: While theoretically Chandler's essay gave the kiss of death
to the
: cozy genre, in practice it did not. Long before Chandler,
Hammett
: had roasted Van Dine in a very "hardboiled" review of one
of his
: books.
Do you have any details on this? I don't think I've read it.
Eddie
Duggan mailed me some Hammett material a while back, and I
thought it
might have been in there, but if it was, I've mislaid
it.
: I think the distinction between the classic cozy and the
classic
: hardboiled lies to a large extent in authorial voice, in
the "slant"
: if you will.
That and, I'd have to add, the characters (fewer vicars
and
sherry-sipping spinsters in hardboiled fiction, fewer Purple
Gangs and
hoods in cozies) and "clews." From what I've seen, they can
be quite
important in cozies, and on the whole they're much less
important in
hardboiled stories.
Doug Levin mentioned he had recently finished his first
novel, and I
must admit I recently finished mine. In it, I have one guy
relate a
story, which is actually Conan Doyle's "The Norfolk
Builder"
translated into stereotypical hardboiled lingo. Holmes
becomes a
tough dick, Watson is his friend "Doc," London becomes San
Francisco,
Lestrade becomes the standard sarcastic cop. The idea works
fair
well, I think.
On another note, I picked up a couple of the early Matt
Scudder novels
today - one is _When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, which I'm
really
looking forward to reading. I saw _King Suckerman_, the new
one by
George Pelecanos. I know people have mentioned him here and
he's
well-liked - has anyone read this?
Bill
--
William Denton | Toronto, Canada | http://www.vex.net/~buff/ | Caveat lector.
"Let's keep the party polite."
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