Black & White: The Second Diary

July 11, 2011
At the start of this disappointing thriller from Benson (Evil Hours), 48-year-old Martin Talbot learns from a confessional letter that his 72-year-old, Alzheimer's-afflicted mother, Judy, wrote years earlier that she was the Black Stiletto, "ne of the most famous people on the planet," a costumed vigilante who began to operate in New York City in 1958. Extracts from Judy's diary tell her story. When puberty hits, Judy Cooper finds she has superhuman vision and hearing as well as an "intuition" that can tell her whether a person is good or bad. After being sexually abused by her stepfather, she flees her Texas home for the Big Apple, where she finds someone willing to teach her boxing. When the gangster she falls for is killed, Judy, inspired by reading a Batman comic, adopts the persona of the costumed hero to take on the mob. Fans of Alan Moore's work incorporating superheroes into a realistic world will find this similar effort doesn't measure up.

March 19, 2012
Benson’s The Black Stiletto (2011) introduced masked crime fighter Judy Cooper, who fought crime, inflamed public imagination, and, like many vigilante heroes, got mixed reviews from law enforcement as she roamed 1958 New York City. In this cartoonish sequel set the next year, Judy takes on an established mob (Italian) and an emerging mob (Negro) with her fists, feet, and trademark stiletto while flirting with FBI agent John Richardson. In the present, Martin Talbot, Judy Cooper Talbot’s son, discovers his aged mother’s long-buried secrets as revealed in her diaries and an old 8-mm film. Tacking back and forth between the diaries and Talbot’s dilemma when someone else produces the same film, Benson crafts dual dramas. Stiletto’s girlish diary touches on cultural milestones while she strikes literal blows for the downtrodden. This lightweight entertainment will most likely to appeal to fans of comic book heroines. Agent: Peter Miller, Global Lion.

May 15, 2012
The Black Stiletto was a vigilante crime fighter in New York and Los Angeles in the late fifties and early sixties, much celebrated in the media, though his or her identity was unknown. A Chicago man, Martin Talbot, is cleaning out the family basement when he finds a diary and an 8mm film suggesting that his mother, Judy Talbot, debilitated by dementia, was the Black Stiletto. Benson's novel has three branches. First, we have young Judy's diary of her adventures, including a romance with the FBI agent assigned to arrest her. The agent's notes form a second narrative track. Lastly, Martin Talbot has a modern problem. Another copy of the film has surfaced, and its owner is demanding $1 million or he'll go public. This second installment in the Black Stiletto series is just damn fun, effectively mixing the story of young, fearless Judy and the poignant struggle of Martin to protect his mother from an onslaught of publicity that she won't understand. Sheer entertainment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)