Todd wrote:
"And, I will admit, Vachss can write, and I'll be seeking
SHELLA soon."
I certainly think Shella is well written and tight (I
recommend it whenever I get a chance, along with many of his
shorts), but you haven't read that yet. So I'm guessing
you're talking about the Burke books. How exactly are you
defining "can write"? His prose is very good, but the one
Burke I read, Flood, really could have used a good editor.
How many times did he need to repeat the feeding ritual for
his dog, his entry into his apartment and that he was a
loner, needed no one
(contradicted by his very loyal extended family-by-choice
comprised of other similarly overblown characters)? This got
very annoying to me and is why I never read another. Is good
writing defined by individual sentences or the whole book
they fill?
Todd again:
"TM, anarchist-sympathizer, . . ."
So you read The Invisibles?
". . . vigilante-nonfan (even though Batman was the best DC
comics guy, yes, aside from the Specter, and I just enjoyed
his horror connotations"
I'm not sure why, possibly because Neal Adams worked on both,
but the mention of the Spectre (didn't DC use the Brit
spelling?) reminded me that if Al is including comic books in
his carny/circus bibliography, he should certainly include
Deadman, another great DC comic. Although probably more in
the horror/thriller vein than hardboiled, it had a
Fugitive/who was the real murderer premise to it -- it was
just the ghost of the victim doing the investigating. In a
slight variation on the Fugitive connection, wasn't the only
thing known about the killer that he had a hook for a
hand?
Mark
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