One to Count Cadence

Jim Crumley died in the fall 2008, I think, posting out a little early. He suffered from Slag Krummel syndrome (Krummel is the protagonist and narrator in OtCC). I had the pleasure of knowing James Crumley. I met him in 1970..winter quarter, just after the first of the year. I was two years back from Viet Nam, and he was the writer in residence at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. He was a helluva man, as old school as you can get, and a fine writer. He missed out on Viet Nam and was still frettng over it when I knew him. Anyway, One to Count Cadence is a fine piece of literature. In it, you can hear the echoes of Crumley's influences..those you might expect...Hemingway, Mailer, James Jones. Crumley was a man who did indeed drive life into a corner and shake it by the ears. Married and divorced several times, I know that he was proud that he managed to stay current with his child support. Try this book. If you like Jim Harrison or any of those influences I mentioned above, you'll enjoy the book.

This book has been in print almost continuously for nearly forty years now. I'm not surprised. I first "discovered" OtCC around 1971 and it was like reading about my own first hitch in the Army Security Agency and all the crazy guys I served with. Except this is fiction, and there are some memorable and absolutely unforgettable characters here, in the protagonist, Slag Krummel, and his best-friend-sometime-nemesis, Joe Morning. About a platoon of hard-drinking and fornicating ditty-boppers, TA's and DF-ers who are a tight bunch - in more ways than one. The story is set in the Philippines and Vietnam in a time when many Americans had never heard of that small country. But check your history. The first U.S. casualty in Vietnam was an ASA soldier. I loved this book so much I bought several copies and passed 'em out and sent them to my buddies. In the past 37 year I have probably re-read this book several times. It gets a little better each time. Author Jim Crumley died this week, on 17 September 2008, out in Missoula, MT, at the age of 68. Since OtCC, he wrote several acclaimed hard-boiled private eye mysteries that won him a faithful readership not only in this country but also in Europe, particularly France, where he was very popular. I've read some of those books, including his last one, The Right Madness (2005). Crumley was a masterful storyteller and he still had it with that last book. I always hoped for another story of Slag Krummel. No such luck, I guess. R.I.P., Jim. You'll be sorely missed. - Tim Bazzett, author of Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA

I loved this book and couldnt put it down. Made me laugh and made me cry. The best use of words I have come across in a long while.

I found this book while I was staying at a castle building thing in France. Here I was, middle of rural Provencial France, tons to see and do and watch and I spend my time sitting on my door step, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes and reading this book. I have never had anything to do with the armed forces (other than read other classic war books), but this one brings you in and forces you to drop and give it twenty. Excellent story and twists.

I was in the Phillippines and Vietnam some two or three years after Mr. Crumley. His view of the places and times, and his description of the now defunct Army Security Agency is eerily accurate, as is his insight into the type of persons in the Agency at that time. Intelligent, anti-social misfits that left college from boredom and did not want to get drafted. Mr. Crumley has my highest respect