Rolling Stone Picks 10 Classics In their January 2023 issue (#1371, for those keeping track), the venerable rock mag served up their top ten television “whodunits," as a sidebar to an article by their TV critic Alan Sepinwall on the upcoming Poker Face TV show. No real surprises, but judging from the brief but pithy summaries … Continue reading Watching the (Private) Detectives
Category: My Back Pages
These Were a Few of My Favourite Things (2022)
Private Eye-Related Books, Movies, TV Shows, Comics & Other Stuff This is NOT a Best-of-the-Year list. No way. That would infer that I'm in any kind of position to judge and I most certainly am not. I have not read, watched, inhaled, scratched or sniffed everything. So these are just twenty-three of my favourite private … Continue reading These Were a Few of My Favourite Things (2022)
Top Ten Private Eye Shows
As chosen by Max Allan Collins and John Javna In their 1988 book, The Best of Crime & Detective TV, Collins and Javna served up an articulate, passionate, opinionated and often hilarious salute to crime and detective TV, including sections on cop shows, lawyer shows and more. And yes, a section on private eyes. They … Continue reading Top Ten Private Eye Shows
Night Moves: An Introduction
Sam Wiebe Introduces the 1974 Classic Slated to introduce Night Moves at the Vancouver Film Center in August 2022, Canadian crime writer Sam Wiebe, the creator of private eyes  Dave Wakeland and Michael Drayton,  confessed that "It’s one of my favorite PI films and neo-noirs, and a million times better than Altman’s very good The Long Goodbye, … Continue reading Night Moves: An Introduction
Welcome to L.A.
Opening Remarks by Robert Crais On Friday night, February 28, 2003 in Pasadena, 2003 Left Coast Crime Guest of Honor Robert Crais gave a speech, welcoming attendees. Here's the text: "I WANT TO EXPLAINÂ where we are and why we're here, so let me give you a fix in time and place: The year was 1958--a … Continue reading Welcome to L.A.
Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
And Other Miscreants... Like his contemporary Roy Huggins, Blake Edwards must have had a real jones for the Shamus Game. Along with his genuine successes (everything from Richard Diamond and Peter Gunn to 10, S.O.B. and the Pink Panther movies), Edwards wrote, directed and/or produced several radio shows, films (both for television and the big … Continue reading Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
The 14 Best Private Eye Novels Of All Time
The April 2012 P.I. Poll Results To mark this site's fourteenth anniversary, I asked readers to compile a list of their fourteen favourite private eyes. The results, as of 12:01 AM, PST, April 1st, 2012, when we closed the poll, are: THE FOURTEEN Â Â In descending order... The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Sam … Continue reading The 14 Best Private Eye Novels Of All Time
The Casting Couch
How About... About a zillion years ago—1998, when I first started this site--I came up with the bright idea of asking people who should play various private eyes in television or film. I tossed out a few ideas: Robert DeNiro as Mike Hammer? Harrison Ford as Travis McGee? Bill Murray as Shell Scott? Tom Selleck … Continue reading The Casting Couch
They Come From Lands Down Under
Eyes at Work in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealan AUSTRALIA Benjamin Bartholomew by Kel Richards Cassidy Blair by Kirsty Brooks Rosie Bosansky by A.E. Martin Richard Browning by Peter Corris Sam Chauvel by Scott Bywater Grant Colwyn by Arthur J. Rees Ted Conkaffey & Amanda Pharrell by Candice Fox (Queensland) Denis Delaney by Bant Singer … Continue reading They Come From Lands Down Under
Robert Randisi’s Survey of Your Favorite P.I.s (Spring 1997)
From rec.arts.mystery Robert Randisi, founder of The Private Eye Writers of America, not to mention the creator of such popular gumshoes as Miles Jacoby, Henry Po and Nick Delvecchio, took it upon himself to survey the popularity of various P.I.’s in the spring of 1997, via the newsgroup rec.arts.mystery--about a year before I decided to … Continue reading Robert Randisi’s Survey of Your Favorite P.I.s (Spring 1997)