Friday 26 November 2010

Out on the Rim by Ross Thomas, and the Artie Wu / Quincy Durant Collection

I've got one more recently acquired book to show in this final Ross Thomas Week post, although I will be returning to Thomas; I'm reading his 1967 book Cast a Yellow Shadow at the moment, so I'll have a review of that before long, and there are still a fair few books in his back catalogue I've yet to track down. For now, though, there's this:


The 1987 UK hardback first edition of Out on the Rim, published by Century Hutchinson / Mysterious Press – two imprints that are no longer with us, both having been swallowed up by other publishers, although Mysterious Press will be getting a relaunch next year. Out on the Rim is the second of Thomas's trilogy of novels starring Artie Wu and Quincy Durant; I blogged about the first one, Chinaman's Chance, a couple of days ago, and I picked up a copy of the third, Voodoo, Ltd., at the last Lewes Book Fair. So now I have all three:


On the strength of the completely brilliant Chinaman's Chance, I'm really looking forward to reading Out on the Rim, which is about an attempt to misappropriate $5 million from a Philippines rebel group. I can't tell you who designed the dustjacket this time out as there's no credit, but I do sort of prefer it to the American first edition:


And that is about that for Ross Thomas Week. Next week, and probably the week after too, it's back to mixed bag blogging. There'll be a bit of Donald E. Westlake business, including a Parker Progress Report, this time reviewing Slayground, plus a Westlake Score or two, one of them featuring a never-before-seen-on-the-'net (at least, as far as I'm aware) Richard Stark cover. There'll be at least one Notes from the Small Press. I'll be returning to Dennis Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro novels, with a look at the latest one, Moonlight Mile, and how Lehane's new UK publisher is handling the publicity for the book. There'll be that Beverley le Barrow James Bond cover gallery I promised, and some Lewes Book Bargains, and stuff from John le Carre, and Lee Child, and Kingsley Amis, and Francis Clifford, and who knows what else.

That's all in the future though. For right now, I'm off to hospital to have a camera shoved down my throat. Brilliant. Wish me luck. And see you on the other side...

4 comments:

  1. Ross Thomas week was excellent - especially the look at how The Mordida Man was changed for UK publication. And that Out on the Rim cover looks like a sort of modern but minimalist Acrimboldo picture. Really, great stuff all week.

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  2. Cheers BG! Glad you enjoyed it, particularly as a lot of it was aimed at you!

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  3. It was almost like bespoke blogging for me. (Though your stat counter clearly indicates otherwise.)

    If you run low on new people to collect and write about I have another writer in mind. English, this time. Relatively unknown and/or forgotten. Not much available about him online. But only about 2/3rds as good as RT. Maybe we'll save him for 2011.

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  4. I keep meaning to get rid of that stat counter, as it strikes me as being a bit ostentatious now. Unfortunately I can't remember where I installed the code for it. Oh well.

    Ooh, another writer, eh? OK, tell me about them in the new year.

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