RE: RARA-AVIS: Bad luck with Leonard: Robison

From: Todd Mason ( Todd.Mason@tvguide.com)
Date: 23 Jan 2004


FREAKY DEAKY. ("Non-responsive, Your Honor!") Maybe because it was my first Leonard, and I'm sentimental. But I also enjoyed RUM PUNCH. However, I can name several dozen, perhaps a hundred or so writers I'd put before Leonard for the Nobel...he is no more the single transcendent genius of crime fiction than anyone else...Algis Budrys, whose THE DEATH MACHINE/ROGUE MOON disappointed Bill, in his "pop fic" critical work once wrote that Leonard's work was less cartoonish than Westlake's...in my experience, that's a wash, maybe Westlake even has the less-cartoonish edge (even if Westlake definitely has more of the Edwardian touch about his work--Saki, Benson, that whole crowd--while Leonard definitely knows how to portray the deceptively slack character who's watching everything intensely). TM

-----Original Message----- From: Michael Robison I haven't had good luck with Leonard. I attempted reading something called GET SHORTY a long time ago and couldn't even finish it. And that's unusual for me. I finish nine out of ten that I start. A year or so ago I read 52 PICKUP, and I thought it was better but nothing really special.

I'm ready to give him another shot. I've got KILLSHOT, STICK, and UNKNOWN MAN #89. Which of these would you recommend?

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