Re: RARA-AVIS: Ralph Dennis, Atlanta based hard-boiled writer
Gary Warren Niebuhr (piesbook@execpc.com)
Tue, 07 Oct 1997 06:36:23 -0700
>He then made friends with an editor at popular library.
His agent set
>him up with this guy, and out of that association came
the Hardman
>series. The adventures of Jim Hardman, an ex Atlanta
cop, and his
>sidekick, Hump Evans, a former pro football player. They
roam the
>streets of Virginia-Higland, Ponce, all the way to the
Stein Club on
>Peachtree, kicking ass and taking no names. It's a fun
series that
>sustains itself. It got great reviews in Kirkus and the
like. It was
>Spenser for hire before Spenser.
>
>Here's a list, out of print in Popular Library
paperbacks. You can
>still find them at used bookstores: Hardman #1, Atlanta
Deathwatch,
>#2, The Charleston Knife's Back In Town. (Maybe the best
in the
>series. It appears as Hardman #1 in the Danish and
Japanese
>translations) #3,The Golden Girl & All. #4, Pimp for
the Dead. #5,
>Down Among the Jocks. #6, Murder's Not an Odd Job. #7,
Working for the
>Man. #8, The Deadly Cotton Heart. #9, The One-Dollar
Rip-Off. #10,
>Hump's First Case. #11, The Last of the Armageddon Wars.
and #12, The
>Buy Back Blues.
Dennis was a continuation of the Spillane school of writing,
but he had
more character development and more plot than Spillane.
Packaged as male
action adventures, including numbers on the covers, may have
hurt sales to
traditional mystery or thriller readers, but these are worth
seeking. The
comparison and parallels to Spenser is interesting as
well.
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.