Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:19:41 -0500 From: "Graham Powell"
<
bleekerbooks@hotmail.com>
>I've only read one Connelly book, THE BLACK ICE, and
I have to admit I
>didn't care for it. What most see as a rather
dispassionate tone I
> >thoughtwas just distant and a little
uninterested.
For someone who's starting out Connelly, I would recommend
starting at the beginning because the stories really build on
each other. However, for someone like Graham who started with
one of the early books and didn't care for it, I'd recommend
at least giving one more chance by skipping ahead to
"Angels Flight." This is possibly the best mystery and best
L.A. book I've ever read; I liked the early Bosch books, but
found AF to be just exponentially better (on the other hand,
I didn't like "a darkness more than night" at all; I thought
the POV switch was unwise since looking at Bosch from the
outside makes him less interesting and more
self-consciously
"iconic.")
The Black Ice is not one of my favorites, I thought there was
too much shoot-em-up, and I found the Mexico/bullfighting
angle somewhat cliched. Leaving L.A. doesn't seem to agree
with Connelly.
Here's a question: I've often found that writers who are very
adept at writing about a certain place seem to stumble when
the heroes leave it. For instance, I think Crais's weakest
moments are in "Voodoo River" when he sends Elvis to
Louisiana; I think the author is originally from Louisiana,
but nevertheless he doesn't write it anywhere near as
perceptively as he writes LA. And though I don't read
Spenser, I've heard that the books where he *goes* to L.A.
are inferior to the Boston books?
So - can you come up with any books where the author takes
the detective out of his/her "natural habitat" and really
succeeds at it? I think Lehane does a pretty good job with
the Florida scenes in "Sacred," though overall it's probably
his weakest book. Others?
Carrie
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
-- # 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 : 28 Sep 2001 EDT