Toros & Torsos: A Hector Lassiter novel

If you want to know more about Papa Hemingway, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, and a group of artists at this time in history then this is the book for you. Graig McDonald moves the book along with a great storm down in the Keys of Florida with horrible events of man against man or should I say woman against other people. Just the research done to be able to write a book like this makes this book worth the read. Like STAR WARS Graig McDonald books are not rewritten in order of Hector Lassiter life time. This book goes before his previous book of HEAD GAMES which is about the end of Hector Lassiter life.

Toros Torsos is a fabulous read. Craig McDonald has a flair for hard boiled dialogue and a deft hand at penning descriptions that stick with you. In Toros & Torsos McDonald has woven a mix of historical events and characters into a richly tectured and varied plot. The acton, which takes place over 3 decades and an equal amount of continents, keeps the reader engaged and turning the page. I'll be looking for more from this author int he future.

The story here spans more than two decades and yet is not an historical epic. For all the many famous historical figures in the book, everyone from Orson Welles to Ernest Hemingway, the focus rightly and tightly remains fixed on fictional protagonist Hector Lassiter. 'Lasso,' as Hemingway calls him, is very much a man's man, and a lady's man, too. But he's a far, far cry from being a Travis McGee or a Jack Reacher. Lasso has a cold-blooded streak McGee would flinch from owning; and Jack Reacher has stepped aside from social interaction while Lasso is steeped in it. Author McDonald has created a surreal story in which surrealism itself goes on trial and is found very, very guilty. Dual identity, debauchery, fascists and anarchists, film stars and critics, hurricane, civil war, spying, McCarthyism...all of that and more gets wrapped around a series of murders that shows up 'cute' psychopaths such as Showtime's Dexter as the pretenders they are. It's difficult to discuss this book without major spoilers, but let me just say that if you get the right book club members together, the discussion could go on all night.

McDonald's follow up to last year's quirky but delightful Head Games finds his series character Hector "The writer who lives what he writes" Lassiter caught up in an adventure which spans several decades as he tries to discover the identity of a serial killer seemingly inspired by surrealist art. Beginning in 1935 in the Florida Keys, and concluding in 1959 in Cuba, the novel also features the Black Mask contributor's famous associates and friends, folks like the volatile Ernest Hemingway, directors Orson Welles and John Huston, and the alluring Rita Hayworth. Belying its strange and slightly offputting title, McDonald's sophomore effort is loads of fun, as the author seamlessly incorporates his fictional characters and storyline into historical events like the tragic Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the Spanish Civil War, the filming of The Lady from Shanghai, and the Black Dahlia murders, providing a fresh and involving take on these happenings. McDonald effectively exploits nearly every noir cliché and trope in the book to do so, producing an engrossing and riveting read.

Being a bit of a history buff with a definite interest in significant figures in Americana (spanning the gamut from Presidents to writers to murderers, human monsters, their victims, etc.), I'm finding myself reading more and more historical non-fiction these days ... but every once in a while (at least every other book), I need a jolt of fiction the way a junkie needs a fix. Sometimes I luck out and get a combination of pretty much everything I enjoy ... significant figures of Americana, history, humor and pure darkness ... and this time I got to learn a little bit more about things I'm just not up on (the list is endless, but here at least I took a first step), like surreal art and artists ... Craig McDonald's Toros & Torsos had me googling one artist after another--some guy (Emmanuel Radnitzky) really called himself Man Ray? ... and the lug was from Brooklyn by way of Philadelphia? Toros & Torsos was another wonderful trip back to the Hemingway-Welles history with cameos by John Huston and Rita Hayworth against the wonderful fictional character Hector Lassiter; the relationships/interrelationships between Lassiter and the formidable cast mentioned above make Toros & Torsos another engaging and illuminating read. This go we start in the keys (a few days before the worst hurricane disaster there on record), cross the Atlantic for some fun during the Franco war in Spain, slip into Cuba immediately after Batista takes a powder and with a few quick trips out to LA/Hollywood interspersed we eventually wind up in Idaho (where Papa Hem takes his bow). Even Elizabeth (Betty) Short (the Black Dahlia murder victim) makes an historical appearance and the way the novel is strung together through the surrealist art form is just another wonderful learning experience that is an extra, extra bonus to reading Craig McDonald. The dialogue (all the characters) is convincing and pitch-perfect. McDonald has quickly shot to the top of my very short A+ list of crime writers that include Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis and James Ellroy. Wanna feel some American history? Read Toros and Torsos ... a scary trip down memory lane with Papa Hemingway, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth and a woman (or is it two women?) with a serious identity crisis (and penchant for murder), a group of artists unable to distinguish the real from the surreal and your guide for this cross-continent chase is the honorable, loveable and fearless Hector Lassiter. A lotta innocent victims are the prelude to at least a few really bad guys getting their just desserts. McDonald shoots to the top of the crime writing heap with this well-researched and excellently written masterpiece of Americana.