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

dspurlock@humana.com
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 09:14:54 -0400 <<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: . . .Goerge Harmon Coxe>>

Is George Harmon Coxe considered hard-boiled? I always kind of nudged him
into the generic mystery nook.

<<Charles Williams>>

I read a nice one by Williams this weekend: SCORPION REEF. Good stuff. At
times, he was at least as good as John D. McDonald, sometimes better. Maybe
just not as prolific or as well known.

I also read THE UNDERGROUND MAN by Ross Macdonald. This was excellent.
Macdonald's whole missing father neurosis was bleeding all over every page.
This novel is less hardboiled than some of the earlier Lew Archer novels --
most of the violence happens off-stage -- and Archer serves more as the
objective catalyst uncovering the dirt. Still, a fine novel.

Ross Macdonald seems to be falling into that limbo of unrecognized writers
among general readers these days. That's too bad. It's an interesting
phenomenon, too, when you consider that he, along with John D. McDonald,
were sort of the mainstream mystery powerhouses of the late '60s and early
'70s. Travis McGee remains fairly popular, but I rarely encounter any
passing mystery fans who recognize Lew Archer's name. -- Duane

#
# 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/.