Interesting. By that definition, John Camp's FOOL'S RUN and
THE EMPRESS
FILES qualify. For want of another description, the
protagonist (and
those he employs) are professional vengeance handlers. They
contract out
to defeat corrupt town leaders, or big business
powermongers.
Here's another one: John Clarkson's excellent AND JUSTICE FOR
ALL. The
hero is Jack Devlin, head of international security for
some
world-spanning conglomerate who returns home when his only
relative is
beaten near to death in a bar. As he investigates, he runs up
against a
powerful gang of thugs who have some police in their hip
pocket. A minor
investigation escalates into an all-out war.
Does the fact that the corrupt institution is basically
criminal fall
into the hb category?
> Noir, on the other hand, has a gloomy air. Fear and
despair are to the
> fore. Bad things happen--wrongful imprisonment of
innocent man, for
> example.
>
> Institutionalised corruption is not a generic
requirement of noir as I
> see it.
>
> Hope this helps/leads to further
discussion.
>
> ED
So the theme of wrongfully imprisoned guy (or the guy who
takes the fall
for a corrupt friend), who returns for retribution is what
... noir or
hard boiled?
And what about ambience? Can't a hardboiled novel also be
gloomy.
Reference any of Thomas Cook's early novel that featured a
New York cop
that quits to become an Atlanta private eye.
... Reed
#
# 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/.