Review: Real noir, gritty and real
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 23, 2012
I'm catching up on reviews I should have written long ago.Seems like some believe noir should be violent or brutal. Phillip Marlowe is classic noir and so is By Bye Baby.It is dark, gritty and provides us with a glimpse into a troubled situation and a troubled protagonist.Since it is a novella, there is only so much plot that can be described, and I am going toleave that to the earlier reviewers. The plot line is excellent, and while many are tighter, thisone works excellently in this format. Detective Frank Collins almost walks off the page, and the ending, whilecriticized in other reviews, works perfectly for me.As an aside, I have to admit that I shied away from novellas, but I took a chance on this a year or more ago, and it blew away my elitist objection to the form. Since then, I would have to say 1/2 of what I purchase is less than 130 pages.This is a great introduction to Allan Guthrie, a UK writer who deserves to be much better known in the US. After you read this, try his "Two-Way Split" for superbly written noir with interwoven elements of humor, suspense and the absurd, or his "Slammer" for sheer psychological terror.