this sort of novel.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2009
Johnson follows his epic Vietnam novel, the National Book Award-winning "Tree of Smoke", with this slight noir novella. On impulse, gambling addict Jimmy Luntz shoots and wounds the enforcer Gambol when he comes to collect for loan shark Juarez. On the run, Jimmy crosses paths with the beautiful but alcoholic Anita Desilvera, whose lawyer husband has divorced her, embezzled $2.3 million, and framed her for the crime. A violent cat-and-mouse game through northern California follows as Jimmy and Anita try to take the embezzled money while avoiding Juarez and his henchmen. Originally serialized in "Playboy", this combines Jim Thompson's violent noir, a shot of sexuality, and Elmore Leonard's darkly comic characters but falls short of better work by any of those writers. Deeply flawed but surprisingly likable characters are the highlight in what is otherwise a minor effort, devalued by a muddy plot and a hasty, forced ending. This is an adequate but not necessary selection that will most likely find readers in libraries where Johnson already has an audience. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/09.]Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2009
After Tree of Smoke (2007), Johnsons meaty (and National Book Awardwinning) Vietnam opus, this slim crime novel, first published serially in the pages of Playboy, might seem a mere digestifbut, if so, its a drink for someone who likes to knock back three fingers of whiskey after a drive-through dinner of cheeseburgers and fries. Set in the margins of Californias Central Valley, a milieu that in some ways recalls Already Dead (1997), this pinballing tale concerns Jimmy Luntz, a compulsive gambler who owes money; Gambol, Juarez, and the Tall Man, the loan sharks who want to collect; and Anita Desilvera, an alcoholic knockout plotting to steal the money shes been framed for embezzling. Revenge-minded lowlifes clawing for cash constitute a classic crime trope but, as with the most satisfying crime fiction, plot is tertiary to character and setting. Readers wont know who will winWill it be the ballsy gambler or the psycho who wants to eat the gamblers balls?indeed, they may not even know who theyre rooting for. But getting there is all the fun, with dry dialogue and surprising turns of phrase all adding up to something that seems both fresh and inevitable. Fans of Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, Barry Gifford, and even David Lynch (who, after all, filmed Giffords Wild at Heart) will all find something to savor.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)