Al said: Re "Murder Off the Rack". No good home (or boat, or
tent) should be without one. From amazon: "Contributors and
their subjects include Donald E. Westlake on Peter Rabe,
Loren D. Estleman on Donald Hamilton, Bill Crider on Harry
Whittington, Marvin Lachman on Ed Lacy, Max Allan Collins on
Jim Thompson, Jon L. Breen on Vin Packer, George Kelley on
Marvin H. Albert, Ed Gorman on Charles Williams, Will Murray
on Don Pendleton and the Executioner series, and Dick Lochte
on Warren Murphy."
Whilst you're at it, Mike, you might want to check out
"Difficult Lives" by James Sallis. An excellent, if short,
collection of essays on the noir triumvirate of David Goodis,
Jim Thompson and Chester Himes. Sallis has also written a
fairly recent major biography of Himes (haven't read it yet,
so can't comment on it).
*************** Darn, Al! Talk about chewing on a big fat
humility pill! I looked over the 10 masters it covers, and
I've only read TWO of them, Williams and Thompson, and the
only other one I had a passing familiarity with is Rene's
buddy, Peter Rabe. But I've got the book coming. The summary
for the book says that it has a list of the books covered at
the end of each essay, so when I get it I'll start searching
around for some of them.
And yes, I have got the _Difficult Lives_ book on my wish
list. You've kinda put a different slant on it. I thought the
book was essentially a short biography of each of the
authors, but by the sound of your comments, it goes a bit
farther than this. Thats good. At least I HAVE read all three
of these guys. haha.
Also I noted a while ago on the list that there is a
biography out on Jim Thompson with a lot of pictures from his
life and a lot of his book covers, too. I was wondering if
anybody had read this and if it was any good. It looks good.
I can't name the author, though.
miker
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