Bill Denton opined:
>
> When THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT was suggested as a book
to read, I probably
> wouldn't have bothered if someone had said, "It's
about a wise-cracking
> L.A. private eye who gets hired by a woman who can't
afford to pay him and
> gets mixed up with a mobster and a suave, rich
Mexican, but saves the day
> by loading lots of guns and breaking into the
Mexican's house with his pal
> from Vietnam, a supertough mercenary who always
wears sunglasses."
Amen, Brother Denton. I have read about half of the Crais
output, and just can't bring myself to try others right now
because of this trait (I will, however, tackle LA REQUIEM,
since has been so favorably discussed on this list and other
places). I am getting very weary of the
"private-eye-in-love-with-his-own-schtick" cliché ´hat seems so
prevalent. The culprits, IMHO, include Coben (who even does
it in third person!), G.M. Ford, and Crais.
I suppose we have Robert B. Parker to blame for a lot of
this, but to me he always managed to do it with a wink and a
smile. Crais, at least in the early work, comes at you with
an elbow to the gut.
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Jul 2000 EDT