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Post by stuyoung on Aug 26, 2010 14:56:35 GMT
Been reading some James Sallis.
Cypress Grove and Cripple Creek are about a city detective turned small town deputy. The novels take all the hardboiled cliches -- troubled yet compassionate detective with ridiculously impressive qualifications and life experiences (psychotherapist, former convict and ex-special forces soldier) who is forced out of retirement and uncovers murder and intrigue -- then shoves the tired tropes into the background while the hero concentrates on telling anecdotes about his past and how he is settling into the small town.
Also read Drive. A stunt driver turned getaway driver is double-crossed while working his latest heist and has to stay one step ahead of the crooks who want him dead. All while the narrative keeps flip-flopping between the present day and the events that led to him becoming a wheelman.
Also reread Sallis's The Long-Legged Fly about New Orleans PI Lew Griffin. Griffin works various missing persons cases over the course of four decades while falling in love, committing murder, being hassled by cops for being black and hassled by activists wanting him to aid the civil rights movement. In fact back in the '90s when I first read this I remember seeing copies in Forbidden Planet stocked under 'Black Fiction' despite Sallis actually being white.
All the novels contain sparse prose with a poetic streak accompanied by philosophical musings and the occasional wisecrack. Good fun.
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Post by stuyoung on Sept 26, 2011 20:46:17 GMT
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