><<Certainly you can see traces of Archer's
compassion (or bleeding heart
>weenie-ness, depending on your point of view) in the
work of Robert
>Parker, Robert Crais, >>
>
>I think Parker and Crais take after Chandler, not
Macdonald.
I assume most writers in a genre are pretty well read. They
are are going to
be influenced by those who preceded them, but you can't put
Parker and Crais
in separate camps in different paragraphs to buttress your
arguments.
Parker has openly stated his debt to Chandler yet in his
early books many of
Spenser's concerns are saving the emotional, as well as
physical lives of
people. Often these are children of wealthy parents. Granted,
he doesn't
usually have to go deep in the past to find hidden truths as
did MacDonald,
but I view that as a weakness in the books' plots, not a
strength.
As a product of his time Elvis Cole has to show some
"bleeding heart
weenie-ness", but because he has followed Parker's lead in
having much of
the action and the books' appeal depend on a psychotic
sidekick, Crais can
not be put in the MacDonald camp. There is not much
compassion in either
Hawk or Joe Pike.
Mark Blumenthal
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