During my recent visit with a friend in Minneapolis, I spent some high-quality time just kicking back with a cold beer (well, maybe more than one) and reading a few more Thomas B. Dewey novels. The result is that I devoted my latest Kirkus Reviews column to that once critically acclaimed author, whose detective tales now all seem to be out of print. You’ll find my full piece here.
And when you’re done, click over to Killer Covers to see a gallery of almost three dozen Dewey book fronts from the last 70 years.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Nice piece. The Schofield books sound like something I would enjoy reading if I can find them.
Oh, the link for "Breen's 25 best private eye novels of all time" did not work for me.
Hey, Michael:
Sorry about that, but The Thrilling Detective Web Site -- which hosts Breen's list -- seems to be temporarily down. I trust it will be restored to normal working order soon.
Cheers,
Jeff
It looks as if the Thrilling Detective links are working again (thank goodness). Apparently, a technical problem led to thousands of files having to be reloaded. Let's hope the whole site is back to normal soon, for it's an excellent Web resource.
Uncanny! My FFB Post on June 27 will be on Dewey's A Sad Song Singing, one of the few genuine private eye novels highly praised by Jacques Barzun in his Catalog of Crime It was even reprinted as part of his "Top 50 Classic of Crime Fiction" reprint series back in the 1980s.
I read one of the Singer Batts books and thought it convoluted and eccentric. The biggest mystery was trying to figure out if the city of Montpelier where some of the action takes place was in Vermont, Ohio or Idaho! Something not mentioned in your Kirkus article is that Batts is also a "penguin fancier" making him, I think, one of the most unique fictional detectives as far as avocational pursuits.
I enjoyed that article very much. A few years ago, I read about Thomas B. Dewey's mysteries in Encyclopedia Mysterioso. I wanted to find some but never followed up on that. This will be a great resource to help me. And the gallery of book covers is great.
Post a Comment