Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Allan Guthrie's Top 200 Noirs

From: William Ahearn ( williamahearn@yahoo.com)
Date: 23 Dec 2007


--- Patrick King < abrasax93@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I can think of several GREAT Hunter titles: LAST
> SUMMER, NOBODY KNEW THEY WERE THERE, COME WINTER,
> CRIMINAL CONVERSATIONS. If he wasn't committed to
> the
> work he did under that name, he must have been a
> natural at creating believable plots.

First of all, I was referring to the Matthew Hope books. If you read any of the interviews available on the 'net, you'll clearly see that Evan Hunter or Ed McBain or whomever wasn't really happy with the books. As for Criminal Conversation -- that I did read -- it's apparent that we differ in taste. In my book, McBain found a niche and worked it well almost to the end. I also think that the last two 87th Precinct books border on the unreadable. If I wasn't a fan I never would have finished them. Evan Hunter just isn't my cup of tea. They're just not interesting books to me.

William

 None of them
> are
> shoddy, tossed off books. He grabbs me from the
> first
> sentence and holds on. I tend to read them fast,
> too.
> Put off doing other things and just read the book.
>
> It's true the last two 87th stories weren't very
> good,
> but they weren't awful, either. They just didn't
> hold
> me the way he usually does. Hunter/McBain is one of
> my
> favorite writers. He's on a par with Leonard and
> Rendell for me.
>
> Patrick King
>
>
>
>
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