I was on the Elmore Leonard website and saw this one
advertised as, "if you love Leonard then..." I'm always on
the look out for more crime writers following in Leonard's
footsteps so I grabbed Diry Sweet up real quick. Have to
admit that at first I almost couldn't take it. John
McFetridge wasn't so much paying homage to the master as
totally steal his hardboiled style. But the characters
weren't there, and I know I'm a lone voice on this one, but
it's the characters that really make Leonard so amazing. Call
it detached realism. McFetridge created some pretty two
dimensional people, characters who would have been more
suited for a movie - not surprising since this writer is also
a screenwriter. I ended up reading the whole thing anyway,
and it got better, or I loosened up. McFetridge does this
cool with dialogue that I haven't seen as stylized before.
It's also cool that the book takes place in Canada, with the
characters constantly joking about how safe and boring
Toronto is.
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