Haven’t read Dead Girl Blues but I remember my wife thoughtfully stopped me from taking A Ticket To The Boneyard when I was going to visit someone in hospital once…
I enjoyed it, but the author himself stated that it’s unlike most of his work and some of his stalwart readers were upset. It’s pretty much real world storytelling and plausible with a first person narrator. I wonder if my former work has allowed me to read such narratives without being overly disturbed - so perhaps I noticed the disturbing elements with less of an affective response - I don’t know. It deals with themes which some readers found difficult and disturbing - they are. I’m not sure if it was what they expected.
This sounds interesting. Certainly Block’s work has taken a serious turn as he’s got older, unlike some of his peers. I wonder whether there’s a project in testing to see whether people if different professions take differently to different genres. Could be fun to explore!
Well it would be an interesting survey. When I was working there was more than enough material, if you like, to rob me of enthusiasm (if that’s the word) for policiers or documentary fact or fiction. Seems as if it was around five years or so post retirement before I again adopted public tastes in crime media - probably the gateway was Weimar Republic history and the fiction of Philip Kerr, which was excellently researched and written detective fiction in a European historical context - he wrote 13 Bernie Gunther novels in all - I would heartily recommend them if you haven’t already come across them.
Ha! You caught me reading an upmarket pulp (well he started with pulp anyway) by Lawrence Block.
I just this week finished his Collected Mystery Stories! Love the Scudder books. Which one are you reading?
Strangely enough I got into them via “Dead Girl Blues” which isn’t typical but, despite the concept, was very well wrought, to my mind.
Haven’t read Dead Girl Blues but I remember my wife thoughtfully stopped me from taking A Ticket To The Boneyard when I was going to visit someone in hospital once…
I enjoyed it, but the author himself stated that it’s unlike most of his work and some of his stalwart readers were upset. It’s pretty much real world storytelling and plausible with a first person narrator. I wonder if my former work has allowed me to read such narratives without being overly disturbed - so perhaps I noticed the disturbing elements with less of an affective response - I don’t know. It deals with themes which some readers found difficult and disturbing - they are. I’m not sure if it was what they expected.
This sounds interesting. Certainly Block’s work has taken a serious turn as he’s got older, unlike some of his peers. I wonder whether there’s a project in testing to see whether people if different professions take differently to different genres. Could be fun to explore!
Well it would be an interesting survey. When I was working there was more than enough material, if you like, to rob me of enthusiasm (if that’s the word) for policiers or documentary fact or fiction. Seems as if it was around five years or so post retirement before I again adopted public tastes in crime media - probably the gateway was Weimar Republic history and the fiction of Philip Kerr, which was excellently researched and written detective fiction in a European historical context - he wrote 13 Bernie Gunther novels in all - I would heartily recommend them if you haven’t already come across them.
“A Ticket to the Boneyard” around number eight or thereabouts I think :)