{"id":708,"date":"2002-09-28T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2002-09-29T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2023-05-08T18:42:40","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T22:42:40","slug":"a-real-hardcase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=708","title":{"rendered":"HARDCASE by Dan Simmons \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
HARDCASE<\/a><\/span><\/b> by Dan Simmons<\/div>\n
Hardcover: 288 pages
\nPublisher: \u200e Minotaur Books<\/div>\n
\n

First sentence…<\/p>\n

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Late on Tuesday afternoon, Joe Kurtz rapped on Eddie Falco’s apartment door.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Have you heard of Dan Simmons<\/span>?<\/span><\/div>\n

Simmons’ first published story, “The River Styx Runs Upstream,”<\/em> won the Rod Serling Memorial Award<\/em>. His first novel, SONG OF KALI, won the World Fantasy Award<\/em>. His first horror novel, CARRION COMFORT, won the Bram Stoker Award<\/em>. His first science fiction novel, HYPERION<\/b>, won the Hugo Award<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even with all the awards, I was only vaguely familiar with his work. I don’t read fantasy, and very little science fiction or horror. I do love a hardboiled thriller though! You know, the kind written by Andrew Vachss, or Eugene Izzi, Stephen Hunter, or Richard Stark… or now, Dan Simmons. That’s right! With Hardcase<\/a><\/span><\/b>, Simmons has jumped to the top shelf!<\/p>\n

Joe Kurtz was a PI… before he was an ex-con. See he killed a man, a couple of men actually. They’d murdered his girl and unborn child. While it’s pretty reasonable to me that he threw one of ’em off a six story building, the jury didn’t see it that way.<\/p>\n

Now, out of prison after eleven-and-a-half years…<\/p>\n

…you’d think things would be looking up for Kurtz<\/b>. You’d be wrong. Too many people want him dead…<\/p>\n

Hardcase<\/a><\/span><\/b> is the best novel that I’ve read this year [tied with Jack Kelly<\/b>‘s Line of Sight<\/a><\/b>]. For more about Hardcase<\/a><\/b>, click here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hardcase<\/span> rates 5 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n

Rating:
\n<\/strong>\"\"
\nUpdated 5\/8\/23<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARDCASE by Dan Simmons Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: \u200e Minotaur Books First sentence… Late on Tuesday afternoon, Joe Kurtz rapped on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,51,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-crime","category-z-view","comments-off"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32804,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/32804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}