Like Mark I have not read Masur in years but I recall
enjoying his novels about Scott Jordan, who like his creator
was an attorney. The novels were well crafted first-person
narratives with the prose about medium-boiled. I always
thought he (or Lee Wright at Simon & Schuster) had a gift
for classic H-B titles such as SUDDENLY A CORPSE (1949), YOU
CAN'T LIVE FOREVER (1950), and SEND ANOTHER HEARSE
(1960).
I can also recommend his collection of short stories THE NAME
IS JORDAN
(Pyramid 1962). That reminds me that Pyramid did a nice
series of short story collections about this time with
another good volume by Craig Rice.
Does anyone have a death date on Masur? I don't recall
hearing of his death and as a former president of MWA, it
would have gotten some notice. He would be 95 if he is still
vertical.
Masur often told the story of mentioning in an early novel
that his character smoked Camel cigarettes. Some weeks after
the novel appeared, he received two cartons of cigarettes
from the tobacco company. In his next novel his character
drove a Cadillac but the complimentary car never
appeared.
Richard Moore
<< ate: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 18:12:03 -0400
From:
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net (Mark Sullivan)
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: A Harold Q. Masur read?
Ed, I haven't read Masur in decades, but I went through
a string of them
at one point, starting with Bury Me Deep. I don't
remember much, if
anything, specific about them, but I do remember liking
them (and that,
at least at the time, they were pretty easy to find in
used bookstores).
For some reason, he's link in my mind with George
Harmon Coxe's novels
about news photographer Kent Murdock. I must have been
reading them
around the same time.
Mark
>>
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