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Crime Fiction Thread 2.0. - Page 53

post #2601 of 3020
12/25/12 at 3:54pm
Good call, Dave. Remarkable life, well written.
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post #2602 of 3020
12/25/12 at 7:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes View Post

If you haven't, read Muller's San Francisco 1940's boxing noir The Distance, it's excellent.

 

I'll have to check that out, I liked Eddie Muller's Dark City. I need to go back and read that again now that I've had a chance to see some of the film's he talked about in that book.

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post #2603 of 3020
12/26/12 at 9:06pm

I recently saw Reacher.  Cruise was sadly miscast in the role, but we already knew that.  The scenes that really strained credulity were the fight scenes, which seemed oddly choreographed. But Cruise was not the only bad thing about the film.

 

The acting was across the board lame, as if everyone was mailing in their performance. The best performance was undoubetdly the villain played by famed director Werner Herzog. He was genuinely creepy. But the other bad guys seemed like incompetent dolts.

 

The script was pretty chock-full of cliches. There were some plot holes that bugged me, as well as some inconsistent behavior. One scene, where Reacher strongly suspects the guy blamed for some horrific sniper attacks has been set up, and that the person responsible may be connected to the range where the patsy has been practicing, is particularly hard to believe.

 

He meets owner of the shooting range, and automatically knows the dude, played by Robert Duvall, is withholding info. Duvall tells Reacher he’ll only answer his questions if he agrees to show his stuff with a rifle.

 

Reacher agrees and walks out into a barren range to hoist up the target. He turns suspiciously around to see Duvall playing around with his high-powered rifle. DUH. This super-investigator who has a mind like a steel trap just blithely walks in front of a man he suspects of foul play who’s holding a rifle?

 

The story ends rather lamely, with a brief showdown with the film’s resident Mr. Joshua and Reacher going mano a mano in the rain, just like Lethal Weapon’s iconic ending. Except Gibson and Busey’s fight looked more realistic and ten times more entertaining.

 

I’m by no means a Reacher fan. I tried a book and couldn’t even finish it. But I imagine the discerning Lee Child fan will be disappointed.

 

My Dad, however, liked it.

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post #2604 of 3020
12/26/12 at 10:25pm

I actually didn't hate Reacher. Actually if I'm honest I enjoyed it more than any of the books.

 

The character is still awful though in that whole "he's an utterly sociopathic asshole but he's supposed to be like a white knight or a cowboy or something" way.

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post #2605 of 3020
12/26/12 at 11:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega View Post

I actually didn't hate Reacher. Actually if I'm honest I enjoyed it more than any of the books.

 

The character is still awful though in that whole "he's an utterly sociopathic asshole but he's supposed to be like a white knight or a cowboy or something" way.

 

  The worst thing about Reacher is he's so frickin' BORING.  The most interesting character was Herzog's.  He played it with a certain Bond villian zeal I liked.  The woman playing the Defense Attorney was too over the top, with her hammy and exaggerated faces.  Duvall played the same ol' gruff coot he played several times before.  Just mediocre at best work.  The woman who played the girl who tries to hoodwink Reacher and later gets killed was OK.  Seemed authentic.  Sadly, I've known many women like her, who think the only way to be "liked" by men is to be sexually available.

 

   Hollywood is just... Man, it just ought to go AWAY.  The ONLY interesting films are being done outside the system.  Well, OK, there are some "system" films that are interesting, but it's mostly clche'd garbage a third grader could create.  They simply do not make films for intelligent, observant adults anymore. 

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post #2606 of 3020
12/27/12 at 10:08pm

Finished John Shaw's Dove Season.

 

While I found the prose quite good, I noticed Shaw has fallen pray to the Spenser/Hawk trap.  His hero Jimmy Veeder, a aort of everyman if there ever was one, has the darker, nore violence prone sidekick Bobby Maves.  This is the "Hawk" character that acts as the main hero's foil, allowing him to get away with not doing certain nasty things the hero shouldn't stoop to doing.

 

Pike is Elvis Cole's darker half.

 

Myron Bolitar has Win.

 

Burke has Max.

 

So on and so forth.

 

It's a formula that's a bit long in the tooth now, and should probably stop. 

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post #2607 of 3020
12/29/12 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 

Part one of January Magazine's best crime fiction of 2012 with some of my picks are up

 

http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/2012/12/best-books-of-2012-crime-fiction-part-i.html

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post #2608 of 3020
12/29/12 at 8:28pm
Thread Starter 

The best book chosen SO FAR is Megan Abbot's Dare Me,  which felt like a sub-plot to the teen noir Brick with the gymnastics of my favorite sports movie Bring it On* and the edge of Heathers, one of my top twelve teen comedies**. (*Fuck you, it is a legit sports movie. Hits all the beats of one and I love it.)  I would have plucked it up as a choice, but it was taken. Surprised Rath didn't snap it up, he loves him some Abbot.

 

**In no order, except my favorite as number one

 

1) Ferris Bueller's Day Off: I've never understood the backlash to this movie, yeah Ferris schemes a lot, but he's hardly the sociopath some say he is. He just wants a day off from school near the end of his senior year. Kill him so he burns in Hell! The parade scene is epic. This movie flows so well.

 

2) Easy A: It has a great feminist message about the hypocrisy that guys who sleep around are studs and girls that do the same are called sluts by other girls and chased by horny guys who privately mock them after they get laid. Also the first movie where I would have cheerfully watched a spin-off of the parents, that's how great Tucci and Clarkson are. Emma Stone's break-out movie like Pretty Woman movie that made everyone notice her, without the creepy message of becoming a princess by selling your body (Note that while the movie is rancid, Julia Roberts is excellent and charming). Effortlessly picking up the baton Lindsay Lohan dropped.

 

3) Heathers: It would NEVER be released in a world with Columbine, but it's so amazingly dark and funny. "I love my dead gay son!" Remember that brief few years when Christian Slater was cool?

 

4) Dazed and Confused: The ultimate hang-out movie and while the characters portrayed are now old enough to be my parents, somehow still really relatable. Insanely quotable and even though the character probably has a date with a statutory rape sentencing in his future, McConaghey hasn't been that good and charismatic until this year's Texas noir by William Friedkin Killer Joe

 

5) Superbad: Gets so much right about being a teenager and is wildly funny without being unbelievable.  The majority of the characters are profane while still being likable. Like Ferris Bueller, this is one of the best paced "Teens on a journey." movies ever.

 

6) Ten Things I Hate About You: This thing would be a dud without its surprisingly clever script and the cast of great actors like Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

 

7) Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Dazed and Confused almost ten years before that movie. A great hang-out movie. Excellent cast and funny as hell. You'd never recognize Sean Penn if he didn't have such a recognizable face.

 

8) Can't Hardly Wait: I think this would be better remembered without the slightly creepy A-plot of Ethan Embry and Jennifer Love Hewitt and focused instead on the party, the nerd, and Seth Green and Lauren Ambrose locked in the bathroom. All that stuff is gold.

 

9) The Sure Thing: Technically a cheat since they're in college, but I think they're 19, so it slides in. I love the road trip segments, the great chemistry of John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga(Fuck Say Anything. Fuck it right to hell.)

 

10) Can't Hardly Wait/One Crazy Summer: Another cheat! However, I can't watch these separately. So weird and wonderfully twisted and funny.

 

11) Adventureland: So funny and honest and though I didn't come of age in the 80's on the East Coast, the characters still felt relatable and felt like people I knew growing up. For a brief, shining moment I thought Kristen Stewart would be a better actress.

 

12) Sex Drive: Why wasn't this a bigger hit? Funny and dirty and very sweet. Clark Duke would be the MVP, but James Marsden is so wonderfully dickish and hilarious in it. I've made all my friends watch it and they liked it a lot.


Edited by Cameron Hughes - 12/29/12 at 8:47pm
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post #2609 of 3020
12/30/12 at 12:56pm
Thread Starter 
Part two and the majority of my picks are up http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/2012/12/best-books-of-2012-crime-fiction-part-ii.html
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post #2610 of 3020
12/30/12 at 8:45pm
Thread Starter 

Lauren? Subotail? David? Anyone? These are great books and I'm happy Simon Kernick's British hotel riff on Die Hard, Siege is coming out in the States in June.

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post #2611 of 3020
12/30/12 at 9:04pm

Oh! I've really been wanting to take a look at Siege!

 

Also Big Maria from that list looks right up my alley.

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post #2612 of 3020
12/30/12 at 9:47pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by LaurenOrtega View Post

Oh! I've really been wanting to take a look at Siege!

 

Also Big Maria from that list looks right up my alley.


I only quoted a couple of the best lines from Big Maria. Great, great, human book, really reminded me of the best Lansdale Hap and Leonard novels.

 

Siege surprised me. I liked Kernick's earlier books, but none knocked me out. While Siege is very obviously a Die Hard riff, it's a GOOD one, he clearly understands why that movie is a classic. Also, the police scenes are really interesting, just to see how a major crimes squad in a major European city handles a huge crisis like this. And like all great thrillers, I fantasy casted it. I can't decide between Daniel Craig or the "Should be a Movie Star" Damian Lewis for the hero Scope.

 

More of my picks will be in the fiction and sci/fi fantasy lists, though all my picks could have easily been put in crime, it was a matter of space and spreading the wealth.

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post #2613 of 3020
12/30/12 at 9:53pm
Thread Starter 

Fun Fact: Unless 2013 is a really stupidly good year for the genre, I can pretty much gaurantee Alan Moore's Absolute Top Ten will make 2013's list. It's not just one of the best super-hero saga's ever, but a really excellent story about cops and the unique city they protect. I just re-read the great Forty-Niners to get ready for the epic tome. It reminded me of when Powers used to be great.

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post #2614 of 3020
12/30/12 at 10:02pm
Thread Starter 

Dan Fesperman's The Double Game is a great love letter to spy novels, both popular to the really obscure. There were a bunch in the glossary I never heard of.

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post #2615 of 3020
12/30/12 at 10:17pm

The new Sylvester Stallone film, A Bullet to the Head, is opening soon.  Normally, I'd shrug and say Big Deal, except it's notable for a couple reasons.  First, it's Walter Hill's first directorial attempt in twenty years.  Hill is a legend and he directed one of my all-time favorite films, Hard Times with Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin.  He also wrote both screenplays to both film adaptations of Jim Thompson's The Getaway. 

 

Also, the new film is based on an excellent noir comic of the same name by French writer Matz.  Matz also created one of my favorite noir comics of all times, The Killer. 

 

Stallone's involvement was a concern for me at first, but you never know.  Even Sly is capable of delivering a decent performance now and again.  Remember Copland?

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post #2616 of 3020
12/31/12 at 7:43pm
Thread Starter 

Lauren, when you're un-banned, I hope you come back. Thread needs you.

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post #2617 of 3020
12/31/12 at 11:36pm
Thread Starter 

In a good year for books, I think my favorite crime novel was the deep Southern Gothic riff on David Lynch's Twin Peaks, Niceville. It was big and crazy and ambitious and most of all, it was different.

 

I tend to pick books that stay with me and that I bug others about. Simon Kernick's (Who was thrilled to be included and was gracious and humble) Siege was very mainstream, but executed so well that it left me breathless. Also, Big Maria was great because of the characters, but the dialogue is so funny that I constantly quoted it, putting terms like Rocket Surgeon into my lexicon.

 

I didn't like Kings of Cool nearly as much as Savages (One big twist at the end was hard for me to buy) but the themes and characters were different enough from Savages that I found it fascinating. It was much more of a slice of life crime story than Savages was.

 

My write-up for Red Country will either be in fiction or fantasy and I just loved how successfully he mashed up the western genre with fantasy without sacrificing either genre. Justin Robinson's Mr. Blank, basically about the guy who keeps all the conspiracies running and is loyal to everyone and no one (He's a Satanist and a Knight Templar, for example) and it's basically the book equivalent of a USA dramedy. Sunny locale, quirky main character ( I envisioned either Adam Scott or John Krasinski for the role ) and premise and a story that could be serialized (Who's trying to kill him and why?) and episodic (Conspiracy crisis he'd have to fix every week) and lots of good pop culture references. It could have been in crime, but it'll likely be in fiction because the crime section was jammed.


Edited by Cameron Hughes - 1/1/13 at 12:12am
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post #2618 of 3020
1/1/13 at 1:17pm
Thread Starter 

This is what I'm looking forward to: Frank Bill's Donnybrook, which sounds like Fight Club mixed with Wileford's Cockfighter

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Donnybrook-A-Novel-Frank-Bill/dp/0374532893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357075019&sr=8-1&keywords=DONNYBROOK

 

His Crimes of Southern Indiana is a great short story collection.
 

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post #2619 of 3020
1/1/13 at 4:48pm

Sounds like a white trash version of Hard Times.
 

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post #2620 of 3020
1/1/13 at 11:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanW View Post

Sounds like a white trash version of Hard Times.
 

 

   Bullet to the Head, you mean?  Nah.  The Matz comic is about two buddies who are hitmen.  One of them gets killed, and the other, Jimmy (Stallone) tracks down the hitter (Jason Momoa) to get revenge.  Not the most original storyline, but the comic succeeded in making it interesting. 

 

   Hard Times was a great film.  I like Charles Bronson quite a bit and that was one of his all-time best.  Did you know Charles Bronson almost played Parker?  Brian Garfield adapted Butcher's Moon and the studio came very close to filming it.  Bronson would have starred.  Michael Winner was slated to direct.

 

   At one time a film version of The Green Eagle Score (one of my favorites because it introduces one of my favorite Parker sidekicks, Stan Devers) was almost green lit starring John Travolta.

 

   Glad that didn't happen.smile.gif

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post #2621 of 3020
1/2/13 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes View Post

Lauren? Subotail? David? Anyone? These are great books and I'm happy Simon Kernick's British hotel riff on Die Hard, Siege is coming out in the States in June.

 

Just back from 2 weeks in Oahu and Maui, so I'm out of the loop. But expect me to read through your choices and buy them all....

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post #2622 of 3020
1/2/13 at 2:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave618 View Post

 

   Bullet to the Head, you mean?  Nah.  The Matz comic is about two buddies who are hitmen.  One of them gets killed, and the other, Jimmy (Stallone) tracks down the hitter (Jason Momoa) to get revenge.  Not the most original storyline, but the comic succeeded in making it interesting. 

 

   Hard Times was a great film.  I like Charles Bronson quite a bit and that was one of his all-time best.  Did you know Charles Bronson almost played Parker?  Brian Garfield adapted Butcher's Moon and the studio came very close to filming it.  Bronson would have starred.  Michael Winner was slated to direct.

 

   At one time a film version of The Green Eagle Score (one of my favorites because it introduces one of my favorite Parker sidekicks, Stan Devers) was almost green lit starring John Travolta.

 

   Glad that didn't happen.smile.gif

 

I was referring to Cameron's post.

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post #2623 of 3020
1/2/13 at 2:44pm

My first semester of law school has gotten in the way of my "fun" reading in a big way. Trying to finish a couple over winter break and will likely be downloading some audiobooks to keep me company while walking across campus next semester. As always, this thread and Cameron are an invaluable resource.

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post #2624 of 3020
1/2/13 at 4:09pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanW View Post

 

I was referring to Cameron's post.


Dave and I have each other blocked because of the un-pleasantness in the Parker thread.

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post #2625 of 3020
1/2/13 at 5:50pm
Thread Starter 


Saw Django Unchained today, and it was a great, epic (while still feeling personal, I really liked Django and Schultz as people), smart and funny as hell thriller. Everyone was great, but I think Samuel L. Jackson deserves an Oscar for his role as Stephen, who is both despicable and sympathetic. Yeah, he was an Uncle Tom that survived and got preferential treatment by selling out other slaves, but he was still a slave in the Deep South, owned by a particularly nasty guy. I would have liked to see what Will Smith would have been as Django, but Jamie Fox has amazing movie star charisma but can melt into a character and make you think he is that character. Not sure Will Smith could pull that off, but he has the potential, as seen in Mann's Ali.

 

The CandieLand plantation shootout was one of the best shootouts I've ever seen. This movie makes me wish Tarantino had done Savages, he'd probably be willing to do more of the wilder and funny stuff in the book (like the Republican rant) and I would have liked to have seen his cast (Jackson as DEA Agent Dennis, anyone?) and he would have kept the ending, which I'm still mad at Stone about for fucking up. I'm torn though, Inglourious Basterds and now Django makes me really eager to see only original stuff from Tarantino, but Jackie Brown was his best crime movie. (Followed very closely by Reservoir Dogs)

 

While I'm talking about Winslow, anyone see that I said he's the Michael Mann of the written word? Agree or am I talking out of my ass? The Tijauna shoot-out in The Power of The Dog is very Mann in Heat-mode. I'd kill to see him do California Fire and Life. I was thinking about an adaptation of that the other day. At the time it was written, it wasn't too weird to have the bad guy Nicky be KGB, but it'd look really dated now. Why not have Nicky be a Middle-Eastern career criminal? A good director and script could make that not seem racist or stereotypical.

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post #2626 of 3020
1/2/13 at 5:52pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Levine View Post

 

Just back from 2 weeks in Oahu and Maui, so I'm out of the loop. But expect me to read through your choices and buy them all....


Oh, jealous! I love the vibe of Hawaii, it's very San Diego.  It's also one of the places Don Winslow would permanently live in if he had (but the very thought makes him sad, he says) to leave my city.

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post #2627 of 3020
1/2/13 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes View Post


Oh, jealous! I love the vibe of Hawaii, it's very San Diego.  It's also one of the places Don Winslow would permanently live in if he had (but the very thought makes him sad, he says) to leave my city.

 

Its an amazing place - and each island has a totally different vibe. We usually go to Honolulu because that's where my fiance spent her late teens and early 20s, but she was born and raised on Maui, so we spent a week there as well - and had her cousin (who is VERY country) take us around the less touristy parts.

 

Don does a really good job of capturing the feel and speech of the locals in his Boone Daniels books.

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post #2628 of 3020
1/2/13 at 6:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Levine View Post

 

Its an amazing place - and each island has a totally different vibe. We usually go to Honolulu because that's where my fiance spent her late teens and early 20s, but she was born and raised on Maui, so we spent a week there as well - and had her cousin (who is VERY country) take us around the less touristy parts.

 

Don does a really good job of capturing the feel and speech of the locals in his Boone Daniels books.


It's cliche, but it really is paradise and the people are really nice. I keep wanting a really good Hawaii crime novel. B. Clay Moore's comic Byrd of Paradise, about a P.I. im 1950's Honolulu. I'd love to see a novel with that character.

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post #2629 of 3020
1/3/13 at 3:09am

I've never read any of the Jack Reacher books so I can't comment on them but I thought Reacher was ok, maybe I'm just happy to see McQuarrie directing something but I didn't hate this. It felt like McQuarrie wanted to remake Lethal Weapon but was given Reacher instead, that whole fight in the rain was an obvious homage to the Riggs/Mr Joshua showdown, and then there's Herzog as a mysterious european. Whatever faults the film has, McQuarrie has a talent for staging action.
 

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post #2630 of 3020
1/3/13 at 5:11am

I thought the movie was pretty good too. There was a character involved with the bad guys that was too convenient and airport fictionesque (though Michael Connelly is notorious for this plot devise as well), but I had a good time with it. Don't think I'll rush to read any of the books, though.

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post #2631 of 3020
1/3/13 at 4:07pm
Thread Starter 

Come back, Lauren!
 

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post #2632 of 3020
1/3/13 at 4:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes View Post

Come back, Lauren!
 

 

 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

 

Reading Mr Blank right now and it's a serviceable book, might have to pick up one of those books you listed as the best of the year Cameron. Of course I just bought the first 8 John Carter books (1 buck on kindle!) so I have those to read as well. Too much to read and not enough time!

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post #2633 of 3020
1/3/13 at 7:21pm

Mr. Blank is in my Kindle queue as well.  I skimmed a few pages and it looks good.

 

ERB's John Carter novels were a big part of my childhood, but I confess to not really thinking much of them now.  Didn't like the film, either.

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post #2634 of 3020
1/3/13 at 7:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanW View Post

I've never read any of the Jack Reacher books so I can't comment on them but I thought Reacher was ok, maybe I'm just happy to see McQuarrie directing something but I didn't hate this. It felt like McQuarrie wanted to remake Lethal Weapon but was given Reacher instead, that whole fight in the rain was an obvious homage to the Riggs/Mr Joshua showdown, and then there's Herzog as a mysterious european. Whatever faults the film has, McQuarrie has a talent for staging action.
 

 

   I saw Jack Reacher and wished I'd seen the Hobbit instead.  And I ain't a fan of Hobbits, it's just Jack Reacher sucked that much.

 

   It's so formulaic and trite it's almost a pastiche of itself.  But then again, look at the books it was adapted from.

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post #2635 of 3020
1/4/13 at 2:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes View Post

Tom Epperson's (Co-writer with Billy Bob Thornton of the excellent One False Move) 2012 novel Sailor feels wonderfully old-fashioned while still retaining a 21st century feel. In all honesty, it feels like Leonard's leaner and meaner novels of the 70's and 80's.

 

Gina was married to a career criminal and after years of torment, she turns the bastard in and runs to Oklahoma under witness protection with her son Luke.

 

A few years later, the shit hits the fan as her ex's father,a powerful mobster, spares no expense to find her and get revenge. With even the U.S. Marshall protecting her on the take, she's forced to run and as the bodies pile up, she runs into a mysterious drifter named Gray in L.A. who claims to be a sailor. Like an old west hero, like Shane, he protects her(Though Gina is a tough bitch and no damsel in distress) as the bad guys come.

 

What makes this novel is the characters and the humor. It has a lot of black humor and even the worst people, like Gina's father-in-law, have layers. He's a very violent man and psychopath, but cares deeply for his wife who suffered from a stroke and loves his bulldog. It's a violent read, but intelligent, like Leonard does it, complete with a moving ending that doesn't drip with fake sentimentality.

Have you read The Kind One, his first novel? I've seen it described as a '30s noir, which is never a bad thing.

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post #2636 of 3020
1/4/13 at 2:24pm

I read Book One of the latest Brubaker/Phillips effort Fatale and it's great. Jo is a thoroughly interesting take on the femme fatale archetype, it's like Brubaker crossed HP Lovecraft with a fifties police procedural. There's some really grisly elements in this series and lots of gore but it doesn't overwhelm the story. It'd definitely worth reading.

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post #2637 of 3020
1/4/13 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beldar View Post

Have you read The Kind One, his first novel? I've seen it described as a '30s noir, which is never a bad thing.

In the links to my write-up on Sailor in the best of 2012 on January Magazine I mention liking The Kind One.

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post #2638 of 3020
1/4/13 at 11:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanW View Post

I read Book One of the latest Brubaker/Phillips effort Fatale and it's great. Jo is a thoroughly interesting take on the femme fatale archetype, it's like Brubaker crossed HP Lovecraft with a fifties police procedural. There's some really grisly elements in this series and lots of gore but it doesn't overwhelm the story. It'd definitely worth reading.

 

   I am only in the first stages of Brubaker's Criminal.  Pretty good, although not my favorite crime comic.  Not at this point, at least.

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post #2639 of 3020
1/4/13 at 11:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beldar View Post

Have you read The Kind One, his first novel? I've seen it described as a '30s noir, which is never a bad thing.

 

   One False Move was a pretty decent low budget noir.  I tried a bit of Sailor, but it wasn't my thing.  I may pick it up again at some point.  other people seem to like it quite a bit.  But then again lots of other people love Elmore Leonard, and I've never really gotten into him either.

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post #2640 of 3020
1/5/13 at 11:24am

So Cameron, when can we next expect a new Don Winslow book? I'm dying for a new Boone book.

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post #2641 of 3020
1/5/13 at 1:17pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecallahan View Post

So Cameron, when can we next expect a new Don Winslow book? I'm dying for a new Boone book.

I have no idea about Boone, just that four more books are planned.

 


A stand-alone this coming Spring or Summer. I've been sworn to secrecy about the plot, but it's big and spans separate countries. After seeing Deadwood, reading Red Country and True Grit and now seeing Django, I'm bugging him about an 1880's San Diego Western when Wyatt Earp was here, he had one planned years ago, but no one would buy it. We're living in a world where Savages made a major splash, I think he could do it now.

 

He works pretty steadily, every day, so stay tuned.

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post #2642 of 3020
1/5/13 at 4:03pm
Is he still against writing another drug wars book, after all the real life shit that's happening?

And any word on the rumour that he's writing the Harry Bosch TV series?
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post #2643 of 3020
1/5/13 at 4:03pm
Is he still against writing another drug wars book, after all the real life shit that's happening?

And any word on the rumour that he's writing the Harry Bosch TV series?
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post #2644 of 3020
1/5/13 at 4:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluelouboyle View Post

Is he still against writing another drug wars book, after all the real life shit that's happening?
And any word on the rumour that he's writing the Harry Bosch TV series?


I think he's just tired of the subject, to be honest. He's covered it a lot (3 books, or 4 if you count The Gentleman's Hour) and it makes him sad and angry.

 

No truth to the Bosch rumor, no idea where that started. Of course, he could be lying to me, but he tells me when he doesn't want me sharing things.

 

Now, I'm asking again: Was my Michael Mann comparison where I say he's the Mann of the written word in my Kings of Cool write-up apt and accurate? I think Mann or Peter Berg could do a bang-up California Fire and Life or Frankie Machine.

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post #2645 of 3020
1/5/13 at 6:33pm

I haven't read Kings of Cool yet, I'm trying not to burn through all of the Winslow books as then I wouldn't have them to look forward to but I would love to have Mann do a Winslow book and even though he wouldn't do it as he likes to write/direct his own stuff, Rian Johnson would do a great job I think. And thanks for the update on the next book Cameron, that's relatively right around the corner and I could care less if it isn't a Boone book (but four more planned? HOT DAMN!).

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post #2646 of 3020
1/5/13 at 7:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecallahan View Post

I haven't read Kings of Cool yet, I'm trying not to burn through all of the Winslow books as then I wouldn't have them to look forward to but I would love to have Mann do a Winslow book and even though he wouldn't do it as he likes to write/direct his own stuff, Rian Johnson would do a great job I think. And thanks for the update on the next book Cameron, that's relatively right around the corner and I could care less if it isn't a Boone book (but four more planned? HOT DAMN!).


He wants to do different cycles of surfing, ending with surfing at night, which is hilariously dangerous.

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post #2647 of 3020
1/5/13 at 11:45pm

One thing is for sure, I'm not reading any more of Winslow's Neal Carey books.  Maybe I'll try Satori next...  The two Ben and Chon books are wonderful, but I didn't see any of that in the first Neal Carey book.

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post #2648 of 3020
1/6/13 at 8:11am
The Neal Carey books have their virtues, but they are quite different from Savages and TPOTD. Hammett meets Dickens.
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post #2649 of 3020
1/6/13 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subotai View Post

The Neal Carey books have their virtues, but they are quite different from Savages and TPOTD. Hammett meets Dickens.

 

   Oh, yeah, Winslow made a quantum leap with Savages.  It's audacious and totally hooked me in with the first line. 

 

   When I discovered Kings of Cool right before the film premiered, I wondered if it was a quickie knockoff to coincide with the film but no, it had serious legs.  Or feet, or however the heck that expression goes.;-) lol

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post #2650 of 3020
1/6/13 at 8:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave618 View Post

 

   Oh, yeah, Winslow made a quantum leap with Savages. 

 

  

 

Naw, the Quantum Leap was Bobby Z. That was Don completely reinventing himself as a writer. Everything since then has been a very fascinating evolution.

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