james.doherty@gsa.gov
02 Jul 99 08:45:00 -0400
Re Mark's question:
". . . does the order in which you read Johnson's books
matter or are they all self-contained?"
There is a chronological order to the Tony Lonto police
procedurals. They are not connected in the manner of a soap
opera, so they can be read out of order without losing much
of the enjoyment, but they do follow a chronological
sequence. This sequence is identical to the order in which
they were published.
In the course of the series, Lonto goes from being a bachelor
in his early 30s to being a 40-ish married man, goes through
several partners
(one of whom dies in the line of duty), so if you are, like
me, the type who likes to read things in sequence, you might
want to read them in the order of publication.
TRIVIA NOTE: Most of you may already be aware of this, but if
you're not, when Johnson won the Edgar for 1968's Best First
Novel, the first entry in the Lonto series, *Silver Street*,
it was one of the rare instances in which an Edgar contest
ended in a tie. Johnson's co-winner was Dorothy Uhnak's *The
Bait*. Both books were police procedurals. Both were about
the search for a serial killer. One was by a cop. One was by
a convict. The symmetry of that coincidence has always struck
me. - Jim Doherty
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