--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue" <jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
> To the lurkers and new people: don't be shy, jump in.
> mrt
>
Been lurkin last two weeks because I've been immersed in Robert Deane Pharr's "The Book of Numbers". To me, the comparisons on the jacket to Chester Himes and Walter Mosely aren't really warranted - Pharr's novel is so character-driven as to border on plotless. It takes place in an underworld outside the bounds of the law, the numbers racket of Richmond, VA in the 1930s, but has none of the violent action you would usually associate with a tag like 'crime fiction'. So it's not a rara-avis type book, but I'm diggin it. Maybe not as much as my fave book of Pharr's, "S.R.O" but it's a close second. I am finding it much richer than "Giveadamn Brown", which is much more in the goofiest Himes mode.
Tom Armstrong
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