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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Smoking. Was: Clarke Award Finalists 2001
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 17:27:43 -0400
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Titus G wrote:
> On 18/06/25 12:05, William Hyde wrote:
>> Titus G wrote:
>>> On 17/06/25 07:00, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>> snip
>>>> but all that I can remember about them is: more smoking than in Doc
>>>> Smith.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I was surprised at characters spending more time smoking cigarettes than
>>> sticking to the plot in some recent reads.
>>> Meet the Tiger. Leslie Charteris.
>>> The Ministry of Time. Kaliane Bradley.
>>> Hardwired. Walter Jon Williams.
>>> The worst was non SF, Vengeance by Benjamin Black.
>>
>> In many of his works, the moments the characters spend smoking make the
>> difference between their drinking themselves to death immediately, and a
>> somewhat postponed death.
>>
>> William Hyde
> 
> Vengeance was the fifth of his Quirke series. Copyright 2012. As well as
> constant cigarette references, specific English brand names were used.


Just in case I did not previously recommend Banville's "Snow", let me do 
so now.  It is a mystery, but not involving Quirke.


> I am currently reading Mick Herron's Slough House series 

How I envy you!  If you like the series don't skip the novellas, now 
bound into one volume.  There's little overlap with the Slough house 
crowd, but the stories are worthwhile in themselves, and do connect with 
the later novels.


in which the
> serious drinkers outperform the smokers with the exception of the main
> character who excels at both but that aspect is a necessary part of the
> background and sometimes humourous. In Vengeance, it seemed unnecessary.
> I have only read the Quirke novels. I tried The Book of Evidence but it
> was too literary for me.

That I have not seen.  His only non-mystery I have read was to some 
degree mystery-adjacent, as it was based on the life of Anthony Blunt.

William Hyde
>