RARA-AVIS: Yada Yada

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@colba.net)
Thu, 15 Apr 1999 14:44:34 -0400 >3) Boys read hardboiled mysteries, girls read cozies.

Gee, thanks for the enlightenment. I also hear Jews are good with money,
and blacks have great rhythm.

But I digress....

Crais' LA REQUIEM is really good. I was fortunate enough to get an ARC, and
I was blown away. I expect it'll be making quite a bit of noise when it
finally comes out. It really takes chances with the series, and raises the
stakes, in much the way Blocks EVERYBODY DIES did. It's certainly much
darker than anything Crais has done in print before. In fact, there's
hardly any trace of the original glib, sorta Spenserian/Spider-Manish
smartass he was when he first popped up in THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT.

And when I was a kid, one of my favorite writers, besides Franklin W.
Dixon, of course, was William Campbell Gault. He did all these great books
about cars and kids. DIRT TRACK DANGER. HOT ROD ROAD. Stuff like that.
Imagine years later coming across a Brock Callahan book, and thinking, "Oh,
gee, now he's writing mysteries!"

If you're the one who got him back into writing mysteries, Bill, we all owe
you a round of thanks.

Kevin Smith
The Thrilling Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/

In the April issue: True Confessions in our P.I. Poll

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