Crime Fiction Thread 2.0. - Page 16

Abbott overpraised, my ass.

Read Queenpin, Tommy. I know you're on a MAD MEN kick right now, and it's a great companion to that. Just picture lil Peggy Olson/Lizzy Moss in the lead and you'll be golden.

Megan Abbott is talented, when you get props from James Ellroy you know you're good. I think Queenpin is her most entertaining novel, it's definitely a good entry point to her work, I did like Bury Me Deep though.

Also managed to get my hands on a copy of 'The Night Gardener' by Pelecanos, sweet.

Her best is "The Song Is You" by miles and miles. "Queenpin" is definitely her most entertaining, though -- but since the first forty or so pages are almost identical to that same story when she wrote it in short form, I don't find it as good. "Die A Little" is also a knockout.

... to be followed by the DVD release of EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE?

Hope, hope.

I finished The Night Gardener, it's a definite improvement over Drama City. Pelecanos weaves his familiar themes, the interlocking of multiple stories etc, I thought the Romeo Brock storyline felt out of place but it's a minor nitpick. I also noticed some parallel's between this novel and his work on The Wire.

Movie may be bad, but that doesn't mean it should remain unseen, exiled to the VHS Ghetto, Cameron. Don't be a snob.

Fucking A. It's so good. How was the interview?

The good news: the library got me my copy of Savages.

The bad news: it arrived the same day as my held copies of Mike Capuzzo's Murder Room and Roddy Doyle's The Dead Republic.

Guess I'm going to be busy over these next three weeks!

Although after reading about thirty pages of Savages over lunch, I might have this one finished by the time I go to bed tonight. It's already hard to put down.

Anyone think Clooney would make a great Travis McGee? After watching THE AMERICAN Drew McWeeny does:

Why the hell isn't Fox throwing trucks full of money at him to play Travis McGee for the rest of his life? 21 books. Every single one of them great. Clooney could make McGee movies until he just didn't feel like making movies anymore, and he could get directors he loves to come and play and each do one and it could be AWESOME. Harumph.

I'm intrigued about THE AMERICAN as well.

FRANKIE MACHINE just arrived from the library. Can't. Wait. Especially after DAWN PATROL. Never wanted to hang with a bunch of guys so much. Including Red Eddie, up until the end of the book. Cameron, any chance Winslow would revisit those characters?

Thanks. Good thing I live in the UK! Guess I should have done some research. Haven't read SAVAGES

You back in SD yet, or still stuck in Idaho?

sweeeeeeeeet

Once I finish Joe Hill's HORNS, I'm gonna get on SAVAGES. Cannot wait.

I remember reading an interview with Clooney a long time ago and the writer commented on the fact his bookshelves were filled with Lawrence Block books.

And seriously, Clooney as McGee I can just see the best combo of Connery's Bond and Harrison Ford in Raiders.

Yeah, Ebert and McWeeny's reviews of THE AMERICAN have me unreasonably pumped to see it.

Noted! You're a treasure trove of this shit, sir.

I finished The Winter of Frankie Machine last night, Winslow has mastered plot and pacing like no other writer I know of, his books just suck you in. For a fairly standard story, Winslow makes it feel alive and fresh.

What the hell? I thought I read somewhere that they wanted to put Savages out in the U.S. before Gentleman's Hour. That's bullshit!

I can't wait. I haven't read The Dawn Patrol yet but I want The Gentleman's Hour just the same.

Good to know that Savages is doing well. Thankfully there are some people out there that skipped The Overton Window.

I can understand that, Frankie saying Capisce constantly was kinda weird, made him sound almost like a caricature, still highly entertaining though.

Funny about Eisler. He seems like he would be a good egg.

Dinklage I can see pulling off the brainier aspects of Meyer and maybe some of his more meditative thoughts, but, and this may just be me, Meyer has something about him that he can bring everyone into his circle; and I don't get that from Dinklage.

Really, Jeffrey Dean Morgan would be my pick for Meyer.

I saw your twitter the other day. This new show is just running me ragged being the Office Bitch again.

No can do. i only allow myself one Winslow per year. Isle of Joy, Bobby Z, & The Dawn Patrol sit on my bookshelf and whisper to me but I won't give in.

Cameron, am I right in thinking you didn't like PRINCE OF THIEVES? The rave reviews for THE TOWN have intrigued me. Thinking of reading it after FRANKIE MACHINE.

EMPIRE mag - who I admit have been very hit and miss in their reviews lately - gave it 4 stars and describes it as 'a return to the values of the '70s golden age'.

Nah, I think Jefrey Dean Morgan could play the overweight professor look pretty well. Give him some beer and a lot of pasta. In my head when I think of him, Meyer always comes out looking like a heavier John Rhys Davies for some reason.

I like Prince of Thieves. As soon as I read it though I said to myself: Affleck needs to do this one.

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (INFERNAL AFFAIRS, HARD-BOILED) is another fan of the Scudder novels. Leung has actually been in talks with Block to write an original screenplay for him about a Chinese private detective in the U.S.

OK, finished Savages, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, not sure it would step to the head of my personal Winslow class (I sort of wish I'd waited ten years before discovering him, so there'd be a bunch more for me to catch up on). Loved the crazed writing choices, but many of the story elements felt a tad over-familiar to me (in a way that's probably not fair to the writer, since if I'd read his books one per year, say, it would have bothered me less). I like that he's unsparing in his criticism of the politicians involved with the drug war, but he's made the point just as clearly in the past; I don't know that naming names is that much of a step forward. His observations on consumer culture give the book a lot of contemporary weight, maybe to the point where they start to feel as though they're overbalancing the story, but his eye is so clear and his conclusions so bleak that I can't fault him for it.

Ophelia's definitely the book's strength (as, to a lesser degree, is the portrait of Elena). I was amazed to read a comment on Amazon that a reader had trouble getting into the book because he didn't find Ophelia convincing as someone who these two guys could fall head over heels for. That's just insane: sure, in conventional societal terms she's kind of a nightmare of self-absorption and general indolence, but as a character she just leaps off the page as a personality that could attract men like a magnet (the scene where her mother tries to gently explain the impending divorce had me laughing right out loud). Of course, on the other hand, it's a little hard to believe that the threesome would be so casually satisfying to Ben and Chon, but maybe that's a generational thing.

And this was the first of Winslow's books that I've read where the ending seemed to acknowledge the necessity for sacrifice: I always enjoy his protagonists, and while I'm pleased that they generally come to a more or less happy end, there are times when that feels less a question of the happiness being earned, as it is just the fact that it's what readers think they want.

Anyway, great read. If I'd put it somewhere in the middle of Winslow's recent pack, that's not daming with faint praise: everything he's done since Bobby Z has been the kind of page-turner I rarely find anymore, and Savages was no exception.

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_b...e=Choke%20Hold

There is not a font size big enough to describe how much I yelled "YEAH" when the girlfriend showed me that page.