Thu 4 Dec 2014
Archived Review: RICHARD HUGO – Death and the Good Life.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[6] Comments
RICHARD HUGO – Death and the Good Life. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1981. Avon, paperback, 1982.
Hugo is a noted American poet, and this is his first mystery. His hero is a soft-hearted ex-cop from Seattle, and his name is Al Barnes. Since quitting his job in the city, he’s taken a deputy sheriff’s position in the small town of Plains, Montana.
That’s right. Montana. Not Georgia. The Pacific Northwest is rapidly becoming a hotbed of detective-story activity. You can add another pretty good one to the list.
The first murder is an axe-killing, and so’s the second, but it doesn’t seem to fit the pattern. The trail leads Barnes back to Oregon, and once there, deep into the past. It takes a gut feeling for the truth to work a scent almost twenty years old, and that Barnes has. Memories are not always pleasant ones, but some of the ones he dredges up are particularly nasty ones.
The prose is right, and Barnes’ instincts for the job are never far from wrong, but the story still doesn’t click the way it’s supposed to. Strangely enough, it’s the rhythm, the beat, that’s off. This is essentially a private eye story, and it’s a crucial factor. This one just misses.
Rating: B minus.
Note: This was Richard Hugo’s only mystery novel. He died of leukemia in 1982, at the relatively young age of 58.
December 4th, 2014 at 10:16 pm
When I reread some of these old reviews I wrote, this one some 33 years ago, I often get the urge to reread the books themselves, to see whether I would feel the same way about a book now as I did back then.
For whatever reason, I feel this one deserves another chance, and I would, if I could get to the bookcase where I know this one has been, all this time.
December 5th, 2014 at 8:39 am
I agree, Steve. I remember reading this at the time – in fact this week in 1981 – and liked it quite a bit.
December 5th, 2014 at 4:19 pm
In case anyone gets confused there is another Richard Hugo mystery writer with a longer and more successful career in the genre. That Richard Hugo was very good, often funny, and often bizarre including at least one book that ended with the hero floating down a river on a corpse.
To make things worse many of his books had the word Death in it.
December 5th, 2014 at 8:57 pm
David
Is this the Richard Hugo you’re referring to?
HUGO, RICHARD; pseudonym of Jim Williams, (1947- ) (books)
The Hitler Diaries (n.) Macmillan 1982 [Germany]
Last Judgement (n.) Macmillan 1984
Farewell to Russia (n.) Macmillan 1987 [Russia]
Conspiracy of Mirrors (n.) Macmillan 1989 [Russia]
The Gorbachev Version (n.) Zebra 1991; See: Conspiracy of Mirrors (Macmillan UK 1989).
December 5th, 2014 at 10:49 pm
That’s the one Steve, but I think I was also thinking of Richard Hoyt from the same era more or less. This one is writing mysteries now as Jim Williams.
December 5th, 2014 at 11:09 pm
As chance would have it, Richard Hoyt was one of the authors I was referring to in the review, when I talked about “The Pacific Northwest is rapidly becoming a hotbed of detective-story activity.”
Hoyt starting writing his books about PI John Denson in 1980, all (or most) of them taking place in and around Seattle WA.