Two comic series come to mind: Jonathan Latimer's Bill Crane
series from the thirties and -- get this -- Evanovich's
Stephanie Plum series, now playing at a paperback rack near
you.
Both swing wildly from the most almost surreal, screwball
moments to some truly nasty violent episodes. Don't know
about the later Plums, but the early ones probably warped a
whole generation of romance and cozy readers looking for
light escapist froth.
(Well, they are light froth, but there are definite
hard-boiled chunks in them).
And I'll go with Mark on Bruen. Definitely a funny guy, in a
bleak, black way. Robert Parker can also be quite funny with
the wisecracks, particularly in the Spenser books, but
hands-down the funniest
"straight" writer in hard-boiled is Chandler. Give him a
smokey night club and a mike, and Marlowe would have been
great at stand-up. The same sort of anger that fuels the best
comics isn't all that different from what runs through
Marlowe.
So this guy walks into a bar, no bigger than a beer
wagon...
Probably one of the most humorless, on the other hand, is
Hansen, at least in his crime fiction. Brandstetter's few
wisecracks are so dry they're almost a fire hazard. and
that's actually another thing he has in common with Ross
Macdonald. But whereas Macdonald wrote in a very descriptive
poetic, almost damp sort of way, Hansen was one of the most
terse, dry crime writers since Hammett, maintaining a sparse
spare prose style that hardly anyone uses anymore.
Brandstetter made Joe Friday look like a motormouth. Another
things I always dug was how Hansen would jump the story ahead
between chapters and scenes, expecting the reader to catch
up, and make the connections. For example, a name would be
mentioned in passing in one scene, the next scene would kick
off with Brandstetter already at the guy's house,
interrogating him.
Thank you, I'll be here all week...
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site 75 Years
of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon http://www.thrillingdetective.com
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 08 Mar 2005 EST