I've been lurking for a few weeks--joined because I was looking around for information and got a hit from a post here about Ross Thomas --whom I'm presently obsessed with...I don't know how I've missed him for all these years--have gone through John D. MacDonald periods, and Ross MacDonald periods--for some reason I thought he wrote police procedurals in the McBain vein and didn't bother with him. (nothing against McBain, I just am not that into procedurals)
I picked up Briarpatch in the paperback exchange section of the library and was blown away.
As for me--I've always loved detective novels--from Nancy Drew on--and read both old ones and new.
I'm devoted to Film Noir also--Kiss Me Deadly, Detour--you name it, I'll watch it.
I'm currently working my way through the films of Jean-Pierre Melville--started with Army of Shadows, have seen Le Deuxième Souffle,Bob le flambeur, and just watched Le Samourai last night--what an incredible filmmaker--his control and style is pretty astounding--I'm theorizing without enough evidence probably, but it occurred to me this morning that his subject is death--and death looked at squarely in a way that is pretty rare.
But, this is my question for you all--in the Jim Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Forrest Whitaker plays a killer, a kind of holy man who kills, and of course follows the way of the Samurai. I could swear i read a mystery about a very similar character--a loner who did contract killing and lived by the Samurai code. He lived in a van. I can't remember the title of the book, or who wrote it--and there are no credits in IMDB for Jarmusch's film that mention it being based on a novel.
Does anyone remember this book? I read it not long before the movie came out--some time in the '90s--and it was new when I read it.
I associate it with Thomas Perry for some reason--i know Perry didn't write it, but I might have just started reading him at the same time.
It's great to be here--Zoe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 07 Apr 2009 EDT