>Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 00:19:08 -0500 (EST)
>From:
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net (Mark Sullivan)
>Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Private Eyes. What
else?
Mark Sullivan writes:
>So why am I still so much more likely to pick up a PI
novel than any
>other type of crime novel when I need my hardboiled
fix? It is because
>of those conventions which seem to bore you so much,
Juri. I find them
>reassuring and comfortable. However, I also desire
some innovation.
>And I have found it in numerous recent PI writers. I
don't really look
>for this originality in plot, but find it in
character. Each of these
>PIs is a distinct person, doing a job, walking down
mean streets. But
>they are not the same mean streets as Marlowe's, so
they cannot be the
>same PIs as Marlowe. And they don't wear fedoras. So
I read John
>Shannon, Denis Lehane, Jonathan Valin, Richard Barre,
SJ Rozan, Robert
>Crais, James Crumley, Stephen Greenleaf, Linda
Barnes, Earl Emerson,
>Jeremiah Healy and Lawrence Block, to name but a
few.
>
>And once I put it that way I realize that the main
reason I stopped
>reading Parker is because I stopped being interested
in the character of
>Spenser (interesting is the key term, not like; an
unlikeable character
>can be just as, if not more interesting as a likeable
one). Having read
>Perish Twice recently, I was reminded just how
readable Parker is, even
>when I don't particularly care about any of his
characters.
And that's why, despite a less than stellar spell in the
early/mid 90s, I keep reading the Spenser books as they come
out: Parker is the easiest read in mysterydom, what I refer
to as "popcorn reading". I use the same term in referring to
Mike Resnick's space opera novels -- and, in my lexicon, that
is _not_ a pejorative, in either case. As long as you view
reading as an entertainment, rather than work (which is
rewarding in its own right), there are no better
practitioners....
Still, as I downsize prior to a medically-dictated "move" to
smaller quarters, the Complete Spenser Canon will go. (I'll
never reread them.) However, I _will_ hold onto the Jessie
Stone series ... and faunch for more.
Mark's first paragraph (quoted up there) comes close to
mirroring my own approach to a lot of my reading.
Of Mark's "list", well, I'm a Crumley addict (and not just
because his
_Phillipines_ novel, while pre-dating (slightly) my own
'assignment'. rang so true....). And, IMHO, Linda Barnes
deserves to be ranked with, or above, her Sisters, among the
progenitors of the Girl Dicks sub-genre.
For what it's worth, the local paper (he's a Cincinnati
native) ran a
"Where Are They Now" story on Jonathan Valin a couple of
months ago. Unfortunately I didn't save it. but, as I recall,
the gist was that he'd stopped writing mysteries out of a
combination of burn-out and being
"mid-listed", and had been doing music criticism (transmitted
via email) for a speciality publisher in Texas, for the past
several years. But now
(or as of November...), he making noises about another
novel....
We shall see.
--- Bill Bowers | <Bill@Outworlds.net>
"Max Collins once told me that he had the books of three of his favorite writers on one shelf--Tucker Coe, Donald Westlake and Richard Stark--before he found out they were the same person." --- Bob Randisi | Rara-Avis
"You mean Sam Holt didn't make it?" --- Mark Blumenthal | ibid.
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