Since I talked about Robert Dietrich (E. Howard Hunt) at the
Bouchercon, I guess I can say a few words here. First of all,
I agree with Richard Moore that Dietrich's books about Steve
Bentley are, at best, slightly above average. There are some
things about them that might turn current readers off, one
being the violent homophobia that crops up in more than one
of them. I'd call the books medium-boiled, but here's a line
that qualifies for hard-boiled I think. It's from the first
book in the series, Murder on the Rocks: "When Cardena was a
tank sergeant on Luzon he had pulled the head off a dead Jap
to win a ten-cent bet." Considering the time the book was
written, the "Jap" remark wouldn't have raised many
eyebrows.
There's some good local color writing in the books, and
current Washington residents might enjoy them for the
nostalgia trip to the town that used to exist. I like Hunt
better as Gordon Davis. His Gold Medal book I Came to Kill is
pretty darn good. As are two of his non-series books as
Dietrich: Be my Victim and The End of the Road.
Bill Crider
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