Doug, sorry to hear about your TV. Did it jump or was it
pushed?
Anyway, you wrote:
"Joe Gores -- A TIME FOR PREDATORS
"Didn't like this one at all -- a vigilante novel, it starts
very strong but requires, as the mainspring of the action, a
suspension of disbelief that I simply wasn't prepared to
make."
Didn't this win Gores an Edgar for best first novel? I must
admit this didn't do much for me, either. I probably only
went on with him because I already had the next few and
wanted to get to Hammett (I can be kind of anal about reading
authors and/or series in order). I'm glad I did go on. I was
hooked by the DKA novels and especially liked Interface.
Gores has returned to the revenge novel with Wolf Time and
Dead Man, both of which were good, the latter better, but I'm
not thrilled with the subgenre either.
"James Lee Burke -- MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS
"This was my last try with Burke -- I'm crossing him off my
list. This has all of the flaws I've come to associate with
Burke (I've read two others, BLACK CHERRY BLUES and A STAINED
WHITE RADIANCE): a ridiculous plot, overwritten prose, a sort
of sanctimony that really gets under my skin, and a huffing
and puffing after Literary Significance that's painful to
see. Don't understand why he's so popular, when so many
better writers in the genre aren't."
I've given up on Burke, myself, feel he fell into a schtick
after Electric Mist. Even when he tried to refresh himself
with a new series, he carried all of the cliches with him,
including conversations with a ghost. However, after I got
past Neon Rain (well written, but ho-hum, another alcoholic
cop facing his demons), I felt the next few Robicheaux novels
were great, particularly Black Cherry Blues. I also liked his
straight novel Lost Get-Back Boogie, the main character of
which was in many ways a dry run of the Robicheaux
character.
Mark
-- # 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 : 26 Apr 2001 EDT