What kind of prose do you prefer in crime novels?
Over at Sarah Weinman's excellent blog, mystery readers are debating crime writer George Pelecanos' style--he's the author of 12 novels and and a producer on my favorite retired television show, The Wire.
Sarah points us towards a Washington City Paper article that charts the crime writer's style--Pelecanos moved from a more effusive style (in A Firing Offense towards hardboiled haiku (in The Turnaround).
Opinions of this style shift are mixed in the comments section. Check them out, and meet a new writer in the process. Barbara (who shares my obsession with Batman's political metaphors) writes that she was disappointed with later Pelecanos: "I liked Hard Revolution much better, and some of his earlier ones; the Big Blowdown might give you a sense of what all the fuss is about. He's good at nailing eras as well as place," she writes.
John weighs in with a more measured review. "There's no accounting for taste, is there. A book that one loves another loathes. And so it goes."
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