Anyone interested in a Craig Rice that's a little
harder-edged than her usual should try "Trial By Fury." It's
part of the John J. Malone-Jake and Helene Justus series,
but, according to my often failing memory, it gets pretty
dark as the novel progresses.
Since others on the list have stirred up my collector's envy
with their tales of unique finds, I'm happy to mention one of
mine. At a store specializing in mysteries in Los Angeles,
for $10, I picked up a first edition of Rice's "45
Murderers," a collection of her nonfiction reportage that,
according to inscriptions on the flyleaf came from the
library of Dorothy B. Hughes. It was signed by Hughes. And it
contained a faded newspaper article that someone (Hughes
seems the most likely candidate) clipped from the front page
of what I think was The Los Angeles Mirror. The headline
reads: "Craig Rice Death Remains a Mystery." The article,
which appeared the morning after her body was discovered,
goes on to say that "The coroner's office reported that the
author did not die of a blow, as had been suspected." Imagine
what television news could have done with those
suspicions.
Dick Lochte
From: Doug Bassett <
dj_bassett@yahoo.com>
This isn't on point, but I wanted to say that I'm currently
reading Rice's HAVING WONDERFUL CRIME and enjoying it
tremendously. I find most attempts at
"funny/wacky" hardboiled to be spectacularly unfunny/unwacky,
but this is quite charming -- maybe because Rice doesn't try
to push the humor too hard.
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