Created by Stephen Humphrey Bogart
(1949–)
“Sam Spade, my ass.”
R.J. is pretty much straight out of central casting at first glance: a thirty-something smart ass, divorced, one child, has had a few personal problems along the way, and now makes a living solving other people’s problems.
The books didn’t set the world on fire, though they sold relatively well. That’s because the marketing hook — then and now — was that Brooks himself is the child of a couple of famous movie stars. You might have heard of ’em. Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.
HINT: The author’s name is a clue.
Suffice it to say that the blurbs weren’t by the usual crime fiction suspects of the time, but by celebrities like Connie Chung and Liz Smith. These days it might be Oprah or Entertainment Tonight.
But I digress…
In Play It Again, R.J.’s dear old dad has already shuffled off this mortal coil long ago, but his still glamorous, still demanding mother Belle Fontaine is very much alive and kicking. Unfortunately, R.J. and her aren’t all that close — possibly because he’s chosen to live in New York, as far away from Hollywood as he can get (it wasn’t a happy childhood, and he definitely has mommy issues). He sees her maybe a couple of times a year, and he finds even that exhausting. So he’s shocked (I tell you, shocked!) when he’s told that not only is she back in New York City, but that she’s been murdered in a Manhattan hotel room.
You know where this is going, right? Even though RJ doesn’t come right out and say it, you can almost hear it:
“When a man’s mother is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of her. She was your mother and you’re supposed to do something about it… “
Which, of course, he does. With a little help from sexy TV producer Casey Wingate.
A few years later, The Remake: As Time Goes By popped up, with R.J. is still working through his legacy. This time, a sleazy Hollywood producer is intent on doing a cheesy remake of the classic film that launched his parents into superstardom. R.J., of course, is dead set is against the idea, and publicly badmouths the film, threatening to stop it from ever being made. By any means necessary.
But then studio employees — including a studio exec currently visiting NYC — start turning up dead, and R.J. becomes a murder suspect.
As I said, both books are good, if not great, and while the marketing hype leaned heavily on the author’s identity (25,000 first printing!), so did the negative critical reception. Certainly, the parallels between character and creator are hard to ignore, especially since the same year that Play it Again came out, the author put out an autobiography which revealed details of his complicated, often unhappy and frequently lonely childhood. Vetted and featuring a foreword by his mother.
Like I said, it’s complicated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Humphrey Bogart is an American writer, TV producer, and businessman, one of the two children of actor Humphrey Bogart and actress Lauren Bacall, and authored three semi-autobiographical books about his family. He also oversees the management of the Humphrey Bogart estate, which manages the rights to the name, image, and likeness rights of Humphrey Bogart. Besides the two novels featuring R.J. Brooks, he’s written a memoir, Bogart: In Search of My Father (1995).
UNDER OATH
- “Alert academics may find this as bracing a deconstruction of the private-eye novel as Who Is Teddy Villanova? or Dreaming of Babylon; psychoanalysts will have a field day considering the real-life relations between the author and his famous mother.”
— Kirkus Reviews on Play It Again - “Bogart has a flair for dialog, and tells a pretty good story. His characters are well done, too, and Brooks comes across as a surprisingly real person for the most part… The book isn’t compelling or anything that grand, but it will stand comparison with most of the PI stuff being done these days. There’ll be a lot of speculation as to how much of his real relationship with his parents found its way into the story, as I’m sure he realizes full well; it can’t do anything but sell books.
— Barry Gardner on Play It Again (February-March 1995, Ah Sweet Mysteries #18) - “Bogart deserves credit for a fine first effort written in an appealing, Raymond Chandler-like style and featuring tough-talking, down-on-his-luck gumshoe R. J. Hooker…. Slick dialogue, lots of glitz, and plenty of page-turning action don’t quite overcome the book’s tendency to sound like a facile TV cop drama, but given the still-potent Bogart legend, young Steve certainly has the inside track on success.”
— Emily Melton on Play It Again (Booklist) - “… a sad mix of honesty and exploitation”
— Caryn Jamres on Play It Again (September 1995, The New York Times Book Review)
NOVELS
- Play it Again (1994) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- The Remake: As Time Goes By (1996) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Humphrey Bogart (Rest in Pieces)
The fictionalized private eye life of Humphrey Bogart. - Start Spreading the News…
Big Apple Eyes
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
