Re: RARA-AVIS: Broadly speaking

MT (matrxtech@sprintmail.com)
Sat, 22 Aug 1998 19:07:08 -0500 RMINOT:

<<Maybe we should just say that we discuss any fictional crime novel
which is suspenseful and fairly tough-minded, in which the protagonist
can be a criminal or not, female or male, sane or insane, that has that
wonderful noirish je ne sais quoi. In this sense I'd vote for including
Thomas Harris and Caroll O'Connell and Ruth Rendell.>>

The list is about hardboiled crime fiction. I don't know the work of
Carol O'Connell, but I would say that neither Harris nor Rendell are
hardboiled. Harris writes pure suspense with psychos and Rendell writes
what, for lack of a better word, I'll call polite psychological
mysteries (at times she reminds me of that great writer, Margaret
Millar). I don't see what is hardboiled about either of these two
writers; they don't have hardboiled characters or situations. I can't
see them as noir either.

I personally would not be interested in discussions of serial killer
novels, a subgenre that has become an industry - even when it's done
brilliantly as in Thomas Harris's or John Camp's work. At this point, I
cannot help but read these stories as clich=E9s. After reading Connelly's
_The Poet_ I felt I had been taken - a fast and suspenseful read that
broke no new ground and left no sediment.

Regards,

MT
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