Book Notes: A Chandler-Parker Welcome To Poodle Springs

Robert B. Parker

There has been an ongoing battle between the Raymond Chandler fans and those who prefer Dashiell Hammett about the invention of the modern P.I. in fiction.  I confess that I’m not well enough read to come down on one side or the other. However, spending a couple of decades in San Francisco, I’m more likely to favor Hammett.   It’s a matter of the sprawling suburbs that surround Hollywood versus the mysterious, exotic neighborhoods of the foggy City By The Bay. I prefer the walkable streets of S.F.

Used to be walkable, anyway. In the last few years, age and declining health nudged me from my third floor apartment at the top of a long and high hill.  The cost of relocating in one the world’s most beautiful but expensive cities pushed me out, and I’ve ended up in Chandler territory, two hours out of L.A., in Palm Springs. Here I expect to spend my golden years, or platinum years or titanium years. I also expect to murder someone here literarily, perhaps more than one.

Raymond Chandler

Now, after settling “Down Among The Sheltering Palms,” I wanted to read something that took place in my new town to help get my bearings — preferably a P.I. story.  And there it was — Poodle Springs, the last of Chandler’s eight Marlowe novels. It was left undone at the famous author’s death in 1959, and finished in 1989 by the popular and prolific Robert B. Parker.  I’ve read more than a few of Parker’s Spenser novels over the years. This one reads a whole lot like Spenser, caught in a time machine, a time when Palm (Poodle) Springs was the resort playground for movie stars and gangsters.  In this case, a guy fails to pay off a $100,000 IOU.  Marlowe is hired to collect. Murder ensues in the town of the rich and playful.

Chandler wrote the first four chapters, Parker the rest. Things have changed in the Marlowe series. The heretofore single-guy and L.A. P.I. has suddenly married.  He’s suddenly married a rich woman who delights in trying to make him a “kept-man” (as they used to say) — a theme that would repeat itself in the story.  What it reminded me of was Nick and Nora Charles, Hammett’s lovely, witty couple, so witty they turned The Thin Man series of films into a goldmine for Hammett. What was Chandler thinking? Was it simply the time for Philip Marlowe to settle down? Or did Chandler expect to hit the comedy-romance-mystery jackpot? The main difference between the two couples  —and Marlowe’s comes more than a decade later — seems to be that while Nick liked the good life provided by his wife, Marlowe was a tad threatened by it. And I’ll give Hammett the edge in the witty repartee department. How does it end? That’s for you to find out.  

Poodle Springs is a good, fast read and just what I wanted, a glance at my new home through the eyes of a couple of classic writers and an era I like a lot.

Opinion — Feeding the Franchise: Co-Authors, Pen Names and Ghost Writers

We have a famous thriller writer who is putting out what — five or six novels a year with the help of a team of co-authors. We have famous characters — James Bond and Mike Hammer — who, like immortal energizer bunnies, just keep popping up though their original creators are dead. And Spencer is about to join the club. We’ve got writers who have a literary reputation to uphold so they change their names in order to write genre fiction. Gore Vidal did it as Edgar Box. The lauded John Banville is doing it as Benjamin Black. We have some writers who write so much and so often they have to have a couple of names so we don’t tire of them or because one series is so vastly different from the others that to use the same name — the real name — would confuse the public — or perhaps the publishers. Then we have someone who is famous as hell, but can’t write. But they figure if they can attach their names to perfumes and clothing lines that they had nothing to do with, why not put their high Q-rated names on the covers of books they didn’t write?

Then there’s Castle. Heat Wave, the book on the store shelves, is written by a fictional character on TV. Not a ghostwriter, but a fictional character. Even on Amazon, the writer is described as Richard Castle and there is a picture of the actor who plays Richard Castle posing as Richard Castle, when he obviously isn’t Richard Castle even if there were a Richard Castle. The book is published by Hyperion (a publishing house owned by Disney). The TV show appears on ABC (owned by Disney). Both the book and the TV show take place in New York City (possibly owned by Disney). The saving grace here is that there is a kind of tongue-in-cheek humor in the show as well as in the pretend-deceitful promotion of the book. Everyone is laughing and some are laughing all the way to the bank. Ah, the conceit of it all! But talk about branding, franchises and cross promotion! This has to be some new high or low.

Franchises, celebrity, and brand names — that’s the name of the game. If Sarah Palin wanted to write a mystery — say How’s that Bullet Working for Ya? — someone would write it for her and it would be published. And it’s doubtful a ghost writer would get any credit. The stamp of fame on unrelated products isn’t entirely new, I confess. Some have said that Elliot Roosevelt, son of Franklin Delano was the most prolific dead author who ever lived or died or something. Books kept coming out, long after his demise. Another presidential offspring, Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry, did the same, another Truman following another Roosevelt. The question is, did any of his or her semi-famous fingers ever touch a typewriter key? Not only are there questions whether Roosevelt and Truman actually wrote their books — they might have — but they continued writing them long after they shuffled off their mortal coils.

Popular TV celebrity Steve Allen was a gifted writer, but his ghostwritten mystery series (Die Laughing and Talk Show Murders among them), featured himself and his wife Jayne Meadows as protagonists in a series of books gladly autographed at bookstores. Did he accept congratulations without disclosing the actual author? I don’t know. Did Gypsy Rose Lee write the G-String Murders? Doesn’t seem so. But no one exposed her. Pun intended.

What about Spenser, Bond and Hammer and their hyperactive afterlives? Are there any ethical guidelines being trammeled? What do readers have a right to know or expect, if anything? Personally, I would shy away from a James Bond written by anyone but Fleming; but there is no wrong doing here. If the real author’s name is on the book cover or there is some other form of genuine, upfront disclosure, then what’s the problem? James Patterson has been open about the factory nature of his book writing and provides at least “co-author” credit on the cover of his co-created books, which is more than Andy Warhol and Michelangelo* did. To me it’s a bit like vegetarian hamburger. Nothing wrong with tofu. Yet, there has been no deception. And there are indications that the new Bonds and Hammers are really good and will make millions of readers happy by keeping the spirit and beloved characters alive. It is also clear, in the case of Spillane, that the writer who extended Mike Hammer beyond his creator’s grave had a collaborative relationship with Spillane and may well be doing it with the tough guy’s blessing.

Further, if famous “literary” novelists use a nom de plume for their mystery books, good for them. If a professional writer uses more than one name, why not? They, like the literary novelists operating on the down low, are showing a willingness to re-enter the marketplace as an unknown and compete with the others on a level playing field. If a writer can hit the bestseller lists using two different names, that’s quite an accomplishment — though often a subtle, well-timed leak can help with the promotion.

The only deception or misdirection that I really can’t abide are the celebrities who put their names on something they had nothing to do with and that has nothing to do with the fame they’ve achieved. In a way, it’s a form of bullying, or thievery — at least fraud. But then, there are some interesting possibilities. How about a dark and bloody murder novel by Justin Bieber, secretly written by Ken Bruen or George Pelecanos? That would cross some line, wouldn’t it?

*How’s that for name-dropping — Michelangelo in bold face?

Opinion — Parker, Mankell? Who Got It Right?

It’s not a new question, but it came up recently. Thinking about the idea of a recurring protagonist in a mystery series, how many books are too many? I happened to tune in on the PBS documentary called “Nordic Blast.” The program discussed the current popularity of mysteries set in Scandinavian countries. And while I believe the Irish will challenge the Swedes in the end, the usually dark, cold and brooding mysteries of Scandinavia seem to be on a roll, and, in fact, were gathering fans and starred reviews even before Stieg Larsson set the world on fire.

In the documentary, there was a brief mention of the earlier and much heralded Martin Beck series and how it had started a Swedish tradition of authors voluntarily ending their series at 10 books. Swedish writer Henning Mankell, who created the Wallander series seems to abide by the idea, He recently published his last Wallander — the 10^th of the internationally successful series.

As Mankell is getting the buzz about the last Wallander, much is being written about the recent release of the late Robert B. Parker’s Sixkill, the last Spenser to be written by Parker, but the 39^th in the series. Over the years — at Bouchercons and Edgar Award ceremonies — there seemed to be resentment among more than a few writers who suggested Parker had been phoning it in for years. Was this just jealousy over such an obvious (and seemingly effortless) success? Or was it because it was so difficult to believe that anyone could sustain a series for so long without running out of steam or ideas?

Actually, Parker is not alone in this prolificacy. The highly respected Bill Pronzini is about to release Camouflage, the author’s 38^th and always well-received Nameless Detective book. Rex Stout created 47 Nero Wolfe novels and 40 more Wolfe novellas. Sue Grafton is at V for Vengeance. X, Y and Z cannot be far away. (What she does at the end of the alphabet is anyone’s bet; but the periodic tables have already been taken.) And it’s not just American overachievers. Of the more than 200 novels Belgian Georges Simenon wrote, 75 of them featured Maigret.

I suspect that any debate about how many books in a series are too many can be rationally debated and might very well conclude that there should be no maximum number, provided the author can maintain the quality that allowed the series to be that popular in the first place. No doubt my curiosity about the subject is predicated on my own series. Bullet Beach is the 10^th Shanahan. Keeping in mind I’m 1/8^th Norwegian, what should I do?