Personal

Let’s talk about a couple writers whose work I like but I haven’t read much of yet. The first is Robert Crais, primarily known for the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series of detective thrillers. Cole is a wisecracking PI, and Pike is his mysterious, tough-guy best friend. On the surface it would be easy to think that Cole and Pike are just LA-based knockoffs of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and Hawk. But the similarities don’t extend much past that surface. While Parker’s characters exist in almost a stasis, Crais’ evolve and grow and have to deal with events that have permanent consequences. Also, while Parker never explored Hawk in his own book, Crais has taken a few to explore what makes his mercenary tick.

(I probably don’t have to tell you this if you’ve read this blog for a little while, but I’m not knocking Parker’s writing, just pointing out the differences.

While Crais wrote seven Cole and Pike novels before L.A. Requiem, it is this eighth book that was recommended to me as a good starting point. Crais apparently hit his groove with this one, and it really stood out from the previous books. I have yet to read those early books, but I do intend to sooner rather than later.

The other writer is Elmore Leonard. Some people might be surprised to know that most of his library hasn’t made it to my list yet. There’s a good chance that the film and TV adaptations of Leonard’s work are better known than his novels, since “Get Shorty,” Justified,” and Jackie Brown” are all three popular adaptations of his work. But Leonard’s prolific career in novels and short stories is nothing to sneeze at. His 45 books and numerous short stories displayed his gritty storytelling and keen ear for dialogue, and he certainly didn’t waste a word when he didn’t need to.

I’ve only read a smattering of Leonard’s books (Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, Freaky Deaky, and one or two others I just can’t remember), I certainly plan to rectify that soon. I certainly have plenty to choose from.

Do you remember when I made goals to finish reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels and reread all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books? Well, I got through all of Bond in September and read my last unread Spenser novel earlier this week. What did I learn? My big takeaway from the Bond books is they were even more sexist and racist than I remember them, as much a product of Fleming’s as they were of the times. As for the Spenser books, Parker was certainly more willing to play around in his early books than later on. That said, I haven’t read most of those books in a good long while, so maybe I’ll make that a reading challenge someday. Of course, I already have plenty lined up for next year. I’ll get to that, and everything else I read this year, in another post.

Following in a parent’s footsteps can be challenging for anyone, especially if the parent is highly talented in their area of expertise. When your father is as talented as Stephen King, those footsteps can be quite large and intimidating. And yet, Joe Hill has managed to not just follow in those footsteps, but make them his own.

Like King, Hill is a writer of horror novels and short stories. While his body of work is comparatively small, it is already quite impressive. “The Fireman” is an epic on par with any of King’s, and the four novellas that make up “Strange Weather” range from bleak to moving, but all are excellent.

Hill chose to use a pseudonym (an abbreviated version of his middle name) because he wanted to prove that he could succeed as a writer without his father’s name to carry him along. He has, in my opinion, succeeded quite nicely. In fact, I think in many ways he is the better writer. That is not meant to disparage King, but to put into context how good I think Hill is. You can see his father’s influences in his stories, certainly, but they also have a more modern edge and a sharper bite, making the stories his own.

In addition to prose, Hill also has a nice body of comic book work under his belt. Surprisingly to people who know me, his comics are his work of which I’ve read the least. Somewhat surprisingly, I haven’t read “Locke & Key,” his most notable comic work, although I intend to someday.

Joe Hill wanted to earn a reputation as himself, not as a King. If you’ll forgive the play on words, he will someday be a king in title as well as name.

It would be safe to say that virtually every adult in the English-speaking world, and almost certainly the rest, has heard of James Bond, British secret agent 007, the glamorous spy with the high-tech gadgets who saves the day while killing over-the-top villains and romancing beautiful women. The Bond series is, after all, one of the most popular movie franchises of all time. While I do enjoy the movies a great deal, I also enjoy Ian Fleming’s novels quite a bit.

Ian Fleming, the author of the Bond novels, spent the first part of his career in British Naval Intelligence, and was a key figure in several military operations in World War II. When he switched to writing novels, he brought a great deal of that knowledge to his books. They were therefore more grounded in the spycraft of the time, in more realism than one might expect.

It’s also interesting to note that Fleming created Bond to be an intentionally dull protagonist who had interesting things happen to him. It’s a curious literary choice, but it worked well for him. In the 1950s and ’60s, his books were some of the biggest sellers in the world. John F. Kennedy even said From Russia, With Love was his favorite book.

I first read this series fifteen or twenty years ago. I actually read them in order, as I tend to do sometimes. I enjoyed them not in spite of their differences from the films, but because of them. They were all one unique voice, and that they didn’t have what had become the rather formulaic elements we got in the films. I also like how grounded in reality they were, and while some of the films adhered closely to the source material, others were drastically different. If I’m not mistaken, the only thing Moonraker the movie had in common with Moonraker the book was the title.

I will note that those books were very much products of their time, with story elements and plot points that certainly wouldn’t be welcome in books published today. It has been some time since I have read them, though, so I can’t speak to particulars.

Fleming only wrote 14 James Bond novels and short stories before he died, but he left behind a legacy. Many other writers have written their own, authorized novels in the series, but I haven’t red those yet. I may, someday, but I hold those originals with a particular fondness.

I would like to reread them all again, to see how well they hold up. Maybe I’ll even do it this year. It’s certainly doable, but after last year’s challenge and my plan to finish off another favorite series this year, I may hold off for a little while.

The results, to use a terrible joke, will not be for my eyes only.

Back in June, I challenged myself to read all of Agatha Christie’s books by the end of the year. Last week, I completed this goal. Eighty novels and short story collections and two nonfiction books. This does not include the books she wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but 82 books seemed like more than enough.

What did I learn from this? First, her most popular books – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Orient Express, to name two – are popular for a reason. But she also wrote many that, while not as well known, I thought reached a similar level of quality. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and Endless Night are just two of them.

Christie was also someone who incorporated her life experiences into her work. While most people think of her stories as all set in quaint English villages, and most of them were, she also worked her experiences in the Middle East with her archeologist husband into a number of her stories.

They were also very clever, too. While someone who wrote 80+ books could see themselves getting repetitive, Christie avoided that for the most part. In fact, there were some cases where I assumed the book I was reading was a retread of another, only to be proved wrong before long.

But for all their good points, there are some negatives that should be addressed. First, she dropped some very casual racism into her stories (and, infamously, the original title of And Then There Were None). While it’s worth pointing out that the racism faded as the years went on, it was still present in a great deal of her work. Second, sexism seemed ingrained in her work, since it almost certainly was in her life and the society around her. Whether those issues are enough to disqualify her work or should be read with caveats as being products of their time, I’ll leave to other debates.

There’s no doubt that Christie is an incredible, influential writer, and I’m glad I spent this year going through her bibliography. I’m not sure I would commit to such a huge reading challenge in such a short time span again, though, as towards the end it felt more like work than enjoyment. If you decide to follow in my footsteps, I recommend giving yourself more than half a year.

So that’s that. Thanks to my grandmother for being such an influence, even if it was so many years after the fact. I had an enjoyable, mystery-filled year.

Everyone has heard of Stephen King. Most people have read at least one of his books or seen at least one his movies. Those that haven’t know him by reputation: the king of horror, the master of scares, and so on.

I myself hadn’t read more than one or two of his short stories until a few years ago, when I picked up the first “Dark Tower” book at an airport. I quickly read the rest of the series, then read as many of the rest of his books as I could. I have read about 40 of his books, leaving about 20 or so left to get through.

It’s easy for those who haven’t read King’s work to dismiss it as gore fests or mindless terror. That is, after all, all horror is, is it not? But what I have learned reading his books is that scares mean nothing without love, without caring for other people, and it’s his interpersonal relationships that I find most enjoyable to read. Whether it’s found families like the Ka-Tet or the Losers Club, best friends like Dennis and Arnie from “Christine,” or communities like Mother Abagail’s followers in “the Stand,” King writes people who matter to each other, who would do anything to protect each other from the darkness in the world, even at the cost of their own life. And that’s just the horror books. Many of his stories don’t have supernatural elements or aren’t designed to inspire terror, but instead are written to show the resilience of people in tough situations.

I intend to read the rest of King’s books soon, as now more than ever, we need to be reminded to look for the light in the midst of all the darkness.

Long days and pleasant nights.