Mark Timlin -- ROMEO'S TUNE
Anyone have a take on this guy? This is the first book of his
I've read, and it seemed pretty ordinary to me. Down and out
pi investigates corruption in the music business, gets in
over his head, etc. Yeah, the setting's London instead of,
say, LA, but the change of setting alone doesn't make this
anything special. Of course, I have a tendency to pick the
*worst* book from a series first, so if there are better
Timlin's believe me, I'm all ears. I have PRETEND WE'RE DEAD
sitting in my stacks somewhere.
Edward S. Aarons -- ASSIGNMENT MADELEINE and ASSIGNMENT
ANKARA
I really like the Sam Durell books. Most of them are very
effectively told adventure stories -- nothing fancy, but
consistently engaging and craftsmanlike. Of the two,
MADELEINE is the superior: it's set in Algeria during the
war, and as usual Aarons has evocative descriptions. ANKARA
is a bit too long, and Aarons tries to make a mystery of the
bad guy, when it in fact is *screamingly obvious*, but there
are some good sequences here, too. I think Aarons is
underrated: he's well worth picking up.
Donald Westlake -- SOUR LEMON SCORE/DEADLY EDGE
Two Parkers. I'm not a huge fan of the series, but SOUR was
quite fine: Parker gets double-crossed after a heist, gets
back at the double-crossers. Lean and mean, with a few good
twists and turns in the plot, and for once it was easy to
root for the protagonist. DEADLY EDGE, though, shows up what
I think is the main flaw of the series: basically, Parker's
such a clockwork automaton, how do you care about him?
Westlake tries to engage the reader by telling much of the
story in another characters pov, but paradoxically this
doesn't really work: yeah, Parker's hard to care about, but
he's still the star of the show. I don't really want to enter
anybody else's pov.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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