A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING

Here's that man again, that 110 proof man in his third appearance—it came out in paper. Aficionados—and the census would have trouble taking a count—will notice the difference: the writing is tighter;there are those existential insights dropped like incontestable truths ("Remorse is the ultimate in self-abuse"). However characters disappear for good before they barely cross the page—a rich woman, the husband who'd been covertly cleaning out her estate; her gentle lover and his sister (she's also an almost). Then a dingy, surrogate domestic situation is revealed. Exigent as ever, particularly with McGee in his leaner, hungrier, younger days.