Created by Jerold Last A globe-trotting married couple who find trouble wherever they go? If you were expecting Frances Crane’s Pat and Jean Abbott, you’d be wrong. This is a more modern itineration. Plus dogs! Former patent attorney and police officer ROGER BOWMAN and UCLA biochemist SUZANNE FOSTER are boyfriend/girlfriend visiting Montevideo, Uruguay, when we first … Continue reading Roger & Suzanne Bowman
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Harry Ross (Twilight)
Created by Robert Benton and Richard Russo Looking for sparkly vampires? Keep going... Retired, and just plain tired, Hollywood gumshoe HARRY ROSS takes odd jobs (and once, a bullet, trying to rescue their jailbait daughter) for his old pal and dying movie star, Jack Ames, and his one-time sexpot actress wife, Catherine. He bides his time, … Continue reading Harry Ross (Twilight)
My Scrapbook: The Shaft Comic Strip
My ScrapbookThe Shaft Comic Strip(Ernest Tidyman Productions, 1972) Can you dig it? Flush with the success of the Shaft novels and particularly the 1971 film, creator Ernest Tidyman commissioned veteran comic book artist Don Rico to develop a presentation package to shop around a Shaft comic strip. While their efforts went unsold, there’s no doubt … Continue reading My Scrapbook: The Shaft Comic Strip
Butch Patterson
Created by Greg Lawrence "Do you think I'd look good in a hat?" How’d I miss this one? A 30-minute Canadian TV comedy lampooning the whole Shamus Game? That lasted three seasons? And I had no clue it even existed? Turns out Butch Patterson, Private Dick ran from 1999-2001 on The Comedy Network, a Canadian channel … Continue reading Butch Patterson
Quique Hache
Created by Sergio Gómez A series of Spanish language YA novels following the adventures (and misadventures) of fun-loving fifteen-year-old Chilean QUIQUE HACHE, who has a knack for solving crimes. In what I think is the second book in the series, Quique Hache, Detective (2005), Quique's just knocked off a correspondence course on becoming a private detective. … Continue reading Quique Hache
Bixby Grant
Created by Patrick Coyle Forget love, sweet love. What the world needs now is an immortal mummy private eye. Fortunately, comics creator and long-time fanboy Patrick Coyle has given us one, in the crowd-sourced, eponymously titled comic GRANT BIXBY, PRIVATE EYE. Apparently it’s taken 30 years (and a Kickstarter campaign) to bring Coyle’s dream to … Continue reading Bixby Grant
Jaakko Piira
Created by Jorma Napola (1914-2000) Private eye novels have never been big in Finland. I don't really know why, but I have my suspicions: the private eye is a product of a culture that believes heavily in individualism and the right to take the law into one's hands if necessary. But Finland is pretty much … Continue reading Jaakko Piira
Onni Syrjänen
Created by Tapani Bagge (1962–) ONNI SYRJÄNEN, Finnish crimewriter Tapani Bagge's not very successful lawyer, is a sad sack drunk too poor to hire a detective. So he does his own gumshoeing. He lives and works in Kerava, a small railroad town near Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Onni's office is on the first floor … Continue reading Onni Syrjänen
Gabriel Præst
Created by Amulya Malladi There’s nothing like a Dane? Scandi Noir is everywhere, although mostly it seems to be woefully under-populated by private eyes. Mostly the detectives tend to be grizzled cops and inspectors (brilliant but anti-social, troubled, almost always divorced, almost always prone to bad habits) and homicidal spinsters (I’m looking at you, Maud!). … Continue reading Gabriel Præst
A Drink Before the War: A Review
Review by Christopher Friesen Never judge a book by its cover? I always do. The book is always better than the movie? Not always. On a related front, I would offer this piece of advice: never judge an author by a movie made out of one of his books. Had I gone with my gut … Continue reading A Drink Before the War: A Review