Well, obviously I've been reading up a storm lately. Thing
is, I don't have a television set right now -- that frees up
a lot of time. :)
Richard Prather -- GAT HEAT and THE COCKEYED CORPSE
Well, just when I said that I never read a Prather that made
me laugh out loud I found one that did. GAT HEAT is
absolutley tremendous, highly recommended. Basically here
Shell Scott encounters the sexual revolution, and ends up
rather the worse for wear. Two absolutely fantastic set
pieces, one involving a movie camera, one involving a
repressed spinster who's obviously bubbling hard beneath the
surface. COCKEYED has Scott on the set of a "nudie movie",
the kind of thing that was briefly popular in the early
Sixties
(IMMORAL MR. TEAS, etc.). Not as good as GAT HEAT, but not
bad, either.
Joe Gores -- A TIME FOR PREDATORS
Didn't like this one at all -- a vigilante novel, it starts
very strong but requires, as the mainspring of the action, a
suspension of disbelief that I simply wasn't prepared to
make. This was published in 1969, and this "vigilante" theme
must've simply been in the air at the time, huh? Somewhere
there's an academic monograph waiting to be written on this
subject.
James Lee Burke -- MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS
This was my last try with Burke -- I'm crossing him off my
list. This has all of the flaws I've come to associate with
Burke (I've read two others, BLACK CHERRY BLUES and A STAINED
WHITE RADIANCE): a ridiculous plot, overwritten prose, a sort
of sanctimony that really gets under my skin, and a huffing
and puffing after Literary Significance that's painful to
see. Don't understand why he's so popular, when so many
better writers in the genre aren't.
Adam Hall -- THE TANGO BRIEFING
Reading this one now. I love the Quiller series -- should've
thought of these books when people were discussing "work" as
a theme in hardboiled fiction, because if there's ever been a
protagonist who's defined solely by his job, it's Quiller.
Indeed, the theme of the series seems to be the prickly
relationship he has with his job, and the demands of it on
him. Anyhow, this is easily the most hardboiled of the spy
series, I urge anyone to check them out.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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