It's just past the middle of August and I'm at my Daughter's house dog sitting for a couple of days. She doesn't have air conditioning either so I'm no more uncomfortable then usual. I have, however, cut back on my Library runs because they're all on Summer Hours which means they open later. In this heat, I try to get my errands done early. Thankfully, I have a lot of books in my TBR pile to get me by.
Series
The Drowning Pool - Ross MacDonald ($11.00/$.50, copyright 1950, 244 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is one of the books I picked up at the Library sale I mentioned several months ago and it turned out to be the second in MacDonald's Lew Archer series. He's a Private Investigator in the Chandler/Hammett hard-boiled mold working in LA in the late '40's mostly collecting evidence in divorce cases. This opens with a well-dressed woman named Maud Slocum hiring him to find out who sent her husband a blackmail letter - a letter she intercepted before the husband got it. She won't give Archer any details so he decides to start by checking out the Slocum family. The husband turns out to be a narcissistic amateur actor, the daughter is smart but aloof and there's something going on between her and the young Driver. Then a body shows up in the pool and Archer has to deal with corrupt cops, more deaths, and an attempt on his own life in a "drowning pool". McDonald does well describing the supporting characters and the suddenly oil-rich communities but he doesn't give us a description of Archer himself. I like to visualize the main characters so I went with Paul Newman who, I'm pretty sure, played him in the movie. It was OK.
After reading the McDonald book, I decided to check through The Stacks to find any of the earlier hard-boiled author's books. I found one of my favorite Dashiell Hammett books and then remembered that Joe Gores wrote an authorized prequel to it. Also, he wrote this ….
Miscellaneous
Hammett - Joe Gores ($1.95/$1.95, copyright 1975, 253 pages, Paperback)
I'm always up for a hard-boiled detective story and Gores has done the genre one better. He's written a fictional version of Hammett's life based on when Hammett was a one-time detective and Pinkerton agent who'd been writing for a while. He gets pulled back into the business when a former partner is killed. Gores paints a great picture of a vibrant and very corrupt California in the 1920's, and his characters are all well-defined. He even has Hammett taking the streetcar instead of driving as he goes on dates or meets a contact in his investigation. You can feel again the San Francisco that Hammett wrote about where the town is run by the cops, the crooks, and the big rich, and everything is for sale. I enjoyed it.
Boy's Life - Robert R. McCammon ($5.99/$1.99, copyright 1991, 578 pages, Paperback)
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Robert R. McCammon a couple of times over the years. I've always thought of him as a writer in the fantasy/horror genre but this book is different. It's the story of Cory Mackenson, an 11-year-old boy living in Zephyr, Alabama and starts when he's helping his father with the early morning milk deliveries and they come across a dead man - an obviously murdered man. This death haunts Cory, and it creeps in from time to time, but it's not the main focus here. This is really about a young boy's coming-of-age, and McCammon fills it in with the joys and tragedies that life holds. He gives us Cory and his friends in Small Town America as they go to movies, ride their bikes, play baseball, and camp out. And he shows us how Cory and his family and friends deal with racism, bullying, and death. It's a big book but McCammon's writing makes it easy to read and even the bad things that happen seem almost magical. If you haven't read this book, go out right now and get yourself a copy. I loved it.
That's what I've finished this month.
I mentioned earlier that I've cut back on my Library Visits but I have ordered several books from the Discount Sites that I like. I'm hoping to tell you about some of them next time. Till then ….
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