An excerpt from the novel by Sam Wiebe Featuring Dave Wakeland April 2025 CHAPTER ONE The day before, I was sitting in a park near the Marché Jean-Talon, trying very hard not to smoke a cigarette. The swampy heat of late August in Montréal made this a little easier. Occupying a bench with a St-Viateur … Continue reading “The Last Exile”
Tag: My Back Pages
Classic Private-Eye Detective Novels: A Starter Pack
Sarah Weinman Knows How to Pick 'em The New York Times' mystery columnist and our pal, the Devine Ms. Sarah Weinman, named names in the March 21, 2025 issue, giving up the skinny on all those hard-boiled eyes going down all those mean streets rooting out all those dark truths. It was a most impressive … Continue reading Classic Private-Eye Detective Novels: A Starter Pack
Eight Great Noir Thrillers by Sara Gran
Blame it on her Dad This list first appeared in the March 24, 2025 issue of The New York Times, with Gran, the creator of the private eye Claire DeWitt and the author of the 2003 horror classic Come Closer, opining on her favourite noir novels. "Some people use noir to mean a spare writing … Continue reading Eight Great Noir Thrillers by Sara Gran
That Left Hand Turn at Albuquerque
And Other New Mexico Eyes Sonny Baca by Rudolfo Anaya (Albuquerque) Sister Eve by Lynne Hinton (Albuquerque) Joe Leaphorn by Tony Hillerman (Albuquerque) Mick “Brew” Axbrewder & Ginny Fistoulari by Reed Stephens (Albuquerque) Mike Ehrmantraut by Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) (Alburquerque) Joshua Croft by Walter Satterthwait (Santa Fe) Kevin Kerney by … Continue reading That Left Hand Turn at Albuquerque
My Scrapbook: “It’s about my wife. I need you to find out what she thinks I did wrong.”
My Scrapbook "It's about my wife. I need you to find out what she thinks I did wrong." By Jon Adams (The New Yorker) Private eyes are so ubitquious in pop culture by now that they pop up everywhere; a well-established meme that almost everyone instantly recognizes, and thus a frequent inclusion in humor. Here, … Continue reading My Scrapbook: “It’s about my wife. I need you to find out what she thinks I did wrong.”
Hollywood Dicks
Tinseltown Troupers "A dreary industrial town controlled by hoodlums of enormous wealth, the ethical sense of a pack of jackals and taste so degraded that it befouled everything it touched."— "On Hollywood," by noted Dan Turmer fan S. J. Perelman Sure, there are about 23,000 private eyes serving the City of Angels. Here are a … Continue reading Hollywood Dicks
City of Angels, City of Dicks
Los Angeles Eyes "I used to like this town. A long time ago." — Philip Marlowe in The Little Sister (1949) “L.A. isn’t the end; it’s the beginning...” — Elvis Cole by Robert Crais Southern California, and Los Angeles in particular, is ground zero for private eyes. From Raoul Whitfield and Raymond Chandler to Robert … Continue reading City of Angels, City of Dicks
Hollywood Fixers
Tinseltown Troubleshooters Some have argued that Shakespeare's Friar Lawrence may have been the original "fixer," working on behalf of Juliet, whose boyfriend Romeo has just killed her cousin (Ooops!). Trying to avert a bloody gang war between the Montagues and Capulets, Lawrence comes up with an elaborate scheme which had the two young lovers faking … Continue reading Hollywood Fixers
Property of Jesus
Christian Eyes According to our old pal Jim Doherty, "there were a series of PI novels produced for the Evangelical Christian market that touted themselves as being in the tradition of Hammett, Chandler, and Macdonald." Unfortunately, Jim can't remember the name of the writer, but he says they were "the only honest-to-God contemporary P.I. novels … Continue reading Property of Jesus
Here There Be Spoilers!!!
STOP!!! Turn Back! Please! Okay, don't say we didn't try to warn you. But sometimes it's difficult to discuss a book without revealing an essential plot twist. The following examples are ones I didn't feel comfortable revealing. Vengeance is Mine by Mickey Spillane (1950) Mike Hammer discovers, in the last line, that Juno was a … Continue reading Here There Be Spoilers!!!