The Blue Hammer
Posted on | June 26, 2008 | No Comments
I posted my review of Ken Bruen’s Cross last night. A decent book, though relentlessly bleak and hard to orient to because he doesn’t recap what’s gone before.
I’m halfway through The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald. An intricate book with involved and interconnected family histories. People who may or may not be dead. Affairs and liaisons and illegitimate children, along with troubled young women. Lew gets laid, too, which is somewhat unusual for his books, as I recall. Also a rather frank discussion of bisexuality, which must have been risqué for its time.
Did a serious edit of the old noir story last night and keyed in the changes this morning. The story grew by 400 words in the process, which is unusual. My editing passes usually shorten, but in this case I needed to add some nuances and subtexting that was there in the original version but only barely. I also had to tweak some character relationships, because in the original the culprit was a little too calm and normal to be as twisted as he’d have to be to do what he did. If you know what I mean!
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About
Bev Vincent is the author of The Road to the Dark Tower, the Bram Stoker Award nominated companion to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, which was nominated for a 2010 Edgar® Award and a 2009 Bram Stoker Award.
His short fiction has appeared in places like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, From the Borderlands and The Blue Religion. He is a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine and a member of the Storytellers Unplugged blogging community. He also writes book reviews for Onyx Reviews.
