Red Grass River: A Legend
by James Carlos Blake
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James Carlos Blake is a masterful chronicler of the restless, outcast, the lawless, and the lonelyheart. His previous novel, In the Rogue Blood, was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. Now he has written a powerful and rousing historical saga of family loyalties, blood feuds, and betrayed friendships; of bank robberies and bootlegging; and of a passionate love as wild at heart as the Everglades. It is the story of sworn enemies: John Ashley, a criminal and folk hero, the show more brightest star in a family destined to become the most notorious in south Florida; and Bobby Baker, a lawman born of lawmen, a violent, hard-hearted man driven by the searing memory of past affronts and the enduring hatreds the engendered. Ashley and Maker will clash many times over many decades. And as the twentieth century encroaches on their world--and the wildlands give grudging way to the rising boomtown of Miami--a feral, sensual mating will place one man in gravest peril...while his adversary contrives a dark, personal vengeance that could leave countless lives--his own included--in ruin. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Despite what some reviewers claim, James Carlos Blake is not Cormac McCarthy. He writes in a wholly different vein. And yet, he does tell an engaging tale. The tale of outlaws and lawmen in South Florida at the early stages of the 20th Century is detailed and honest. Blake resists the urge to paint a simple picture. Instead, he shows us what both the men and the times were really like. The story is full of violence, but hardly in a gratuitous fashion. It is, in the end, a truly American story.
Probablement le meilleur polar de mon année 2012.
Quelle claque ! Le côté historique et quasi-ethnologique des Everglades dans les années juste avant la prohibition, la violence, et malgré tout la sympathie qu'inspirent certains personnages, la fascination de l'auteur pour les grands "outlaws" genre Bonnie and Clyde...
Longtemps qu'un polar m'avait pas scotché comme ça.
Lu en VO mais en principe chez Rivages les traductions sont bonnes...
Probably my best read in 2012 for Detective stories.
I was blown away from the beginning : the historical and ethnological side in the early century Everglades, the violence and romance, the author's clear fascination for the Bonnie and Clyde type couple, wow...
Quelle claque ! Le côté historique et quasi-ethnologique des Everglades dans les années juste avant la prohibition, la violence, et malgré tout la sympathie qu'inspirent certains personnages, la fascination de l'auteur pour les grands "outlaws" genre Bonnie and Clyde...
Longtemps qu'un polar m'avait pas scotché comme ça.
Lu en VO mais en principe chez Rivages les traductions sont bonnes...
Probably my best read in 2012 for Detective stories.
I was blown away from the beginning : the historical and ethnological side in the early century Everglades, the violence and romance, the author's clear fascination for the Bonnie and Clyde type couple, wow...
Oct 24, 2013French
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16+ Works 978 Members
Handsome Harry is James Carlos Blake's eighth novel and ninth book of fiction. Among his literary honors are the Quarterly West Novella Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Chautauqua South Book Award, and the Southwest Book Award. He currently lives in Arizona.
Awards and Honors
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS3552 .L3483 .R43 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 76
- Popularity
- 414,436
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English, French, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 3
