"You know what? The bastard blows me out of the water. This guy writes Maine like Ardai writes New York. If you're not reading him, you don't know what you're missing." --Chris F. Holm, author of "The Collector" series, The Killing Kind, and Red Right Hand.

"A refreshingly new voice in noir." --Ed Kurtz, author of Nothing You Can Do and The Rib From Which I Remake the World.

"A glorious boilermaker of noir and East Coast gothic. The action is taut as a sprung snare and Bagley tightens the screws with every page." -- Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase and Blood Standard.




Saturday, January 3, 2009

A Sort-Of New Year's Resolution

Richard Stark was the most famous of Donald Westlake's many pen names, but over the last couple of days I've read some blog posts about one of his lesser-known aliases. As Tucker Coe, Westlake wrote a series of five novels about private eye and ex-cop Mitch Tobin. I had never heard of it. But when guys like Ed Gorman, James Reasoner and Kevin Burton Smith all rave about a series, you know it's worth reading.

The Coe books are all out-of-print, but I'm going to do my damndest to track them down. It could take a while if they're expensive or not available through inter-library loan. So that's one of my goals for 2009: finding and reading all five Mitch Tobin novels. I have a better shot at keeping that resolution than the usual bullshit ones about losing weight or being a nicer person.

5 comments:

Randy Johnson said...

You shouldn't have a lot of trouble finding them. I thought like you and on Abebooks, I got all five, including postage 7 handling, for $28.96.

Stephen Blackmoore said...

I just did a quick search and found these in about two minutes. Fear my leet Google-fu. Or something.

http://www.poormansbooks.com/ap_coe_tucker.html

and

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Coe,%20Tucker

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

Hey, even I can afford those. Thanks, guys.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

yeah they're available through Quercus books

pattinase (abbott) said...

I snagged two right away but some of the others were mucho bucks.