Re: RARA-AVIS: bad guy books

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Tue, 28 Jul 1998 19:21:18 -0400 (EDT) A good British caper book, with a lot of humor, is A White Merc with
Fins by James Hawes. It's about a bank heist by a gang of youngish
people who hope to do one job and live happily ever after. One
character is a guy who always wears a black suit, white shirt, black
tie, and is in a wannabe gang called the Reservoir Dogs.

Years ago there was a book called Loophole by Robert Pollack about a
bank heist where, over a three-day weekend, a gang tunneled through the
floor of a bank vault from the city drainage pipes running underneath.
As I recall, several heists of this sort occured in Italy shortly after
the book was translated there. (I was reminded of this because a
similar plot features in the Hong Kong movie Full Alert, which I saw
over the weekend.)

Lawrence Block has been active in the hardboiled bad guy category. One
of Block's Kavanaugh books is a caper, one features a hit man and then
there is his recent Hit Man under his own name. Also, there is The Girl
with the Long Green Heart, one of his great early paperback originals,
about two con men and the inside girl who is their accomplise.

Which reminds me of the two con job books by Iceberg Slim, Trick Baby
and Long White Con, both featuring a black man who passes for white to
con whitey out of his long green.

Finally, did anyone else enjoy Wild Things as much as I did. It is an
enetertaining con movie. Although the final outdcome is no big surprise
it has enough twists along the way to keep it fun. It is definitely the
sleaziest, cheesiest movie I've seen in the last year, but it is great
nasty fun in a world where everyone is out for what they can get.

Mark

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