Re: RARA-AVIS: Parker

From: Mario Taboada ( matrxtech@yahoo.com)
Date: 04 Jun 2000


George:

<<Well, if the Parker novels, Backflash and Comeback, are overpriced in trade paperback, you'll really be glad to hear that the next one, Flashfire, is set to come out in November in hardback at $22.95 (US), $32.95 in Canada. Mysterious Press is the imprint.>>

With new hardboiled literature being an endangered species, I'm glad these books are being published at all. I don't like paying a lot of money for books, but I don't think these Parker titles could ever be best-sellers and, after all, the author depends on sales. I think this applies as much to Westlake as to a newcomer in the field.

By the way, and only tangentially related to the above, have other US raravians noticed how hardboiled literature is eschewed (there, I knew some day I wold use this word) by public libraries? In some, you can't find Gores, or Stark, or even a complete set of Chandler or Hammett, but they alwaysy do have the most recent "The Cat Who...".

Some days I feel that we are a tiny group of loyals trying not to drown in a sea of cozies, romance dreadfuls, Grishiads, and technothrillers. Surely the bottom-liner blues has something to do with this; I suspect the public's sensibilities have changed and made it less sympathetic to hardboiled literature. What's a typical sales number for a hardboiled hardcover novel?

That is my rant for the week.

Regards,

mt

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