I've been reading the Bill Moody,
Evan Horne, books this month, (There are now 5 of them.) and
have been struck by the way in which Moody has chosen to
write about an essentially hard-boiled world in what is a
decidedly soft-boiled way. I love his characters, the
atmosphere he creates, and the real life feel of these
jazzworld novels, but I often walk away from them feeling as
though I'm dealing with a talented boxer who continuously and
purposely pulls his punches.
Moody's jazz piano player detective
lives out his life in jazz clubs and bars, cheap hotels and
greasy spoons. He runs afoul of Mafia bad guys and
no-conscience killers, and he gets pushed around, beat up,
and threatened with regularity. In the best tradition of the
PI novel, Horne is a man who, once engaged in a quest, cannot
let go until he has "seen it through," and the "mysteries" he
unravels are often sins of the past which no one wants to see
reexamined. The mood of the books is frequently melancholy
and Horne's prospects, both musical and investigative,
sometimes seem bleak.
Nevertheless, sexual encounters are
handled as though the Hayes Commission was vetting the
stories, and almost all of the serious violence happens
offstage. It's as though Moody wants to capture hard-boiled
and noirish lives and deaths in a semi-cozy manner. He deals
with people Hammett and Chandler would recognize, but he
usually shields his reader from viewing either the passion or
the blood of these people's lives. If he could get a
transfusion from George P. Pelecanos, his books would be
magnificent.
I've spent enough days living in the
world that Moody explores that when he takes me onto a saloon
stage where an after hours quartet is smoking their way
through one or another jazz classic, I can smell the
cigarette smoke and feel the power of the music. I get all of
the juice, the "this is an extraordinary moment" rush, that a
listener or a player gets when you are there and it is
happening. That's why I read Bill Moody, but I wish he would
carry over the "realness" of his musical writing into the
tale he has chosen to tell.
Has anyone else had this same feeling
about his work? Does anyone have another take on it?
Jim
Blue
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