Charles Williams

[Johnny Ostentatious]

Stumbled across a John D. MacDonald interview (http://www.mysteryfile.com/JDM/Interview.html) and he raved about Charles Williams. Any recommendations on which book of Williams I should start with?

[Jude Hardin]

I don't know anything about Charles Williams, but thanks for the link to the John D. interview. I enjoyed it.

[Joan Conwell]

I'm reading A TOUCH OF DEATH which was re-issued by Hard Case Crime--illustration of a woman in a bluish purple bathrobe on the cover. It's classic noir. Man after money gets more than he bargained for. Williams does an especially nice job with both setting and the man-woman interaction.

This is from p. 48:

It was a strange sight. At first there was an odd feeling about it, as if I had wandered into some kind of religious ceremony. Then I began to get it sorted out. It was a bedroom. The candle was burning on the floor in a little silver dish, and beside it was the record player. Phonograph records were scattered around on the rug, and in the middle of them, alongside a low couch, a girl in a long blue robe sat on the floor and swayed gently back and forth as she listened to the music.

[Bill Crider]

A Touch of Death is probably easiest to find, thanks to the Hard Case reprint. My favorite is River Girl, but Just about anything by Williams is worth reading. He wrote a couple of hilarious backwoods novels in addition to his crime novels. Some people prefer his sea stories. Dead Calm was made into a pretty good movie with Nicole Kidman. You can find the books on eBay fairly often, though not for a quarter.