RARA-AVIS: MacDonald and Connelly

Roger Dowdy (rdowdy@sprintmail.com)
Wed, 14 Jan 1998 12:30:20 -0800 While I enjoyed _The Drowning Pool_ I found the claim that MacDonald
"inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler" (as it
says on the back of the 1996 Vintage Crime edition) to be a bit of a
stretch. Maybe I missed something but I didn't really get the feeling I
was even reading a HB novel. Aside from the subject matter (i.e.
children out of wedlock, gay lovers) which I imagine was pretty racy for
1950, I didn't get a sense of the darkness and despair involved in these
people's lives.

As for Connelly... I thoroughly enjoyed his first book _The Black Echo_
for which he won an Edgar Award -- by far the best in the Bosch series
IMHO (although _The Concrete Blond_ is also quite good). If _The Black
Ice_ is your only experience with Connelly, my apologies. I came away
with the impression it was hastily done and certainly a poor second
showing to _The Black Echo_.

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