Are we doing the 40's? I lose track of which decade. Sorry if
we're meant to be somewhere else. Anyway...
I just read The Deadly Percheron (1947) by John Franklin
Bardin and feel compelled to recommend it to anyone who has
not read it.
A New York psychiatrist is presented with a frankly
ridiculous case that only gets worse (and more bizarre) as he
gets more involved. My normal preference is for crime from
the POV of the criminal (eg: Thompson, Starr, Cain), but the
investigator's role here is interesting and ambiguous enough
to have me gripped.
The mystery is driven by the first-person narrator's amnesia,
which allows Bardin to thoroughly explore the idea of
identity. What pulls it off for me is the sublime way he
handles such outrageous plot turns. And I mean
*outrageous*. These are the kind of events I yearn for when
reading Chandler
(no slouch himself in the rabbit-out-of-a-hat stakes). I was
reminded of David Lynch's "Lost Highway". But where that film
was deliberately non-linear, there is method in Bardin's
madness.
BTW, Lynch would surely have a ball with this material, but
he's missed his chance - a movie of The Deadly Percheron is
now in production from FilmFour.
(*Sigh* - why does everything have to get filmed?)
Rgds,
--- Charlie Williams
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