Hard Case Crime discussion

Did anyone pick this one up? I really like the sample chapter on the Hard Case website. Which is funny, since I don't usually think of myself as a Block fan.

I looked for it; I think I mentioned it on the Zero Cool thread, but I'm having a harder and harder time finding the Hard Case books on the shelf. Is anyone else having this problem?

It's an interesting book, Joe---best read as a parody of the Beat Generation. Check out the review I did in December:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...

To me it's interesting bc the plot really doesn't kick in until the final third.

I subscribe to HCC, so I get them one a month. in the meantime, I've tried to catch up on the ones I've missed, but, you're right, the titles are hard to come by in bookstores. I picked up VENGEFUL VIRGIN at a Books-a-Million, which surprised me.

If you're a subscriber, you can also buy any Hard Case titles that are still in print directly through Dorchester Publishing's website. You get one free for every five that you buy. I recently got a shipment of six books from them, and opening the box felt like Christmas.

I thought about the subscription. It's just I haven't been as enthused about grabbing all the books since around the 13-14 release. I think since then, I've only been buying every other one or so. Which means I'm part of the reason they aren't on the bookshelves. Ha! It's a viscious circle. That being said, starting with the Bloch and on, their schedule looks pretty good to me. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Schow has in store with his....

Yeah, whenever I'm presented with a series (of, well, just about anything I'm interested in) I get crazy compleatist urges, so the subscription just made sense to me.

It probably makes less sense to my girlfriend, however, who I think is already getting sick of all the milk crates full of unread pulp paperbacks I have in our apartment.

But yeah, I'm really looking forward to the Bloch double, too. And I remember really enjoying Schow's horror stories in high school, so I'm curious to see what his hard-boiled stuff is like.

I've read Diet of Treacle. I didn't like it as much as the other three Block books from Hard Case. Block's my favorite Hard Case author so take that for what its worth.

The Borders I go to usually has 10-15 different Hard Case books in stock at a time. My big find recently was the K-Mart near my house had ten different books in the discount bin 2 for 6 bucks. I picked up six as I had the others.