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40% Off Coupon + Rain Dogs

I had a 40% off coupon from Borders and I had every intention of getting Duane S's The Blonde. But stupid Christmas meant that I could not get Duane S's The Blonde and instead bought KM a photo book. Oh, well

Finished Sean Doolittle's Rain Dogs late last week. Enjoyed it greatly. It falls into the Crime Fiction genre, but this book, much like his first, was about characters who are really caught at a cross roads in their life. Either you move past your troubled history or fall back into a life that can only lead to your destruction. Doolittle's character's having varying degrees of success transitioning out of their destructive behavior.

The front cover of the book contains a blurb from Dennis Lehane. I find this very appropriate because it appears that Dennis is about to leave the crime genre behind (...for good?) in his oft-delayed Boston epic. It is appropriate because I feel like Sean will do the same at some point. All crime fiction needs a dead body, and in Rain Dogs we get one, but it is never as important to the story as Tom Coleman's journey through binge drinking and the depression over his daughter's death.

I don't want to give the impression that I feel that either Lehane or Doolittle are looking down their nose at the crime genre. You can tell by their writing that they both have genuine affection for the form, but.....

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