Re: RARA-AVIS: hardboiled book discussion group

Mari Hall (Found.Dead.In.Texas@airmail.net)
Fri, 03 Oct 1997 09:18:26 -0500 Mike Laughrin wrote:
>
> Dear List,
> I am an avid reader of hardboiled mysteries. To my best estimate,
> I have read about 2000 of them. Each week I read anywhere from 1 to 4
> books, and most of them are hardboiled.
> Is there a forum for discussing hardboiled novels? Is this it?
> The reason I ask is that when I go to the library or the bookstore, I
> often have difficulty in finding new books to read that I will like as I
> have already read a great deal of them. I would welcome any suggestions
> in line (more or less) with my taste. Also, I am happy to make
> recommendations to other who are addicted to "tough-guy" books.
> Here are some of the authors who I have read and liked:
> 1. Robert Parker
> 2. Dick Francis
> 3. Sara Paretsky
> 4. Sue Grafton
> 5. Greg McDonald
> 6. Joseph Wambaugh
> 7. John MacDonald
>
> I should add that I do not much care for horror fiction. I prefer the
> chase to the killing.
> Thanks much for your ideas.
> Sincerely,
> Michael Laughrin
> vedic-astrologer@easyon.com
> #
> # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
> # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.

At the risk of offending, you sound more like a "medium-boil" :) :) <g>
(is this enough ha,ha's??) Do you know about Andrew Vachss?? He is the
top (IMHO) of the hard-boiled list. Bill Pronzini who has written the
"Nameless" series (you go all through the series [many many books] and
the lead character never is "named". If you like British Noir, you might
like the Derek Raymond books called "the Factory series". Also there was
series, and the author's name escapes me, but it was about Petrella and
one of the titles was "Petrella at Q" which is also Brit. My best
suggestion is also to thumb throught the book of short stories that was
read here recently called "Hard Boiled" by the aforementioned Pronzini
and see what stories are included, that will give you some start as to
authors who also write novel-length fiction. Try Patricia Highsmith's
"Ripley" series (all have "Ripley" in the titles) one or maybe the whole
series was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" movie. I'm sure it's
going to be "off with her head" BUT I tend to like the British and
European Noir. and before I forget -- try James Elroy - with the upsurge
of LA CONFIDENTIAL my local (the nearest used bookstore) says they can't
keep copies in stock. Happy reading!
>From Mari Hall Found.Dead.In.Texas@airmail.net
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.