The Black Stiletto

The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson

I read this book for two reasons. The first was because it was one of those “Amazon Bargain Bundles”; the second was because I’ve read the author’s six James Bond novels and thought they were mostly excellent.  Had I not been familiar with the author, I never would have attempted to read this one.  After reading the first of the five in the bundle, I kind of wish I hadn’t.  This book didn’t do much for me. Although I’m including this review as part of the “bundle”, I want to emphasize I only read the first one. I really have no interest in continuing.

This book seemed like it really did have the potential to excel, and the first half or so really did keep my attention.  As the story went on, I found it overall silly, predictable, and rather lazy.  By ‘lazy’, I mean that if more care would have gone into the writing, it might have worked for me.  I almost felt like the author was under contract to write 5 of these books quickly, so he hurried through without really giving this story proper care.

A middle-aged man living in the present day has his mother in a nursing home suffering from dementia. Her lawyer is obligated to turn over sensitive documents to her only surviving child.  To his amazement, he discovers his mother was the famous (- cue dramatic music -) BLACK STILETTO!  The Black Stiletto was a female superhero/crime caper who roamed the streets of New York City in the 1950s.  She kept a pretty meticulous diary of her activities, so her son spends the majority of this book reading mom’s memoir, so we get to relive her adventures as they happened.

I confess I never read comic books nor watch superhero movies, so I’m really not sure how the world of such characters function. I was under the impression that most of these crusaders either came from another planet or were the result of some botched scientific experiment that gave them superpowers.  Judy Talbot (her REAL name) doesn’t have any ‘amazing’ tendencies.  She DOES, however, have the ability to hear whispered conversations from afar and immediately ‘know’ when someone is lying to her.  So I guess you could say she has some extraordinary capabilities.  Kind of.  Again, I wish Raymond Benson would have given this more attention.  It seems like a quick, cheap way to make our heroine more powerful and quickly get out of tough jams without much of a realistic explanation.

Notice I said “some” extraordinary capabilities. Judy actually was raised in a very rough West Texas environment. After abuse from her family, she runs away to New York City to begin her new life even though she’s barely a teenager.  But, when the author is lazy, it’s easy for our protagonist to “fake” her age and quickly get a job as a waitress, and then quickly take boxing lessons, karate lessons, knife-wielding lessons etc.  Anytime we’re witnessing Judy doing anything, the author always gives us a detailed playlist of the music going on in the background on a jukebox or something.  I guess he wants his readers not to forget that we’re actually in the 1950s instead of present day.  Somehow, I think that if I were writing a diary, I wouldn’t bother to include the name of every song by every artist that’s playing somewhere in the background.

Well, next thing we know, Judy adopts a superhero alter-ego and she’s taking down mafia bosses and uncovering Cuban spies that are trying to infiltrate our government. (Cuba. Don’t want to, you know, forget it’s the 50s). We also get some stories that take place in the present day. Judy’s son (his name is Martin) is going through a bit of midlife crisis with an ex-wife and a daughter who “won’t listen to reason”. The whole thing is awfully contrived.  We also meet a paroled villain in the present day who The Black Stiletto took down a half-century or so ago, and now he’s out for revenge.  That subplot DID start out kind of interesting, but again…..

There were times when I thought this story would have made a great teen-young reader book instead of serious adult fiction. The level of writing (along with the laziness) seemed more geared towards an audience that might not want to assimilate too many deep things. The problem with that is the subject matter is rather inappropriate for younger readers; such as when and how Judy was abused by her step-father that triggered her running away from home.  There’s also some scenes that are borderline S&M kinky.  Well, what do you expect when the hero is a masked woman dressed in black who pirouettes from building to building while wearing spiked high-heels and wielding a knife?  So, no, I would definitely NOT recommend you letting your 12-year old read this thing.

At the conclusion of the book, there’s still a lot of unanswered questions that Martin has about his mysterious mother.  I’m sure they all get answered in the next four books. Sadly, I really have no desire to find out. After one book, I’m pretty much done.  

I know I sound awfully grouchy.  The book really wasn’t THAT bad.  I’ve read much worse.  I guess it’s a nice semi-quick read if you don’t like to invest too much time digesting massive thousand-page tomes.  I also MUST reiterate that the author’s six James Bond books were excellent. (I’ve reviewed all six on Amazon, and I gave five out of the six stellar five-star reviews).  So if you feel somewhat similar to how I felt after finishing THIS book, please don’t think “How in the heck can this guy handle James Bond???”   He can.  And he did a brilliant job. 

Not so much here.