Re: RARA-AVIS: Real Cool Killers

From: Jacques Debierue ( matrxtech@yahoo.com)
Date: 15 Jul 2007


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Allan Guthrie" <allan@...> wrote:
>
> Himes was one of a kind. I forget how good he is sometimes, then I
dip back into one of his books and he stuns me again with what he was doing. I don't see him being at all like Spillane, though. Certainly he was encouraged to write like Hammett, who's at the other end of the hardboiled spectrum.
>

Brilliant writer, one of the best hardboiled novelists. I think I have read most of his books and his intelligence and intuitive genius for the phrase still shock me sometimes when I reread him (mostly the Harlem novels), most recently Blind Man with a Pistol, a real masterpiece.

I don't see any connection with Spillane. Himes was a way better writer than Spillane, also a truly imaginative writer. I would go so far as to say that Himes surpassed Chandler as a stylist. I know this is probably heresy, but I'm saying it.

Best,

MrT



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