[Cover art omitted, because it might embarrass some of our readers.]

I liked the way her hips swayed hard. She was a chiropractor’s dream.

I’m rooting for David H. Fears. He’s attempting to revive the classic hard-boiled mystery in his Mike Angel novels. On the basis of Dark Quarry, the first in the series, I’d say his reach still exceeds his grasp a bit, but he’s close enough to persuade me to come back and see how he progresses.

Dark Quarry is set around the year 1960. It starts, in a sense, where The Maltese Falcon ended, if you imagine that Sam Spade had agreed to “play the sap” for Brigid O’Shaughnessy. New York private eye (he later relocates to Chicago) Mike Angel finds Kimbra Ambler, a woman he’s been shadowing for a client, standing over the body of her abusive husband, whom she’s just shot. Instead of turning her in, he lets his heart guide him and assists her in getting rid of the body.

Later she comes back to try to kill him, but he disarms her, then just sends her on her way, still starry-eyed about her.

Because that’s the kind of mug Mike is.

The book involves two other cases, one of which sends Mike to prison for a while. All of them, improbably, are connected to the machinations of a Russian crime gang operating in America. And all of them involve beautiful women, to whom Mike finds it hard to say no—about anything.

I thought of Raymond Chandler as I read Dark Quarry, but I think the style is actually closer to Mickey Spillane’s (though I’ve only read one Spillane. Don’t like his misogyny). Mike Angel is very different from Mike Hammer, though, where the dames are concerned. Where Spillane’s detective kept his calloused heart to himself, Mike Angel is a pure romantic. In his dealings with all the women he encounters (he has great “luck” in attracting attractive clients), he seems to be always seeking the perfect love, the gentle soul who’ll heal his hurts. I remember a philosophy professor once quoting someone who said, “A beautiful woman is a promise she can’t keep.” Mike falls for that promise every time.

He’s also different from other detectives in that, in moments of danger, he gets sound advice from the mystic voice of his dead father. There were also some jabs at the Communists, which pleased me.

Not quite up to the level of Raymond Chandler’s prose, Dark Quarry was nevertheless good enough for this Hard-boiled fan. I’ve already purchased the next book in the series. Cautions for language, steamy sex scenes, and offensive-even-to-me (though historically accurate) contempt for the one homosexual character in the story.