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<![CDATA[Bill added 'Solea']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76898952
Solea (Marseilles Trilogy 3)
byJean-Claude Izzo bookshelves: currently-reading
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<![CDATA[Bill added 'The Professional']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76898802
to: The Professional (Spenser)byRobert B. Parker bookshelves: mystery
As effortless as any Parker but this time he does make the reader think about relationships and what we get out of them. And it's not just about sex and male and female. Spenser's guy pals are almost as important to him as Susan and then there is the thug couple of Zed and Boo - who even Spenser likens to George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men. (OK, maybe it was a little lazy for him to mention it but it was also so obvious.)
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<![CDATA[Bill added 'Two Weeks in Another Town']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75009814
Two Weeks in Another Town (Hardcover)
byIrwin Shaw
Okay, I didn't really finish this book. I tried to read it since I recently saw the movie and I love comparing films to their novel sources. But the book is way too much of it's time - a curious hybrid of a serious fifties-sixties literary novel and a trashy pot boiling best-seller like Harold Robbins. The main character is fascinating but somewhat unlikable, due to his infidelity something the movie avoids by losing the wife and having the character played by Kirk Douglas at his most charming and vulnerable. But there are just too many other books out there to waste the time on this one.
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<![CDATA[Bill added 'The Laughing Policeman']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/60662625
to: The Laughing Policeman (Martin Beck #4)byMaj Sjöwall bookshelves: foreign-mystery
Wow. This series is still the high point of realistic procedurals. And the last scene is a killer.
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<![CDATA[Bill added 'The Devil's Star']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75007662
to: The Devil's Star (Paperback)byJo Nesbø bookshelves: foreign-mystery
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<![CDATA[Bill
is on page 120 of Two Weeks in Another...
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http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75009814
Bill
is on page 120 of 416 of
Two Weeks in Another Town
I agree with Matt. There are lots of us out here who consider OUT OF THE PAST to be the quintessential noir. Jane Greer is the genre's most fatal femme fatale. Even though Mitchum's Jeff Bailey knows the nice girl from the beautiful outdoors could be his salvation, he just knows there is no escaping his fate which was sealed when he made the wrong decision. I also love TOUCH OF EVIL, but it suffers in comparison with films like OUT OF THE PAST or DOUBLE INDEMNITY due to Welles outrageous use of grotesque characters which destroys any illusion of reality, moving the film closer to a magical realism - a kind of reverse Dorian Grey where all of a character's bad decisions show up physically. Not just in Welles' Hank Quinlan character; also Tamiroff's Uncle Joe, Dennis Weaver's idiot pyscho hotel clerk, Mercedes McCambridge's biker chick lesbian - all over the top in a heighted realism. Don't get me wrong. I love TOUCH OF EVIL. It is one of Welles's greatest films, up there with KANE, AMBERSONS, and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, but I don't think it's a high point in film noir. In fact, a case could be made that it helped end that period of American film noir.
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<![CDATA[new comment from Bill]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/152904-what-are-you-reading
Bill made a comment in the The Crime and Thriller Group group:
I recently finished Keeper, by Greg Rucka. I read this after seeing lots of good comments. I was somewhat disappointed. Rucka is a mediocre writer with often clunky sentences and dialogue. The plot itself is okay, but similar to many others so there were no real surprises. The topic of abortion, however, does allow Rucka to manipulate our emotions very effectively, although I wonder how a pro-life advocate would respond to this book.
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