RARA-AVIS: Introducing myself

From: Rene Ribic ( rribic@optusnet.com.au)
Date: 22 Jan 2002


Hello all - my name is Rene (as in French version of Renato) from Sydney, Australia and I have been a long time lurker & reader of the archives of this list but my previous attempts to send messages to the list have all been bounced. I'm hoping I'll make it this time. A little background info : I have been a keen reader of hardboiled & noir fictions (& film noir & tough crime films in general) since my teens back in the mid-70's, when I first read Hammet, Chandler & JM Cain (in that order).That was all I read in the genre until approximately 1984 because it was all I knew about. Then I stumbled a cross some of the Zomba Black Box thrillers in a second hand bookshop - the covers & blurbs lead me to believe that I was gonna find something along the lines of the mentioned big 3 (well, one version of the big 3).The first 2 I picked up were WR Burnett & Horace MCoy & I was hooked. The 3rd omnibus volume I picked up was the Jim Thompson & that just blew my mind.Eventually I picked up all the different vol's (I think) except the Anthony Boucher which appeared to be cozies type fiction so I passed it by - this may have been a mistake.Very shortly after this someone at a party told me about the Black Lizard line & how they'd just reprinted almost every Thompson book there was.I haven't looked back since. My personal favourites are Thompson, Chester Himes & Peter Rabe.I generally prefer
"vintage" authors, particularly the Gold Medal authors but I try to keep up with more modern authors - favourites include the "Stark" Parker books, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, Gerald Petievich - just off the top of my head.I just have to say that I love this list - I have learned so much from it & discovered so many new authors that i stand in awe of the knowledge & erudition of many of the list members. I hope to contribute in the future myself. Rene.

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Jan 2002 EST