RARA-AVIS: the city and the country

Gary Warren Niebuhr (piesbook@execpc.com)
Tue, 24 Nov 1998 17:51:42 -0800 ><< But does hardboiled fiction have to come from huge, crime-ridden urban
> centres in the U.S.? Seems to me it only takes one violent antagonist to
> get things going.

I am reading a book right now which is the second in the "La Crosse
trilogy." The author is Rick Harsch, and last year he produced a work
called THE DRIFTLESS ZONE. It featured some noirish folks in small town
Wisconsin doing bad things to each other. It was a remarkable work in its
unique and fresh approach to this area, and I liked it. However, it was
not considered for nomination by the Wisconsin Literary Awards Committee
(on which I sit).

This year's book is BILLY VERITE, and Billy is a former informant weasel
from the first book who has decided to become a P. I. However, people are
doing bad things to each other in La Crosse, just like in the first book,
and the book really has little to do with Billy's career choice.

Harsch has a grant that will allow him to complete the trilogy, and what we
will have is three books in the hard-boiled, noir vein set in small town
Wisconsin. It works.

Best, GWN
P.I.E.S. (Private Investigator Entertainment Service)
Catalogs of new and used private eye fiction
Gary Warren Niebuhr, Owner
P. O. Box 341218
Milwaukee, WI 53234
piesbook@execpc.com
<http://www.execpc.com/~piesbook/piescatalog.html>
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