This is a very subjective list of 20 based on three different
categories.
Early Influences From My Father's Paperback Library 196 -
Mike Hammer 197 - Michael Shayne 227 - Perry Mason 283 -
Travis McGee Write-in - Kent Murdock (George Harmon Coxe)
liked first name
Characters (and Writers) Who Got Me Reading Mysteries Again
36 - C.W. Shugrue 121 - Hawk 250 - Sharon McCone 266 -
Spenser 286 - V.I. Warshawski Write-in - Doc Adams (series -
Rick Boyer) Write-in - Fang Mulheisen (series - Jon A.
Jackson)
Immediate Reads (Usually Purchased in Hardcover) 64 - Dave
Robicheaux (liked Burke before he started series) 66 - Carl
Houseman 117 - Harry Bosch 154 - John Rebus 173 - Lucas
Davenport 182 - Doc Ford (unfortunately I didn't buy Sanibel
Flats in HC) 276 - Thorn Write-In - Gabriel Du Pre (series -
Peter Bowen) hard boiled when he has to be. As a Red River
Metis living in Montana, he is the closest to a Canadian on
my list.
Clearly, I need to read more of the classics such as
Chandler, Hammett and Ross Macdonald that I have been adding
to my collection over the past couple of years since joining
Rara-Avis.
When I went to make my list, I was shocked to discover that
no one had nominated Doc Adams and Fang Mulheisen. Boyer's
first book featuring Adams, Billingsgate Shoal, won an Edgar
and is one of my all-time favorites. Jackson's series
certainly deserves more recognition. The Man With An Axe may
be the most enjoyable crime book I have read this year and La
Donna Detroit is next on my TBR list. If Jose Latour's second
crime novel written in English lives up to his first,
Outcast, featuring Cuban/American Eliot Steil, he will
unquestionably find a spot on any revised top twenty list of
mine.
Kent Morgan in Winnipeg
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