Mark wrote:
<<. I'd be curious if there are crime novels that
make
>strong use of a city's geography to guide plot
>>
I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for but a few come
to mind - Lehane's "Mystic River," though strictly speaking
dealing with an "invented" neighborhood is very much about
the tension between old and new in a changing city. I don't
see this much in his other books, except "A drink before the
war," where Patrick's crossing into Roxbury (the "black"
Boston, at least as laid out in the book) has a lot of
significance to the racial geography and tensions in the
story.
George Pelecanos's DC books give a lot of importance to place
- I'm thinking of the Sweet Forever particularly. Granted I
may just be more aware of it because I know DC better than
most of the cities I read about, but when I read these books
I've always got a mental map of where the characters are at
any given time. (This is somewhat inherent in DC-area
geography where so many things are defined as Northwest,
Southeast, or by their position relative to the
beltway).
Someone mentioned John Shannon's LA books, which focus on the
natural as well as the manmade landscape (geology as much as
geography). Then there's Connelly who uses the Angels Flight
railroad - as well as canyons freeways and drainpipes -
symbolically.
Carrie
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