Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Gentleman's Hour


If you like weird private eyes and you haven't already done so, you might want to check out Boone Daniels, a surfer-dude PI in San Diego in The Gentleman's Hour, by Don Winslow.

Boone was also featured in The Dawn Patrol, and if you read that one first, that wouldn't hurt, though it's not necessary. 

Winslow has a unique style, full of asides, present tense, and rapidly shifting viewpoints, but he's good enough to pull it off. He's written maybe fifteen books, and last year's Savages is probably going to make it to the big screen as a major movie with heavyweight stars and a director and all like that.

Winslow has one of those interesting backgrounds good for writers: He got a degree in African History, managed a chain of movie theaters and became a private investigator in NYC; has led safaris in Kenya, and got his masters degree in Military History.

He's been hired to do books–at least one–by the estate of the late writer Trevanian, Satori, which is the prequel to Shibumi, featuring Nicholai Hel, master martial arts assassin ...

Man stays busy. 

I like his books, and if you have anything close to my offbeat tastes in fiction, you might, too. 

5 comments:

Ian Sadler said...

Thanks for the info about 'satori', I'll order a tree-ware copy tomorrow.

Shady_Grady said...

Is this anything like Savages or Power of the Dog?

Steve Perry said...

Like both ...

From my iPad

Shady_Grady said...

I REALLY liked Power of the Dog.
For Savages I couldn't really get with the relationship among the three main characters. Otherwise liked the story though. I'll have to check this one out. Thx.

Mr. Martial Arts said...

Like both too.