In between all the working and comic-making, I still manage to find the time to read. Mostly on the subway going from here to there. Been reading a lot of Westlake lately. I never get tired of this guy.
Read one of his novels from a few years back (another two-dollar street-special) called Humans, which was a bit different than his usual crime stuff.
It's about how God has decided to end the human experiment and sends an angel down to earth to manipulate the humans into destroying their world and themselves. Westlake plays the dark humor with a straight face and the result is a pretty entertaining, pretty lightweight book. Still waiting to meet a Westlake book I don't like.
Since I seem to be on a Westlake roll, the next pair of books I read are the first two installments of the Parker series, written under the pseudonym of Richard Stark. I love pseudonyms!
The first book The Hunter (coinkidink!) has been filmed a few times, most notably as Point Blank and Payback (the director's cut is the shit). It's about a tough guy criminal (Parker) double-crossed by his wife and partner and his methodical blood-streaked path to vengeance. Great, brutal stuff. The cool thing here is just what a prick Parker is. He's really a bad guy and the author makes no attempt to make him sympathetic. He's just pure bad news. In the movies they always soften this guy up just a tad. But in the books he's hard as nails and a real bastard. Great stuff.
The second book, The Man with the Getaway Face, picks up right where the first one leaves off.
I won't say too much about it other than Parker is on the run from the Outfit (the mob) and needs cash so he pulls off a robbery here and there. People get killed and stuff. It's also really great. If you like hard-boiled crime, boy are these the books for you. I plan to work my way through the whole series eventually.
Also recently Finished Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh.
This one's the sequel to Hollywood Station and continues to follow the adventures of the LAPD cops at, you guessed it, Hollywood station. This is pretty lightweight easy-reading. Wambaugh's an ex-cop himself so he knows the lingo and he sketches some likable characters and amusing situations illustrating how nutty people in Hollywood can be. Perfectly entertaining and forgettable. One eye-brow raiser is Wamabaugh's obvious contempt for reform measures thrust upon the LAPD in the wake of all those high-profile beatings back in the 90s. Wambaugh seems to think that the LAPD cops have one hand tied behind their backs by the beaurocrats and politicians. Don't know if I agree with the man (it's been a long time since I lived in LA) but it makes for an interesting point of view, different than the side I'm usually used to hearing from. I'll probaby read the third book in this series at some point.
OK, that's it for now. Maybe next week I'll babble about some of the movies I've seen. I can barely remember....
