Mark wrote:
"Speaking of pseudonymous works by literary authors, didn't
Don DeLillo write a book that purported to be the memoir of
the first female professional hockey player, or something
like that? Have no idea if it's hardboiled or noir."
It's titled Amazons and Cleo Birdwell is the pseudonym
Delillo used. It's subtitled "an intimate memoir by the first
woman ever to play in the National Hockey League." It was
published in 1980 and I read it not long after publication.
All I remember is that at the time I considered it to be the
worst hockey novel ever written. Keep in mind that I'm a
Canadian who grew up with the game, officiated for a number
of years and still play oldtimers hockey.
Anyone interested in hockey mysteries should go to
mysteryfile.com, asite run by Steve Lewis, and look for
Hockey Ref Mystery. Jim Felton has compiled a list of
mysteries that include references to hockey, not only
mysteries about hockey. Richard Aleas, Jason Starr, Sara
Paretsky, George V. Higgins, Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block
and Erle Stanley Gardner are some authors mentioned.
According to Felton, Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve
Hamilton was submitted by two people, one of whom was Mark on
the Rara-Avis Yahoo group. It's possible at the time that
Mark mentioned it that I would have commented about how
unrealistic the hockey sequence that jumpstarted the
storyline was. Hamilton had his protagonist Alex McKnight
filling in as a goalie for the first time and stopping the
leader of the opposing team. Kit Erdman provide the initial
submission to Felton and wrote that "it establishes a sharp
conflict between McKnight and the drug-crazed leader of the
opposing team that drives the action through to the end of
the novel." Felton seconded Erdman's assessment.
Take it from me, someone who had never played any goal in the
past and if I remember correctly little if any hockey
(McKnight had been a baseball player) could stop the type of
skilled player described by Hamilton. He couldn't have
stopped me and this poor hockey story took me right out of
this mystery. And I have always enjoyed Hamilton's
work.
Kent Morgan
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