RARA-AVIS: Re: Ted Wood

From: Kevin Burton Smith ( kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com)
Date: 25 Sep 2002


>I've always regarded the Bennett novels as my favorite
>rural police procedurals, and every time I read one I
>come away with the feeling that being the chief of a
>one-cop department is the best possible job in law
>enforcement. Highly recommeneded.

Hmmm... I dunno. The series has always struck me as being a little too Boy's Adventure for my tastes. I mean, a faithful canine sidekick? And the obligatory canoes and frequent mention of the big woods? The series has always struck me as pandering to American and other foreigner's preconceptions of what Canada is. Well, at least he didn't make the guy a Mountie.

Not that when Bennett ventures into the big city he fares much better
-- in the last one I read, he heads to Montreal (or is it Toronto?-- it's been a while...) and botches up just enough small facts to annoy me (he got the name of a good Canadian beer wrong!!!) But I had no idea he'd written ten of the suckers. Were they even published in Canada?

On the other hand, I rather enjoyed the Ted Barnao books, even though they were pretty "gee-whiz!" too.

>Just as Wood was a Korean vet, he made Bennett a Viet Nam vet
>who, while American kids were going north to avoid the draft, went
>south to join the Marines.

It's not actually that rare. There were about the same number of Canadians who went south to join the U.S. armed forces and fought in Vietnam as there were American draft dodgers who headed north. I know a few of each.

-- 

Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.thrillingdetective.com -- # 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/ .



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