I've just started Carl Hiaassen's Native Tongue, in an
omnibus with Strip Tease. I've been on a Hiaassen's hiatus,
you might say, for a few years, having OD'd at one point. I'm
enjoying this one.
I've just finished The Eyre Affair, featuring literary
detective special operative Thursday Next, by Jasper Fforde.
A lot of fun: part detective novel, part SF, totally
literary, humorous and satirical. A lot of HB conventions
observed, but definitely not all. As usual, I'm about four
books behind in this series.
I recently read Fresh Flesh, by Stella Duffy, in which
lesbian detective Saz Martin tries to track down the
biological parents of her child-to-be's biological father and
uncovers "the greatest crime of all." It was okay, not
great.
Read two more by Liz Evans this summer, Who Killed Marilyn
Monroe? and Cue the Easter Bunny. Private detective Smith
ekes out a living in a rundown English seaside town. The wry
humour appeals to me.
I saw The Narrow Margin (1952). A woman has to be escorted
across the country by train to testify at a big criminal
trial. Great twist at the end, but a few unlikely bits in the
middle. I don't think this was based on a book, but it is
film noir as far as I'm concerned, so I'll just slip in this
mention.
Also saw The Big Clock (1948), based on the book by Fearing.
The plot is simplified somewhat, perhaps for cinematic
reasons, but I got the impression it was more to clean it up.
For instance, in the book, George Stroud has spent a weekend
with the woman who winds up murdered. In the movie, he's just
been drinking with her. The motive for the murder is changed
slightly, as well, but since I didn't think it was very
convincing to begin with, I didn't much care. The film was
overall quite good.
On the other hand, I watched Vertigo (based on d'Entre les
Morts by Boileau and Narcejac) with my kids and we laughed in
all the wrong places. The scene where the carousel operator
crawls underneath on his belly to turn off the out-of-control
ride, but stops to wipe his brow just before getting to the
controls, had them howling in disbelief. Poor Hitchcock's
reputation is not holding up among my younger generation. But
we keep going back for another try.
Karin
At 04:00 PM 18/09/2007 -0500, Kent wrote:
>I'm pretty sure when I joined this list several years
ago we used to discuss
>books and what we were reading. In recent months this
seems to have been
>forgotten and many of the regular readers/posters
seem to have disappeared.
>Oh, where, oh where have they gone? Anyone want to
tell me and other list
>members what they have been reading or tell us about
some of their recent
>finds?
>
>Kent Morgan
>
>
>
>
>RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Sep 2007 EDT