Well, things do seem quiet around here ... too quiet.
[ominous pause]. Luckily, removing quiet is my forte.
It's going to be a hell of a while before I'll have the spare
reading time to be able to do it only for pleasure, so I
thought I'd talk about some of my more recent reads &
throw them out for discussion (in case any one else out there
is also awake).
"Such Men Are Dangerous" - Lawrence Block. This one is the
goods, absolutely. Everyone who praised it up was right. The
narrator/protagonist Paul Kavanagh makes Parker look like a
wuss.Considering that there are only about 3 brief violent
scenes in the book, the bodycount is phenomenal. This book is
dark AND tough - I think it fits both of Jim D's definitions
for noir & hardboiled.
"The Skin Palace" - Jack O'Connell. I dunno. I know many here
as well as many else where have a very high opinion of his
stuff, "future of noir"
& all that, but I just can't get into him. I've read
another by him, forget which for the moment, & they both
left me cold.De gustibus etc.
"Dead City" & "Go Down Dead" - Shane Stevens. I picked
these 2 up because of strong recommendations here & from
Paul Duncan's Pocket Essentials Noir booklet. They're both
excellent noirish stuff. "Dead City" is almost like a
gangster "Bridge at San Luis Rey" in that the end for the 2
main characters - a has-been & an up&comer pair of
low level Mafia soldiers seems inevitable & the story is
following the journey they made on their way to their demise.
"Go Down Dead" is a very bleak melodrama about a young black
gang leader, a little reminiscent of
"Corner Boy", (written by someone who's name will finally
occur to me 3 seconds after I send this e-mail off) but more
brutal.
"The Inside Man" - E Richard Johnson. Again, I picked this
one up because several rare-birds think very highly of this
guy, which is the best reason I can think of to pick up a
book by someone you haven't read, & it was Ok but I can't
say it blew me away. I may have been expecting too much or
perhaps this isn't his best stuff? Anyhow, there's more I've
read in recent times but I'll leave it there for now - I've
hogged more than enough bandwidth in the last month. Luckily
for everyone I'm now a busy person & don't have as much
time to send off epic posts - someone else will have to take
up the cudgel.
Rene
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