6/8/2023 0 Comments Detective manon bradshaw(I am the co-publisher of these books.)Īmong those three standalones is a straight-up chunk of genre fiction-a darkly comic suburban noir called The Circumstantial Man. It follows nine novels in Reilly’s Asphalt Warrior series, a trilogy based on Gary’s experiences in the Vietnam War, and three other standalones. Paradise Lurks marks Reilly’s 16th posthumously published novel. When he died, we had been close writing pals for about seven years, but Paradise Lurks was one of the few books that he and I did not discuss. I don’t know what Gary’s objectives were when he wrote Paradise Lurks because Gary died in 2011, leaving behind 25 unpublished novels. The story is also full of Charley Quinn’s keen observations on the world around him, including his somewhat blunt opinions on the transactional nature of male-female relationships. The story in a nutshell: Earnest writing teacher Charley Quinn has his world upended by a new female student who brings him sex, intrigue, and puzzles about her past. But it’s got crime fiction bones and ample literary touches. I don’t know what Gary Reilly was thinking when he wrote The Paradise That Lurks in Female Smiles. “Genre” fiction can be every bit as inventive and arty and revelatory as something dubbed literature. But fans of genre fiction know there is as much powerful commentary on the human condition in a good mystery as there is in any novel up for the Booker or Pulitzer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |