--- JIM DOHERTY <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Re your question below:
>
> > What's the word on [Bill] Ballinger?
>
> An Iowa native, Ballinger worked in advertising
and
> broadcasting in Chicago and New York, and
had
> traveled
> extensively all over the world by the time
he
> settled
> in Southern California to break into
screenwriting.
>
> In addition to the two Barr Breed PI novels, he
also
> wrote, during the 1960s espionage boom, a series
of
> five books about Joaquin Hawks, an American
Indian
> CIA
> agent operating in Southeast Asia.
>
> Three stand-alone books, PORTRAIT IN SMOKE,
THE
> TOOTH
> AND THE NAIL, and THE LONGEST SECOND are
generally
> regarded as his best novels. They were collected
in
> an omnibus volume entitled TRYPTYCH.
>
I have a paperback that republishes the first two, PORTRAIT
and TOOTH. PORTRAIT was very fine, as I remember, a rather
downbeat, noirish meditation on the reality behind illusion.
TOOTH had something to do with magicians and lost me
early.
I've read one of the Joaquin Hawks books and it's pretty bad
-- and that's coming from someone who has a fairly high
tolerance for the cliches of the genre.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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