Seize Krapp's Last Cassette (Quinn, #3) Penned By Anne Argula Conveyed As Physical Book

I looked at the author's name again I thought this was about lettuce,

Ahahahaha.

Firstrate hardboiled female detective in Seattle on creepy mission, Nicely done. Atmospheric without pummeling the reader with geographic details to establish verisimilitude,

Also some odd cussing "Woi Yesus" New to me,

Third in a series, apparently, I'm going to grab the other two ASAP, A good detective is hard to find,

A onesitter. Anne Argula riffs on Darryl Ponicsan, novelist amp screenwriter

Since the Argula pen name is out of the bag anyway, I'm gonna talk about the real deal here, Darryl Ponicsan, because he has been a favorite author of mine since the earlys.
Ponicsan's greatest strength in his writing has always been dialogue, a skill that served him well as a screenwriter in Hollywood foryears or more.
Look him up all those he namedropped in this book were people he actually worked with.
That skill was evident in his first novel, The Last Detail, which resulted in the muchpraised Jack Nicholson film of the same name.
Another novel, Cinderella Liberty, enjoyed similar success both in print and on the big screen, There is a continuity in Ponicsan's early novels, Perhaps my favorite was Goldengrove, the sad tale of Ernie Buddusky, who was the brother of Billy "Badass" Buddusky of The Last Detail.
And there was another, Beef Buddusky, in The Accomplice, There is also a real facility demonstrated with the regional dialect and slang of the Pennsylvania coalmining country that gave us Ponicsan and his many colorful characters, which now includes PI Quinn of the Argula novels.


Thirtysome years ago I wrote a review of Tom Mix Died for Your Sins, Ponicsan's sixth novel.
In it I pointed out how the author followed a rather fascinating pattern of rewriting earlier classic works of literature.
The Last Detail was a modern version of Melville's Billy Budd Andoshen, PA mirrored Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio Goldengrove paralleled Updike's The Centaur Cinderella Liberty was a navy tale of The Book of Job The Accomplice Bernard Malamud's The Assistant and the Tom Mix book was a beautifully crafted fictional memoir that made you remember Twain's Tom and Huck books.
I was careful to point out in my review, published in the nowdefunct BestSellers magazine, that this observation was in no way meant to detract from Ponicsan's considerable talent.
Quite the contrary. Darryl Ponicsan can write like nobody's business! Back in the earlys I was teaching freshman English in a small college, and I used The Last Detail and Billy Budd in tandem for a couple of years in class.
Ponicsan beat out Melville in popularity every semester, Students loved Billy Buddusky more than Billy Budd, which was probably predictable, given the contemporary nature of the book and its Vietnam era setting.


Here's the thing, If Ponicsan used this device of rewriting the classics, both ancient and modern, in hiss novels and they were all excellent then odds are probably pretty good that his female alter ego, "Anne Argula", may be doing the same thing.
I must admit I did not explore that possibility in the first two Quinn books, but I may have to go back and reread them now.
Because Krapp's Last Cassette is not an arbitrarily chosen title, Take a look at the Krapp's Last Cassette's epigraph, a quote from playwright Samuel Beckett, I think I may have read something by Beckett back in college, but I have, perhaps mercifully, forgotten whatever it was.
But one of Beckett's many plays is one called Krapp's Last Tape, which is, incidentally, referred to towards the end of this Quinn book.
If the Beckett play is one about a man in his late sixties listening to tapes he has made at earlier stages of his life reflecting somewhat sardonically on that life then think about what's going on in this latest Argula book.
Alex Krapp is a man who spent twentysome years in Hollywood after having written several novels a man who is now reflecting on all those years.
Think Darryl Ponicsan, gentle readers,

I know I have said very little about the ingenious and creepily compelling plot and characters of Krapp's Last Cassette here, not to mention all that great dialogue, "ain't" If you've already read the book, then I don't need to tell you how good it is.
And if you haven't read it, here's a hint: it is damn good! No, what I wanted to tell all you really serious readers out there is this: if, after reading only two or three Anne Argula books you find yourself a fan, then do yourself a favor.
Find the Ponicsan novels and read them, They are great too. Sadly, most are now out of print and can only be found used, But if you like Quinn, then you will like the Buddusky clan too and John Baggs and Tom Mix and Kid Bandera and all the other colorful and memorable characters Darryl Ponicsan created so many years ago.
I for one look will look forward to the next book, whether the spine reads Ponicsan or Argula, because this is a writer who will grab you on page one and not let go til the last page.
Interesting and different. I enjoyed it and wish there were more books to come in this series, Love this hot flashing female detective! This one is different, because it nothing ends up to be what it seems.
This is Argulas third goround with her scrappy Seattle P, I. heroine, Quinn. I wrote about her second book Walla Walla Suite in, Quinn is still grappling with her hot flashes as she gets a call from a Hollywood screenwriter, Alex Krapp, who invites her down for a meeting.
Hes writing a screenplay for HBO about a Seattle boy that hes come to know and love through lengthy phone conversations.
The boy has written a book about his experiences growing up with horrendous abuse from his parents who are Satanists, and to top it off, hes dying of AIDS.
HBO is getting nervous about the authenticity of the story and wants proof that the boy exists.
The catch is that the boys adoptive mother says that no one can see the boy because he is so ill.
Quinn is hired to get the proof,

As I started reading this book, I was immediately reminded of Armistead Maupins The Night Listener, a novel about a radio personality who forms a close bond with a fan that he talks to on the radio and on the phone,

a boy who has suffered horrible abuse and is very ill.
I was intrigued to see where Argula was going to go with it, Is the boy real, or not

As with Argulas earlier books, I was taken by the singular character of Quinn and the evocation of the city of Seattle.
Ardis

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