RARA-AVIS: Hard-boiled


Martha Pennigar (msmartha@earthlink.net)
Fri, 01 Oct 1999 07:22:03 -0400


Neil, how about Dannie Martin? Don't know how well-known he is, but he's had two books out--In The Hat and The Dishwasher. Martin's an ex-con
(how's that for credentials) whose heroes are.....ex-cons. There's not a respectable lead character in the Hat book (maybe that's why it's so good) and the Dishwasher is a classicly constructed noir story--ex-con stuck in a small town fighting for his kind of justice, his life and his woman.

I'd also nominate a great book called Bag Men, by John Flood, which has as one of its plot elements that seismic shift in the 60s when society got a new outlook on life. Can't think of many crime noir books in which the song White Rabbit features in the story.

Hope that Don Winslow's California Fire and Life is a contender for your project. And please, if you're looking for a hard-boiled woman writer/woman character, take a look at Laurell K. Hamilton, who said in an interview a few years back that she wanted to see a female in the hard-boiled genre, one who shot first and cracked wise later, and set out to create one.

On the media front, I just got Lawrence Block's latest email newsletter and he reports that on Sunday Oct. 10, at 8pm, he's hosting Case Reopened on The Learning Channel and his segment is on the Zodiac killer. Then at 9, Joseph Wambaugh does the Black Dahlia, and Ed McBain concludes with Lizzie Borden at 10pm.

Martha

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