Re: RARA-AVIS: Gores' Dead Man

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 09 Oct 2001


Bill,

Re your comment below:

> There was some talk about this book [Gores's DEAD
> MAN]on the list a
> while before. I think
> folks said it wasn't Gores' best, and I'd agree. I
> may just drop it. He
> switches narrative focus a fair bit, and not in that
> percolating way he
> has in the DKA books. It's in the INTERFACE vein,
> according to the back
> cover (and INTERFACE is damned good), but I'd say
> it's got too many
> cliched movie script techniques.

I personally liked it very much. But I think your point about it's reading like a movie script is well-taken. The previous Gores book that DEAD MAN most reminded me of was not INTERFACE (despite the fact that both books feature PIs as the protagonists) but A TIME OF PREDATORS, Gores's first, Edgar-winning novel.

The plotline of DEAD MAN, a man whose family (in this case there's only his wife) is wiped out by criminals and who then trains himself to seek revenge, is basically a reworking of the situation in PREDATORS.

PREDATORS is set entirely in the Bay Area (though not in The City itself). Though not named, institutions like Stanford University and College of San Mateo are used as settings. It's a corker!

JIM DOHERTY

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