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Michael D. Sharp Email: msharp@umich.edu
Department of English Lang. and Lit. Phone: (313)
761-8776
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Fax: (313) 763-3128
On Sun, 30 Nov 1997, Mario Taboada wrote:
> Rick Robinson has a point - the promotional machine
is always looking
> for wunderkinds and blockbusters, and there are many
mystery readers
> (even quite avid ones) who don't know of Tucker Coe
or Richard Stark, or
> going back a ways, of Gault, Browne, Dewey, or even
Ross Macdonald
> (Chandler and Hammett everyone has heard of, but that
doesn't mean that
> they have that many readers). But even recent writers
who work at a very
> high level, like Crumley (he has spoken about his
sales, which are
> pitiful and never have gone beyond 10,000 copies), or
Loren Estleman or
> Max Allan Collins, two writers who uphold the
tradition, or of Arthur
> Lyons (one of the best mystery writers to ever have
come out of
> California, and the infinitive stays split,
dammit!).
>
> I suspect this is partly due to tax laws that make it
very costly for
> publishers to keep old material in print. Even Ross
Macdonald was out of
> print for a few years! As some readers of this list
surely know, the
> situation in England is very different, and there are
*lots* of reprints
> of classic hardboiled authors available at low prices
(No Exit Press,
> Allison & Busby, etc.).
>
> All of that said, there are several hardboiled
writers now working who
> deserve all the praise they get, like Block,
Pronzini, Walter Mosley,
> James Sallis, Teri White, James Lee Burke, James
Ellroy, etc. We may
> even be in a kind of golden age for the hardboiled
mystery...
>
> Regards,
>
> Mario Taboada
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