Christopher’s Comments (group member since Sep 17, 2018)

Christopher’s comments from the Point Blank group.

Also,, find the most noir in the "Mac" series, by Thomas Dewey, maybe Don't Cry For Long.

I started, but never finished The Fabulous Clipjoint.

£6.50 came to $8.11 at current rate of exchange.

I got it for $7.99, but I balked at 655 pp.!!

Is this frickin Clockers, or something? Approximately four times longer than I would expect.

I read I Should Have Stayed Home: A Novel when it was on Munsey's (RIP).

This is definitely a TBR. I don't have the e-book, but I have it in Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s

Cool list, Joe. "The woods are lovely dark and deep..."
I have read Sleeping Beauty, and liked it.

The Outfit is incredibly compact... all that stuff about the two suit jackets, the numbers running, the souped up VW. And then the mobster in his big Buffalo mansion, getting the analysis.. "Your people don't really see themselves as criminals."

I hope to see the movie version someday.

Even Downtown sounds familiar. I think I read it a long time ago.

The only five-star noirish reads this year were re-reads- four which I will count as two:

1.Comeback, Backflash
(Late Parker is great Parker)

2. 100 Bullets: The Deluxe Edition Book II
100 Bullets: The Deluxe Edition Book III

I have three honorable mentions and three dishonorable mentions:

3. The Tall Dolores
4. Thieves Like Us
5. Ladies of Chance- ye old white slavery in thirties Miami. Not too noir, but pretty hardboiled, as the guy basically drinks and effs his way to the heart of the racket.

These three were terrible:

The Quick Red Fox: A Travis McGee Novel

Green Ice

Murder Was My Alibi

I think I have this at home. Definitely:



Tend to get it confused with (which I don't have)

I have read a couple of Travis McGees, and didn't really like them, but I think the Mary Sue aspect is a feature, not a bug.

I call the pbo "romantic novel for men" genre 'mantasy,' for want of a better term. Those who read John MacDonald easily put themselves in McGee's shoes (or sneakers)- he was not 'working class,' but he had definitely and decidedly dropped out of the 'rat race.' (lives on a boat, takes 'jobs' (i.e., adventures) as needed)- serial monogamy- somehow the 'flame' gets killed or brain damaged by the end of the book.

The thing about Travis McGee is, he's not hard-boiled, he's 'tough-tender.' He can be brutal, but he can't (really) be cynical, and the result is a smarmy hypocrisy. He can torture people as long as he feels bad afterwards.

Currently reading Ladies of Chance via Kindle Unlimited.

1936. I guess this was meant to be as salacious as possible. There is always a 'fade out' before the bedroom scenes, but the guy has hooked up four times already, and it's only half done.

Brett Halliday was the author of the Mike Shayne series.

If one part will stay in my mind forever, it's the conversation with the American cop.. where Beck says "a short time," in his bad English, and the cop says "You shot him? Wahl, that's great!" Not that the sentiment was appreciated, just that it was a weird miscommunication.

It definitely compliments the Dragon Tattoo book- it is the first Scandinavian noir from 50 years ago.

I thought it was a little dull, although Henning Mankell did try to explain why he read it over and over as a lad. The Man who Went up in Smoke even duller, although I am willing to give The Laughing Policeman a chance.

My mom recently mentioned that the Martin Beck novels were 'devoured' by American readers (at least by her and my dad) when they first came out.

I had my eye on The Brass Cupcake, but only because of the title.

The Beach Girls sounds good, too.

For the record, I can put up with a lot of 'neanderthal' behavior in "mantasy" novels. (The whole pbo industry was, basically, romances for men), but the attitudes in Travis McGee strike me as hypocritcal. He wants to eat his cake and have it too. He wants to look down on slutty women, and yet have an affair and a hook-up per book.-- the only difference being something vague and boozy called 'love.'

Blech.

The Lone Wolf series has a lot of Nixonian cynicism, but I think Malzberg took a lot from the Parker books, particularly Slayground.

Six had some late plot developments which kept the interest up.

That padding, tho.

Next up maybe Kitten with a Whip.

At the moment, I'm reading Chicago Slaughter, #6 in the "Lone Wolf" series, which Barry Malzberg wrote in the early 70s.

I think he signed up to do fourteen books in eight months, so he wrote them incredibly fast, and there is padding of the "Oh no it's not. It isn't that way at all." type. I should mention that #5 was the worst installment "to date." Entirely pointless. Havana Hit

But the whole series was on sale last month, so I figure I will read them all eventually.

Barry Malzberg is better known for his SF, of course.

Hello, Geoff.

I was going to say I wonder why I haven't joined earlier, but it looks like I'm pretty darn early.