Re: RARA-AVIS: Corner Brook Confidential and Assorted Collinses

From: Mark Sullivan ( DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net)
Date: 11 Jun 2004


Kevin wrote, in response to Duane:

"Yes, he seems almost forgotten now, possibly because in these times of dumbed down political commentary, where morons are praised for being
"down to earth," he's defiantly intelligent and political, and a liberal
-- in the truest sense of the word -- to boot."

Duane, you are far from alone in your praise of the Dan Fortune series. I picked up one when Playboy Press was reprinting them a decade ago, actually probably more than two. Then I picked up them all. (The one advantage to Collins not being as well known as he deserves is that those reprints are now relatively easy to find used.) The character was fully developed and his politics were completely interwoven in the stories -- no harangues as sidebars (not that I don't enjoy Travis's sermons).

You might want to check out another series by Collins/Lynds, written under the name Mark Sadler. Paul Shaw is a corporate PI, not an outsider like Fortune. It is interesting to see the same critique, but this time shown from within the belly of the beast. Again, though, these books are good reads first, not dry political treatises.

Oh, and just because Collins is critical of the workings of our class system does not mean he sets up easy upper class targets to be knocked down. His individuals, no matter what their class, are always complex characters. However, class gives some of those characters the means that the waves from their actions, good, bad or in between, often crest much further from their source.

Mark

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