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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Save Your Money,
By Steven L. Asher (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hot Night in the City (Hardcover)
This collection of short stories is uneven at best, and only sporadically entertaining. Everything that made Trevanian one of my favorite authors is all but absent in this book. If these stories were indeed written over a period of years, they belong back in the author's reject file, where they must have come from. If they are all new, so much the worse. I can't imagine that an author who hadn't already proven his marketability could persuade a publisher to foist this thin gruel upon the reading public. I am willing to follow a favorite author through any number of genres, but not when he abandons the quality of writing that made his work so delightful and readable. If you must buy this book, wait for it to appear on the sale table.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great reading,
By Jennifer Frost (Derry, NH USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hot Night in the City (Mass Market Paperback)
I picked this up at the airport, having recognized the Trevanian name but been away from him for awhile. Some of these stories were so enjoyable that I read them twice in a row. (esp. the sly Basque ones). The title story did give me the creeps, both times but the others more than made up for it. I'm glad to have this reminder of a good storyteller.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dazzling display of style and talent!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hot Night in the City (Hardcover)
Trevanian is the only major novelist capable of working in many styles, voices, and genres. And now we have a collection of short fiction that further illuminates his multi-faceted talents and skills with a baker's dozen of stories that range from the blood-chilling to the delightfully witty to a richly sentimental look at an imaginative boy growing up in an American slum in the 1930's. The brace of eponymous tales that serve to open and close the collection seem at first glance to be one tale with two different endings--in itself a unique and daring idea. But upon careful reading one discovers more than a hundred subtle changes that shift the reader's focus and sympathy from the charming but emotionally damaged young man to the innocent young woman. Elsewhere, we have a witty insight in the values and tactics of carnival people in which we meet half a dozen brilliantly drawn characters. The three Basque tales that punctuate the collection (it is rumoured that Trevanian lives in the Basque country) are rich with human insight and sympathy...as well as being very funny. In one story, he shows the emotional vacuity of the pick-up bar scene; in another he gives us a new and stunning view of the character and thought of Pontius Pilate; in another he creates a splendid woman of mature years who totally (and justly) deflates a character obviously based on the writer Trevanian feels set the progress of American letters back more than half a century, Hemmingway. And there is also a delightful romantic romp on a French train at the turn of the century; and a bawdy send-up of the Arthurian legend; and a haunting primal tale drawn from the oral tradition of Iroquoian folk stories. All in all, a varied feast indeed! As usual with this writer, there will be readers and reviewers who will be confused by the range of his work, and displeased that he has not limited himself to whatever facet of `Trevanian' they favour, but we must accept that Trevanian is an elitist who does not write for the Wad.
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