My favorite Crais novels are FREE FALL, THE MONKEY'S
RAINCOAT, and my fav LA REQUIEM. I do have a comment about
Free Fall, there's a scene where Cole tries to chase would be
car thieves from the car they are trying to rob. This ornate
goodness, this godliness toward doing the right thing is
annoying. At least Crais has attempted to get away from it
recently, but come on... can a detective falter these
days?
-Dave
On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Doug Bassett wrote:
> All this talk about Crais got me curious, so I
tried
> one -- LULLABY TOWN. I read about half of it
and
> skimmed the rest. If this installment is typical
of
> the Cole series, I'm going to have to vote with
the
> naysayers.
>
> The debt to Parker/Spenser is obvious, and
while
> that's kind of annoying it's not a big deal --
Crais
> is a better writer than Max Byrd, say. And Cole
isn't
> nearly as irritating as Spenser can be. But
LULLABY
> TOWN is far too long, with a false ending, and
the
> basic plot is both confusing and boring. Also, the
Mob
> figures big in this book, and Crais doesn't
handle
> them well. (I've started to think that the Mob is
to
> hardboiled fiction what vampires are to
horror
> fiction. If you're going to tackle the subject be
damn
> sure you do a good job with it, because it's been
done
> to death, and if you goof it up you're going to
have
> readers rolling their eyes.)
>
> The more I read the "descendants of Parker",
the
> better Parker looks to me. Whatever else one wants
to
> say about Parker, his books (at least, the ones
I've
> read) are tight, clearly plotted, and usually
pretty
> funny.
>
> If LULLABY TOWN isn't typical of the Cole series,
I'd
> like to hear recommendations. Barring that,
though,
> I'll give this guy a pass. (One final note: just
once
> I'd like to read a series that features a
psychopathic
> killer whose sidekick is a big old sensitive PI
who's
> a gourmet cook in his spare time. Or am I the only
one
> who prefers Hawk and Pike to Spenser and
Cole?)
>
> doug
>
> =====
> Doug Bassett
>
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
>
__________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Talk to your friends online with Yahoo!
Messenger.
> http://im.yahoo.com
> --
> # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
> # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
.
>
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 28 Feb 2000 EST