MrT writes of Bill James' Harpur & Iles books:
<< The psychological complexity of his characters,
the
beautiful coldness of his style, the real-life
sloppiness
of the cases, the moral ambiguity, and the
realistic
dialogue all contribute as much to the procedural genre
as
any amount of detail on procedure. This may sound
exagerated, but I think James has invented something,
has
in effect renewed the genre. >>
I read about four Bill James' books maybe a year back. The
earlier ones seemed more straightforward (though filled with
conversational sniping), but some of the later ones seem
especially odd and original. I wouldn't have called them
realistic or real-life (though "beautiful coldness of ...
style" seems right on the money), but rather something like
vivid and fresh. The dialogue is too clever and mind-bending
at times to be realistic per se (or perhaps I am conversing
with the wrong people in my everyday life), but because of
this (rather than in spite of), I'd recommend Bill James a
lot.
(I'm a little wary of the critereon "realistic" for areas of
the world on which I have little authority to judge.)
Doug
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