Val McDermid, A Place of Execution (1999). This is pretty
well a police procedural, but not exactly of the standard
variety. A teenaged girl disappears from a tiny isolated
village, never to be seen again. A suspect is identified etc.
Years later the story picks up again. There is a noir feel to
the whole thing and the notion of justice is
provocative.
Thomas Perry, Big Fish (1988), The Face-Changers (1998) and
Blood Money (1999). I love Thomas Perry and if I say that the
Face-Changers and Blood Money are Jane Whitefield books that
should be enough for fans. Jane helps innocent people whose
lives are in danger change identities and start new lives.
I'm always fascinated by her methods. Blood Money has a
beat-the-clock and beat-the-Mafia angle, which leads to some
high tension. Big Fish is different. It is one of his
earliest novels, if not the first. (It's not even listed on
Perry's Web site.) Anyway, it's about a husband and wife
gun-runner team who discover a plot to make an atomic bomb.
They and their motley ad hoc crew of assistants from the
movie biz (a producer, a director, and an accountant), jet
around the world tracking down and foiling the plotters, not
trusting the police to do the job. A wild story with some
crazy scenes.
Perry has some interesting things to say about his writing
process on his Web site: http://www.thomasperryauthor.com/
Charles Willeford, Cockfighter (1972). After all these years
of listening to you guys rave about this, I finally got hold
of the book and was not disappointed. Who says noir can't
have a happy ending--for some, at least?
Harry Crews, Body (1990) and The Gypsy's Curse (1974).
Thanks, Vicki, for plugging Crews. A trip through archives
shows that various people having been dropping his name since
way back, but I never followed up. That mistake has been
rectified. Some unique characters, good development, and
inevitable, dreadful outcomes. Great reads.
Right now I'm working on Night and Fear, an anthology of
Cornell Woolrich stories. So far, so good. A surprising
number of happy endings. I haven't quite decided whether I
like the editor's little afterwords to each story.
Karin
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> What would our lives be like
without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the
arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/pkgkPB/SOnJAA/Zx0JAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 04 Jun 2005 EDT