By noon the temperature would hit 100, and by two or three o'clock it would be hovering around 105. But Thomas’ books are almost out of print, however thanks to these expensive editions they are still reachable.If you happened to watch the 10-part miniseries of Briarpatch, you may find the book a little disappointing. Still, it did win the 1985 Edgar Award for best novel.This is an engrossing, fast-moving mystery that's full of the usual Ross Thomas cynicism but, unfortunately, lacks the mordant humor that make his best books so enjoyable. The sheer description of the unnamed composite Sun Belt city makes it a must read, not to mention the balance of dark humor and tension.Unusually, a more "traditional" mystery, with a bit less of the political than normal--but one of his best.About 15 years ago, give or take, I read virtually everything by Ross Thomas, seeking out used books because most of his stuff was then out of print. If hard-boiled fiction had an honest line of top-five writers Thomas would have followed modestly behind the grand masters that were Hammett and Chandler. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. Thomas is very much in control of the prose, and even the indulgent bits seem as if they are about to reveal something worth knowing, even when the don't, but that keeps you with him. Well written even with the gratuitous wealth of information about every location. That's not because the book is bad; far from it! Briarpatch is least successful establishing itself as a whodunnit, which is partially a product of Pick's character. Now I'm a believer and will be reading more. My first Ross Thomas but not my last.Ross Thomas was one of the best American writers, more than just a genre writer although he was excellent at that.

As the crime writer Lawrence Block relates in his introduction to the Kindle Edition of the political thriller Briarpatch, published 17 years later, Swap “launched a career that brought [Thomas] no end of awards, an army of fiercely loyal readers, and a whole shelf of books with his name on them, in none of which one will Ross Thomas‘ first novel, The Cold War Swap, was published in 1967. That really turbocharged my writing and made me excited to see where it led.”He said it also inspired him to introduce the character of Eve Raytek (Kim Dickens), who is the chief of police in Allegra’s hometown and is a character who is not in the novel. I quite liked the other 30 pages of that first 60, so I stuck with Thomas until the book became really interesting, and it sure did. » Subscribe to USA Network: It won the Edgar Allen Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the best first novel of that year. What he A long-distance call from a Texas city on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister—it's her birthday, too, they were born exactly ten years apart—has died in a car bomb explosion. She owns a rental property that she couldn't necessarily afford.


Because my brain is a sieve, however, what I mostly remember from those months is that Thomas is a genius of epic proportions, even as I recall almost nothing of the stories themselves. Ben Gill experiences all of those things in this book.Ross Thomas‘ first novel, The Cold War Swap, was published in 1967. “And so I’ve read all 25 of his books and I love them all. In an interview at the 2020 Television Critics Association winter press tour, Greenwald told us that Ross Thomas is his “favorite writer and has been for a long time” because of Thomas’ “totally unique” voice and “bizarre mix of very specific details and very baggy, bizarre plotting.”“Also, all of his characters are just so confident and cool in the most interesting ways,” Greenwald continued. But, Ross Thomas and his characters sucked me in right away. I made a note to check out his work, but never followed up on it - - until my cousin decided to relinquish a coveted copy of Biarpatch and loan it to me.