Hello Avians,
I have been here for years, went through a busy
posting time, then, all was silence. I hosted a month once,
on hardboiled British fiction and aim to become active
again.
Having just realised that pshycopathology and the
management of newspapers seem to go twisted hand in iron
glove I think I can now safely describe myself as a freelance
journalist, writer and musician (through my Altar Ego, The
Reverend Spadge Dooley, chief executive officer of the Church
of the Awesome Machine Accidental.... not so much hardboiled
and noir, as deep fried and crispy
brown.)
My hardboiled Gods are somewhat predictable: Chandler,
Hammett, Derek Raymond, Jim Thompson, Horace McCoy sit at the
top. I enjoy Pelecanos and love David Peace, who is the
author of the last (nearly) hardboiled piece I read - The
Damned United, which I would happily reccomend to anyone who
can live in the world of English soccer and man's inhumanity
to man. I'm also a big fan of the Maigret series and the man
who started me on my life of crime was the grandest grandaddy
of them all, Sherlock Holmes.
In my work as a journalist I have regularly
interviewed the Forest of Dean's highest profile crime
writer, Andrew Taylor (The Lydmouth series, An American Boy)
- who is probabaly not hardboiled by most standards - and CJ
Emerson, a new author from the area who Mr Taylor praises
highly and who probably has been in the pan a little longer.
Shamefully, I am yet to have a chance to complete Ms
Emerson's debut so can't report on it, it looks promising
though.
I should like to start posting again and becoming a
more active Avian.
Happy new year to you all anyway - may your murders be
grizzly and your evil banal.
Colin Ricketts.
Join my Church:
www.myspace.com/thereverendspadgedooley
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