<<I too read Brown's Requim (sp?), and to be honest I
thought it was
sludge, I had already read The Black Dahlia (and others,) and
was
impressed by his maniacal lyricism. When I found a copy of
Brown's, I
grabbed it--and discovered he was pretty damn lucky to get
it
published. To me, it reads like it was written by a high
schooler on
speed. If he thought he was mimicking Chandler--the shock
when he woke
up must have been massive.>>
I liked it for the very reasons Fred disliked it. The
sophomoric
exagerations reminded me of the unsophisticated and violent
P.I. stories
of guys like Daly and Bellem, with a touch from the "weird
tales" school
of Donald Wandrei and others - though formally the book is in
Ross
Macdonald territory. The whole thing has a vitality that
harks back to
the old days of the pulps - in a book from 1981, this becomes
pure camp.
But I do agree that a comparison of this book with Chandler's
novels is
off the mark if not downright absurd.
Regards,
MT
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