> I kicked off eighties month with the English
translation of The Prone
Gunman
> by Jean-Patrick Machette. It features the hitman
Martin Terrier and offers
a
I just read that a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic.
It takes the conventional story of a hitman wanting to leave
the game but somehow turns it upside down somewhere along the
way. It constantly keeps surprising you and the whole last
section of the book is absolute dynamite. I also loved the
other Manchette translation from City Lights (3 TO KILL,
which reminded me of Donald Hamilton; the main character
starts out as a family man, soon targeted by a couple of
hitmen: he adapts and turns the tables) and can only hope
they do many others. Has anybody read the other City Lights
Noir titles? Thierry Jonquet, I think... and a Spanish novel
related to jazz? I forget.
> For now I've moved on to Knotts and Crosses, the
first of the Inspector
> Rebus series. I've always wanted to get into this
series, but have never
> been able to, which I hope is because I've never
started at the beginning
> and have simply made half-hearted stabs at books
further down the line.
Another title I just read a month ago or so, and so far the
only Rebus novel I've read. It was good, occasionally very
good, but never went into high gear.
Also, I've been rereading MIAMI BLUES which goes with the
month's theme, and it's just as wonderful as I remembered it.
The brilliance is in the everyday details like the patter
between Freddy and the cabbie Ms. Freeman, and the running
joke with Hoke's teeth that at first isn't funny, but by the
time Sgt. Wilson tosses them out on the street I was holding
back the guffaws. Great stuff.
--Juha.
-- JT Lindroos wit's end publishing www.sendwit.com Forthcoming: The Second Half of the Double Feature by Charles Willeford
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Apr 2003 EDT