Eye-catching Photo of Detective Duo



Scene from CBS-TV's "Elementary" from Google

 The other day online I spotted an eye-catching photo--I thought--of a couple in an urban setting.  It was actress Lucy Liu whom I recognized and actor Jonny Lee Miller from a scene of an new upcoming fall TV series.  Now, the actual TV show is called "Elementary" which features the two playing (another) version of "Sherlock Holmes."  This time Miller plays Holmes and she is "Dr. Joan Watson."  Okaaay.

When I saw the photo I was reminded almost immediately writer S.J. Rozan's detective team of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith.  In fact, I had hoped it would be.  It would be a different TV show to closely follow the format of the books with either Chen or Smith as the primary investigator for the case.  The two reside in New York City with the American-born Chinese Chen working usually in the Chinatown community with Smith often "shadowing" Chen.

Smith has strong American roots which go back to Kentucky although he's a full-time New Yorker these days.  His work in Rozan's books have taken him around the New York area.  Chen, however, has cases typically with her Chinese community.

Frequent investigations into Chinatown could lead to a culturally enlightening show--as the books do.  I'd imagine such a series would include--for the sake of realism--times of characters speaking only Chinese and closed captioned scenes.  How might that go over on network TV?   Of course, there's always cable, right?

I think Rozan has the thought-provoking elements for a unique TV series with her fictional detectives.

Old former school acquaintance, now mystery writer

During a backroom discussion at work about books and related matters last month, one co-worker (I'll just call her "M") mentioned that she had attended grade school years ago with a present-day mystery writer.  His name is Mike Faricy and he's new to me.  And since she readily recalled him, I was curious to hear about him.  Faricy does live in her old home state of Minnesota but only on a part-time basis.  He lives in Ireland during the other part of the year.

Mike Faricy
(from his website)





"M" forwarded his website address to me and reading a little, I see Faricy does have a ingenious twist with his book series. With titles like Mr Softee, Finders Keepers, and Chow for Now (8 books are promoted on his website), Faricy goes for catch-phrase titles while packing in sordid--if not also colorful--characters in various situations of action and humor.  He likes to write books based on private investigators--either the "skirt-chasing, dysfunctually" Dev Haskell or the houseboat resident, "owner of a failing bar" Dickie Mullins--but will also feature businessmen, mobsters and theives.  

Checking a national library database, Faricy's books don't sit on library shelves but he likely has a firm, selected fan base.  Dubbed as the "Minnesota Master of the Bizarre," Faircy's crime fiction books certainly have a regional scope--all are based in Minnesota.  So now when I feel the need to read about that area of the country, I know who I should consider.  Thanks "M." 

Recommended (writer Spencer Quinn)--

While assisting a woman last month in the library, she passed on to me a reading recommendation of a mystery she had recently read. Well, she qualified it as a good choice if you like dogs. The book Dog On It: a Chet and Bernie mystery is the first of a new series by writer Spencer Quinn about the mystery (man and dog) team of a private investigator and his pooch.

She shared the book was funny as the story is told through the dog's (Chet) viewpoint. Imagine the world we see through a dog's eyes. Imagine how helpful it is to be a canine and assisting on a missing person case by sniffing out glues. Well, actually that helps a ton and as we see by the book cover, Chet does appear to ride shotgun. Anyway, Chet is devoted to that "down-on-his-luck" Bernie--even if he can't understand his life's troubles (from the book jacket).

Here's a book one library user solidly recommends.

The late Peter Graves as a fictional PI--

As I flipped through the new Time magazine, I ran across a brief article about the recent passing of journeyman actor Peter Graves. A star of the hit "Mission Impossible" TV series, Graves did have a long and successful career which includes one role I'm mention here. Here's a googled pix of the actor.

My recollection for an old TV movie clicked when I thought of Graves. He did star as a fictional private investigator from a successful book series in a 1974 movie which I remember watching way back then. "The Underground Man" which was based on a book by the same name featured writer Ross MacDonald's PI Lew Archer. A Wikipedia article says the movie was a pilot for a TV series.

And although MacDonald's work was written and published mainly in the 50s and 60s, it has been resurrected recently in paperbacks including some titles in our local library system.

Writer Robert B. Parker dies--

When I read the headline on the Internet today about the death of novelist Robert B. Parker, I gave a small gasp and mouthed "oh no." Although I did not keep up reading private eye Spenser books Parker cranked out at a steady quip for a number of years now, I was a fan. Here's a googled pix of one of the true favorites of the library mystery section.

When I was younger, I enjoyed the '80s TV series Spenser for Hire with actors Robert Urich and Avery Brooks--based on the Spenser series--and much later got into those characters stories in print. I started with The Godwulf Manuscript and--truth be told--just bounced around wildly from there.

And as a fan, I looked forward to seeing Parker's other work too, whether reading his young adult book Edenville Owls, a stand-alone book about a bodyguard for ballplayer Jackie Robinson in Double Play and the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randell novels. I was also pleasantly impressed when I watched the movie Appaloosa last year on cable and saw that it was based on the Parker novel at the movie's end. Usually, I'm not too excited about Westerns but I read this was a good one (and the actors were interesting).

At 77 years old, Parker did thankfully live to get nods of appreciation for his body of work which includes the recent Mystery Ink's Gumshoe Award in 2007 for the lifetime achievement. Here's much more here about Parker's work aside from my reflections.

He won't write any new stories of characters striving for justice, battling with fistacuffs or throwing wise-cracks but I've certainly enjoyed Parker's work over the years.

Mystery Graphic Novel

One of my job responsibilities has been to process new graphic novels coming to my library branch and recently I ran across the title Britten and Brulightly, an engaging yet somber graphic novel of a private detective named Fernandez Britten. Set in England, this noir title follows the Ecuador native (you look like you're French, he's told) as he latches on to a possible murder case of a man judged to have died by suicide. Britten, who describes himself as a "researcher" and is nicknamed "The Heartbreaker" for handling numerous cases of couples and infidelity.

The story follows the expected private investigator fiction traits of secretive snooping and personal threats or attacks. The book also goes an unexpected route with Britten's partner, Brulightly, who is not just another body to help manage a case.

Muted colors and the frequent rainfalls add to the gloomy mood of Hannah Berry's book, but why not? This is just not the type of situation to find people with a sunny disposition, although Berry successes in presenting a memorable graphic novel.

Crime writer James Crumley dies

Browsing through the New York Times online Sunday, I found that writer James Crumley had died last week at age 68. According the news stories, Crumley was an influential crime novelist with his violent private eye novels set in the American West of Montana (Crumley's home state as an adult). Here's a somewhat recent photo of Crumley from Google.

A specialist in hard-boiled private detective fiction, Crumley is credited with moving the genre pass the Raymond Chandler era to its then present day of post-Vietnam stories. His best-known is The Last Good Kiss (a title that one fellow librarian remembers reading years ago) published in 1978.

That book features the dubious private eye C.W. Sughrue, "a former Vietnam War criminal and hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting womanizer." The other PI series Crumley started earlier featured Milton Chester "Milo" Milodragovitch, a multiple divorced man who's also (like Sughre) [a] "hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting womanizer."

In fact, I looked on the library shelves and found one book The Right Madness available by Crumley. The cover shows a man sitting quietly in a darken bar, lighting up a smoke--certainly a fitting image for Crumley's fictional world.

Although not a big-name seller with his books with stories that lose some logistics, Crumley has notable fans including writers George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly according to the Washington Post obituary.

Mickey Spillane Died Monday

It's a bit of a stun and surprise to me to hear that mystery writer Mickey Spinane died today. I had just pulled a couple of his titles for a mystery book display this past weekend. The display was entitled "The Modern Masters of the Mystery Genre" and Spillane makes the cut as a recipient of a "Grand Master" category during one year for a national mystery book award series.

I've never read a Spillane title and I didn't think his books with his hero, detective Mike Hammer would appeal to me for 200 pages or so. And I remember the TV show of Mike Hammer with actor Stacy Keach only holding mild appeal. All the same, I do fondly remember the 1950s film Kiss Me Deadly as a different, out there movie. It did have a neat film noir take with the rarely pleasant Hammer. Ralph Meeker started in the movie. And watching it on the big screen while in college, made for a fun evening.

Spillane certainly had a varied but truly successful career. Only after googling him, did I find out that he also wrote comic books at one time and even starred as his fictional detective in the movies. Here's an old pix of Spillane.