Reappraisal: Dash and Don
It seems to me that there is entirely too little screaming about the work of Dashiell Hammett. My own shrill yaps have been ascending ever since I first found Red Harvest, and from that day the man has...
View ArticleReview:The Duplicate Keys, Part 3–Smashing Mercenary Cuties
Another interesting new and young writer is Donald E. Westlake whose THE MERCENARIES (Random, $2.95) is substantial and effective–if the publisher’s “the first new direction in the tough mystery since...
View ArticlePlug: Mr. Westlake and the Open Road
Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let fifty cents No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes Ah but, two hours of pushin’ broom buys a Eight by twelve four-bit room I’m a man of means …...
View ArticleEnconium: Mr. Dortmunder and Oleg
So. The project started as a child of love. The publisher, Alexander, and the translator, Oleg, decided to do a definitive Dortmunder collection. 14 novels in 7 volumes with illustration, beautifully...
View ArticleEnconium: Mr. Dortmunder and Oleg, часть вторая (Part 2)
“It just looks small. To me it looks small.” “Dortmunder,” Stan said, losing his patience, “it’s a tugboat. It’s the safest thing in New York Harbor. This boat has pushed around oil tankers,...
View ArticleEnconium: Mr. Dortmunder and Oleg, Часть третья (Part 3)
They all trooped in, to view the unprecedented sight of Tiny in two aprons, overlapping, with a meat cleaver in one hand and a long wooden spoon in the other, with a lot of big pots and pans hissing...
View ArticleMr. Westlake and The Fuehrers
ROBERT PRATT SAT AT the typewriter and tried to ignore the call of the August sun outside his window. The air-conditioner kept this second floor study cool, but just beyond the glass summer beckoned, a...
View ArticleBelated Reminder: A Westlake classic, Traveling once more.
Brother Clemence spoke first. “There’s no record of the lease with the County Clerk,” he told us. “I swear to you that when I expressed surprise at that, an ancient clerk there snapped at me, ‘Don’t...
View ArticleParker at the Movies, Part 4: Mr Suzuki and The Stark Homage.
His hand on the knob, she called his name. He turned around, questioning, irritated, and saw the Police Positive in her hand. He just had time to remember that it had to be either Chester or Mal–the...
View ArticleFair Play: Mr. Block and The Snatch.
“I wanted to read it again. I wanted to see if maybe Kelp had a good idea after all.” “Kelp with a good idea.” He finished his Jell-O and reached for his coffee. “Well, he was smart to bring …...
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Nitpick: Mr. Parker and ‘Poetry in Steel’
Parker is the classic antihero, with lots of free-floating hostility and, of course, fulfilling male fantasies, all the “dames” in the novel are crazy about him on sight. But to clear up a few facts:...
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Ironically Forgotten Promo: Double Feature
Until the night Laura Penney did herself in, most of the violence I’d known had been secondhand. Carey Thorpe is the name, and if that rings no bells you aren’t a truly serious student of the cinema....
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Distraction: Had I But Known………
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The Saddest are these: “It might have been!” From Maud Muller, by John Greenleaf Whittier, but then Kurt Vonnegut reworded it slightly in Cat’s Cradle, referring...
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