Created by Dick Lochte
In Blues in the Night (2012), Lochte, one of the most reliable–if hardly the most prolific–writers in the Shamus Game, ditches the weatherman (at least for a while) and delivers a first rate new character: ex-con DAVE “MACE” MASON. Dave’s a tough, take-no-shit-from-nobody ex-con who gets roped into traveling to Los Angeles (all the way from Louisiana) to keep an eye on an old army buddy’s art appraiser girlfriend, Angela.
Only thing is, his old buddy is Paulie Lacotta, a Los Angeles mobster, and Angela is his ex-girlfriend. And Paulie and Dave’s past is, um, complicated–and includes a black market scam while they were stationed in the Army in Italy during the war, and later, a six-year stint in prison at Pelican Bay for Dave, taking a fall for Paulie.
Dick himself dismisses it all as the “same old stuff” (“crooked CIA agents, porno filmmakers, a hitman who looks like a giant cowboy Elvis Presley, a pimp who used to dress up like Abraham Lincoln but now prefers being a Michael Richards lookalike, Russian thugs who forget their accents from time to time, a really hot femme fatale, all of them searching for a mysterious coin that [Dave] finds in the mouth of a dead man.”).
The “same old stuff”?
Yeah, right.
Because Mace is the real deal; a Louisiana bayou boy far, far from home, but it’s his take on all things LA (represented in all its surreal and sordid glory) that really seals the deal. He casts a Chandleresque eye on the City of Angels and finds it severely wanting.
Recommended.
OH?
Mace isn’t a completely new character. Blues in the Night is an expanded version of “In the City of Angels,” a short story first published in the 2001 anthology Flesh and Blood. But now that you’ve fleshed him out a little, might we hope for another outing with Mace, Dick?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lochte, for those of you who’ve been off-planet for a while, is the author of a list of several popular crime novels, including Sleeping Dog, which introduced odd couple P.I.s Serendipity Dalquhist & Leo Bloodworth and won the Nero Wolfe Award, was a finalist for the Edgar, the Shamus and the Anthony awards, and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Booksellers Association. Lochte has served as president of the Private Eyes Writers of America, and has served as co-author of bestsellers by the Today Show’s Al Roker and attorney Christopher Darden. He has also written screenplays for such actors as Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen and Roger Moore and knows more about detective fiction and obscure crime and detective TV shows and movies than almost anyone on the planet.
UNDER OATH
- “Tough, independent Mace is a wild card and one that Lochte should play again.”
— Publishers’ Weekly - “Lochte is just as fast-paced and funny flying solo as when he’s wingman for Al Roker or Christopher Darden, both of whom he’s collaborated with in the past”
— Kirkus Reviews - “Lochte is a somewhat underappreciated writer. This solid, well crafted thriller with a likable protagonist and an engaging cast of supporting players should remind readers that he is a dependable storyteller in his own right.”
— Booklist
SHORT STORIES
- “In the City of Angels” (2001, Flesh and Blood)
NOVELS
- Blues in the Night (2012) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
