 | Cold Lessons by Michael McCulloch
Buy new: $25.95 / Used from: $2.35 This is the book I wrote.
|
 | The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
Buy new: $9.32 / Used from: $0.50 There's not much I can say about this book that hasn't been said already. But when I was in high school, I read Crumley and it felt like the top of my head just came off. His tough guys lived in a place I recognized, and they didn't act anything like the detectives on TV. And they screwed up sometimes, too, which I found fascinating.
|
 | Black Cherry Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 This might just have been the novel that made me think I could write one, too. Some of the action is set around Flathead Lake, which is where I was when I read it. Suddenly, I saw in my familiar surroundings a real potential for mayhem.
|
 | Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Buy new: $9.23 / Used from: $1.00 Growing up, the town of Butte was the butt of many Missoulians' jokes. Then I listened to K. Ross Toole's Montana history lectures and got interested in the mining town's troubled history. Dashiell Hammett's seminal crime novel "Red Harvest" fueled my fascination--and undoubtedly influenced my decision to set some of the action in "Cold Lessons" there. (It's called "Pishkun" in my novel.)
|
 | Death and the Good Life: A Mystery by Richard Hugo
Buy new: $11.86 / Used from: $0.67 I had already written a couple drafts of "Cold Lessons" by the time I read Richard Hugo's "Death and the Good Life." But when I did read it, I realized with amazement that Hugo had already done, in some ways, what I was trying to do--and, of course, done it much better. "Mush Heart" Barnes is an unforgettable character.
|
 | The Wrong Case by James Crumley
Buy new: $9.32 / Used from: $1.89 I actually read the Milodragovitch novels before I read "The Last Good Kiss," so I've got to put this on the list, too.
|
 | Unforgiven (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Buy new: $23.49 / Used from: $4.69 This may seem like an odd inclusion, but it was on my mind when I was writing "Cold Lessons." "Unforgiven" subverted so many cliches of the Western that it was hard to imagine anyone ever filming another one. With the hubris of youth (it took a long, long time to get published), I had similar ambitions for my mystery novel. It's no "Unforgiven," but I'm proud of it anyway.
|
 | Blue Velvet (Special Edition)
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $4.71 Another odd choice? Perhaps. But David Lynch's vision of the darkness hidden behind white picket fences fascinated me--especially because he was born in my hometown of Missoula, Montana. I believe he's since said that Lumberton was actually a stand-in for Spokane, Washington. But it will always be Missoula to me.
|
Listmania!
