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Hard Case Crime


KEV67

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Does anyone read the Hard Case Crime books? They are paperbacks with lurid covers, often with a young woman showing some cleavage or leg. I have read five of them:

  • Blood on the Mink by Robert Silverberg
  • Cut Me In by Ed McBain
  • Joyland by Stephen king
  • Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark
  • The Vengeful Virgin by Gil Brewer

 

Often they are reprints of old pulp fiction stories. Joyland was only published a few years ago. I am not sure it is really crime, because of the supernatural element. Nobody's Angel was interesting. It was written by a Chicago taxi driver. It had quite a bit of sociology in it. If you want to know what it was like driving a taxi around Chicago in the 80s was like, it is probably your book.

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  • 3 months later...

I am reading The Comedy Is Finished by Donald E. Westlake, who I had never heard of before. It has a lurid cover like all Hard Case Crime books. They are a bit of a lucky dip, but this one is turning out better than I was anticipating. It is set in the 70s in Los Angeles. An ageing comedian, a bit like Bob Hope, has been kidnapped by a radical, left wing group. There was a bit in the beginning where one of the female kidnappers is in the habit of walking around with no clothes. Yeah, I thought, I wonder if that would make it to the film adaption, and how come I never meet any? Then I started to doubt whether the book would translate to film very easily anyway. The comic spends a lot of time reflecting on his life, and who would really care about him if he died. Then the kidnappers: some of them are sensitive, some of them are cruel. Then there seems to be an interesting little subplot about the medicines that he has been prescribed by his doctors. I bet these are opioids. I gather a lot of Americans are still addicted to opioid pain-killers and sleeping tablets, but this book was written over fifty years ago. It is not quite Dostoevsky but it is not bad.

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1 hour ago, KEV67 said:

I am reading The Comedy Is Finished by Donald E. Westlake, who I had never heard of before. It has a lurid cover like all Hard Case Crime books. They are a bit of a lucky dip, but this one is turning out better than I was anticipating. It is set in the 70s in Los Angeles. An ageing comedian, a bit like Bob Hope, has been kidnapped by a radical, left wing group. There was a bit in the beginning where one of the female kidnappers is in the habit of walking around with no clothes. Yeah, I thought, I wonder if that would make it to the film adaption, and how come I never meet any? Then I started to doubt whether the book would translate to film very easily anyway. The comic spends a lot of time reflecting on his life, and who would really care about him if he died. Then the kidnappers: some of them are sensitive, some of them are cruel. Then there seems to be an interesting little subplot about the medicines that he has been prescribed by his doctors. I bet these are opioids. I gather a lot of Americans are still addicted to opioid pain-killers and sleeping tablets, but this book was written over fifty years ago. It is not quite Dostoevsky but it is not bad.

 

Donald E. Westlake is the real name of Richard Stark and he wrote many books as Richard Stark, the best of which was filmed and was called Point Blank (the book was called The Hunter) starring Lee Marvin and is excellent, another film starred Mel Gibson and was called Payback (it's not too bad an effort tbh).Westlake/Stark specialised in Hard-Boiled Crime novels and to be honest if you have read one you've read them all.

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14 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

 

Donald E. Westlake is the real name of Richard Stark and he wrote many books as Richard Stark, the best of which was filmed and was called Point Blank (the book was called The Hunter) starring Lee Marvin and is excellent, another film starred Mel Gibson and was called Payback (it's not too bad an effort tbh).Westlake/Stark specialised in Hard-Boiled Crime novels and to be honest if you have read one you've read them all.

 

I have just been reading his Wikipedia page. He wrote about 115 books and had about eighteen pseudonyms. He started off writing soft porn novels as Alan Marshall for Midwood Books.

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