I think you'll find that many people on this list have fairly
broad
reading tastes. I was delighted when I found rara-avis
because I
think it's focus on hardboiled literature fulfils an
important niche.
Hardboiled writing gets lost among the mystery enthusiasts in
the
blizzard of cozies and the serious literature enthusiasts can
be
nervous when slumming.
I'm a big fan of Rankin and McDermid and think they have a
noir
sensibility. I love P. D. James work and don't consider
her
hardboiled by any means, but anyone expecting the comforts
of
cozydom must feel profoundly disturbed at her relentless
parsing of
her characters. Her exquisite prose camouflages a world view
at
times as bleak as any of the American tough guys.
I read Burke, Crumley, Crais, Ellroy, the South Florida
writers
including Hiaasen, Hall, Standiford, Shames, and now
Leonard.
This is just a very small, off the top of my head list of
living writers I
think I are part of the harboiled/noir tradition, offered to
illustrate
that hardboiled/noir remains among the living.
Unless a plague of killer bookworms is unleashed, it's likely
to
remain so.
Fred
Please note new addresses below:
------------------------
Down on Ponce by Fred Willard
fwillard@bellsouth.net
http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/~fwillard
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