NP--Another Hardboiled Crime Wonder--James Crumley

[tbeshear]

I think "The Last Good Kiss" is one of the best noir novels ever. Yeah, that 
first sentence is a stunner. Reminder to self: Time to re-read it. His other 
crime novels are pretty good, but none rise to that, classic, level. His war 
novel, One to Count Cadence, is also very fine.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 12:41 PM
Subject: NP--Another Hardboiled Crime Wonder--James Crumley


> not sure if he's been mentioned but I'm reading The Last Good Kiss and
> I'm loving it
> barstool poetry doesn't get any better (booze-sick dudes, drugs,
> motels, despair, worn out women, roaming the western American highway
> nightmare from Montana to California)
>
> Just as an entire generation of British schoolboys can perfectly
> recite Monty Python's parrot sketch, there are few American crime
> writers of the hardboiled school who cannot quote verbatim the opening
> to James Crumley's novel The Last Good Kiss: "When I finally caught up
> with Abraham Traherne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog
> named Fireball Roberts, in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma,
> California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."
> The novel was only Crumley's second foray into crime fiction but it
> brought him instant cult status among writers and readers of the
> genre.
>
> --from the Guardian obit last Sept.
>
> rich