Here's the beginning of chapter 31 of BLACK MONEY (it
includes the "moral hardship" that Ms. Montin
mentioned):
| It was a moral hardship for me to walk away from an
unclosed case.
| I went back to my apartment in West Los Angeles and drank
myself
| into a moderate stupor.
| Even so I didn't sleep well. I woke up in the middle of the
night.
| A spatter of rain was rustling like cellophane at the
window. The
| whisky was wearing off and I saw myself in a flicker of
panic: a
| middle-aged man lying alone in darkness while life fled by
like
| traffic on the freeway.
| I got up late and went out for breakfast. The morning
papers
| reported no new developments. I went to my office and
waited for
| Peter to change his mind and phone me.
This is as self-reflective as Archer gets in the book, and
this and three or four other lines are all we read about him
and his past. He's a quiet, unobtrusive narrator, and what he
thinks comes across almost entirely in descriptions of people
and in dialogue. I can't remember if he's like this in the
other books, but he seems like a thoughtful guy who's seen a
lot and knows there isn't a lot he can do about it.
Archer's very much in the Marlowe vein, but he seems to be a
jokeless Chandler type who narrates in more of a Hammett
style. There are no monologues, no caustic comments on
society, no wisecracks, no lacerating self-analysis. It's
told pretty flatly. All of which makes for a rather dull
character.
I liked the book. It's well written and the mystery's good.
It's an interesting look at a particular place and time.
Archer seemed to do an awful lot of driving and people would
tell him their darkest secrets with hardly any prodding, but
he did solid detective work and put together all the
pieces.
On the other hand, I'm not going to rush to read any more
Archer novels. It has a competent sedateness, and some
thoughtful dialogue (I'll type in a longer quote tomorrow),
but it didn't thrill me.
Is it hardboiled or noir? It's neither!
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Jan 2005 EST