Doug Bassett (dj_bassett@yahoo.com)
Sun, 19 Dec 1999 07:55:33 -0800 (PST)
Hello, everybody:
Just wanted to recommend a couple of books you might have
missed:
John D Macdonald -- The Girl, The Gold Watch, and
Everything
I'd heard about this one for a long time before I finally
picked up a copy. It's marvelous -- one of his best
non-McGees, I think. Imagine a typical Macdonald story
(predatory females, complicated scams, violent sequences)
played for laughs, with a hapless protagonist who's scared of
women and some fantasy sequences. Macdonald had a real talent
for screwball comedy, and it's a shame he didn't indulge it
more frequently.
Alan Caillou -- Assault on Kolchak
I've been on a big Men's Adventure kick recently, which
basically means reading a bunch of books with numbers on the
covers. Most of them are pretty bad, but this one was a find.
It's part of the Cabot Cain series: Cain is a gigantic genius
who runs around helping people and getting into adventures.
What makes the book worth reading is the level of writing,
which is quite high. The whole thing's told with zip and
panache -- it's the sort of thing Talbot Mundy would've
written in 1969. I know nothing about Caillou, except that he
wrote some other series which sound more hardboiled (one
about mercenaries, for example).
And here's one I can't recommend:
Kenneth Fearing -- The Big Clock
Which is a shame, considering its reputation. But I found the
story labored and sort of pseudo-literary: it's the kind of
hb book someone who didn't really believe in hb fiction might
write, someone who wanted to "uplift" the genre. After
enduring page after page of the unlikable protagonist's
"serious" musings, I finally just skimmed the rest of it,
found out who did what to whom (very predictable) and tossed
it aside.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
doug
===== Doug Bassett dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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