Re: RARA-AVIS: Paul Meskil and others - lesser known but equally good hard boiled writers

From: harry.lerner@mail.mcgill.ca
Date: 08 Jan 2008


In my last post, under the subject heading "Re: The 150 Best Hardboiled/Noir 1929-69" I provided a couple of quotes from Jonathan Gash's PEARLHANGER (the 9th in his Lovejoy series). Others in the series include THE VATICAN RIP, FIREFLY GADROON, and JADE WOMAN.

My hope in doing this was to bring some attention to Gash's work as I think it is much overlooked and under appreciated in noir/hardboiled circles. As such, from my point of view, it is disappointing that there isn't more wriiten about Gash's work. The only document I could find was an a fairly interesting article in an old issue of THE ARMCHAIR DECTETCTIVE.

Any self-respecting literary genre, or intellectual discipline for that matter, needs an occasional dose of self-reflection/re-evaluation and Gash, I think, provides one such dose for hardboiled/noir.

I should point out that although I am quite aware of Gash's other work, such as his Dr. Clare Burtonall series, I have yet to read any of them.
       However, I do plan on doing so in the near future.

Thanks for letting me ramble on about this!

Best, Harry

Quoting jsbuturn < ishantriv@rediffmail.com>:

> After consuming almost anything and everything from Norbert Davies to
> Charles Willeford, I have been looking for writers who are almost never
> mentioned in checklists or top 100 kind of lists. Paul Meskil's 'Sin
> Pit' published by Lion Books in '60 is one such author and book. Can
> someone recommend me others?
>
>



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