Charles Willeford -- The Machine in Ward Eleven
Somewhat hard to find collection, a bit slight in content but
quite good. The title story is as effective a portrayal of
psychopathology as anything he ever wrote, and the second
story (don't remember the title, don't have it in front of
me) seems like a dry run for THE WOMAN CHASER. Not a
necessary purchase but worth it for hardcore fans; I'd very
much like to get my hands on SOMETHING ABOUT A SOLDIER.
Willeford -- The Woman Chaser
Another one of Willeford's merry psychotics tries his hand at
art. I think the connections between creativity and insanity
were handled a bit better in THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, but
this is still quite nice. I've always liked Willeford's
protagonists, as unsympathetic as they usually are -- maybe
because Willeford himself doesn't make any excuses for them,
or romanticize their situation (as Thompson, for example,
tended to do.)
Dennis Lehane -- Prayers for Rain
Our heroes go up against a guy who destroys people's lives,
and start wondering what it all means. I've liked the earlier
volumes in this series, although I always thought they were
flawed in one way or the other, often just by being overly
drawn out (GONE BABY, GONE in particular suffered from that).
In this one, though, Lehane seems to have caught the
lightning just so: for once the size seems just right, the
drama not at all contrived. Highly recommended.
James Crumley -- The Final Country
I disliked this one, which is a damn shame, because I bow to
no one in my love of Crumley. THE MEXICAN TREE DUCK and
BORDERSNAKES were in my opinion both rather underrated; this
one, though, is rather overrated. Milo tries to help a drug
dealer for no real good reason and finds himself in the usual
trouble.
The whole thing's too casual and lazy, I think -- that tone
worked fine for DUCK and BORDER, since they were intended to
be essentially light-hearted macho romps
(BORDERSNAKES is basically a Western), but here there's the
presumption or implication that something more serious is
being attempted here. Motivations and even plot points are
shrugged off with a rather irritating casualness; by the end
you can feel that he was getting tired of the whole thing
himself, and simply rushed the climax to get it done.
Still has some nice writing, and Crumley at his worst is
still better than most at their bests. This doesn't deserve
the plaudits it seems to have gotten, though.
John D. Macdonald -- One Monday We Killed Them All
Pyscho ex-con moves in with his sister and brother-in-law,
who's the local cop. And the usual stuff happens. Preachy and
requires both the hero and his wife to behave completely
unrealistically for the plot to move forward. JDM, as usual,
is good with the bad guys -- the book comes alive when the
brother-in-law on stage.
(It would be interesting to read this book from *his* point
of view. ) Overrated, as sadly a lot of JDM's non-McGee books
are.
Jason Starr -- Cold Caller
Just finished this. Sort of a darker variant of Douglas
Kennedy's THE BIG PICTURE or THE JOB; a guy in a shitty
telemarketing job finds himself doing
*anything* to get ahead. Very nice, acerbic portrayal of the
lead psycho; a bit spun out toward the end (I have feeling
this would work better at novella length)but mostly excellent
and on point. I've worked enough crappy jobs to know how
dead-on Starr's portrayal is.
and I'm almost done with Howard Browne's HALO FOR SATAN.
Better than HALO IN BRASS (the only one of the Paul Pine
books I've read previously, not bad but unfortunately very
dated in plot), nothing exactly earthshaking but a very
competent pi of the Chandler school.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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