RARA-AVIS: Re: Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill

From: hardcasecrime ( editor@hardcasecrime.com)
Date: 28 Jan 2007


Thanks, Dave -- I'm glad you liked it. I was blown away by Russell Hill's prose; I've described ROBBIE'S WIFE as a James M. Cain novel written by D.H. Lawrence. It's a bit unusual for a crime novel to be more than half finished before the first crime occurs, but the payoff here is so satisfying that in the end I decided to take a chance on readers' patience...

--Charles

--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Zeltserman" <dz@...> wrote:
>
> I just finished an ARC for an upcoming Hardcase Case original,
Robbie's
> Wife by Russell Hill and this is really quite a remarkable
achievement.
> It's a bit like Body Heat except set in the English countryside
with a
> slower, more languid tone, plus with the husband and protagonist
> flipped around (husband is young, attractive, virile while the guy
who
> gets seduced is well past middle-aged). The first 150 pages the
pacing
> is on the slow side and it's mostly the exceptional quality of the
> writing that keeps the reader going, but then the book picks up
speed
> and the protagonist ends up sinking to levels of noir hell that few
> have ever reached. This one is well worth reading, and with the
> recently released The Peddler by Richard Prather, Hardcase has
given us
> two very distinct and rewarding visions of noir. Well done, Charles-
-
> and please pass onto Russell what a remarkable book this is!
>
> --Dave Z.
>



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