New Thread #7: HARD BOILED
Micah Cohen
Posts: 2,022
Fiction, that is. Does anyone read "hard boiled" fiction, detective novels and stuff?
I recommend five authors: Tony Hillerman, Robert Crais, Carl Hiaasen, James Lee Burke and John D. MacDonald.
- Tony Hillerman writes a series about a pair of Navajo Reservation Policemen that is so realistic and spot-on in his reverence, observations and insights about life in the great and beautiful southwest that it makes me want to move back. The characters are so real that you miss them when the books are over!
- Robert Crais does the same thing for LA, in the same way that the great old guys -- Cain, Hammett, Carver and more recently Ellroy -- did it. His Elvis Cole novels, featuring Elvis's enigmatic partner Joe Pike, are totally believeable modern noirs about the dark city, with characters that seem to feel like real people.
- I like Carl Hiaasen better than Elmore Leonard, because I think that Hiaasen is less polished, more seat-of-the-pants. Plus, Hiaasen really seems to inhabit the world of the Florida underground, of losers and trailerhounds out for the score. Plus, Carl (who is an investigative reporter for the Miami papers) wrote a non-fic book about how Disney is destroying Florida ("Team Rodent"). And that makes him great.
- Maybe I'm a sucker for "location" specific stories (wish there was one about Baltimore), but James Lee Burke really captures the feel and voice of Louisiana in his Detective Robicheaux novels. In between hunting down killers and various wackos, Robicheaux and his partner sip coffee at Cafe DuMonde and suck back crawfish & Dixies on the bayou. They made a lame movie of the first book -- "Heaven's Prisoners" -- which could have been another Alec Baldwin franchise. Except the movie sucked. Terri Hatcher was naked in it. And it still sucked. But the books are great.
- But my all-time fave is John D MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. Travis is the best guy's guy kind of guy you can imagine. He's even better than James Bond. He's the powerful cynical loner with the mysterious past (Special Forces? Football Star? Hired Killer?) who just wants to be left alone to live out his years on his Fort Lauderdale houseboat... But always gets sucked into the action. These 21 great novels all have tons of bare-knuckle fightin' action, babes, and serious guy-philosophy like "Hurting is purely business," and "In a world of plausible scoundrels and psychopathic liars, hunch can only take you so far." They made a horrible movie of a Travis McGee novel once, too, with Sam Elliot as Travis. But Elliot was just too scrawny and not right for the role. And the movie sucks. The books, tho, ROCK.
Who do you read?
I recommend five authors: Tony Hillerman, Robert Crais, Carl Hiaasen, James Lee Burke and John D. MacDonald.
- Tony Hillerman writes a series about a pair of Navajo Reservation Policemen that is so realistic and spot-on in his reverence, observations and insights about life in the great and beautiful southwest that it makes me want to move back. The characters are so real that you miss them when the books are over!
- Robert Crais does the same thing for LA, in the same way that the great old guys -- Cain, Hammett, Carver and more recently Ellroy -- did it. His Elvis Cole novels, featuring Elvis's enigmatic partner Joe Pike, are totally believeable modern noirs about the dark city, with characters that seem to feel like real people.
- I like Carl Hiaasen better than Elmore Leonard, because I think that Hiaasen is less polished, more seat-of-the-pants. Plus, Hiaasen really seems to inhabit the world of the Florida underground, of losers and trailerhounds out for the score. Plus, Carl (who is an investigative reporter for the Miami papers) wrote a non-fic book about how Disney is destroying Florida ("Team Rodent"). And that makes him great.
- Maybe I'm a sucker for "location" specific stories (wish there was one about Baltimore), but James Lee Burke really captures the feel and voice of Louisiana in his Detective Robicheaux novels. In between hunting down killers and various wackos, Robicheaux and his partner sip coffee at Cafe DuMonde and suck back crawfish & Dixies on the bayou. They made a lame movie of the first book -- "Heaven's Prisoners" -- which could have been another Alec Baldwin franchise. Except the movie sucked. Terri Hatcher was naked in it. And it still sucked. But the books are great.
- But my all-time fave is John D MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. Travis is the best guy's guy kind of guy you can imagine. He's even better than James Bond. He's the powerful cynical loner with the mysterious past (Special Forces? Football Star? Hired Killer?) who just wants to be left alone to live out his years on his Fort Lauderdale houseboat... But always gets sucked into the action. These 21 great novels all have tons of bare-knuckle fightin' action, babes, and serious guy-philosophy like "Hurting is purely business," and "In a world of plausible scoundrels and psychopathic liars, hunch can only take you so far." They made a horrible movie of a Travis McGee novel once, too, with Sam Elliot as Travis. But Elliot was just too scrawny and not right for the role. And the movie sucks. The books, tho, ROCK.
Who do you read?
Post edited by RyanC_Masimo on
Comments
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pre-lunch bump!
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good reading material.....
For light reading, I enjoy WEB Griffin's series. He creates some good characters although, he has somewhat of a pattern of characters from series to series. If you are into war fiction, I highly recommend him.
TroyI plan for the future. - F1Nut -
I thought who ever produced "Heavens Prisoners" did an excellent adaptation of Burkes book.
And hey seeing Terry (girl from RS commercials) fully nude does not hurt either.
