More Shanahan Shameless Self-Promotion

Often books by non-best selling mystery writers like myself slip into the marketplace and out of it without leaving a footprint (or a fingerprint, for that matter). Killing Frost, the eleventh and last book in the Deets Shanahan series was noticed. And I deeply appreciate it. Highly respected Publisher’s Weekly and venerable Kirkus Reviews gave it high marks. J. Kingston Pierce’s indispensable blog, Rap Sheet, recommended it. George Easter, editor of Deadly Pleasures, perhaps the most compre-hensive review publication specializing in crime fiction, recommended not just this last book featuring the aging P.I. from Indianapolis, but the entire series.

Current Issue

A couple of days ago, I received the latest copy of the popular Mystery Scene magazine. Kevin Burton Smith, keeper of all things private eye and founding editor of the web site Thrilling Detective, contributed a feature to the current issue of the magazine about the Shanahan series and the future of its author.

I’ve pulled a quote from the article not only because it puts the new book in a desirable, but conflicting light, but also because I hadn’t realized I could drive a reader to drink. Is this good?

“Killing Frost is a beautiful, bittersweet farewell, both depressing and uplifting.  It made me want to hug my wife, or buy a dog. Or maybe just drink a lot. You think crime novels are hard boiled? Try growing old.” — Kevin Burton Smith, Mystery Scene.

I suspect the review season is over. I feel honored and lucky.  It also means I can get back to writing. The first book in a new mystery novella series comes out in September. I’m working on a third. I’m working on a standalone mystery as well.

Summer days in San Francisco are unpredictable as tourists from the Midwest waiting for cable cars in their shorts and sleeveless t-shirts can attest. For me, on the cold and dreary days nothing is better than a cup of coffee and my keyboard. On the sunny, warm and breezy days, there is nothing better than a stroll around town thinking about plot and characters.

Commentary — More Private Eyes On Screen, Please

One Of The Few New P.I. Movies

The conventional wisdom — and I buy into it — is that the American fascination with the private eye is merely the extension of its love affair with the cowboy. I say “merely.”  I don’t mean “merely” to lessen its value, but to say that the qualities we ascribed to our western heroes were, as we became a more urban society, appropriated by the private investigator:  Independence to the extent of being a loner and having an independent code of conduct not necessarily shared by society at large, certainly not by the authorities. In crime fiction, police are theoretically bound by the law and supported by network of various institutional professionals. The P.I. isn’t. The American P.I. is a loner.

How About A Whistler Film?

Nothing new here.  But I was reminded of this and a few other thoughts while watching A Walk Among the Tombstones the other evening.  I thoroughly enjoyed the film.  I was familiar the main character, Matthew Scudder from reading many of the 17 books in the series by Lawrence Block. Liam Neeson played the P.I. in the only Scudder film faithful to the original story. 

What leapt out at me was how many really good American P.I series novels are out there and how very few films (or TV movies) have used them and even fewer who created a corresponding set of movies based on those books.  I say “American” not out of an excess of patriotism, but having in mind the number of great crime films made from English, Scandinavian and other foreign films made from popular books — usually police procedurals – compared to the vast source material available from 20^th and 21^st Century American P.I. writers.

I understand that the new Bosch streaming video based on Michael Connelly’s popular and award-winning books is doing well. I’ll catch up soon.  But Bosch isn’t a private eye despite the fact that his self-imposed exile fits the profile.  And of course there are all the Hammett, Chandler, Westlake, (Robert B.) Parker, Spillane and the two MacDonalds movies from the past.  Working in reverse, there are also many books written based on successful movies and TV shows.  And there are some fine original, even groundbreaking crime fiction dramas made for TV now, right here in the U.S.  “The Wire” is a masterpiece. Others have followed.

The Tanner Series On TV?

But again, I’m talking a film, or a BBC-quality television production or a streaming video P.I. series based on a book series.  Seeing Matt Scudder on screen reminded me of the great P.I.s in books I devoured in the late eighties and early nineties and how much fun it would be to see them and no doubt the many I missed realized on the screen. I would love to see Neeson reprise Scudder fifteen or sixteen more times as he takes on other cases.  But there are others too.  

A couple of the fictional private eyes who sustained me as I began writing my own books and wanted to see what others were doing were Stephen Greenleaf’s John Marshall Tanner, and Robert Campbell’s “La La Land” mysteries featuring Whistler.

These are merely drops in the ocean.  The list from which great American fictional P.I.s might be taken is nearly endless.  And the number of books within any given series could range from three to more than 100.  I can’t list them all here.  There are two sites to visit to get an idea of the potential.  One is the Private Eye Writers of America PWA web site.  Check out the Shamus awardees over the years to get a sense of the best of the genre. The other site is The Thrilling Detective, a comprehensive consolidation of news and information about fictional private eyes.

If you are willing to go on record with your own views, let me know in the comment section about your favorite P.I series and the actor or actress you’d like to see in the role.

Book Notes — 25 Books Some Folks Want Banned

When I was growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana’s attorney general made a really big deal about banning Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.  The owner of a downtown scholastic bookstore was arrested and prosecuted for selling it “under the counter.” I also remember seeing paperbacks with a banner across the top proudly proclaiming that  particular book was “banned in Boston.”  I often wished one of my books would be banned.  It’s not only a badge of honor but likely to increase sales. It’s not so much fun for librarians who have to deal with irate citizens who think they have the right to control what other people read.  Every year the American Library Association (ALA) sponsors “Banned Book Week,” reminding the public that librarians across the country must still deal with serious attempts at censorship.

Books like Fifty Shades of Gray are expected to stir up some dust. It stirred up so much, in fact, that it sold like i-Phones and spawned sequels and clones. For reasons less obvious such books such as J. K. Rowlings’ Henry Potter series, (books that inspired more children to read than any Dick and Jane book ever written), scare parents because they allow children to think for themselves.  Below is a list from the ALA of some of the 20^th Century classics medieval library-goers want removed from library shelves. What they’ve actually created is a valuable set of important books to add to our bucket lists.

Crime fiction, the usual subject for this blog, has for the most part, slid under blue-nose radar. However, Thrilling Detective web site editor Kevin Burton Smith notes that Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man as well as James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice were honored with a “banned in Boston” distinction. These four books, of course, are considered by many crime fiction lovers to be among the very best of the genre.

The ALA Most Challenged Book List

 The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

Ulysses, by James Joyce

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

1984, by George Orwell

Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Native Son, by Richard Wright

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

Banned Book Week begins today (September 21).  Libraries and bookstores are highlighting the event.  For a list of independent bookstores, click here.  For a list of mystery bookstores, please click here.