Created by Richard A. Olson
In the 1930s, Â Peoria, Illinois was a Big Bad Place, a Sin City stuffed to the gills with mobsters, gamblers, hookers, and enough crooked cops and politicians to start their own baseball league.
And a tough guy, name of NICK STIHL. Used to be a boxer. Now he ain’t.
Now he’s a two-fisted kinda guy, a private eye with a third-story dump of an office overlooking the Illinois River, just trying to get by and stay relatively honest, cracking wise and skulls along the way.
Nothing earth-shattering here, but the author’s affection for the old pulps and Peoria’s dirty past rings loud and clear, although a few anachronistic  phrases and attitudes harsh the buzz every now and then. Not enough, though, to spoil your fun.
So far there haven’t been any novels, but there have been a couple of collections of shorter stories, presumably previously unpublished, almost all boasting groan-enducing puns in their titles, made all the worse by the fact that when the author runs out of his own, there’s a whole slew more of them he can swipe some from old Remington Steele episodes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Richard A.Olson is a chiropracticor and acupuncturist with a yen for pulps, books, movies and comics from the 1930s and 1940s. He and his wife Angela live on Twin Lakes just outside Peoria, Illinois.Â
STORIES
- “A Man of Stihl” (2022, A Man of Stihl) november
- “Stihl Versus Ice” (2022, A Man of Stihl)
- “Nerves of Stihl” (2022, A Man of Stihl)
- “Fists of Stihl” (2022, A Man of Stihl)
- “Wood Versus Stihl” (2023, Peoria Nights)
- “How to Stihl Rubies” (2023, Peoria Nights)
- “Let’s Stihl Halloween” (2023, Peoria Nights)
COLLECTIONS
- A Man of Stihl (2022) | Buy the book | Kindle it!
- Peoria Nights (2023) | Buy the book | Kindle it!
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
