Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Hardboiled Humor

Mari Hall (found.dead.in.texas@airmail.net)
Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:18:59 -0600 Kevin Smith wrote:
>
>
> Bill Crane by Jonathan Latimer (screwball stuff that's funnier than The Thin Man

Yes, even the titles are funny.

> Angel MacLean by Mike Ripley

It's a shame his books are not more plentiful in the US, although St.
Martain's is printing some of them.

> The Trace/Digger books by Warren Murphy
Yeah, why did he stop publishing these?? Suppose it was because he began
making movies??

> Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich (so shoot me! She's funny!)

I have never understood "funny" in this. I love the grandmother and wish
she had her own book, but the whole thing reminds me of THE NANNY show.

> Almost anything by Carl Hiassen (in fact, when he was on 60 Minutes a few
> weeks ago, he even made Florida's corruption look funny)

Yes, I reviewed one of his books once and had a question, so I just
called the newspaper and -got him- he had me in stitches before I could
hang up and he wasn't anxious to get off the phone. I saw at a signing
in Denton, Texas [yes, look that up on the map] and he even recalled
this. He signed book marks cheerfully for a lady who said she had read
all his books from the library.
>
> it an even scarier thought is that they didn't know they were funny).

I don't think they knew they were funny. Perhaps it is now looking back
at then and the then that was then.

> Red Diamond by Mark Schoor
This was a parody and I think he meant it as such. I thought this was a
pseudynom??

and Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, as much tribute as
parody.
>
> Oh, and The Rockford Files, a TV show that spoofed PI shows the way
> Maverick spoofed westerns.

This is an example of "then" and "now". I never thought those were
parodies--I thought they were just another show at the time. Shows what
I knew -then-.

-- 
whose DOROTHYL nom is Kate Warne the ex-Pinkerton in
The Woman With the Rose Tattoo by Mari Hall
See y'all at Left Coast Crime 8--leavin' on a jet plane THURSDAY
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