It’s going to be difficult to draw out 250 words on this book. Not because it was bad. I rather enjoyed it. But because it’s really not much more than a fun, slim hardboiled tale. But I’m game to try. Denis Johnson is considered by many to be one of the best writers of the last few decades. I myself have never read him so I can’t comment on that. I’ve been meaning to get to Tree of Smoke for several years now. This one might encourage […]
“I don’t believe in anything, but I’m too much of a gambler not to be affected by a lot of things.”
I saw “There Will Be Blood” in the theater when it came out, and when the lights came up I hated it. Over the next few days, certain scenes or lines would come back to me and I would think, Oh, that’s pretty good. The movie kept rising to the front of my mind, and after a week I thought it was great. The same thing happened to me with Hammett’s classic hard-boiled mystery, The Glass Key. I didn’t enjoy it much until the last few pages, […]
Didn’t like it then, now I do. It’s magic!
If you read my reviews regularly, you’ll probably know how much I love The Dresden Files, but that I initially didn’t like it very much, to the point where I gave up after reading book three way back in 2009. I just didn’t think the series was for me. That I thought that at the time is alternately hilarious and horrifying. I almost didn’t pick this series back up, and so I almost missed out on what has turned out to be more and more […]
“She was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. “
“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.” I’m gonna admit right up front that the fourth star of my rating comes entirely from Raymond Chandler and his way with words. Nobody knew how to turn a phrase like good old Ray-Ray. I mean, what a guy. What a kick he must have been at parties. I don’t normally read books for language alone. I’m an emotional […]