Lori at Lori's Reading Corner has started a new meme. It is called the Saturday Spotlight. Here is what it is about in Lori's own words:
Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, where each week we will have a chance to showcase something new. It will be the place to gather, talk and shine the “spotlight” on all things book related. Not to mention a place to discover new to us authors, characters, series and places.
Each week I will pick a new theme for us to share our favorite of, and every once in a while I’ll make it a “readers choice” week where you can spotlight whatever you want.
Some of the different things we’ll be spotlighting are our favorite book, author, female/male character, location, murder weapon, series, other book blogs, giveaway sites, places to get our books and just about anything else book related.
This week my spotlight is shining on my ......
FAVORITE MALE MYSTERY AUTHOR
I'm going to cheat on this meme. I have three favorite male mystery authors. I blogged about Simon Brett on April 1st so I'll just spotlight the other two.
Ed McBain is the pseudonym for Evan Hunter. From Wikipedia... "His most famous pseudonym, Ed McBain, debuted in 1956, with Cop Hater, the first novel in the 87th Precinct crime series. The series is based on the work of the police detectives of the 87th Precinct in Isola, a district of a large fictional city based on the New York City borough of Manhattan. Other districts in McBain's fictionalized version of New York correspond to NYC's other four boroughs, Calm's Point standing in for Brooklyn, Majesta representing Queens, Riverhead substituting for the Bronx, and Bethtown for Staten Island.
Each novel begins with the same disclaimer:
"The city in these pages is imaginary. The people, the places are all fictitious. Only the police routine is based on established investigatory technique." In interviews and articles, McBain has freely admitted that his series was heavily influenced by the radio and TV series Dragnet. This introduction, simultaneously evoking and contradicting Dragnet's introductory phrase, "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent," was apparently McBain's way of acknowledging the debt, yet announcing his intention to go his own way in every book.
The series focuses on the detectives of the 87th Precinct, and although different detectives will "star" in different novels, most 87th novels feature a significant, if not a starring role for Detective 2nd Grade Stephen Louis "Steve" Carella. Carella's fellow precinct detectives include Arthur Brown, Eileen Burke, Roger Havilland, Cotton Hawes, Bert Kling, Meyer Meyer, Andy Parker, Bob O'Brien, Hal Willis, Alex Delgado, and Richard Genero. (During investigations Carella is most often partnered with Meyer, Hawes, or Kling.) In the first novel in the series, Carella is partnered with a detective called Bush. Bush's wife has hired someone to murder Bush, as well as two other officers who are not mentioned in the other novels. The detective squad commander is Lt. Peter Byrnes. Also seen frequently, and lending a certain continuity to the series, are the minor characters Alf Miscolo (the clerk in charge of records and coffee) and desk sergeant Dave Murchison, as well as a large cast of regulars who do not work at the 87th, including Steve's deaf-mute wife Theodora "Teddy" Carella; the buffoonish and arrogant homicide detectives Monoghan and Monroe, who always appear together; the crime lab supervisor Sam Grossman; the police informers Danny Gimp and Fats Donner; Rolly Chabrier from the District Attorney's office; and the detective Ollie Weeks (a.k.a. "Fat Ollie"), a central character in several 87th Precinct novels even though he is in fact on the squad of the neighboring 88th Precinct (later he is transferred into the 87th Precinct). Another recurring character was the Deaf Man, a Professor Moriarty-like criminal mastermind who appeared in six novels, enjoyed plotting elaborate crimes to bedevil the men of the 87th, but by miscalculations on his part, and the blind luck of the detectives, was foiled."
Ed McBain's 87th Precinct police procedurals were my first "adult" mysteries. Before that, I read Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew et al. A close family friend really introduced me to mysteries, especially with these books. I liked how one book would focus on one investigation, following, usually, two detectives as they tried to solve it. Intertwined, however, are other investigations by other detectives. These detectives were primary characters in some novels, secondary in others. The first book was published in 1956 and the final one in 2005. They are quick reads and I have, over the years, re-read many of them.
When I was in college, I worked at B.Dalton Bookseller. Ed McBain was doing a signing at the local indie bookstore, Tattered Cover, one evening. I was working by myself when a publicist for Ed McBain called and said he had some time to kill and wanted to visit local bookstores to sign books. Would I be interested in having him come by? Are you kidding?!? Yes, yes, yes! I was planning on attending the evening signing but to meet him and, basically, have him to myself was fantastic. I had a pile of his books on my kitchen table that I was going to have him sign that evening. There was no way I could leave the store to get them. As luck happened, the "closing" manager came in early. I told him what was happening and he took over so I could go home and get the books. Ed McBain showed up and, not only only did we talk about his books and how much they meant to me, he signed every single one of them... there were probably a dozen of them. He personalized each one. Of course, I still have them. They are in a beautiful bookcase in my living room with other "important" books... my grandmother's (M's namesake) first edition Gone With The Wind, other first editions and autographed books.
Bill Pronzini is my other favorite male mystery author. From ThrillingDetective.com... "In a master stroke (or maybe just a happy accident), Bill Pronzini never got around to giving his private eye protagonist a name. He then turnrd around and made him such a well-rounded, finely-drawn character that a name was superflous. He's the detective as Everyman. Middle-aged, out of shape, content with a cold beer and one of his beloved pulp magazines to read, NAMELESS was the first true couch potato P.I. A decent man, a good man, the kind of guy who'd stop and lend you a hand if your car broke down, or give up his seat on the bus for a pregnant lady. The kind of guy you'd play poker with, or see at a ballgame with hotdog mustard on his sleeve. Of course, he's not just another not-so-pretty face. He's also a tenacious detective, as dedicated to his profession as Hammett's Continental Op, and just as shrewd. In fact, Pronzini often pays homage to Hammett, and the whole gumshoe genre often as Nameless stalks the same San Francisco mean streets that the Op went down over sixty years ago."
I'm not sure when or how I started reading The Nameless Detective mysteries. I assume it was probably about the same time I started reading the Sharon McCone mysteries by Marcia Muller. Pronzini and McCone are married (that's her in the picture) and have written a few books together including at least one that features both "Nameless" and Sharon.
There's nothing flashy about Nameless... although his first name is revealed in later books. I won't tell you what it is but it isn't what I had always imagined it to be. The mysteries are well-plotted and not easily solved. At the end of the book, though, I definitely can see how Nameless pieced it together. That's how I like mysteries to unfold. I don't want them to be so obvious that I know the solution fifty pages in nor do I want it to be so convoluted that I feel cheated or tricked. You know... the murderer turns out to be a character mentioned once on page 23 with some randomly obscure motive. The Nameless mysteries are not like that. They are, in my opinion, mysteries in the best and classic sense.
I carried my silver Clinique totebag today. I wore a black tunic with silver accents and silver jewelry. This bag complements it beautifully. One of the girls at work was wearing black patent four inch heels... amazing! When her feet started to hurt, she switched to silver flats. I guess it was a silver kind of day!
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