Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Steve Lewis of Mystery*File wrote to me earlier and asked if I could add his site to the index, but since his site doesn't generate RSS or Atom, I can't do it, which is really too bad, because it's laid out much like a blog.
By coincidence Ed Gorman mentions it on his blog today, and even refers to the article on Edward S. Aarons and his ASSIGNMENT series. I've only read the first one, ASSIGNMENT TO DISASTER, and I wasn't impressed.Sam Durrell is a secret agent from Louisiana (though in this book he operates more like an FBI man, in the beginning at least) who is assigned to investigate the sister of a missing scientist.
The book has a hard-boiled narrative style, but it's matched up with such overheated histrionics that the whole thing seems pretty ridiculous. Durrell trutsts the girl despite all evidence to the contrary, defies his bosses, and still comes out smelling like a rose. The villain is straight out of a 30s pulp story... after reading spy stories by the likes of Donald Hamilton and Len Deighton this just seems like a pale imitation (though it actually came first).
Mystery*File has been around for a while in one form or another, and has a lot of good information. Give it a look, and tell Steve I sent you.
posted by Graham Powell at 5:56 PM
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