Bill Denton writes:
<< It got me thinking about how hardboiled and
noir
writing went through the sixties and into the
seventies....I haven't read
Westlake's non-Parker books from that time, but as
Richard Stark he wasn't
having Parker protest anything or get mellow.
>>
In a late first phase Stark/Parker book -- Deadly Edge
(1971), I think -- the job goes sour because one of the
crew's nephews or the nephew's friend or some such is taking
too much acid. I think the pair want to hijack the job for
drug money. So, to the extent that there's a moral order in
Parker's world, the druggies are the bad guys (and they're
stupid). If I recall correctly, the drug stuff is handled at
about the same level as the infamous blue boy (acid freak)
Dragnet episode. The plot of Max Byrd's California Thriller
(which I think was published in the early 1980s) smacks
of
[could be a mild spoiler]
the 1970s with a conspiratorial plot that involves mind
control through a drug in the water or air. I like that book,
but in same ways it feels more dated than many earlier
titles. My guess is that this feeling has more to do with
U.S. history/national character than Byrd's prose (if that
makes any sense).
Soon to be reundelurked, Doug
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