11
Followers
23
Following
Reading Slothfully
I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.
Currently reading
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
The Spirit of the Border
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Delilah of the Snows
Mrs. Miniver
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
A Christmas Carol
The Way Some People Die
Envy of Angels
Red Harvest
Wow, lots of crime, corruption, killing and, of course, quaffing (the hard stuff). So, the Continental Op goes to a small town, where his summoner is killed before he can even meet with him. The summoner's father, who essentially owns the town asks the Continental Op to clean up the corruption (then off and on changes his mind). The clean-up essentially involves getting all the various gangsters to kill each other.
I suppose this is a good yarn, and a classic example of its genre. I have issues with a book who's protagonist is essentially anonymous. I'd read some Continental Op stories before and had the same feeling. Much better, IMHO is Chandler's Philip Marlow. Both Chandler and Hammett feature private detectives midst a background of crime, corruption and killing, but somehow having a "known" protagonist is more satisfying.
