Ross Thomas (1926-1995) fought in WWII, worked as a
journalist and a political consultant and published his first thriller at age
forty or thereabouts. The Cold War Swap, based in post war Germany, won
for him his first Edgar Allen Poe Award in 1967 for Best Debut Novel.
In his remaining thirty odd years Thomas published a
series of thrillers -- about twenty five in all -- one of which, Briarpatch,
won him a second Edgar, for Best Novel.
As a critic put it, Ross Thomas’s novels should come
with a health warning, and as a fan I
would suggest that the warning be ‘Handle with care --dangerously addictive!”
A Doubting Thomas might argue that these novels are rather dated -- the author died twenty five years ago and his heroes have no cell phones as a consequence!!The answer of course is -- as it was to the original Doubter -- check it out for yourself and find out. And remember the old adage, a thing of beauty, and a thriller of quality, is a joy for ever.
Thomas’s thrillers are page turners in the old-fashioned sense: the pace is gripping, the plots promote a very willing
suspension of disbelief, the violence is brief but high impact and the
protagonists are always quirky, clever, tough, intriguing and singularly attractive. The portrayal of politics at various levels -- international, national and local --
is deeply cynical and apparently derives from the author’s personal experience
of back room dealings in his avatar as ‘consultant’ in the political sphere,
whatever that may mean. In sum, once you start it, you don’t put down a Ross
Thomas till you finish it. This is no exaggeration -- try one and see.
It is hard to find Ross Thomas in Indian bookshops but
Amazon India does have several and the Kindle editions are not overly
expensive. Thomas also wrote as Oliver Bleek so keep that in mind when
searching the Net or an old- fashioned second-hand book shop -- if such things exist today. I bought several on Mumbai pavements years ago and if those
vendors are still around near Fountain, they might be worth checking out.
And do remember my warning; if you pick up a Ross Thomas, deadly addiction awaits.
Ah bliss!
Happy reading.
Book talk,
ReplyDeleteYes, it triggered a lot of memories, the old books shops, university days and I downloaded three books of Ross Thomas from Kindle.
Another favourite in those days was Eric Ambler
But one thing I wish for somebody to trace the genre of Hindi detective fiction and talk about those early writers.
Recently a selection of Gopal Ram Gahmari’s stories have been published, but one yearns for knowing more and may be other Hindi detective fiction writers of early 20th Century.
The little I know, that the history of Indian (Bengali) detective fiction began in April 1886, with the publication of Nagendra Nath Gupta’s Theft or an Act of Bravado? in the Kolkata-based periodical, Bharati. Six years later, Priyanath Mukherjee, a former employee of Calcutta Police, published The Police Inspector’s Office, (Darogar Daftar) recounting his experiences of chasing criminals. Girish Narayan Basu published Detective Tales from Yesteryears in Nabajeeban in 1893. This was followed by tales of police investigation by Kaliprasanna Chatterjee’s Inspector Barkatullah. Harisadhan Mukherjee’s Murderer Who? published in Bharati in April 1890, initiated the trend of adult detective fiction, which matured in Sarat Sarkar’s Goyenda Kahini series (1894-98). Panchkari Dey is most well remembered as being one of the earliest writers in Bengali who serialized detective stories. In his stories, we find stories on three detectives – Devendra Bijoy Mitra, Arindam Basu & Gobindaram.
But I may be wrong.
In 1896, publication of Venkateshwara Samachar was also launched. And here the first detective story in Hindi was published. Nagendra Nath was an early Bangla detective writer. Gahmari translated and published his story ‘Hirer Mulya’ (Price of diamonds) in a serialized form in Venkateshwara Samachar which became very popular. Later on, he published his own story Joda Jassos (a pair of detectives) in Venkateshwara Samachar.
Before the end of 19th Century, Gahmari came up with two novels in Hindi, Adbhut lash (1896) and Guptachar (1899).
The publication of first story in Venkatesh Samachar being published and its huge popularity among readers inspired Gahmari who started a monthly detective magazine from 1900 but number of writers joined in that genre. Some of those writers include –Rudradutt Sharma – ‘Var Singh Daroga ‘(1900), Kishori Lal Goswami – Jinde ki Lash (1906), Jairam Gupt -Langda Khuni (1908), Jangbahadur – Vichitra Khoon (1909), Chandashekhar Pathak -Amir Ali thug (1911).
This looks fascinating but one wishes to know more and read more about those early pathbreakers.