Remarking on how the line goes from Hammett to Chandler and then on to succeeding generations, Parker says:
"By the time Ed McBain began writing fiction, this tradition was decades old. McBain scanned the landscape, saw what was what, judged the speed of the moving traffic, and merged right in, going zero to sixty in seconds. And he never looked back, even when he changed lanes. Everyone else had to swerve to get out of the way of this fast-moving car whose driver knew exactly what he wanted and where he wanted to go."
Perfect-o!
The old 87th has never been the same.
ReplyDeleteAlways told a good story.
ReplyDeleteThe line of succession from Hammett/Chandler/Macdonald to Robert B. Parker goes right through Bill Pronzini and Michael Collins, who kept the genre alive until the boom of the 80's.
ReplyDeleteRJR