Hey, Mario, just feeling ornery and there haven't been many
posts lately, so I thought I'd respond to your list:
Block's Deadly Honeymoon -- this is the only one of Block's
early paperback originals I found less than convincing. I
believed the early-60s couple who waited until marriage. I
was horrified that the wife was brutally raped (very well
written scene, by the way, very disturbing without being
nearly as graphic as many would now write it) just before the
couple was able to consummate their marriage. I even accepted
the couple's tracking of the rapists. Semi-spoiler: However,
I did not buy the couple's relationship to each other during
that investigation, nor how easily cathartic the ending was,
that absolutely everything has been put behind them and
everything is now okay. Still a very good book, as good as
many writers' best, but I feel Block did much better in Girl
With a Long Green Heart, Such Men Are Dangerous, Mona,
etc.
Totally agree with you about Sunshine Enemies. This reminds
me that I'm a few behind on Constantine. I need to catch
up.
I'm also a couple behind on Mosley, so I haven't read either
of the Socrates Fortnow books, although the movie made me
want to check them out.
The Dortmunder books just don't do it for me. I far prefer
Westlake's darker work.
I liked Stark's Comeback, but I liked the next two even
better. Comeback seemed a bit nostalgic to me, kinda "Gee,
weren't those old books fun" (which they most definitely
were/are). It was like all of those westerns where the
gunslinger is being pushed aside by progress The next two
seemed to me to be more surely set in contemporary
times.
"And that's all. Now tell me: if this isn't a Golden Age of
hardboiled writing, what is?"
I'm not arguing with this assertion, but these books are not
all from the same era. Comeback and Walkin' the Dog are
pretty recent, but the rest span several decades. The Block
is close to 40 years old.
Mark
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