--- On Sun, 8/17/08, Brian Thornton <bthorntonwriter@gmail.com> wrote:
Agreed.
And although some on this list curl their collective lips at the notion that
anything by Carl Hiassen might be "hard boiled," there are some here who
think that his writing has been known to get there (at least as much so as
stuff like Leonard's BIG BOUNCE), and certainly in works such as SKIN TIGHT
(the girl gets fed into a chipper, for Christ's sake) and BASKET CASE (that
fight in the kitchen with the frozen iguana is grimly hilarious).
And you can't get much more "Florida" than Hiassen.
It would be like not including John D. MacDonald's McGee novels because they got formulaic.;)
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My problem with Hiassen is not that he's not "hard boiled." It's that his plots are so trite and unlikely. I mean STRIP TEASE! Was there ever a more forced, unlikely set of circumstances in a novel? And the lead character, Erin Grant, is just so corny and predictable. After that book, I'd have a hard time giving him a second chance. There are too many great books I haven't read to waste time on a writer who thinks his readers are as conventional as his characters.
Likewise McDonald. Those books just got so maudlin and sentimental, poor old self-pitying McGee. It must be so hard being a bachelor on a house boat.
Patrick King
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