Here's my list. It's based on a murky amalgamation of
criteria. In most cases, the characters are great characters
in great books. In other cases, I think the characters stand
out more for the books that they inhabit than for their
characterization (Gravedigger and Coffin Ed are actually sort
of secondary figures in at least some of their outings, but
it is always remarkable when they show).
Another thing someone else commented on: series characters vs
one-offs. There were some characters who become a protuberant
mass in your mind just by frequency. If I had read just one
Matt Helm book, he probably wouldn't've made the cut. There
are other characters (e.g., the protagonist of McGivern's The
Big Heat) that I might have included if I had encountered
them in additional books.
Finally: 20 actually seemed like a lot. There were plenty of
characters that I have read and dismissed, but many more that
would probably be on my list if I had only gotten to the
books in which they appear.
If I were ranking, I'd put -- surprise, surprise -- Marlowe
and Spade at the top. Here we go:
20. Bill Crane (series, Jonothan Latimer)
50. Coffin Ed Johnson & 104. Gravedigger Jones
(series, Chester Himes)
64. Detective Sergeant Department of Unexplained Deaths
(Factory Series)
106. Hanson (NIGHT DOGS, Kent Anderson) 113. Hoke
Moseley (series, Charles Willeford)
118. Jack Carter (series, Ted Lewis)
153. Lew Griffin (series, James Sallis)
157. Lou Ford (KILLER INSIDE ME and WILD TOWN, Jim
Thompson)
170. Matt Helm (series, Donald Hamilton)
205. Parker (series, Richard Stark)
208. Paul Pine (Halo series, Howard Browne)
212. Philip Marlowe (series, Raymond Chandler)
228. Richard Hudson (WOMAN CHASER, Charles
Willeford)
235. Sam Spade (THE MALTESE FALCON, Dashiell
Hammett)
253. The Continental Op (series, Dashiell
Hammett)
260. Tom Ripley (series, Patricia Highsmith)
write-ins (I guess I should've participated in the
nominations):
James Figueras (Burnt Orange Heresy) -- why not. Ralph Cotter
(the sociopath protagonist in Horace McCoy's Kiss Tommorow
Goodbye) Calhoun (the feverish protagonist of Harrington's
Dia de los Muertos) Desmond Iles (of Harpur & Iles
series, Bill James; at first Iles is just a somewhat typical
bureaucrat interested in his territory, etc.; later in the
series, he is an outrageous and strange figure, the Richard
III of police procedurals: Hey Jim Doherty, in the world of
police procedurals, what do people think of Harpur &
Iles? And while on the topic, what about Kramer and Zondi?)
Doug
-- # 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 : 06 Apr 2002 EST