Hmmm...I always assumed Hansen was gay. I guess it's because
I read an
an essay in Robin Winks' Colloquium on Crime where Hansen
related how
determined and committed he was to "fit (his) chosen
subject
(homosexuality) into the murder-mystery form."
As for the books being not typical hardboiled, that's true
only in that
they're so well-written. Dave Brandstetter's toughness is
more internal
than your average scenery-chewing big swinging dick, but he
is tough,
with a rock-hard moral code, and Hansen's tough, terse prose
style is
right out of Hammett. Really.
Anyone who skips this series because the hero's gay is
missing out on
one of the very best, well-written P.I. series ever written.
And
Hansen's to be commended for not just for writing the series,
but for
actually ending it. Not many authors bother to do that. Which
brings up
the question: has Stephen Greenleaf pulled a Brandstetter on
us?
End of rave.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Smith
Drop by The Thrilling Detective Web Site
and vote for your favorite P.I. of the Nineties
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.