Created by John Lutz
“People shouldn’t do this kind of thing to each other.”
— Alo philosophizes in The Right to Sing the Blues
St. Louis ex-cop turned private eye ALO NUDGER is perhaps the most Chaplinesque of fictional gumshoes. Where other P.I.s are hardcases living on cigarettes, booze, broads and danger, the hapless, coupon-clipping Alo survives (barely) on antacid tablets (it was his nervous stomach that forced Alo to resign from the police force).
So there’s no swinging bachelor pad or snazzy, bright red sports car for Alo. His barely-running VW is a running joke, and when it finally gives up the automotive ghost, its replacement, a 1979 Granada, isn’t much better. His second floor office is located over Danny’s Donuts, the home of “dishwater coffee and lead doughnuts,” and the smell of these gourmet delicasies permeates Alo’s headquarters, adding a thin layer of powdered sugar and grease to everything.
The proprietor, Danny himself, is one of Alo’s best friends, and also serves as his unofficial receptionist (he keeps an eye on things when Alo’s out) and confidante. Of course, Alo’s such a weenie he hasn’t the heart to tell Danny his coffee and doughnuts suck. All in all, though, the office arrangements are a big improvement over when he was working (and living) out of his trailer.
A quiet guy, Alo’s a baseball trivia buff. Now and then, if his stomach can hack it, he ruefully admits he’ll watch the news. He used to collect old jazz records, but he had to sell off his collection to pay the rent. And while he’s just a tad under six feet, he’s no Hercules. He’s middle-aged, out of shape, and guns make him nervous. Then again, so does almost everything else. Booklist once compared him to Barney Fife, and they’re not far off.
Poor Alo, he just can’t seem to get a break. His other best friend, Homicide Lieutenant Jack Hammersmith, Alo’s former partner, thinks he’s a schmuck. His first wife and their two children were killed in a car crash. His second wife, Eileen, divorced him and still makes (increasingly excessive) alimony demands. He met his current girlfriend, schoolteacher Claudia Bettencourt, through a suicide hotline. She was a caller. And tragedy seems to be a recurring theme throughout the series.
Displaying a keen and very black sense of humour, the author seems to delight in tossing some very nasty plot twists in the Tums-popping Alo’s path, and yet, as in Chaplin’s best films, there’s an undercurrent of faith in the human spirit that cuts through the desparation and sadness. Yet, even as his stomach threatens to explode, Alo somehow manages to persevere, and even occasionally break even, offering us all a little bit of hope. Something you don’t often come across in detective fiction.
Hmmmm, maybe Alo isn’t such a weenie after all.
The series has garnered its share of awards. Both “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You” won a Shamus for Best Private Eye Short Story and Ride the Lightning nabbed an Edgar for Best Short Story in 1985.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author Lutz was one of the premier voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction for over forty years, producing dozens of novels and over 250 short stories. His earliest success came with his Alo Nudger series, but he followed it up with a series chronicling the adventures of Florida private eye Carver, a man with a history every bit as tragic as Alo’s, and another featuring profiler Frank Quinn, as well as numerous standalone thrillers, and has even dabbled in writing several mystery jigsaw puzzles. His 1990 standalone SWF Seeks Same was made into the hit movie Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and his novel The Ex (also 1996) was made into an HBO original movie of the same title. Lutz served as president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many honors include lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. And may I add, it’s a damn shame so many of his titles are still out of print, and so many have never been reissued digitally.
UNDER OATH
- “Based on what I’ve read, I think Lutz may be Hall of Fame material. Nudger is a memoralble, offbeat character — what he lacks in physical courage he more than makes up for in pure dogged persistence. The only thing that bothers me about the series is the continuing malevolence of his ex-wife. Why did she turn out that way? Most of Lutz’s characters are convincing, but it’s hard to conceive anyone maintaining such a single-minded thirst for revenge over such a long time. In a perverse way, though, I can see why Lutz chose to make Eileen so one-dimensional — she’s more like a natural disaster than a human being, and places Nudger firmly in his role as the dogged victim of fate.”
— Robert Fliss - “If one were to check St. Louis detective Alo Nudger’s fictional ancestors, one might discover that John Lutz’ tough-as-push-pins hero is a distant cousin of Mayberry’s own Barnard P. Fife… Lutz is a master storyteller, and this plot is an intricate masterpiece. And Nudger is all of us, living a life marked not by great accomplishment but, occasionally, by small personal triumphs.
— Wes Lukowsky on Death by Jury (Booklist)
NOVELS
- Buyer Beware (1976) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Nightlines (1985) | Buy this book
- The Right to Sing the Blues (1986) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Ride the Lightning (1987) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Dancer’s Debt (1988) | Buy this book
- Time Exposure (1989) | Buy this book
- Diamond Eyes (1990) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Thicker Than Blood (1993) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Death by Jury (1995) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Oops! (1998) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
SHORT STORIES
- “The Man in the Morgue” (February 1978, AHMM)
- “Where is Harry Beal?” (August 1979, AHMM; also First Cases)
- “Time Exposure” (June 1982, AHMM)
- “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You” (November 1982, AHMM)
- “The Right to Sing the Blues” (May 1983, AHMM)
- “Only One Way to Land” (October 1983, AHMM)
- “Typographical Error” (1984, The Eyes Have It)
- “Ride the Lightning” (January 1985, AHMM)
- “The Thunder of Guilt” (1986, Mean Streets)
- “Flotsam and Jetsam” (1987, New Black Mask #7)
- “DDS 10752 Libra” (1988, An Eye for Justice)
- “Before You Leap” (1992, Deadly Allies)
- “The Romantics” (1994, Deadly Allies #2)
- “The Litigants” (2000, The Shamus Game)
- “Second Story Sunlight” (2002, Most Wanted)
COLLECTIONS
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The Nudger Dilemmas: A Short Story Collection (2001) | Buy this book | Buy the audio | Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- John Lutz Online
The official web site - Burning Down the House
The John Lutz Interview, conducted by yours truly.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
