RARA-AVIS: Additions to the library - and what are you reading?

MT (matrxtech@sprintmail.com)
Sun, 30 Aug 1998 16:13:44 -0500 I finally got around to organizing the hardboiled part of my mystery
collection and to shelving some things that I had bought during the past
year:

A few of these are:

Henry Kane:

_Don't Just Die There_
_Death of a Hooker_
_Who Dies There?_
_Better Wed than Dead_
_The Moonlighter_

Frank Kane:

_Stacked deck_

Frank Gruber:

_Johnny Vengeance_

John D. MacDonald:

_The House Guests_
_The Price of Murder_

Goerge Harmon Coxe:

_Uninvited Guest_

Thomas B. Dewey:

_Every Bet's a Sure Thing_

Richard Prather:

_The Shell Scott Sampler_

Wade Miller:

_Uneasy Street_

Charles Williams:

_Go Home Stranger_

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The Dewey book (Simon & Schuster, 1953) is probably the best one in the
entire lot. A sad, tense P.I. story featuring Mac, told in Dewey's usual
unadorned, direct, and precise prose - with the expected excellent
characterization and sense of place (California and Chicago).

The books by Wade Miller and Charles Williams are wonderful, and I
highly recommend them even to those allergic to oldies. Who can resist
Max Thursday? And Charles Williams's sure-footed way of spinning a
complicated yarn in an utterly natural way while maintaining suspense
throughout?

Henry Kane wrote explosively and with an eye to exploitation of sex and
violence. These novels, featuring P.I. Peter Chambers (except for _The
Moonlighter_), resemble Richard Prather's brand of hardboiled action,
but are also heavily influenced by the atmosphere of the sixties, which
Prather never really accepted. I was particularly impressed by _The
Moonlighter_, a Fawcett Crest from 1971, an ambitious tale of
corruption.

The two by MacDonald I had already read, though I plan to re-read them
in the near future. I recall being impressed by _The Price of Murder_, a
hard-as-nails 1957 Gold Medal.

Gruber may well have been a hack, but he was a thorough professional.
His 1954 _Johnny Vengeance_ (Bantam, 1955) is a good example of the
ultrahardboiled Western and of Gruber's craft. This violent story of
revenge starts thus:

<<There were four of the hardcases, but they had only three horses among
them, so two were compelled to ride double. All were whiskered and
incredibly dirty. One of them wore a faded, torn Union cavalryman's
blouse and a second wore trousers that had once been Confederate gray,
but were now just filthy. All carried revolvers and the cleanest of the
four - which wasn't saying much - had a repeating Winchester rifle.>>

If someone ever gives Gruber his due (aside from his outstanding work as
a screenwriter), I suspect it will be because of his Westerns. His
_Peace Marshal_ is a true classic, and every one of the ten novels or so
I've read by him is a worthy example of the hardboiled.

Given Captain Bill's recently promulgated mission statement, I
absolutely cannot talk about Frank Gruber's unforgettable stories
featuring Oliver Quade, "The Human Encyclopedia" - surely one of the
most bizarre and funniest characters from the pulps. According to
Gruber, Captain Shaw rejected every single one of his submissions to
Black Mask, while simultaneously showering him with kindness and giving
him lots of encouragement...I cannot help but feel that Shaw was too
harsh on Gruber.

Regards,

Mario Taboada
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