Point Blank discussion

I've really enjoyed reading Justin & Kurt's crime fiction world tour. Thanks guys...your picks & especially your podcasts have been excellent. My faves were Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo (1995) and Out by Natsuo Kirino (1997), they'll both stick with me for a long time. Unfortunately, I found An Easy Thing by Paco Ignacio Taibo II to be a miss. As soon as I finished reading I looked up a few reviews and found I'm in the minority so maybe I'm off base. On the positive I found that as I read, Detective Hector Belascoarán Shayne emulated the film private eye of the '70's, which I liked...he matched up with Paul Newman's Harper/Archer from The Drowning Pool (Ross Macdonald)...Taibo even quoted from Drowning Pool twice in Chapter 7. Detective Shayne also gave off the nonchalant attitude of Elliott Goulds Phillip Marlow in The Long Goodbye, and you could get a vibe of Gene Hackman's Night Moves. But, as a novel I found An Easy Thing's plot to be all over the place mainly due to juggling three cases...that had nothing to do with one another. At one point around p.94 each consecutive sentence dealt with a different case...just too goofy. There were drops into socialist rants that I could have done without...BUT...the biggest negative item from An Easy Thing was Detective Shayne, 31 years-old bedding 17-year-old Elena, the daughter of his client, actress Ferrier (sp-?). Taibo may be from another culture or time ('70's), but this portion of the book was wrong, it was statutory rape and should have been edited by the publisher. There's a difference between this scene and the rape scene in Out...mainly, although the rape in Out was a brutal crime, it was adults with evil getting crushed in the end...in An Easy Thing it was an adult and a teenager, with the teenager coming off slutty and Detective Shayne getting a piece of tail...just wrong. Soooo, I could go on with more of the negative but An Easy Thing was a miss for me...I'll pass on giving a score this time...I'll be interested in your podcast review...-BUT, really looking forward to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick and your accompanying podcast. Thanks...

ANd I finally listened to the related podcast. A great discussion as always.

I am a huge fan of Ross Macdonald, whom I actually prefer over Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett most of the time, so this should be right up my alley but I guess I'm not missing out on that much? Thanks for the warning.

Simon wrote: "I am a huge fan of Ross Macdonald, whom I actually prefer over Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett most of the time, so this should be right up my alley but I guess I'm not missing out on that mu..."

I also am a huge Ross Macdonald fan...along with Phillip K. Dick he's my fave...two years ago I read the whole Lew Archer series in chronological order...every 5th book I would read an Archer. Took me over a year and it was tons 'o fun...I'm now going back and will read the best Archers starting with The Way Some People Die...

That is a great novel to pick!