Re: RARA-AVIS: Run

From: a.n.smith ( ansmith@netdoor.com)
Date: 11 Jan 2001


> I'm about halfway through Douglas Winter's Run. As good or better
> hardboiled style than any of Elmore Leonard's, and that's saying a lot
> coming from me.
>
> Actually, I'm jealous, his style is so singularly good. Also, I see at
> Amazon it's about to come out in paperback.

What a great book. I put it on the Plots With Guns Best of 2000 list because I really believe it to be one of the first "21st Century" crime novels--not just datewise, more in what it's doing and how it works. It latches on to the fast pace of cable TV news and has a "reality style" voice to it that's all the rage. For those reasons, it could've have been a failure and a cheap gimmick, but it works great, I suppose because the writer really got us to care about the characters. (Which is also why Survivor is more interesting than rip-offs like The Mole)

I also read an interview with Winter in which he said he wrote several chapters at once, flipping back and forth between them in different windows as a new idea hit him. A real techno/cut-and-paste way to work.

Neil Smith

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Jan 2001 EST