Friday, July 19, 2013

Ross Thomas, The Procane Chronicle

The Procane Chronicle by Ross Thomas


Ross Thomas, The Procane Chronicle


    One of life’s true pleasures is reading a Ross Thomas novel.  He never lets you down when you re-read him, either. 

    I’ve now read The Procane Chronicle for the third or fourth time, and even though I now know all the amazing surprises Thomas blesses his readers with, the prose alone is as much fun as the story.  The only writer living today who can even come close to the grace and nimbleness of Thomas is Lawrence Block.  Block knows from sentences.

    In this one, Phillip St. Ives is dragooned by poverty as usual to act as a go-between when a blackmailer sets a price.  St. Ives is hired to make sure that both sides keep their promise.  The stake this time is a possible Mafia war.

    As always, Thomas gives us a radiantly cynical take on Washington, D. C. and all who do business there.  Though thirty years have past since original publication, Procane depicts a nation’s capitol no different from the one we know today.  St. Ives is lied to and betrayed by everything on two legs, even – or especially – those fine looking female legs.

    For me, Thomas was one of the two or three best crime writers of the last century.  He brought to each book a witty and brutal intelligence that exposed all of us as less than we’d want to be. 

    http://mysteriouspress.com/products/espionage-and-thriller/the-procane-chronicle-by-ross-thomas.asp  Get it at Mysterious Press on line books or try ABE etc.

           ——

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree, Ed. Truly one of the greats!

Mathew Paust said...

Ditto. Didn't Bronson play St. Ives in one or two Hollywood treatments of Thomas's work?

Ed Gorman said...

Matthew the name of the movie was "St. Ives."

RJR said...

These were my favorite books of Ross, who was also a helluva poker player!

RJR

Kelly Robinson said...

Ooh, just recently bought a neat vintage paperback copy of this. I'll bump it up the to-read list.

Hyman said...

Great!