Men From Boys
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Short stories from the masters of crime fiction.
Little is perfect for the men in these seventeen crime stories and nothing is straightforward. The worlds they inhabit are as different as a deprived London housing estate and a rundown jazz joint in Manhattan, but each of them is striving to determine what is right, what will give them dignity, what will earn them self-respect. Some succeed. Others fail.
In this acclaimed collection of stories, John Harvey has gathered together some of the very best names in contemporary crime writing. Together these writers answer what it is to be a father, a son, a man. Authors are: Mark Billingham, Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly, Jeffery Deaver, John Harvey, Reginald Hill. Bill James, Dennis Lehane, Bill Moody, George P. Pelecanos, Peter Robinson, James Sallis, John Straley, Brian Thompson, Don Winslow, Daniel Woodrell, and a novella by Andrew Coburn.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The idea of a collection of crime stories with the common theme of showing what it means to be a man sounds like the loosest of requirements. But editor Harvey, whose series about British copper Charlie Resnick still stands as a genre icon, has chosen the 17 stories in this handsome trade paperback with a sharp eye. Harvey has included some of the crime field's leading players (Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly, Reginald Hill, Dennis Lehane, George P. Pelecanos, Peter Robinson) as well as fine writers who deserve to be better known and sold (Bill James, James Sallis, John Straley, Don Winslow, Daniel Woodrell). In his introduction, Harvey quotes Donald Westlake that writing short stories is like playing jazz: "a sense of vibrant imagination at work within a tightly controlled setting." Harvey's own story, "Chance," certainly fits that description: ex-cop and professional soccer player Jack Kiley, now working as a private detective, tries to help a former soccer star with a serious gambling addiction. Other contributions are similarly impressive in their poetic simplicity, making this a book to keep close at hand.
