So I have an idea for a new poll. Who is your favorite hard boiled mystery writer? Now I don't think they are actually boiled because the Irish guys would have an advantage. But you know what I mean. Who is the guy you most like to read?
Lawrence Block author of the Matthew Scudder Series. We have mentioned him before. My favorite book of his: "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes."
James Ellroy author of several series including including the LA Quartet. My favorite book of his: "American Tabloid."
Andrew Vachss author of the Burke series. My favorite book of his:"Hard Candy."
Robert B Parker author of the Spenser books. My favorite book of his:"The Widening Gyre."
George Pelecanos author of the Nick Stefanos books. I haven't really written about him but he is one of my favorites. A contributor to "The Wire" you should pick up any of his books about Washington DC. My favorite book of his:"Soul Circus."
So tell me who is your favorite and let me know what you think of their work.
11 comments:
Well, Trooper, although I'm a PI I've never been much into the genre. However, I did like a fellow Brooklynite, Lawrence Sanders. Edward X Delaney was a good character and I loved his passion for sandwiches.
That was a good series. But I highly reccomend all of these guys.
As a knockaround guy you will really appreciate the Matthew Scudder stories. There are a lot of people you will recognize.
And Pelecanos stuff is first rate. You came up at the same time as me and you will recognize what he is talking about. Washington DC is a lot like Brooklyn and Philly and Chicago in what happened and the stuff will resonate with you.
The early Parker stuff is great in the Spenser series. Late on he started to repeat himself a little. I mean it is still a fun read but it is really by a formula more or less. But still a great beach or airplane read.
Ellroy is a different kettle of fish. He is not for everyone. Some people get hooked. Others throw it in the garbage after two chapters. You have to experiance it for yourself.
Vachss is also a little over the top and later in his series he does kind of repeat himself. But the first five or six books in the Burke series are stellar.
You won't miss a bet by downloading any of them.
Just sayn'
The problem with Edward X Delaney is that Sinatra played him in the movie and that was just fucked up.
They needed to use Charles Durning.
I wrote in Michael Haz--an under appreciated & hard-boiled tweeter.
He does have that hard boiled egg shaped head thing going on. Just sayn'
At first glance I thought the guy with the eyepatch was Bruce Dern. Didn't think he was a mystery writer.
My favorite is Trooper York.
If chickenlittle can do a write-in, then the writer of the Tell All Biker Boy series released today deserves at least an honorable mention if not a nomination to receive the Touchas Finger Award for delivering the best of the good stuff!
Trooper, My bride salutes you. She is a huge fan of the genre and is in complete agreement w/ your tastes. Years back, she tried to get me into the Spenser series. The book I read was Mortal Stakes, my bride thought the baseball angle would be a grabber. I liked it but it didn't grab me.
As I get older I become more philosophical. It amazes me to watch my two kids taste change, in food and otherwise. I intellectually knew our taste buds change as we age, but to have my kids[24 and 27] ask me to cook things they hated 10-15 years ago is fascinating. So..w/ the assistance of urbane people like yourself, I need to try things again. The problem w/ the genre is I have lived the life of a PI. It's the same w/ any profession I'm sure. But, my profession, which I just got into serendipitously, obviously has produced more series than any other profession.
What gives me so much respect for Coppola is he nailed two things about which I know very well. In The Godfather he was spot on w/ little mannerisms, from Sonny biting his fist in anger[my old man did that], to "bada bing"[my Uncle Charlie would say that when we would play boxing] to just dipping into the sauce on the stove. Then..in The Converstion, he absolutely nailed a PI. Hackmann was incredible. What floored me was a scene where Hackmann and Fredo[I'm spacing on his real name] are discussing what's on some surveillance audio. Fredo asks the simple question, "What were they talking about?" Hackmann says, "I don't know." All Hackmann cares about is the craft, the art of having the microphones situated perfectly and editing the sound into a coherent format. Trooper..I do video, not audio surveillance. IT IS THE SAME W/ ME. People ask me all the time, "What was the subject doing?" Well, I really don't care much what they're doing. I realize, as did Hackmann, we have absolutely no control over what the subject says, or does. All we have control over is what we do and getting it documented on tape as perfectly as possible.
I apologize for being Carol Hermanish in length. I just love this blog and it inspires me to write things I think about often but never express.
Eggs, perhaps, but not so hard-boiled, York. Hard-boiled was Hammett--. Chandler (tho' he....softens up at time) Or Mickey Spillane . Runyon, sort of. Or...the legendary Jim Thompson--Grifters, The Getaway, After Dark my Sweet, etc--one of the most ripped off writers in Ho-wood-- Sam Peck. paid him well, plied him with booze, dames, and then completely changed the ending of his book.
Ellroy..nearly gets it, but....not quite--Ellroy does offer a rather horrifying picture of LA (then, Chandler did as well--few noir writers will match Farewell my Lovely's jazzy prose --those days, the whole town was on the take, from Burbank to St.Monica). A bit of Vachss's graphix novels I have perused-- respect his...integrity somewhat. Spenser? Eh. Why not Rockford Files.
Travis McGee was the MamaM's first love. She might have settled for Meyer, but McGee was the favorite. She started reading the series in high school and kept the books stored in a box under her bed, as they were plenty edifying for her but not the sort of edifying reading material encouraged in her home at that time.
Because of this, when it comes to favorite Hard Boiled Eggs, John D McDonald heads up the line, followed by Parker and then Vachss.
One of the McDonaldisms still used in the M house came out of his non-fiction book The House Guests in which he described and named the game his cats would play when they'd tear around the house in the dark chasing phantoms as "Flying Red Horse" (after the red winged Pegasus emblem used by Mobil Gas).
We called our dog's version of this game Catching a Zepher, but the cats who've been our guests have all played Flying Red Horse.
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