I'll second Bill on L. Block, especially the two Scudder
titles mentioned. Powerful pieces. And, as Bill mentioned,
it's a pleasure to find so many of them in circulation--er,
on the used bookstore shelves. Also read a couple of his
Tanners, which are fun adventures, though even less plausible
than the old Buchans or Eric Amblers--definitely not
hard-boiled, however. Block's newsletter is an unexpected
pleasure too.
I'll second again on the Matt Helm series. Didn't expect
much, but his plots and certain scenes stick in my mind long
after seemingly better written stuff has faded.
James Sallis, Chester Himes, and James Ellroy are probably
the best recommendations for my money--also showing how "far
behind" I was when I started. Read through most of the Ellroy
when he was being boomed on this list, got a bit fatigued
with him, in fact. Himes just makes me smile. A good ear for
talk, and he doesn't fool around in the action scenes. Sallis
intrigues me most, in part because I've only managed to scout
up three of his titles. (I know, he's out there online if I
want to pay the prices.) I like the way his mind works,
particularly his experimentation with structure, although I
don't find his characters terribly deep.
Now there are some other recommendations I read once and
traded in at my local bookstore, but we're accentuating the
positive right now.
BTW, I think we had more fun with the Hard Boiled anthology,
going story by story, than with anything else we've done on
the monthly readings.
Bill Hagen
<
billha@ionet.net>
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