"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, August 1, 2009

...And Leaving the Party Early

Okay, I gave up on Michael Connelly's Echo Park. About halfway through it, I had an epiphany: Hey, waitaminute. This really is just another serial killer novel.

Have I mentioned before that I don't like serial killer novels? Nor do I give a rat's ass about profiling and forensics.

Throw in the fact that the dialogue is stiff (it must be odd living in a world where people hardly ever use contractions) and Harry Bosch is a jazz snob, and I'm outta there. I had to reread my ARC of Gischler's The Deputy just to cleanse the ol' palate.

2 comments:

Rich said...

I tried to get into "Trunk Music" - because Stephen King liked it - off and on for a month. Like you, I gave up. Connelly's an okay writer, but I was expecting James Lee Burke. My bad, I guess.

There are too many good books I haven't read to waste time on something that I wasn't enjoying.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

"There are too many good books I haven't read to waste time on something that I wasn't enjoying."

Exactly, Rich.