One of my gifts was Pelecanos' "The Sweet Forever" which I stayed up really late reading. I think I am in love right now, actually. If I write something half that good, I'll know I have something. I love his spin on the hard-boiled thing because it doesn't tempt me to suicide like Lehane.

I keep meaning to read Pelecanos. What's a good one to start with?

Most people tell me it is The Big Blowdown, which is the begiinning of the series about the Greeks. I am reading it right now, AIFG! He has two series going at once, I think, The Karras/Clay books and the Strange books(Derek Strange) I've read a few of both. The Greek books are more....nostalgic, The Stranges more modern.(Strange is really a "Who's on First ?" kind of name, isn't it? Makes a change from Stefanos though.) And I have to like any writer who says in the same interview: Q: What's the secret of your appeal in the UK? Pelecanos: My swarthy good looks?(followed by some more serious stuff about universal themes) Q: What are your thoughts about the writing life? Pelecanos: I get paid all right and my back doesn't hurt at the end of the day. And I have to say, Angus, feeling a little like Xander being asked for advice by Giles that you would want my opinion. I'm kind of chuffed and unworthy, both. Bonus is, he's got the grit like Lehane, but he is funny and less inclined to dismember people. Which I like. Lehane's good, too, but he has kind of a "kill every motherfucker in the room" approach to body counts that fluctuates from "My God, how disturbing!" to "blah, blah, another hollow chest cavity," because he goes there so much. I can't believe I posted that word in Literary...that's kind of horrible. I don't know how you feel about pop references in mysteries either...Pelecanos loves them. You probably aren't horrified by them, being a Buffista, but I never know.

No, I love pop references in mysteries! Didn't Pelecanos also write a piece in Hec's new book, or something?

The only Lehane I've read was Shutter Island, which I thought was good although there were a couple of pretty glaring anachronisms, eg someone using the term "anger management" in the late 1940s (or whenever it was supposed to be)!

I got Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty for Christmas and I'm really enjoying it so far. I was slightly worried, it's a bit disconcerting to see an author I absolutely love win the Booker Prize (which I've always been snooty about)!

Didn't Pelecanos also write a piece in Hec's new book, or something?

Indeed. He's an expert on 70s soul music and did a piece about Curtis Mayfield's Back to the World.

One of the characters in the Strange series is an ex-cop who works in a used record store.

My only problem with Pelecanos is that every villain seems to be gay. Or at least a Schillingeresque manrapist. Which after a while starts to seem like a theme.

You know, I never noticed, but...now you mention it, a lot of them do look upon prison a bit more fondly than one might expect, Jim. Wow, Hec's and Pelecanos' stock both rose. Color me impressed. Yeah, Angus, wrod on that term thing. Surely, there was a fifties word he could have found. And it's probably easier when you're Lehane, as opposed to, say, me, Newbie McRookie, who doesn't even come up on Amazon or anything. No excuse.

Interesting book gift I got: the Faber book of Movie Verse. Poems about movies from the turn of the century to the early 90s. Looks amazing but I haven't gotten a chance to look at it in any great detail. The only other book gifts that I got were school books, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

I got [link] Shakespeare After All.

I'm looking forwad to reading it, though it's a little bit intimidating looking to my vacation jelly-brains.

That looks excellent...pretty much any book about Shakespeare makes me salivate though.