Created by Wade Miller Pseudonym of Bob Wade (1920-2012) and Bill Miller [1920-1961]) "Outside the sky was the same monotonous gray. The rain was drying into large puddles on Fifth Avenue. Max Thursday watched the early morning traffic and wished for the clean needles of a cold shower and something scalding to change the taste … Continue reading Max Thursday
Tag: The Thrilling Detective Hall of Fame
Nestor Burma
Created by Léo Malet (1909-96) Mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, may we introduce to you France's answer to Chandler's Marlowe, the one and only, NESTOR BURMA--detective de choc! Malet was heavily influenced by Chandler, Hammett, et al, and Burma's first appearance, in 120, rue de la gare (1943), ushered in a whole new era in French … Continue reading Nestor Burma
Pepe Carvalho
Created by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (1939 - 2003) "Do you realise that we private eyes are the barometers of established morality? I tell you society is rotten. It doesn't believe in anything," declares Spanish private eye PEPE CARVAHLO to his friend, Biscuter, in Southern Seas (1979). Pepe is a fat and cynical eye, who may … Continue reading Pepe Carvalho
Patrick Kenzie & Angie Gennaro
Created by Dennis Lehane (1965--) Dennis Lehane's 1994 A Drink Before the War rocked the boat when it came out, and introduced childhood pals turned Boston private eyes PATRICK KENZIE and ANGELA GENNARO. Patrick and Angie grew up in an Irish/Polish/Italian working-class neighbourhood where "your boundaries begin in the schoolyard and last a lifetime" (according … Continue reading Patrick Kenzie & Angie Gennaro
Hector Belascoarán Shayne
Created by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (1949- ) "It was a joke. just one hell of a big joke. Thinking that he could be a detective in Mexico. It was crazy." --Hector ponders his chosen profession in An Easy Thing Mexico City's one-eyed HECTOR BELASCOARÁN SHAYNE (his mother was an Irish folksinger, and his father … Continue reading Hector Belascoarán Shayne
Dan Fortune
Created by Michael Collins Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds "We are a species that preys on itself. We live on our own kind, hunt each other. That's what I wanted to tell the girl who faced me across the desk in the office part of my one-room loft, but I didn't. I told her what the … Continue reading Dan Fortune
Dan Kearney, O.B., Larry Ballard, Bart Heslip, Gisele Marc, etc. (Dan Kearney & Associates)
Created by Joe Gores (1931-2011) The DAN KEARNEY & ASSOCIATES novels and short stories by Joe Gores are one of the all-time great private eye series; the closest anyone has ever come to a private eye version of Ed McBain's famed 87th Precinct procedural novels. A motley crew of San Francisco detectives, repo men … Continue reading Dan Kearney, O.B., Larry Ballard, Bart Heslip, Gisele Marc, etc. (Dan Kearney & Associates)
Doc Sportello (Inherent Vice)
Created by Thomas Pynchon “PIs are doomed, man, you could’ve seen it coming for years, in the movies, on the tube. Once there was all these great old PIs--Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, the shamus of shamus Johnny Staccato, always smarter and more professional than the cops, always end up solving the crime while the cops … Continue reading Doc Sportello (Inherent Vice)
Dan Roman
Created by Edward Mathis (1927-1988) "Mathis was the real thing--a fine writer with a slant and style all his own. He brought us a dusty tapped-out Texas I'd never encountered before. If he reminded me of anybody it was the proletariat novelists of the Forties and Fifties such as Harvey Swados and Clancy Sigal." -- … Continue reading Dan Roman
Dave Brandstetter
Created by Joseph Hansen Pseudonyms include Rose Brock & James Colton) (1923-2004) "My joke was to take the true hard-boiled character in an American fiction tradition and make him homosexual. He was going to be a nice man, a good man, and he was going to do his job well.” -- Joseph Hansen "But with … Continue reading Dave Brandstetter