----- Original Message ----- From: <
Moorich2@aol.com>
> Discovering new writers is always a highlight of
attending a Bouchercon.
> Discovering new old writers is just as exciting to
me. I do have a bad
habit of
> going from zero to 60 very quickly on a limited
knowledge about a writer.
> More than twenty years ago I listened to Mike Nevins
sing the praises of
William
> Ard and afterwards raced young Billy Crider to the
book room to search
this
> forgotten master out. Back home I found and bought
more copies including
the
> ones completed by Lawrence Block and John Jakes
(which were pricey due to
the
> hot covers). Unfortunately, I finally read a couple
and found Mr. Ard to
be a
> tad mediocre. Boring even. I will say that I liked
his Buchannan
westerns, a
> series he started. But that's about it.
If you haven't done so already, Richard, try "You'll Get
Yours", which Ard wrote for Lion under the pseudonym Thomas
Wills. Some reasons why you might like it. It opens with an
original and effective use of tenses throughout chapter one.
The plot's as tight as anything I've read lately. It's as
gritty as a newly gritted road that's been gritted with new
formula super-grit. Ard died March 12, 1960, aged 37. Even
though he wrote more than thirty novels in ten years, I
wonder what Ard might have achieved had he lived a little
longer.
There's a superb article on Ard in Paperback Parade
#48.
Thanks for the info on Stewart Sterling. Hope you've left one
or two books out there for the rest of us.
One of my own recent purchases is "Death Of A Source" by
Richard A. Moore. Looking forward to reading it. I've heard
good things about him.
Al
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