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Someone's Death
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August 6, 2011
I discovered Charles Larson's early 1970s series of four books about television producer Nils-Frederick Blixen some years ago, and liked them enough to track down copies. I recently pulled them off the shelf thinking "probably time to get rid of these, they're nothing much" but I thought I'd best reread at least one, first--and was hooked.
Straight-up pulp genre. But solidly-written pulp. Larson was a television script-writer, so he knew the industry, making the background more interesting than much standard pulp (I adore reading mysteries set in different cultures, where I can find out something about the culture while enjoying the mystery as well). The plots are, well, a bit reminiscent of TV plots I seem to remember from the times when I have watched TV: some of the clues and plot devices push the limits of credibility, but Larson's writing makes them credible in the context. And. . .the books are literate in quiet ways. I will always treasure this passage (which went right over my snobby little head when I was reading these 20 years ago): "He passed along a row of darkened projection rooms and climbed a narrow stairway toward a frosted glass door marked RESEARCH. There a husky old man named Tibbet was chewing out a red-eyed girl in a green jumper who had misplaced half a dozen articles on mead. Tibbet had been in charge of the place since it opened, since his teens, and he brooked neither indiscipline nor carelessness. The red-eyed girl had not only filed 'mead' with 'Persians,' she had denied it and then spoken saucily to him to boot." Oh, agreed--the filing error is improbable in the extreme. . .but what a hoot!
Straight-up pulp genre. But solidly-written pulp. Larson was a television script-writer, so he knew the industry, making the background more interesting than much standard pulp (I adore reading mysteries set in different cultures, where I can find out something about the culture while enjoying the mystery as well). The plots are, well, a bit reminiscent of TV plots I seem to remember from the times when I have watched TV: some of the clues and plot devices push the limits of credibility, but Larson's writing makes them credible in the context. And. . .the books are literate in quiet ways. I will always treasure this passage (which went right over my snobby little head when I was reading these 20 years ago): "He passed along a row of darkened projection rooms and climbed a narrow stairway toward a frosted glass door marked RESEARCH. There a husky old man named Tibbet was chewing out a red-eyed girl in a green jumper who had misplaced half a dozen articles on mead. Tibbet had been in charge of the place since it opened, since his teens, and he brooked neither indiscipline nor carelessness. The red-eyed girl had not only filed 'mead' with 'Persians,' she had denied it and then spoken saucily to him to boot." Oh, agreed--the filing error is improbable in the extreme. . .but what a hoot!
Displaying 1 of 1 review