Comments on: Bumbling Criminals

By: Book Blog - Likely Stories, by Keir Graff - Booklist Online » Blog Archive » Getting Better

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:48:26 +0000

[...] (Incidentally, add Lights Out to the Bumbling Criminals list.) [...]

By: Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Greedy Hippies

Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Greedy Hippies — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:41:15 +0000

[...] I finished reading Robert Ward’s Four Kinds of Rain, and it was in some ways what I was expecting – a dark comedy about a bumbling criminal who throws away a chance at real happiness for a treasure that ultimately turns out to be worthless – but in some ways it was a lot more than that. [...]

By: Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Greedy Hippies

Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Greedy Hippies — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:27:47 +0000

[...] « Bumbling Criminals The Problematization of Plot » [...]

By: Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Getting Better

Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Getting Better — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:06:06 +0000

[...] (Incidentally, add Lights Out to the Bumbling Criminals list.) [...]

By: Bill Ott

Bill Ott — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

My favorite “malevolent treasure” novel is Kent Harrington’s Red Jungle, in which a dissolute journalist-think Fowler in The Quiet American-heads straight into the heart of darkness, Guatemala version, in search of a giant Mayan sculpture of the mythical red jaguar. Throw in some corrupt South American politicians and a femme fatale, and you wind up with a fortune hunter even more damned than poor Fred C. Dobbs in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (which, in book form, is another classic “malevolent treasure” tale). More to come on the bumbling-criminals part of Keir’s query.

By: Bill Ott

Bill Ott — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I promised more on bumbling criminals, and here it is. This is a particularly rich vein in crime fiction-there's so much to choose from. In a way, it all starts with Jimmy Breslin's The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, which was intended to demythologize the Mafia, but the more current crop of bumbling criminals all grow from Elmore Leonard. Keir is right that Leonard's Pronto is a great example, but so are Riding the Rap (sequel to Pronto)and Mr. Paradise, in which two-slow witted hitman kill a millionaire and a hooker and, then, as a coda, steal a bottle of vodka from the dead man's house, just for fun.
Carl Hiaasen also has a cottage industry going on the bumbling-criminal front-Lucky You, featuring two trailer-park thugs, Bodean Glazer and his pal Chub, who steal a winning lottery ticket in order to fund their own hate group, is hard to beat.
Then there are the bumbling criminals in novels that are less comic and more edgy: Matthew Jones' Boot Tracks, for example, or J. D. Rhoades'The Devil's Right Hand, in which two dumb and dumber ex-cons, Leonard and DeWayne, are as stupid as they are lethal.

By: Keir

Keir — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for keeping the list going, Bill. Those are some great titles! I often wish I was writing from home so I could scan my bookshelves...it's an occupational hazard that, despite reading all the time, it can be hard to think of a good book. I guess that's what Booklist Online is for, huh?

I mentioned Charles Willeford, but to be specific, Miami Blues features some great bumbling between both Hoke Moseley and his prey, Freddy Frenger. (Great movie version, too, by the way.)