Skip to main content

I recently spent alot of money on books... (cont.)...

James Lee Burke is the greatest living American Crime Fiction author. I could easily pull the 'Crime Fiction' qualifier from that statement and not be wrong. He is that good. Inexplicably, I stopped buying Mr. Burke's books. Primarily because they tend(ed) to show up on overstock tables, so I felt fairly confident I could grab a copy cheap if I was patient for the next nine months. Of course from THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN forward I had a run of bad luck finding a clean unmaked copy.

I could see the damage of my own shortsightedness. The missing are PEGASUS DESCENDING, THE GLASS RAINBOW, FEAST DAY OF FOOLS, and CREOLE BELLE. I sat there and made the decision to find them. Not too difficult a prospect as I need only walk into the right store to find CREOLE BELLE which was Mr. Burke's 2012 release. And given the relative recent publication of the the rest trusted internet providers should fill the gaps.

Scanning down the shelf at the my Burke's revealed other gaps. I shelled out what amounted to a lot of money about 10-12 years ago to get NEON RAIN, but missing were HEAVEN'S PRISONERS and A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS. Truth be told I wanted to replace BLACK CHEERY BLUES as well. That remainder marked book was my first Ebay purchase about 16 years ago. These books would be more difficult. HEAVEN'S PRISONER would be the easiest although the most expensive. A walk through a book fair usually turned up one or two. FLAMINGOS and BLACK CHERRY would be tougher. As they are books 3 and 4 in the Robicheaux series they just do not turn up often at shows. Even my the dealer room experiences at Bouchercon turned up precious little.

Sure the internet would be my ally here, but the difference between finding a book at a show or in a store and clicking 'add to cart' is big for me. Nothing replaces the excitement of hunting a book down. Seven books was a reasonable goal, and one that I was certain would be a great deal of fun. I had a plan. I also had an expensive problem.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Very Best of Mr. Michael Connelly - Part 2

My August 31 post of The Hungry Detective ranked all the non-Bosch books. This list returns to take on the larger task of Mr. Heironimous Bosch. 9 Dragons made its appearance right before the Indy B'Con, and try as I might... ok I didn't try that hard... I didn't have time to read it for inclusion in these rankings. As a quick aside I don't want to undersell any of the books at the bottom of the list. Mr. Connelly doesn't know how to write a bad book, but in my case there have been occasions where I have not connected with his work. 13. THE NARROWS - 2004 It is because I love THE POET so much that this book is at the end of the list. When Mr. Connelly is at his best his works has the precision of a watchmaker. THE NARROWS just felt forced and not worthy of the intricacy of THE POET. 12. BLACK ICE - 1993 Second book. Third read. I thought the story was pretty flat. It has been well over a decade since I read this book, but the story of Mexican drug runner...
1 comment
Read more

The Very Best of Mr. Dennis Lehane

I thought this post would appear in October. Ya, know when SHUTTER ISLAND: THE MOVIE was supposed to be released. And then it wasn't. Something about Leo not being able to do 'press' for the movie. Doesn't really matter the reason, a February release date has one of those fancy Hollywood meanings: Not Good. Look I'll be honest, I didn't connect with SHUTTER ISLAND. I loved the fifties setting, the haunted house atmosphere, and impending doom of the Hurricane. Even the set-up of the story was intriguing but how it played out just didn't work for me. Some interesting characters, a bunch of great set pieces, but the ending announces itself with an expected, thud that went nowhere. Am I still going to the movie? Its Lehane, Scorsese, Leo, and Ruffalo of course I am. Anyway the list. 8. Prayers for Rain - 1999 The last Kenzie-Gennaro book follows our heroes as they investigate a guy who is terrorizing women into committing suicide. The book played like an episo...
4 comments
Read more

Small Mercies - The Return of Dennis Lehane

 A time honored tradition at The Hungry Detective HQ is to perform the twice annual, and largely ceremonial, 'Dennis Lehane New book 20XX" Google search. Nothing comes up on his long abandoned Website, except notification of the script work for his television and film projects.  Grousing aside, 2022 was a big year for Mr. Lehane. BLACK BIRD, a show he created, played on Apple+ to solid acclaim. The show's star, Paul Walter Hauser, won a Golden Globe. But despite that I have yet to watch it. Not for any other reason than I am a movie person more than a TV person. The TV I do watch is watched in an arcane order that is difficult to decipher and even more baffling to explain. Short story, I need to watch ANDOR [Editor's Note: Slow going on ANDOR despite everyone telling me it is amazing.] And then BLACK BIRD, or maybe SLOW HORSES. I'll get there...  Anyway at the dead end of 2022, I did the search. Found out he wrote a book. SMALL MERCIES . I was excited to hear it. I...
Post a Comment
Read more