Another biography of Chester Himes is titled The Several
Lives of Chester Himes. The authors are Edward Margolies
Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York, and
Michel Fabre of the Sorbonne. It's sitting on my crime
reference shelf, but I haven't read it.
I enjoyed the piece on Black writers. I had Trick Baby
sitting on a shelf behind my desk since I found it a few
months ago, but didn't realize it was Iceberg Slim's first
novel. My 1969 PB copy promotes "a major motion picture"
starring Kiel Martin and Mel Stewart. Anyone seen it?
I've been watching for Lionel White books since reading about
him in a 2004 piece about pulp writers by Ed Gorman on his
old blog Ed's Place. In that piece he said that White's Clean
Break was turned into the classic noir film The Killing that
was mentioned in recent posts. Didn't find Clean Break, but
invested 25 cents in The Merriweather File. Also got a copy
of Peter Gunn by Henry Kane with Craig Stevens on the cover.
My third two-bit investment was Chicago City of Sin, a
collection of crime journalism published in 1962.
To top the day off, the new Ken Bruen novel, Cross, featuring
Irish PI Jack Taylor, was delivered to me this morning by a
visitor from England. Also in the package was Cathi
Unsworth's second novel titled The Singer. I loved her first
crime novel, The Not Knowing. Bruen said Derek Raymond "is
reincarnated in Cathi Unsworth" and that "I haven't been as
excited by a new writer since I first read Ellroy or stumbled
across the very first James Sallis." David Peace also raved
about both novels. Anyone on the list read Unsworth? Maybe
John Williams?
Kent Morgan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Jul 2007 EDT