Date: Jan 5, 2008
Source: Library
Role: possible selections for my ca mys. course
Contact or Biblio: A is for Alibi Sue Grafton , Big Hello and the Long Good-Bye Peter Gessner, A Credible Threat Janet Dawson, Over the Shoulder Leonard Chang, Over the Edge Susan Dunlap, Vanishing Point Marcia Muller.
Notes: (Grafton)I like Kinsey Millhone, she's brave and flawed, has a hot affair w/suspect and she's sorry as he's the bad guy in the end;. (Dawson)Jeri Howard, a Berkeley-based PI investigates ex-hushand's daughter's harrassement and then house bombing. (Dunlap)Jill Smith another likable female, a real Berkeley cop, so different from Milhone and Howard, PIs. She, too, is flawed, certainly in her eating habits, but she has better taste in men than Millhone. Smith has an enviable relationship w/a hot, handsome doctor who travels just enough, so she can live her own life. (Muller) Sharon McCone, another likable, strong PI, finally married to long-time love Hy Ripinsky. A pilot, too, McCone has a business in SF and in this case is asked to find a woman who has been missing for 22 years.
But which one would I choose to teach? What is my favorite, and why?
Insight to Note: All the characters/authors/stories I like have female protagonists. The two contemporay male authors with male protagonists, I did not like. Chang and his character were of the soft-boiled type and Gessner's writing is overdone, self-conscience. However, I'm do enjoy the more hard-boiled male detectives: Lew Archer, Hercule Pirot, Sam Spade. I do, however, like Elvis Cole. This is getting to be more complex and confusing than learning the characters and relationships in any Greek mythology!!
Action: Need to choose a favorite female and be able to articulate why??????
1 comment:
I am enjoying your reader reactions to these novels, Karen!
I am surprised you like Patterson so much, though. I can;t stand his serial killer books, but haven't read the woman club series. Always struck me as a self-consciously commercial decision,a s his original series skewed toward a male demograpic, I thought.
Not that there is anything in a commerical orientation that means your books can't be great, mind you -- just that his books did strike me as being commodities, first of all, especially his characters.
Julie Smith used to be an S.F. Chronicle reporter and when she moved to New Orleans, her novels followed her there, and I think, got a lot better for a while.
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