Blatant Sales Pitch 2 — Holiday Gifts Indy’s Own Fictional Private Eyes

Sam Spade worked out of San Francisco.  Marlowe was based in LA.  Spenser operated in Boston.  Mike Hammer and many other fictional private eyes went about their business in the nation’s largest metropolis, New York.   It wasn’t until Albert Samson came along that Indianapolis had a gumshoe of its own.  In fact, many credit Samson’s creator, long acclaimed novelist Michael Z. Lewin, as a pioneer in a movement that gave “regional private eyes” a national presence.

With no small amount of self-interest, I’m proposing that Indianpolitans who like detective novels explore the fictional sleuths who made their city home.  In addition to the story telling in a place that might be especially familiar to the reader, there is a bit of the city’s history embedded in each book.  While there are other writers who have set mysteries and thrillers in the Circle City, I believe there are only three of us who have created a series private eye protagonist in this setting.

Michael Z. Lewin’s Albert Samson series

Recent Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus award winner Lewin’s first Samson novel, Ask the Right Question, was published in 1971.  I found my paperback copy of The Way We Die Now the other day as I went through a stack of books in a vain attempt to dematerialize.  The book was first released in 1973.  So, I’m able to visit my hometown in a way that my faulty memory won’t allow and see vividly, in some cases, the places Samson visits. One senses that Samson is the kind of P.I. who actually exists.  The stories and the characters are believable. There are eight novels in this highly acclaimed series, the most recent Eye Opener, which has been made available in e-book format.  Many of his earlier Samson novels are no doubt available at your local mystery bookstore and a few are, fortunately, becoming available in electronic formats. There is a great article on Samson on the Thrilling Detective web site, which also points out that Lewin has written other, standalone novels and has two other series. But the Samson novels are an especially great idea for a holiday gift for the reader in your family, especially if he or she has a special affection for the city. To find out more about the author and all of his work, click here and here.

“Michael Lewin has just about the best private detective who has been around in many a day…Lewin has brains and style.”  — Los Angeles Times

Ronald Tierney’s Deets Shanahans series

My first P.I. novel, Stone Veil was published in 1990. The book introduced a blue-collar, semi-retired, former Army intelligence sergeant turned P.I. After settling down in Indianapolis, Deets Shanahan meets the love of his life in a massage parlor and the two of them appear, along with a regular cast of characters, in ten novels so far, with the most recent being Bullet Beach in 2011, when in a time-defying fashion he finally turned 70.  He is not so much tough as he is stubborn.  To get a look at the city in the ‘90s, take a look at the early Shanahans, which have been reissued as trade paperbacks and ebooks.  Restaurants, neighborhoods, bars, some of which may be gone now, remain in spirit as ink on a page or light shining up from a screen.  A few are out of print, but many are still available.  You might find, for example, Nickel-Plated Soul and Asphalt Moon in the backroom of your favorite bookstore. All the early Shanahans are available as e-books and in trade paperback.  And your local bookstore can order the latest, Bullet Beach.

"A series packed with new angles and delights." — Booklist

David Levien’s Frank Behr series

The new guy in the city arrived with a bang as well as lots of blood.  Frank Behr is a super tough ex-cop, with a tragic past, who takes on the toughest of the tough on the darkest of the streets of Indianapolis.  Levien, a screenwriter with plenty of credentials, has four books so far in the Behr series, City of the Sun, Where the Dead Lay, The Contract, and The 13 Million Dollar Pop.  His books, which I think feature a kind of super-big, super-hero protagonist similar to the Jack Reacher model have received a number of award nominations and sell a lot of copies.

“Levien is the new must-read thriller writer. — Lee Child

Because we’re entering the last gasps of holiday shopping and there are many desperate folks seeking a quick solution.  How about a sampling of novels featuring fictional Indianapolis private eyes?  Pick one or two from each author.

Opinion & Blatant Promotion — Creating The San Francisco Series And Other Windmill Tilting

The books for which I’m best known, or to put it another way, the least unknown, are those in the Deets Shanahan series.  The lead character in the ten books that currently comprise the series is a septuagenarian, semi-retired private detective in Indianapolis.  He has a lovely, funny, tough girlfriend, two aging animals and a couple of good friends.  There are other regulars as well. 

I like these people.  And while I may not be done with their antics, writers, like everyone else, yearn after awhile for a little variety in the company we keep or imagine.  I’ve written a couple of stand-alone novels and a few years ago I began a new series set in San Francisco where I’ve lived 16 years this time around.  Unbeknownst to me, the new series began with a standalone novella called Mascara, which introduced a very private eye named Noah Lang and his accidental and originally unwanted friend, a multi-talented, gender-shifting immigrant called Thanh.  Because it was novella length and therefore deemed unmarketable by my agent at the time, the book sat in my computer as both a story and a screenplay.  It did so quietly and no doubt, like a fine wine, aged appropriately. (That’s what I tell myself, anyway.)

When I approached the idea of a new series, I picked the book up again and decided to use this as an inspiration for a full-length book in a new series using those characters. The only change I made was to add a female private eye to the crew.  This was premeditated act, I admit.  I did so for three reasons.  One, I had discovered with the Shanahan series that many of the readers liked Shanahan’s girlfriend, Maureen, so well that there were subtle suggestions I should knock off the old man and set her up as the main character.  That indicated to me that I might be capable of writing a believable female character.  Two, I introduced a female private eye because it was clear that more than half the mystery readers in this world are women. Third, I often write books that have two plots going at the same time.  Having a woman P.I. would give me another angle and greater creative latitude.

Because Noah was already established as unambitious, willing to take short cuts and operating on, oddly enough, his intuition, it seemed like I needed a more professional, principled and logical counterpoint.  Carly Paladino was born.  Cool, cautious and professional, she struck out on her own having reached a glass ceiling at a prestigious security firm.  Both are strongly independent characters. They bring out the best and worst in each other.

Carly Paladino ends up at this down-and-out investigation firm because Noah needed help with the rent.  And she needed an inexpensive office for her start-up business.  It’s a partnership made in a kind of humorous purgatory.

Severn House published the first two in the new series — Death in Pacific Heights and Death in North Beach, both to generally very positive reviews. But these weren’t the books loyal Shanahan readers and underfunded libraries wanted.  Severn House declined a third. The thing is I wanted to see the series continue.  My novella, Mascara, was renamed Mascara, Death in the Tenderloin and published as a prequel novella to the series featuring Noah and Thanh.  I published it myself. 

Penguin picked up the second novella, Death in the Haight, (now available in all e-book formats) as part of their re-launch of Dutton’s Guilt-Edged mysteries.  It focused on a more hard-boiled Noah Lang mystery — prostitutes, rogue cops and baseball.  Much of it takes place at AT&T Park during a Giants-Dodgers game.  I’m also polishing a novella with Carly as the lead.  Death on the Great Highway has to do with big oil, private armies and the murder of a lieutenant governor. I tilt at windmills, often ones that I build myself.

Meanwhile, I have written the first draft of my memoirs.  I can hear you now. What? You are writing your memoirs?  How pretentious can you get?  It’s tentatively titled Albion and New Augusta, Confessions of a Midlist Writer.  And of course I’m exaggerating a little.  I may be somewhat lower than “Midlist.”  No revelations of celebrity secrets.  I know no celebrities.  Nothing of historic importance.  Just summing things up.  I’ll be putting excerpts on this blog from time to time.

If you want to check out the new series — or the Shanahans, for that matter — please go here.  Many are available in trade paperback and on various forms of e-book.  The newest, Death in the Haight, though not on paper, can be found in nearly every existing e-book format for $2.99.

One semi-final note.  I have to admit that I think that Asphalt Moon is one of my better books.  But I was surprised to learn that a used “big print” copy was listed on Amazon for $9,999.00.  Look out, Dickens. Obviously a misprint, but I’d be happy to sell you a couple of copies for half of that.

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