Created by Stephen G. Eoannou
Stephen G. Eoannou‘s mystery, After Hours (2025), featuring World War Two-era private eye NICHOLAS BISHOP is a bit of a Frankenstein monster; a patchwork tale comprised of multiple parts gathered from all over the place. Instantly familiar, but quite fun if you enjoy those parts.
Bishop is a drunk, but mostly a functioning, if not particularly brilliant, one, slotted somewhere between the bleak despair of Lawrences Block’s Matt Scudder and the frenetic screwball antics of Jonathan Latimer’s Bill Crane.
Pearl Harbor has just been attacked, leaving Buffalo, New York swept by a tide of gung-ho patriotism, and the world is at war. Bishop, however, missed that show, having been granted a 4-F deferment after an unfortunate encounter with a cab that hit him while he was drunk. It’s left him with a bum right leg (he has to walk with a cane) and a reputation in town as a draft dodger and coward. Mind you, his rep wasn’t all that impressive to begin with — working almost exclusively on adultery cases, and utilizing a variety of dirty tricks to nail his prey, he’d already earned the nickname “Nicky the Weasel.”
The book even opens with a clever spin on an old noir scenario: Bishop awakens from a days-long blackout in his hotel room only to discover…
Nope.
Not a dead blonde.
Instead, he finds his own .38 Detective Special. Recently fired. Missing two slugs. An empty bottle of Four Roses. And a one-eyed stray mutt giving him the eye. He decides to call her “Jake.”
And a swirling kaleidoscope of fractured memories that don’t add up. Plus his car is missing.
All of which may suggest the book is about 90 per cent wallow and despair, but it’s not. Its saving grace is his feisty former secretary (she quit because he hadn’t paid her) who seems to have arrived wholly formed; a direct descendant of Hammett’s Nora Charles.
Gia Alessi’s a pistol, that’s for sure. A sassy, wise-cracking foil to Bishop, full of snappy patter and true grit, determined to save Bishop from himself, get her job (and her back pay) back, become an actual investigator herself, and become Mrs. Bishop — but only on her own terms.
And so she dogs Bishop as he stumbles, limps and drinks his way (despite her best efforts) around Buffalo, while trying to piece together what happened during his lost weekend, and what happened to those missing bullets. Vague and fleeting memories of a wild night on the town with “colored” nightclub singer Pearl DuGaye (now missing) come and go, and a quartet of thugs dubbed The Gospel Brothers and their boss, local mobster Joey Bones, seem overly interested in Bishop’s whereabouts as well — and what he may have seen or heard during his prolonged bender. Meanwhile, wealthy socialite Elizabeth Brandt has hired him through his only real client, attorney Ira Weiss, to get the goods on her philandering husband, an artist of at least local renown.
And just to add to the fun, Ira, a commanding but harmless figure weighing in at over 300 pounds, seems to have drawn the ire of some local Nazis. It’s starts with graffiti, but soon escalates.
So, a drunk private dick trying to stay sober and get clean, a mob boss, goons, a wealthy femme fatale, cheating lovers, a missing Packard, a missing singer, a pretentious artist, a scam or two, a dead body or two, a stray dog, a not-all-there junkman, a boozehound reporter who’s even worse off than Bishop, a big heist, a Gal Friday with a heart of gold and… Nazis.
You gotta have Nazis.
So yeah, you may have heard it all before, but stick around. If you liked those parts before, you’ll like ’em again. This one’s worth it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Besides After Pearl, Stephen G. Eoannou is the author of the novels Yesteryear, Rook, and the short story collection Muscle Cars. He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Starz Denver Film Festival, and the 2021 International Eyelands Award for Best Historical Novel. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA from Miami University, but he calls Buffalo, New York home.
NOVELS
- After Pearl (2025) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Gentlemen, Name Your Poison
Drinkers, Stinkers and Occasional Tipplers - The Defective Detectives
Handicapped Heroes - A New York State of Mind
Empire State Eyes
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
