Fusilli, You Crazy Bastard! How the Hell Are You?

Not so good, reports Jim Fusilli, former monthly crime book reviewer for the Boston Globe. He tells WSJ readers he's still scarred by the experience:

Writing that monthly column for the Globe was easily the worse job I've ever had, and this coming from a man once responsible for the nightly hamburger run for a dock's worth of Teamsters.

Most of the complaints will be familiar to any book reviewer; e.g. "For every superior work of genre fiction... there were dozens that disqualified themselves for serious consideration through dull writing, erratic pacing, meandering plots and wooden characters. Many new writers tried too hard to sound like an old master, and several of today's old masters tried hard not at all." And I can assure you he's not lying about how quickly the books pile up around every bit of free space in one's living quarters. If it weren't for the fact that one out of every thirty or so is something the Significant Other wants to read, I don't think their presence would be tolerated nearly as well as it is...