I enjoyed both David Dodge books as well as Fisher's No House Limit. I also liked Howard Hunt's House Dick. I really enjoyed the Max trilogy. Also well worth reading are Charles' and Max's books--they're the best contemporary authors in the catalog, actually. All the Lawrence Block books are outstanding--Inglorious Basterds made me think ot Killing Castro. Actually, all the Gold Medal books HCC reprinted are great with the exception of the Goodis, but Charles did us a favor by reprinting that so those of us reading the entire Goodis catalog could have that one at a reasonable price. He even introduced us to some Gold Medals that most of us probably weren't even aware of, such as Shepard Rifkin's Murderer Vine.
On the other end of the spectrum are the Max Alan Collins books, none of which I really liked and believe me I want to like MAC, but his characters just don't do it for me--they're too, okay, comic-bookish. You have to have some serious doubts about anyone who names a character Ms. Tree.
I love Mickey Spillane, but Dead Street was a sad Swan Song. I'm afraid Charles was playing Phil Spector to Mickey's Let it Be, trying to polish up that one. And, of course, we don't even have to get into the Colorado Kid.
Jeff
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Sep 2009 EDT