- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Shoemaker & Hoard; 1 edition (Dec 12 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1593761341
- ISBN-13: 978-1593761349
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 11.6 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #805,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Booklist
It's been a good season for rediscovering pulp fiction, first with reissues of early crime novels by Max Allan Collins (The Last Quarry) and Lawrence Block (Lucky at Cards) and now with a pair of noirish thrillers from experimental novelist Markson (Vanishing Point, 2004). In the early 1960s, before Markson made a name for himself with more literary fare, he turned out these two Harry Fannin novels, both of which observe all the hard-boiled conventions but do so with a head-turning flair for language and a surprising amount of emotional depth. The first concerns the murder of Fannin's ex-wife (the tramp of the title) and gives Markson plenty of opportunity to display the cracks in his hero's tough-as-nails exterior. Epitaph for a Dead Beat is the show-stopper, though, offering a thoroughly entertaining--campy but never out-and-out silly--look at what mainstream society considered the outrageous behavior of Greenwich Village beats. Readers expecting tolerance for alternate lifestyles will be sorely disappointed, but pulp fans will have a ball. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
Before achieving critical acclaim as a novelist, David Markson paid the rent by writing several crime novels, including two featuring the private detective Harry Fannin. Together here in one volume, these works are now available to a new generation of readers.
In "Epitaph for a Tramp, " Fannin isn't called out to investigate a murder -- it happens on his doorstop. In the sweltering heat of a New York August night, he answers the buzzer at his door to find his promiscuous ex-wife dying from a knife wound. To find her killer, Fannin plies his trade with classic hard-boiled aplomb. In the second novel, "Epitaph for a Dead Beat, " Fannin finds himself knee-deep in murder among the beatniks and bohemians of the early 1960s, where blood seems to flow as readily as cheap Chianti.
Intricately plotted and rife with wisecracks, David Markson offers suspenseful and literary crime novels.
In "Epitaph for a Tramp, " Fannin isn't called out to investigate a murder -- it happens on his doorstop. In the sweltering heat of a New York August night, he answers the buzzer at his door to find his promiscuous ex-wife dying from a knife wound. To find her killer, Fannin plies his trade with classic hard-boiled aplomb. In the second novel, "Epitaph for a Dead Beat, " Fannin finds himself knee-deep in murder among the beatniks and bohemians of the early 1960s, where blood seems to flow as readily as cheap Chianti.
Intricately plotted and rife with wisecracks, David Markson offers suspenseful and literary crime novels.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moody noir stories, July 6 2008
By Irma Wolfson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat: The Harry Fannin Detective Novels (Paperback)
David Markson wrote two noir novellas, the first of which is the best: moody, dark, cynical, just what one wants in a Manhattan noir story.
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Is this guy for real?, Sep 23 2009
By Grumpy Reader "greader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat: The Harry Fannin Detective Novels (Paperback)
When I started reading this, I thought it must be a parody. Nobody but characters in bad TV shows and movies ever talked the tough-guy lingo the narrator and others in the book talk (I'm only reviewing "Tramp." Couldn't take any more.) But then I realized he intends for readers to take this silliness seriously. Swallowing his lumpy style is what I imagine it must be like to try to drink oatmeal. There's a detective story cliche (or 12) on every page, and at least one major plot twist in every chapter (and the chapters are short). And yet beneath it all throbs some kind of life that kept me reading to the end. However, I don't care to spend my reading time on more of this foolishness, even if it was a hoot when I first started.
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