I've been on this list three, four, maybe even five years and
I'm not sure that I've ever seen Reed Farrel Coleman's name
mentioned here.
He's hard boiled, but not noir, which may be the reason. Even
though the group is named for Hammett's rare bird, it seems
that the relentless fall of the noir character and their
author's exploration of the incomplete mind of amoral
characters is the major thrust on rara_avis--not at
criticism, just an observation.
I have not read Reed Coleman's latest, but his last two--THE
JAMES DEANS and SOUL PATCH--are two of the best private eye
books that I've read in recent years. His character, Moe
Prager, is an ex-cop who is not an alcoholic, not a bastard,
married relatively happily, and makes a decent living as a
wine-shop owner, but because he regrets that he never got the
"gold shield" he deserved when he was one of New York's
finest, he is also a private detective when the proper case
strikes him.
His books put his lead character in the recent past but
always flash back further to a time many of us of a certain
age remember fondly, if we remember it at all--1970s.
His character is a truly decent guy. Coleman doesn't need to
state his philosophy the way Chandler seemed compelled to
do--Moe lives it.
In Coleman's SOUL PATCH, which has been nominated for a
number of awards, the apparent suicide of a former
associate--if not quite a friend--leads him to explore what
may have caused it. He ends up digging into the past not only
of the "friend," but into his own past and the past of many
of his other "friends."
If you were youngish in the 70s, you'll feel the nostalgia.
If you weren't, you'll learn what is was "something
like."
Coleman does what others tell me Ross MacDonald did with the
past, but somehow I never got through Ross MacDonald's
figures of speech well enough to understand what he was
driving at.
I understand Moe Prager. Coleman is a prose-poet without the
extended similes.
Jack Bludis
PS: Last year, Coleman's THE JAMES DEANS, was not only
nominated for most of the awards--it won them.
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