I only just discovered that Michael Dibden died some months
ago. I looked him up in our records and was somewhat
surprised that there were was very little mention of him. I
suppose he wasn't strictly noir or hardboiled although he
certainly had big elements of both qualities in his books and
he was a devoted admirer of Chandler and Hammett.
His books are very macabre, caustic, beautifully written and
imbued with a very black sense of humor. He had a number of
very good literary gifts which he diligently
cultivated.
I mostly read his stand-alones which I thought were among the
best mystery books written in my time.
In any event I thought this sad occasion was worthy of being
brought to the notice of my fellow Avians and to encourage
those of you that haven't read anything by him to give him a
shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed
Mike
PS I wouldn't recommend that anyone start with his series
about Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen. Like Simenon it
seems to me that he put his best work into his
stand-alones.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Nov 2007 EST