RARA-AVIS: down on ponce

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Mon, 19 Oct 1998 00:43:39 -0400 (EDT) I finished Fred Willard's Down on Ponce last night. I must say it
deserves every good thing said about it and I hope it wins the Creasey
Award.

The plotting was tight and the characters are truly memorable, almost
caricatures, but totally believable ones. What I probably enjoyed most,
though, was "listening" to the characters talk. In this aspect, it
reminded me a bit of the Southern talk in the books of Barry Gifford.
No matter what is going on, there is always time to state an opinion on
something, often on the theme of the difference between white and blue
collar criminals and how in thievery, the pen is mightier than the
sword, at least in the amount of money stolen. I was especially moved
by the guy who decides that he will take his ill-gotten gains (ripping
off white collar criminals) and use it to go to college so he can learn
to become a white collar criminal himself.

But this social opinion never gets in the way of the plot. Or the
humor. Most of the points are made through believable absurdity, from
the characters themselves, to what they say and what they do.

Good luck on the award Fred. You deserve it.

Mark

#
# 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/.