Which prompts me to ask if people could recommend hard-boiled
love
stories. Not stories where "love ain't nothing but sex
misspelled", but
stories like _The Long Goodbye_ and _Invasion of
Privacy_.
First of all, let me concur on the Healy books, I like them a
lot (and
the Beth stuff always reminds me of the Robyn Hitchcock song
"My Wife
and My Dead Wife").
As far as love in all of its complexity, I'd been thinking
about that,
too. I just picked up the latest paperback Thomas Black novel
by Earl
Emerson. Black is now married to his longtime friend Kathy.
It has not
blunted the edge at all. Whereas the couple can now sometimes
be a bit
too happy smart-assy, the book in which they finally
addressed their
feelings for each other was really something. Black did not
realize
just what Kathy meant to him until she was getting ready to
marry
another man. This happened in The Portland Laugher, at the
end of which
Black is left morose. That and the next two books in which he
attempts
to put his life back together deal with love as intricately
as Healy
does; Black is forced to make some hard decisions and
consider someone
else's well-being and happiness before his own. All that,
great
plotting and smart-ass remarks.
Mark
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