5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious tribute to the lesser lights of crime fiction, August 18, 2001
Son of Gun in Cheek is in fact the second book of praise for the 'alternative' (read: bad) masters of crime fiction, but it can and does stand alone. In fact, Son of Gun in Cheek is actually superior to Gun in Cheek in many respects. This is a fabulously funny book - one in which Pronzini discusses, quotes, and even reprints some of the greatest pieces of unintentional humor and utterly amusing badness ever written in the mystery genre. Like its sister volume, Gun in Cheek, Son of Gun is a veritable fount of the kind of thing you're very grateful someone else read.
In this second book, Pronzini gets right down to brass tacks; there's much less history of the genre, and much more quirky, bad, or wonderfully weird extracts and plots. The 'alternative' examples in Son of Gun seem, to my eye, to be funnier than the ones used in the first book - though most of them are no worse. (There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, nothing could be worse than the works from the first book. Let's just say Son of Gun features ones equally bad.) So if you're looking for humor, this is definitely the book to read. Of course, if you're looking for a history or critical work, you'd probably be better off starting with Gun in Cheek.
Pronzini also does a much better job with format in this book. While Gun in Cheek attempted a more-or-less standard book format, Son of Gun has the 'Alternative Hall of Fame,' which has a separate entry for each book honored with admission. This makes the chapters less unwieldy and easier to read aloud. (And I definitely recommend you read this one aloud; hysteria shared is hysteria tripled, after all.) Another, more minor improvement comes in the chapters themselves, which are grouped around topics more compelling than in Gun in Cheek.
You don't need to be a mystery fan to appreciate Son of Gun in Cheek; the average mystery reader will not have heard of most authors and books featured here. (And good thing, too.) You only need a sense of humor and some rudimentary understanding of things like plot, structure, and common sense, which understanding, I might add, is apparently not shared by most of the authors mentioned. This book is deeply amusing and, as a bonus, will provide you with many mottos for your future use. (My favorite: "Tut, tut. Chaos is come again.") All in all, a wonderful read - don't let the scarcity of this book hold you back. Find it. Read it. It is a cure for what ails you.
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