I've read all Ross Thomas's books (including those he wrote as Oliver Bleeck) once, many of them twice, and some of them three times. I'm never disappointed. My most recent reread was Yellow Dog Contract, in which Harvey Longmire is called on to investigate the disappearance of Arch Mix, head of a powerful union, and write an article giving his opinion of what happened. Longmire is retired from running political campaigns, working with unions, and "doing this and that" in Europe, among other things. He now lives on a farm with his wife, writes greeting card verses, and is happy. Longmire takes the assignment, and of course things don't go well. People start dying, for one thing, and Longmire and two associates whom he knows from former days find themselves on the trail of a vast conspiracy leading up to the presidential election of 1976. They aren't quite sure what the conspiracy is, but they know it's going to spell big trouble for one party when the election comes. The title is a clue.
Great writing, great characters, humor, tricky plotting -- this one has it all. It's no wonder that Thomas is one of my very favorite writers. Highly recommended.
8 comments:
I agree. There was only one of his books I just couldn't get through. This was one of the earliest ones I read and from what I can remember, I liked it a lot.
My first Ross Thomas was THE EIGHTH DWARF. It knocked my socks off! I quickly bought all of Ross Thomas's books and read most of them. I'm down to his "Oliver Bleeck" books.
I've liked everything I've read by him except the Seersucker Whipsaw which left me cold.
I have read and enjoyed all of his books. Time to reread some of my favorites.
I have not read any. DON'T JUDGE ME!
One of the greats. My own favorites are the Artie Wu/Quincy Durant books, not least because of the presence of Otherguy Overby, but everything he wrote was terrific. One I like for professional reasons in addition to its being a really good one is The Money Harvest, which involves a scam around the release of US Department of Agriculture crop forecasts (if my memory is still working). Thomas's Wikipedia page is pathetic, by the way. It really needs at least brief plot summaries of the books (not that I'm going to do anything about it).
Otherguy Overby is one of the great names. I need to dig out my copy of The Money Harvest and take a look at that one again.
I have loved Ross Thomas's books for years. Fortunately, there's a great many of them at my local library. And they've been able to get other ones that I have requested through inter-library loan.
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