As the deadline for my bibliography is approaching with
bone-crunching speed, I've spent my time mainly with books.
The last weekend was a particularly tough one. Here are the
remains:
Friday:
in the university library: Dan J. Marlowe: "One Endless Hour"
(1969), very tough, almost surrealistic caper story, one of
the best Marlowes; Ron Goulart: three Phantom paperbacks from
the seventies, standard pulp re-creations; Lawrence Treat:
one short story about a motel manager who has problems with
the customers called Smith; in the bed, the beginning of A.S.
Fleischman's "The Shanghai Flame" (1952), an old Gold Medal
about the journalist looking for his lover in the communist
Shanghai, very cinematic, which is proper since Fleishcman
was a screenwriter
Saturday:
the rest of Fleischman's novel, which I carried with me even
to the hairdresser where my year-and-four-months daughter got
her first haircut; two books by John Jakes, as by William
Ard: "Give Me This Woman" (1962), great soft-core porn
P.I./fraud novel about Lou Largo on the tails of a murderous
journalist, as by Jay Scotland: "The Seventh Man" (1958),
almost serious and not very violent story of a columnist
breaking the syndicate, a bit boring in the middle; in the
bed: the beginning of Brian Coffey (AKA Dean R. Koontz):
"Face of Fear" (1977)
Sunday:
the rest of Coffey's "Face of Fear", early serial killer
novel with some wit and political insight, implausible at
times, interesting at times; Ed Lacy: "A Deadly Affair"
(1960), interesting, although flawed account of racism in the
police force, as a mystery almost mindless; Howard Browne: "A
Taste of Ashes" (1958), a very enjoyable private eye novel,
which you probably all know, this was my first Browne and
I'll be eagerly looking for more; in the bed, the beginning
of Fredric Brown's "The Lenient Beast", with multiple
point-of-view characters.
What have you been reading?
Juri
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 04 Sep 2000 EDT