Does Montalban count for this month's theme? Anyway, I read,
"The Angst-Ridden Detective" (Serpent's Tail, translated
edition), which is (I think) the first novel featuring P.I.
Pepe Carvalho. Not excessively hard-boiled, but some rough
spots. The novel gives Montalban an occasion to write a fair
amount about food--which he does quite well--though the food
talk is not too violent. The novel does not have a huge
amount of narrative drive; it sort of pessimistically winds
down. More than anything, it provides an interesting picture
of immediately post-Franco Spain (the novel was published in
1977). The book is mostly set in Barcelona. Montalban has
written many more Carvalho novels and others as well. He also
writes a column for El Pais (a major newspaper). I'm now
reading Paco Taibo II (An Easy Thing)--will report later.
Montalban is lighter and more eccentric than Taibo. A side
note: I also recently read the first James McClure police
procedural set in apartheid South Africa (The Steam Pig):
hard, good, interesting. As in the case of the Montalban,
part of the pleasure comes from the exoticism and a new set
of social rules that of course differ markedly from what we
see in U.S. crime fiction. Doug
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