Fridays Forgotten Books:
Killer Year
In his introduction for the 2008 crime anthology KILLER YEAR, the thriller writer Lee Child talks about buying records as a lad in 1960’s England. At the time, 45 rpm singles cost an ‘affordable’ six shillings and eightpence but LP records cost so much more that they were a twice a year only event – birthdays and Christmas.Later, he says, some record companies introduced budget price samplers – mainly prog rock- featuring two or three songs by ‘known’ bands and the rest unknown or cult bands.
And this, he says, is what KILLER YEAR is. A sampler.
It’s a good analogy and it’s a friggin’ good book with stories from writers known and some not so well known- at that time.All them them were pretty new to me.
Killer Year is a great calling card. I bought in the summer of 2009 because it featured the names of many writers that I'd heard great things about in the previous six months or so.
A few of my favourite stories were:
Perfect Gentleman by Brett Battles
Time Of The Green by Ken Bruen
A Failure To Communicate by Toni McGee Causey
One Serving Of Bad Luck by Sean Chercover
The Point Guard by Jason Pinter
There are also insightful introductions by the likes of Anne Frasier, Jeffrey Deaver and Joe R. Lansdale.
There are more Forgotten Books today here at Patti Abbot's essential blog.
6 comments:
I hope this isn't already forgotten!
This is such a terrific anthology. I often wonder how long it would have taken me to pick up Chercover's books if I had not read his short story in this book. I would hate to have missed out on those.
And leave us not forget "Slice of Pie," by my fellow Portlander, Bill Cameron.
Chercover's story was a good one. Marcus Sakey's "Gravity of Need" made me move his debut novel to the top of my TBR pile.
Both those stories are beuts. There are loads of them in there.
New stories? And not a CWA-sponsored book, or anything like one...?
I wonder how much four-song EPs cost in the latter '60s in the UK...or the earlier cousins to the 10" Brit lps I'd occasionally buy ca. 1981 (mostly Pye Kinks reissues...pretty cheap even as imports, at the time, with eight songs on a disc).
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