In the past week I've had one of those magical moments in a
lifetime of book collecting. From my comments through the
years here and elsewhere, it won't surprise anyone to know
that if forced to name my favorite writer in the
crime/detection/espionage/etc. fields I would have to name
Ross Thomas. He has my number! Even his lesser novels have
enough delights to keep me entertained even while I see the
flaws. At his best, he can hold his own with anyone.
Also, I have written more about Atlanta writer Ralph Dennis,
creator of the Jim Hardman series, than anyone and hope to
see him return to print.
So my eyes nearly bugged out on stalks when I checked
abebooks.com last week and found an Advanced Readers Copy of
OUT ON THE RIM by Ross Thomas autographed by Thomas to Ralph
Dennis for $50. I was on that like a jaybird on a june bug. I
know the seller well. Cliff ran the best used bookstore in
Atlanta (The Old New York Book Shop) from 1971 until sometime
in the nineties. He is now all mail order and did not respond
to my question--but I rather imagine he didn't see it.
Knowing Cliff, I am sure he had continuous contact with Ralph
through the years and will quiz him about that when I am in
Atlanta later this summer. I don't know if Cliff handled the
books Ralph left at his death (which was not that long after
the publication of this novel) or if Ralph sold or traded him
books through the years. I've also not yet asked his sister,
but I will.
For now it is enough to have a volume that passed through the
hands of two of my favorites. Whatever else this new pleasure
tells me, I remain a Collector!
Richard Moore
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # 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 : 28 Jun 2004 EDT