Aarons (was Re: RARA-AVIS: RED DRAGON and MANHUNTER)

From: James Reasoner ( james53@flash.net)
Date: 19 Aug 2002


> <<Don't many of the excellent Gold Medals we're discussing
> this month come under this category?>>
>
> Not the good ones. Take Aarons: he does not try to rope the
> reader in through trickery. He tells a plain story, with a
> beautiful technique but without demagoguery or facile
> appeal to emotions. I am beginning to think that Aarons was
> a great writer, strange as that may sound.

Not strange at all. I just read Aarons' GIRL ON THE RUN, which I thought was really good. It's not a Sam Durell, but it almost might as well have been. Instead of globe-trotting CIA agent Durrell, the hero is globe-trotting engineer Harry Bannock, who answers a call for help from an old flame and winds up chasing and being chased all over France and Spain. The plot is a little reminiscent of THE MALTESE FALCON, with everybody looking for a treasure hidden by one of Charlemagne's knights (there's a more modern--in this case 1954--version of the MacGuffin, too). Not a wasted word in the book. Aarons could really tell a story.

Best, James

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