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This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with lawyer and crime writer .

Dan started off writing poetry. Check out the story of how his writing journey began.

To download a copy of the transcript, just .

Debbi: Hi, everyone. My guest today is a lawyer, author, playwright, and poet, who among other things, has taught legal history and jurisprudence and practiced civil rights law, as well as worked in financial services, so he has an impressive resume. His written work includes the Peter O’Keefe hardboiled crime series, which has earned praise and awards. He has also written stage plays and short stories. His novella was adapted from a play. It’s my pleasure to have with me a lawyer and acclaimed author, Dan Flanigan. Hi, Dan. How are you doing today?

Dan: Good enough, thank you. As I said, better than I deserve I’m doing.

Debbi: Oh, dear me. Oh, I’d hate to think that. You always wanted to write a novel but ended up going to law school. How did that come about?

Dan: Well, I’m not sure.

Debbi: I know the feeling.

Dan: I wanted to be a writer from the time I was a sophomore in high school, and found many ways to avoid or evade it. When I look back on it, I punished myself a whole lot all those years, and unfortunately punished my wife as well for selling out, not doing what I was supposed to do. But when I look back on it now, I wonder if I really had anything to write and you’ve lived your whole life. You have had a lot happen to you.

Debbi: There’s a lot to be said for waiting before you start writing, because then you have more content to draw from.

Dan: In any event, I never thought it would, but it worked out well.

Debbi: Absolutely. Yeah. What was it that started you? You started with poetry, correct?

Dan: Yes. I had written in sort of spurts occasionally over a long period of time, between my sophomore year in high school and when I really started writing in earnest, and I had a period in the 1980s when I was on kind of a two-year break from practicing law and I wrote several plays. I wrote some poetry, a couple short stories, and I wrote a novel. One thing led to another. For example, I had an agent, I had a publisher for the novel. The publisher went bankrupt, and I had a stage reading of a play in New York. I thought I was going to be on top of the world for about five seconds. Where do you go eventually with any of that? So I decided I’m going to quit punishing myself and have nothing to do with writing.

And about 20 years later, if you got something like that in you, I guess it stays in you. My wife died in 2011, and I thought I’d do a kind of tribute, I guess �� she might not think so �� to her with a book called , which is a book of poems, mostly focused on her last illness and death. That sort of broke the dam, if you will, and sort of led me back into writing in a very serious way, and I really kept to it since.

Debbi: What inspired you to create Peter O’Keefe, this character? What kind of a person is he and what do you draw on to create stories about him?

Dan: The way I ended up there is odd, but I had no thought of ever writing crime fiction or detective fiction or anything else. I had read some of it over the course of my life, but never was steeped in it in any way, and the first two books, one was poetry and one was a short story collection, Dewdrops that I guess �� not to be pretentious �� but you might call literary fiction. But then I wanted to write this novel, sort of a fall in reparation sort of thing. I thought I want to make this more interesting than just navel gazing, and so I said, you know, I’m going to try to put it in this sort of private detective format and see how it goes. And that was the book that I wrote, and got accepted by a publisher.

I had no thought of ever writing crime fiction or detective fiction or anything else. I had read some of it over the course of my life, but never was steeped in it in any way ��

But in the course of �� I’m now in 2013 �� in the course of writing the book of poetry, I pulled that book out of the box and said, you know, this is okay. This ought to be. So I rewrote it very extensively, and that’s , the first in this series. Then I thought, oh, that’s one book, and I’ll go onto something else. But then I had this notion of doing it as a series. The first book was set in 1986. I thought it would be interesting to take this group of characters and deal with serious “literary�� kinds of subjects, but in a more interesting format, and move it along as much as possible, and do the history of our times.

This guy starts out, he’s a Vietnam vet. Like everybody else, he’s a recovering cocaine guy and an alcoholic and has PTSD, although he won’t acknowledge it or do anything about it. He’s divorced, has a daughter who’s 9 years old in the first book, and he’s really at the bottom. His childhood buddy, who’s a big time lawyer named Mike Harrigan sort of plucks him out of jail, gets him a deal with the cops to be free of it if he goes straight and narrow. I’m going to make a private detective out of you, and that’s the start, the origin story, if you will.

The books attempt to be standalone, but one theme in the first three is him struggling and dealing with the Mafia, and it’s also about really the decline and disappearance really of the traditional Mafia in that period of time through RICO prosecutions and wiretaps and all that.

The first several books are really him trying to come to terms with being a new person. As he describes it, a more useful person, and then there’s a whole theme. He gets crossways with the Mafia in the first book. The books attempt to be standalone, but one theme in the first three is him struggling and dealing with the Mafia, and it’s also about really the decline and disappearance really of the traditional Mafia in that period of time through RICO prosecutions and wiretaps and all that.

Debbi: Interesting. Where is the series set and how much does the setting play in the book?

Dan: It’s different in different books. When people ask this question, I say a place like Kansas City. That’s where I’m from, and we had quite a Mafia group in town, too. But I don’t ever say it’s Kansas City, because I don’t want to be tied down to streets and I want to be able to do something purely fictional if I want to, so I never say that, but people would recognize it as that if they knew Kansas City and it’s a whole Midwestern thing. And then down in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, not far from us, it’s the Ozarks. The first book Mink Eyes is in fact about a Ponzi mink farm scheme down in the Ozarks and all kinds of other crazy stuff. The latest book, �� no, pardon me�� the book I’m working on right now is another kind of Ozark-set book, where a lot of hate groups and fundamentalist Christian survivalist kind of stuff was going on in the 80s and 90s. So I make use of all that but without ever saying. I call it the Lake Country instead of just saying it’s the Ozarks.

Debbi: Well, that’s interesting. I noticed in an article about you that it says you described the 80s as not being a golden era where everything was just so much better than it is today, and with more hairspray.

Dan: Yeah. And that’s not me. That was the author of the article.

Debbi: I noticed that. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly an exact quote.

Dan: Right. And she’s very young, and I think she probably had this exalted view of the 1980s.

Debbi: I find that very fascinating. I think we have a tendency to do that. Go back 20 years and say, oh, gee, things were so much better then.

Dan: With a whole lot of things. And I never thought so, even though it was in a lot of ways good to me, financially but it was fairly rotten in its heart, you know?

Debbi: Oh, yeah. I mean, there was some really bad stuff going on in the 80s, and don’t even get me started about the 60s. Talk about an overrated decade! Okay, moving on. You’re still practicing law, so where do you find the time to do the writing?

Dan: Well, luckily we have this great sabbatical program in my firm where every five or six years, you take three months off if you want to, and that let me sort of jumpstart this series business. And, then also, I do a lot less law practice than I did at one time, and I’m sort of �� let’s call it moving toward the horizon.

[W]e have this great sabbatical program in my firm where every five or six years, you take three months off if you want to, and that let me sort of jumpstart this series business.

Debbi: Yes, I know the feeling.

Dan: So I have more time, but I think maybe in that article, I don’t know, somebody asked me, how do you do all that? I said, well, it helps start out being a workaholic and ��

Debbi: And living for a while.

Dan: A very helpful thing in certain ways anyway.

Debbi: I think that lawyers tend to be a bit workaholic generally.

Dan: Yeah, right and so that could carry over, although I don’t have the same discipline writing that I did as a lawyer where you’re writing for clients and their expectations and deadlines and all that, and especially in the era that I practiced, everything changed to “I want it yesterday.�� But, with the books, I wish I would get up every morning and write two or three hours, and every day and all that, but it doesn’t happen now. I need to sort of wallow around in it for two or three days. But on the other hand, I’ve gotten six books out now, so ��

Debbi: There you go. Whatever works. That’s the way it works. How much research do you do for your novels?

Dan: Varies a little bit, but a lot. The most recent one �� An American Tragedy �� I did lots and lots of reading plus I did a lot of different things as a lawyer, but one thing I never was a criminal defense lawyer. And the book is about a trial, and so I had to really, even as a lawyer, had to do all kinds of research to make sure I was doing it right.

I never was a criminal defense lawyer. And the book is about a trial, and so I had to really, even as a lawyer, had to do all kinds of research to make sure I was doing it right.

Debbi: I get it!

Dan: I also made sure that I had a couple of really experienced trial lawyers review it to make sure. You know how whatever field you may know or you watch Law & Order, if you’re a lawyer, you go, that’s ridiculous. That can never happen. I just didn’t want that to happen to me. I hope it didn’t.

Debbi: Yeah, exactly. You don’t want that.

Dan: And then for the Mafia thing, I sort of immersed myself in non-fiction stuff about the Mafia, and so I never want to be exactly like what really happened, but just to try to be versed enough in it. One of the things I did a lot of was bankruptcy, and Kansas City, they were all around that. I was a naïve kid when I was practicing law. I was all around those guys and didn’t really know what I was doing.

Debbi: Oh my!

Dan: So anyway, it depends on the situation. I’m no good at firearms, so I have to not only research, but get some help from people. I have one book where venomous snakes play a significant role. I had to research that. It’s like, you go down that road, you say why did I do this?

Debbi: I know the feeling. Do you tend to outline or pants it when it comes to writing?

Dan: I do an initial very rough outline, and I usually know where the book’s going. I really mostly have the last page in mind and stick to it, but there’s a whole lot in the middle that I don’t do, that changes, so it’s a combination really. It’s not pure pantsing, but it’s more pantsing than plotting, I think. It’s plotting, but not a detailed outline.

I really mostly have the last page in mind and stick to it, but there’s a whole lot in the middle that I don’t do, that changes, so it’s a combination really. It’s not pure pantsing, but it’s more pantsing than plotting, I think.

Debbi: Exactly.

Dan: Jeffery Deaver type ��

Debbi: Jeffrey Deaver just amazes me with what he does. I could never do that. It’d be like, okay, the book’s written.

Dan: And I do believe �� not that I set out with that philosophy �� I’ve done so many things that I hadn’t planned to do that I think worked out very well because you let the story kind of take you places soon.

Debbi: Exactly.

Dan: So I’m pretty happy with that approach.

Debbi: It’s when you have the most fun, I think when you’re writing, when the characters just kind of tell you to go this way, or the situation just seems to lend itself for going a slightly different way than maybe you anticipated. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in having a writing career?

Dan: That’s really hard because mine is so strange, but this is probably just what’s on my mind today is to be careful about following expert advice too much. There’s so much advice out there that is really formulaic that will turn you into a formula writer. A lot of it is very good and very important, but what you need to do is be able to say, that’s good and I need to think it through. That may or may not be for me, that sort of thing. It’s one of those things where you have to want to be taught, but be careful about just following along with your teachers instead of what you really think you need to do. I don’t want to say stick with it no matter what or any of that sort of thing, but in my own case, it just turns out if it’s really driving you, you’ll end up there one way or the other probably.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: I always wanted to do a little play where people like Shakespeare and the Russians and Faulkner and Fitzgerald and those guys were all students in a MFA class that all got Ds because they didn’t follow any of the rules.

Debbi: Nice idea. I like that. What are you working on now?

Dan: This is the fifth book in this O’Keefe series, and I managed to finally get out of the 80s into the early 90s here. It’s about the rise of the survivalist, anti-government, Christian identity, racist, neo-Nazi groups around that time. The whole witch’s brew that ultimately led to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Debbi: Mmm. Interesting. Sounds like you cover some really interesting topics in your books.

Dan: That’s what I like so much about this series. I mean, having started out not even thinking about writing crime books, then writing this one, it has provided me both an anchor and a compass in terms of where to go and hopefully dealing with some major issues in human life and in our lives as Americans, and doing it in a little more interesting way, trying to be somewhat thrilling but realistically so. That’s the intent anyway.

I mean, having started out not even thinking about writing crime books, then writing this one, it has provided me both an anchor and a compass in terms of where to go ��

Debbi: That’s great. That really is wonderful what you’re doing. Is there anything else you would like to add before we finish up?

Dan: All of the O’Keefe books and the newest one, is just in production right now, they are in every format you can think of, including audio books. I’ve resurrected the Dewdrops book, and I’m doing a new edition of it. Hope I’m not running out of time here, but I added a new story, so I’m doing a new edition and doing that as an audiobook. And this one part of it, the novella that was the play Dewdrops is a full cast audiobook. I tried to do it as a podcast but I don’t know how to distribute or market a podcast, so things like that are in process. And also, I probably should mention my website, is the website. Got some things on there.

Debbi: Interesting that you’re thinking about doing that as a scripted podcast, because I’ve been thinking about doing a scripted podcast for years.

Dan: And since I converted it from a play, it’s almost all dialogue anyway, so it’s set up really well for that.

Debbi: So you just add in some sound effects, a little sound design.

Dan: Yeah. I even have a song or two in it and stuff like that.

Debbi: All right. Sounds awesome. That’s fantastic. Well, I have to tell you, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, and it sounds like you’ve got some really cool things lined up.

Dan: I appreciate it. I started late. I have to get moving here and get things done.

Debbi: You are an indie author, right? Self-published still?

Dan: Yes.

Debbi: One of the awesome indies. Yay. Yay for us. Thank you so much for your time.

Dan: Thank you. If I have time, I want to add one more thing.

Debbi: Okay, sure.

Dan: I call O’Keefe a soft-boiled detective, not a hard-boiled detective.

Debbi: Oh, I like that. Soft-boiled! So not quite hard-boiled, but ��

Dan: He doesn’t fit the cliché.

Debbi: Yeah, yeah. He’s not a cliché. He is his own private eye. Well, that’s awesome. I love it. I will definitely have to check out your books, because I was looking at your third book in the series, and I was like, oh my God, what happened to him with the �� I won’t say it, but��

Dan: Oh yeah. A lot happened to him. I had to ease off that a little bit.

Debbi: Oh my gosh, yes. Wow. I was just like, oh, I can really feel that. It’s like, oh, oh, ouch. So anyway, I won’t tell you what happens in the beginning of the third book, but check it out for yourself. For everyone listening, I just want to say thank you for listening, and if you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform, Apple or wherever. We also have a Patreon page where you can get early access to ad-free episodes, as well as bonus episodes and samples of my work. I’ve been posting chapters from my novels there, so paid members at a certain level can get access to those. And I’m also going to be putting some new stuff up there, so that should be interesting. In the meantime, our next guest will be Ted Flanagan. No relation that I know of. Different spelling.

Dan: Oh, really?

Debbi: Yeah, really. Spelled differently. So in any case, I will see you in a couple of weeks. Take care and happy reading.

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Debbi: Hi, everyone. My guest today has published two novels with the third coming in May of next year. Along with novels, he has written at least one short screenplay. He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, which also provides the setting and inspiration for his work. It’s my pleasure to have with me today, the award-winning author Stephen Eoannou.

Stephen: There you go.

Debbi: Did I get that right?

Stephen: Yes.

Debbi: Awesome. Fantastic. So thank you for being with us today.

Stephen: Thank you for having me.

Debbi: I’m pleased to have you on. I really enjoyed your book , your debut novel. That was a very interesting story. What inspired you to write about this particular man from the FBI’s Most Wanted List?

Stephen: Yeah. I had finished my first book , which is a short story collection, and I was picking around trying to find an idea for the next project, and I can remember it vividly. It was a Sunday morning. I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer��, and that immediately caught my eye, thinking this maybe is another career avenue for myself. But I started reading this article about Al Nussbaum. I had never heard of the man before, and by the end of the article, I knew that I wanted to write about him.

I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer��

I wasn’t sure it was going to be a novel or a short story or what, but I knew I wanted to learn more about this man and write about him. And what fascinated me was not only was he this kind of cerebral bank robber who approached the robberies like chess matches �� which he was an avid chess player �� and he’s quoted as saying that robbing banks is like chess for cash prizes, which I think is a great quote. He became a writer when he was in prison, and he was a penny-a-word guy, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock. He even was writing for Scholastic Books, if anyone’s old enough to remember Scholastic Books.

Debbi: Oh, I do

Stephen: Yeah, me too. I still have a few of them. So the man who was doing time in Leavenworth was also writing Scholastic Books. He was just a fascinating character, and he was a Buffalo guy. I had kind of decided after I completed Muscle Cars that really Buffalo, New York was going to kind of be my literary turf I was going to carve out for myself. Kind of what William Kennedy did for Albany and Richard Russo did for upstate New York, the Catskill areas. That’s what I was going to do. And so this just kind of fell in my lap and I just kind of really became intrigued with Al and his story.

Debbi: Interesting. Very interesting that you were able to find this in the local paper, right?

Stephen: Well, what it was his daughter, who’s just an infant in the novel, she was trying to do a Kickstarter campaign to gather up all her father’s short stories and anthologized them, and so the newspaper did a feature on it. And what was really great about this whole experience with is that since the publication, I’ve become friends with her. She lives about two hours away. She’s a retired attorney, not a defense attorney or criminal lawyer. We’ve had coffee a few times and she’s come to a couple of my events when I’m in the Central New York region, telling me some fascinating stories about her dad that I wish I knew while I was working on the manuscript.

Debbi: Interesting. Because this is a fictionalized account of a true story, were there permissions involved in terms of using his name and so forth?

Stephen: No, and I figured the legal team at the publisher would worry about that. I just wrote it the way I wanted to write it, and no one said anything. So we’ll just keep it amongst ourselves.

Debbi: Hard to say. Hard to say what happened. Okay. Your second novel is also historical. I take it that you’re basically focused on historical writing most of the time?

Stephen: Yeah. And that wasn’t the plan; I just kind of �� I’ve always enjoyed it, but you know how these things are. You kind of stumble from one �� an idea finds you and next thing you know, you’ve written a story set in the early 1960s, and now there’s a story, , the second novel was set in the early 1930s, the book that’s coming out in May is set in 1942. The thirties and forties have always been an era that has really intrigued me primarily because of my parents, that’s when they were growing up. And so I kind of grew up listening to their stories about growing up in the Depression, the immigration experience from my father coming from Greece. Just growing up with those stories, watching old movies like The Maltese Falcon with my dad. He was 20 when The Maltese Falcon came out, so he remembers that from his youth. That was kind of my upbringing, if you will, listening to those stories and watching those movies. Next thing you know, fast forward 40 or so years, and I’m writing about those types of things now. So you never know what’s going to percolate up to the top when you’re in the creative mode.

The thirties and forties have always been an era that has really intrigued me primarily because of my parents, that’s when they were growing up. And so I kind of grew up listening to their stories about growing up in the Depression, the immigration experience from my father coming from Greece.

Debbi: Exactly. Yes, and that era is very inspiring. There’s so much from it that informs what we do today.

Stephen: Yeah, and my mom always said, she chastised me. She goes, you romanticize that period, but it was really hard. The Depression and World War. You romanticize it, and she was absolutely right. I do.

Debbi: Absolutely. I was fascinated by the subject of Yesteryear, which was a playwright that I had never known about who created the Lone Ranger. Tell us how you got interested in that.

Stephen: Another Buffalo boy, and I had never heard about him either. I was at a party or a bar somewhere where they were serving alcohol, and someone said to me, well, you know the guy who wrote the Lone Ranger is from Buffalo? And I said, no, he’s not. I would’ve known about that. I mean, Buffalo is very good about promoting any creative person who’s been successful, no matter what the connection. Mark Twain was the editor of the Courier Express newspaper for two years. He’s a Buffalo writer. We made him our own. So for someone who �� because Fran wrote not only the Lone Ranger, but also the Green Hornet and Sergeant Prescott of the Yukon, so he has a huge influence on 20th century pop culture, and no one’s really heard of him.

I think because he sold the rights to the Lone Ranger for $10 before the Lone Ranger just exploded into this 90-year money making franchise. And to make matters worse, the man he sold it to for $10, George W. Trendle, who owned WXYZ radio in Detroit where the Lone Ranger was broadcast from, started claiming in the 1940s that he was the creator of the Lone Ranger, not Striker. So Fran kind of missed out on the fame as well as the fortune, because if you think about not only the radio and the TV show and the movies, think of the comic books that Fran wrote. There were a dozen or so hardback novels published in the thirties and forties that Striker wrote, the comic strips that appeared in over 200 newspapers, all the spinoff toys. The Lone Ranger is one of the first kind of crossover into marketing and spiffs and toys. So all the masks and hats and holsters and all that money bypassed Striker and went to Trendle.

I think because he sold the rights to the Lone Ranger for $10 before the Lone Ranger just exploded into this 90-year money making franchise.

When Trendle sold the rights in the mid-fifties, he sold the rights for $3 million, which was a record in the entertainment industry at that time. I think Fran was working for him up until that time as head writer at WXYZ, but he may have received a bonus from that 3 million, but certainly not the millions that Trendle made.

Debbi: Oh, my gosh. It just goes to show you the importance of owning the intellectual property.

Stephen: And you know? It’s a common story. You look at all these artists �� visual artists, literary, musical. When it’s a new medium or something new like the early days of rock and roll, and you think of all the African-American early rock and rollers who were screwed terribly with their contracts and rights. It seems like every time there’s something new, a new medium, a new form, the artists are so desperate to get that work out there that they get taken advantage of.

Debbi: Yes, definitely. Yes. That is definitely true. It’s a shame. So your latest one coming out next May about the private eye named Nicholas Bishop. He has a background from World War I that he carries into the story, correct?

Stephen: He has got a lot of baggage that he carries. A lot of abandonment issues, alcoholism, he may or may not have stepped in front of a taxi cab on purpose that has left him with a limp and unable to serve in World War II. His alcoholism is out of control, and when the novel begins, he wakes up on the floor of a hotel room where he’s the house detective, because he has lost his private practice, he’s lost his secretary, who he has been in love with forever. He can’t find his car, and he wakes up on the floor after a five-day bender, can’t remember anything, and two shots were fired from his gun and the police are downstairs. They want to talk to him. And that’s how the novel begins.

His alcoholism is out of control, and when the novel begins �� he wakes up on the floor after a five-day bender, can’t remember anything, and two shots were fired from his gun and the police are downstairs.

I call it my pandemic novel, even though it has nothing to do with any type of pandemic, except the one that we were going through when I wrote it. I started it right before the lockdown and finished it two years later, which is pretty quick for me because there was nothing to do except write, so that’s why it’s my pandemic novel. I was alone in a big house with a little one-eyed dog during the lockdown, and Nicholas Bishop has a one-eyed dog that he doesn’t know where it came from. He just woke up on the floor and it was there. He names the dog Jake, and finds out later it’s a female dog. So Bishop has all sorts of things going on in his life.

Debbi: Well, it sounds intriguing, I have to tell you. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Stephen: I’ve been pretty disciplined for a long time. I get up at five and I write from five to seven, every day. That’s my goal. Sometimes I can go longer. Sometimes after my day job, if I still have some creative energy, I’ll do some at night or some editing, and if I miss for whatever reason, I try to make that up on the weekend. So every morning, quarter to five, the alarm goes off or I wake up on my own, because I’ve been doing it for so long. And when I was about halfway through , it was about this time of year, mid-October, early November. It was starting to get cold up here in Western New York and dark in the morning, and for like three days in a row, I just could not get out of bed and go up to my office to write. I was awake, but I just could not get out of bed. And of course, you beat yourself up about it.

And then I realized, smart guy that I am, I could just bring my laptop from my office downstairs and just put it next to my bed. And so at five o’clock, I just reach over and grab my laptop. So there’s no rituals, there’s no coffee, there’s no tea, there’s no candles, there’s no music. I just literally prop myself up on the pillows and write in bed. And that’s where I’ve been doing the majority of my writing, or splitting it up in my office.

So there’s no rituals, there’s no coffee, there’s no tea, there’s no candles, there’s no music. I just literally prop myself up on the pillows and write in bed.

Debbi: There’s a famous author that used to do that. I can’t think of his name now.

Stephen: Oh, it’s crazy stuff. Hemingway wrote standing up, Dalton Trumbo wrote in the bathtub. So for right now anyways, that’s my routine. I would like to wake up at seven, walk my little one-eyed dog and then start writing at eight, but that’s not possible right now with the day job.

Debbi: So you work around the day job. I’m impressed. Very. But how much research do you do when you write historical novels? I mean, what kind of research?

Stephen: A lot went into Yesteryear. Of the three novels, required the most research. Research on the early days of radio, research certainly on Fran Striker’s life, research on the Lone Ranger. I was very fortunate when Fran passed away in the early 1960s, the Striker Estate left all of his papers to the University of Buffalo, and I’m an alumni. There were about 14 cartons that they have in their special collections, and it is just a treasure trove �� letters, telegraphs, handwritten manuscripts, typed manuscripts with notes on them. So I would go online �� they had an inventory of the cartons �� and I would put in my request that on Thursday, I would like to come in at 10 o’clock and review the contents of carton number 12. I would get to the special libraries collection at 10 o’clock, and there it would be waiting for me, and I’d put on my white gloves, and I would hold an original Lone Ranger radio script from 1932. It was just fascinating. So a lot of research went into that book. In the back of Yesteryear, there’s a bibliography, because a lot went into it.

I was very fortunate when Fran passed away in the early 1960s, the Striker Estate left all of his papers to the University of Buffalo, and I’m an alumni.

There wasn’t as much written about Al Nussbaum, but it was fun research, tracking down on eBay the young adult novels that he wrote for Scholastic books and buying those, and researching the newspapers about his career in crime and then his arrest. Just really fascinating stuff. So a lot of time spent at the downtown library going through microfiches for that novel. With , it wasn’t as extensive. This isn’t based on any historical figure like the first two novels were, so much of the research was just about what it was life like in 1942 Buffalo, New York. What did a carton of Chesterfields cost or a gallon of gas? What nightclubs were around? I knew a few of them from my parents�� stories, but where might he hang out? So that again, was reading old newspapers, not looking for anything in particular, but just going and reading the advertisements from the department stores of that time to see what they were selling. And what was really fascinating, you read the front page from 1942, and it’s not much different than what’s going on today. The same countries, the same stories, the same local corruption. It is really kind of disheartening in that regard.

And what was really fascinating, you read the front page from 1942, and it’s not much different than what’s going on today. The same countries, the same stories, the same local corruption. It is really kind of disheartening in that regard.

Debbi: Yes. Everything old is new again, or something like that. So have you ever thought of writing a series?

Stephen: Well, it’s a funny story. So I finished After Pearl, and I had my little writing group of these wonderful women I met in grad school at the Queens University of Charlotte. So there’s Ashley Warlick who wrote The Arrangement, a great crime novelist, Carla Damron who wrote The Orchid Tattoo, her latest. Beth Johnson and Araminta Hall. And so that’s my writing group. We’ve been together forever. I sent it to Carla first and I said, Hey, can you take a look at this? And she read it, and the first question she asked was, is this a series? I said, no, it’s a standalone. I just wrote it during the lockdown. She made some suggestions. I made my corrections, sent it out to Ashley. First question she asks, is this a series? I said, no, I just wrote it during the pandemic. It’s a standalone. Going to move on to something else. I sent it to my publisher, and he comes back and says, is this a series? Because I think Netflix might like something like this.

Debbi: Oh yes!

Stephen: I said, yes, it’s a series with no idea what the second book is going to be about. But I said, absolutely. It’s a series.

Debbi: Of course it is

Stephen: And so now I’m working on the second book in the Nicholas Bishop series

Debbi: On the subject of Netflix, now that you’ve mentioned it, what about this award-winning short screenplay of yours? How did you get into screenwriting?

Stephen: It was funny. That screenplay is called Slip Kid, and it’s based on a short story. It’s kind of the centerpiece to my short story collection Muscle Cars, but originally that was going to be my first novel. It dealt with a true story. When I was 16, my parish priest was murdered in a botched robbery at the local Greek church here, and they didn’t catch the killers for a few months so it was always in the news. It turns out that they were just teenagers, 17, 18 years old that made some terrible, awful choices with huge ramifications. The novel didn’t work so I cut it down to a long short story. I still wasn’t finished with it yet. It still wouldn’t leave me.

I was, at the time, just graduating from Queens, and I had a lot of friends who were in the screenwriting program, and they were always talking about writing screenplays and what they’re working on and the challenges. I said, well, I’m going to try that, and so I bought the software and hopefully it was going to be a feature, but I couldn’t make it into a feature. It was only a short, and then I finished it, I go, well, now what do I do with it? And they said, well, just submit it for some prizes. The Denver Film Festival was having a contest and one of the categories was original short film. So I submitted it and kind of forgot about it, to be honest with you, and the next thing I know, I’m getting this email that I won. So it was a shock, but a lot of fun.

They flew me out to Denver. I got to walk the red carpet. I went to all the screenings. I’d never been to a film festival before. Andy Garcia was there.

They flew me out to Denver. I got to walk the red carpet. I went to all the screenings. I’d never been to a film festival before. Andy Garcia was there. It was just a ton of fun and something that normally would not happen to me, but it was a great thrill. I’ve written one or two screenplays since, but I haven’t done anything with them. I really see myself in it. I’ve always seen myself as a novelist, and that’s really my main pursuit right now.

Debbi: Have you ever considered writing a scripted podcast?

Stephen: I never have, but that might be interesting.

Debbi: Because that’s something I’ve considered.

Stephen: Yeah. I’ve never done that, but that’s something to think about.

Debbi: Hmm. Cool. Keep thinking about it.

Stephen: Yes, while I try to come up with the third Nicholas Bishop novel.

Debbi: Maybe Nicholas Bishop would make a great radio show, so to speak.

Stephen: Yes, absolutely.

Debbi: “So to speak��, yes because that’s what scripted podcasts basically are.

Stephen: Right, right.

Debbi: What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in writing for a living or just having a writing career?

Stephen: Don’t give up. It’s not original, but it took me 30 years to get my first book published. I went the traditional route because when I started out wanting to be a writer in the mid-eighties, there really wasn’t �� self-publishing really was frowned upon. Right. It was a vanity press.

Don’t give up. It’s not original, but it took me 30 years to get my first book published.

Debbi: Oh boy, was it!

Stephen: It had a stigma attached to it, it was cheating, so that was never really a consideration for me. So I took the traditional route. And about that time, in the mid to late eighties, that’s when all these American novelists all around 30 were getting their first books published. Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis, Bret Lott, Michael Chabon, all those guys. They’re a little bit older than me. They were probably around 30, I was in my mid-twenties. I said, well, that’s going to be me. I’m in grad school, I’ll have my first novel when I’m 30. I was sure of it, and then my 30th birthday came, and then my 40th birthday came, and then my 50th birthday came.

Debbi: I know that feeling.

Stephen: I think Muscle Cars came out in 2015 when I was 52, so I was not an overnight sensation. But I was trying all those years, writing poorly, getting a lot of rejections, trying to get better at my craft. Something happened when I went to Queens, not that getting an MFA is the answer for a writing career, but I think what it was, was for the first time I was surrounded by a group of writers and I found my group that you could share work with and get feedback and give feedback in an honest and constructive way. And like I said, that group that I’ve been together with, those women I mentioned earlier, it’s been over 10 years now that we’ve been doing this. That I think made a huge difference, having that network which I never had.

I tried to get into different writing groups throughout the years, but usually I was the one who took it the most seriously. Most of them were there for the food and the wine, which I enjoyed, but when you tell me I wrote this story on the bus ride this morning, how good is it going to be? Or how valuable is your critique going to be if you just did it on the ride over to the workshop or meeting? So it took me a long time to find my network, my group, and once I did that, and plus you do anything for 30 years, you get better eventually. So I think the two all came together at Queens and that really kind of set me on this path that I’m on. So the last 10 years have just been for me, an explosion of creativity and productivity.

Debbi: That’s fantastic. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Stephen: No, except maybe go to my website, which is SGeoannou.com. There’s a ton of information about that, about my books and my bio and appearances. But I always say the most important part of my webpage is the final tab, and that’s the contact page, so any readers out there who want to have me come to their book club, or if they just want to ask me questions or just drop me a note, I answer all of them. It’s the best part really when you get an email from someone who’s curious about your work and what you’re doing. I love that. So I encourage everyone to go out there.

Debbi: That’s excellent. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Stephen: Oh, thank you. I had fun.

Debbi: It was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you.

Stephen: Oh, it was great.

Debbi: Thanks. With that, I will just say thank you for listening and, if you would, if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review. They help with the algorithms. It’s so nice to be judged by bits and bytes of data, isn’t it? Anyway, these things do help so please leave a review if you enjoyed the episode. And we also have a Patreon page with benefits for patrons, so please check it out. Until next time, when our guest will be Dan Flanagan, take care and happy reading.

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This week’s guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is historical crime writer .

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This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with paleontologist and crime writer��.

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Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is both a professional paleontologist and a novelist. He writes the Henry Przewalski �� is that correct, I hope? Przewalski?

Leonard: Literally, it reads as Przewalski but it’s actually a Russian-Polish name, named for the discoverer of Przewalski’s horse, that small kind of dwarfish horse that lives wild on the Asian steppes. So it’s pronounced in the Russian sense.

Debbi: Got it. All right. I’ll try to remember that. It’s my pleasure to have him with me today. It’s Leonard Krystalka, who goes by Kris. Like Kris Kristofferson, may he rest in peace.

Leonard: May he rest in peace. A terrific person.

Debbi: Indeed. Yes.

Leonard: Yes. Wonderful artist.

Debbi: He was, yes. I want to thank you for being here so much. It’s good to have you on. Tell us about Harry Przewalski. I almost screwed that up again. How much did you draw from your own experiences in creating him?

Leonard: A great deal. I named Harry Przewalski as a homage to the study of the life of the past and the study of present biodiversity. So, Przewalski’s horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski’s horses in a zoo in Poland. But enough were saved to repopulate the wild steppes of Asia.

Przewalski’s horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski’s horses in a zoo in Poland.

Debbi: Interesting. Did you choose that name deliberately?

Leonard: I did. I chose it deliberately, although it’s hard to pronounce, and as a homage to the paleontological studies of the evolutionary history of life on Earth, the three billion year history of life on Earth.

Debbi: That is so cool. How many books do you have in the series, and how many do you plan to write? Or do you have a plan for the series?

Leonard: There are four books now in the Harry Przewalski series. There’s , , , and the newest one just published this year called . I have a fifth novel, which is not in that series. It’s a historical fiction of a murder that occurred in Lawrence, Kansas in 1871. A doctor accused of murdering his patient because he was having an affair with the patient’s wife. The doctor was arrested and the resulting trial was equivalent to �� imagine the OJ Simpson trial in 1871 in Kansas. You have sex, you have murder, you have adultery.

It attracted reporters of every single newspaper in the country from San Francisco, from Chicago, from St. Louis, from New York, Washington, Detroit, and so forth. This is 1871 Kansas. It’s only six years after the end of the Civil War. So the trial was a national sensation, and one of the Lawrence women becomes the heroine. She talks the editor of one of the Lawrence newspapers into hiring her as the first woman correspondent west of the Mississippi. She covers the trial and solves the murder.

Debbi: Wow.

Leonard: She also fights for women’s rights. She fights for suffrage for women and blacks. Yeah, she’s quite a woman.

Debbi: And which book is this again?

Leonard: This is called . I could hold it up for viewers to see.

Debbi: That’s very cool. I noticed that book was outside the series.

Leonard: Yeah, it is. I’m writing the sequel to that now. It’s called The Body on the Bricks. She is the heroine of that book as well. But your original question was about the Przewalski series of which there are now four, and yes, there may well be a fifth.

Debbi: Fantastic. Do you see yourself ending this series in a particular way, or do you just think you’re going to keep writing them?

Leonard: That’s a really good question. Yeah, I do see myself ending the Przewalski series in a way that does poetic justice to Harry’s character, how he thinks, how he acts, and when he would take off his gun and put it away somewhere and say, I’m going to do something else.

I do see myself ending the Przewalski series in a way that does poetic justice to Harry’s character, how he thinks, how he acts, and when he would take off his gun and put it away somewhere and say, I’m going to do something else.

Debbi: Yeah. So putting up the guns and retiring at some point.

Leonard: Correct.

Debbi: In what ways does your protagonist differ from you?

Leonard: Well, Harry is not me. Of course, as with any writer, there are parts of you that you cannot help but insert into characters �� experience, emotions, the way one thinks, senses of humor, senses of tragedy. In all of those ways, yes, there are parts of Harry that come from my life and my experience. But there’s a great deal to Harry that isn’t like me. So, for example, Harry was a student of paleontology and quit when his fiancé, who was a social worker, was brutally raped and murdered by a social misfit. He left his studies. He went to volunteer for a war in Iraq. He came back with a gun and a license to detect. That’s not me.

Debbi: So he’s a veteran.

Leonard: Yes.

Debbi: Wow. Yeah. That will have an effect on you.

Leonard: And he uses his skills that he learned by thinking as a paleontologist about those scarce clues, about a bone here, a tooth there or a skull there, to piece together the evolution of life on earth. He uses those skills of piecing together clues from different spheres to solve murder mysteries, which are all wrapped inside science intrigues as well.

He uses those skills of piecing together clues from different spheres to solve murder mysteries, which are all wrapped inside science intrigues as well.

So for example, The Bone Field investigates a paleontologist who is murdered for scientific glory, for fame, for one of the fault lines in the human condition that I like to write about. I think the job of every novelist is to explore the fault lines in the human condition, and the mystery genre, the hardboiled mystery genre, is a perfect vehicle for exploring those fault lines. So in The Bone Field, I quote John Wolcott, a Scottish satirist who wrote “the rage for fame infects both great and small! Better be damned than mentioned not at all.�� That infects a great deal of science intrigues. So there’s a great deal of paleontological intrigue, geological intrigue, and of course, murder and betrayal in The Bone Field.

In the second book, in Death Spoke, the scientific intrigue is the archeology of prehistoric art. Who painted the spectacular bison and deer and horses and mammoths and the caves of France 12,000 to 34,000 years ago? And why didn’t they paint in those caves? Why didn’t they paint the outside environment? Sky, clouds, trees, grass, water, lakes, streams? There is an answer to that, which you will not hear in archeology class, but if your audience wants to read Death Spoke, they’ll find out the answer to that question.

Debbi: Fascinating. That really is fascinating. I’m intrigued by the science here. How much scientific detail do you include in your books?

Leonard: A great deal, but the trick in writing the scientific parts is interweaving the murder story, the detective story with the scientific mystery, so that the two are inseparable and both of them are page turners.

Debbi: Exactly. Yeah.

Leonard: So that one compliments the other. So in what I just mentioned about the novel Death Spoke, the solution to the mystery of who were the artists and why did they paint art in the deepest recesses of the caves, and why only those four animals in almost 99% of the caves, that mystery is interwoven with solving the murder mystery.

Debbi: That is really cool. That is so cool. Have you ever thought of writing a mystery with dinosaur bones for kids?

Leonard: That’s a really good question. I used to make up stories for my kids and not read it, but relate it at bedtime. And they loved those stories. I wish I’d written them down, and they did have dinosaurs. Yes.

Debbi: Oh my gosh, because kids seem to love dinosaurs, and I thought right away that you’d be a natural at telling that kind of story.

Leonard: Yes, they do.

Debbi: Wow. Do you work full-time as a paleontologist?

Leonard: I did work full-time as a paleontologist. I don’t anymore. I go into the field once in a while, still excavating dinosaurs and other fossils in Montana, but I am not a professional paleontologist any longer in terms of publishing in the field, writing scientific articles and so forth. I’ve switched from that to writing about paleontology and archeology especially, in my mystery novels.

Debbi: That’s really interesting and cool. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Leonard: I don’t, and I wish I was disciplined enough to keep a writing schedule, then I would finish a novel in six months or a year, rather than take two years to write a novel. It’s easy to procrastinate. It’s easy to do other things that one enjoys. Reading. I’m an avid cyclist, so I do a great deal of cycling that takes a great deal of time. I like to camp and so on.

Debbi: That’s great. That’s wonderful actually. What was it that drew you to the field of paleontology?

Leonard: Say that again.

Debbi: What was it that drew you to the field of paleontology?

Leonard: That’s a good question. There are two passions that made me a paleontologist. First was the passion of ideas, and in many ways, my novels are about those ideas. Paleontology asks ultimate questions. What triggered the myriad explosions and extinctions of life on the planet during the past 3 billion years? That’s an ultimate question. Hundreds of millions of species came and went on land and in the waters, from the tiny one celled algae, all the way to the dinosaur that everybody knows �� Tyrannosaurus Rex. So basal to that answer is the tree of life. And as a paleontologist I try to decipher that 3 billion year tree of life on Earth.

The other answer was the passion of place. The Badlands, where the rocks are preserved in a row, wrote all the answers to the ultimate questions that paleontology asks. It’s only in the Badlands that you find all those fossils. And for me, the Badlands are primeval. Those canyons, stark rubble strewn, the buttes rising in stacked layers of red and gray and blue, much like people would see in the Grand Canyon. Every time you find a fossil, you can imagine that the earth itself has bled from the red rocks. As a city kid �� I was born and raised in Montreal in Canada �� so as a city kid, when I first saw the Badlands, I was seduced by their beauty. And for me, it was a beauty so terrible that it hurt the heart.

Debbi: I know the feeling. I am originally from New York City, and then I moved to Fresno, California, and it was like, oh, look at this place. No big tall buildings. I feel like I’m out in the open at last.

Leonard: Right, right.

Debbi: Yeah. It’s almost a shock, almost a culture shock to go from that to Fresno, California. What authors do you like to read, and what authors have inspired your writing?

Leonard: That is a great question. Let’s see. I actually have a list because I don’t want to leave anybody out. Who do I like to read? I grew up on Rex Stout and his Nero Wolfe mysteries. I used to reread them every few years. The stories are entertaining. They’re almost mannered. They’re set in New York where you’re from, but what stayed with me when I read them was Rex Stout’s craft as a writer, as a storyteller. I also read all of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Cain. They introduced me to that streetwise, hard-boiled detective. The private eye, the simple short, declarative sentence. Ernest Hemingway introduced me to that as well, the wisecrack. And it also revealed how the gritty alleys of Los Angeles and other cities are perfect settings to fester the strands of human rot, and to tell the story of the gritty underbelly of human life and the human condition. This is why the detective story is so perfect.

I continued reading Ross Macdonald, James Crumley, whose prose is unmatched. For readers out there, the best dialogue, the absolute master of dialogue is Elmore Leonard. Boy, he paints his characters, their plots, the emotions, their psyches. He paints it with their words, how they speak, their expressions, their syncopation. When I read these authors, I find myself envious saying, damn, I wish I’d written that sentence.

The same holds for �� of course, Elmore Leonard is dead, but the same holds for current writers. Ian Rankin, Lawrence Block, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy. Readers can’t go wrong. If you’re an aspiring detective writer, start with James Crumley. Start with A Kiss Before Dying and then go on.

Debbi: It’s been ages since I’ve read that, and I have to go back and look at it again, because boy, that name. James Crumley. I remember.

Leonard: In The Bone Field, I paid homage to him because I named the sheriff of a town in Wyoming after him. His name is Crumley.

Debbi: Oh, cool. Very cool. I love the way you said that the private eye novel, the hardboiled detective novel, is the perfect type of book to show the fault lines in the human condition. I think “fault lines in the human condition�� has to be one of my favorite phrases.

Leonard: Right.

Debbi: That is so great.

Leonard: So if I could elaborate on that. My novels are classified as and we’re talking about them as murder mysteries, archeological thrillers, paleontological thrillers, and they fit the stereotype. There are murders committed, there are murders solved, there’s a private detective and so on. But the mystery classification is simplistic. For me �� and I’m saying this for all your readers, all your listeners �� for me, the best works in the mystery genre, Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, I’ve talked about them before, James Crumley, Dorothy L. Sayers, they are much more than whodunits. They explore the fault lines in the human condition, and the best ones are as good as the classics in literature.

[F]or me, the best works in the mystery genre, Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, I’ve talked about them before, James Crumley, Dorothy L. Sayers, they are much more than whodunits. They explore the fault lines in the human condition, and the best ones are as good as the classics in literature.

Mystery novels, private eye novels, they have the reputation of B-literature. I disagree with that entirely. It’s just like Humphrey Bogart films used to be called B-films, but now they’re rated just as classic as all the other classics. So the best mystery/private eye novels explore the same fault lines in the human condition as the classics in literature. The book of Job, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Tony Morrison’s Beloved, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Those all made impressions on me. So in the best mysteries, just like in the classics and literature, their characters are just as flawed, just as heroic. The relationships are just as conflicted. The seven deadly sins are just as deadly, and the stories expose the same gritty underbelly of life.

Debbi: Yes. It seems like your books, the scientific part of it can even border a little on philosophy there.

Leonard: Correct, correct.

Debbi: Quite a bit actually.

Leonard: Yes. There’s quite a bit of philosophy and I don’t hesitate to kind of throw a couple of philosophical thoughts in. For example, I can read a small portion of The Bone Field where Harry likens geology to the human condition. He’s standing in the Badlands and he’s thinking, he’s looking over them.

There’s quite a bit of philosophy and I don’t hesitate to kind of throw a couple of philosophical thoughts in.

��Weathering was ceaseless. This endless war of attrition between earth and sun and wind and rain. The land trying to stay in equilibrium with the elements and failing. It was like the geology of a love affair, Harry thought. The silent abrasion of its intimate contours to a flat, monochromatic terrain. So in many ways, our life, human relationships are as much like the Grand Canyon, exposed to the elements, being eroded grain by grain, by grain, ultimately failing.��

Debbi: Ooh, that’s beautiful. Have you ever thought about doing voice acting or audiobook reading?

Leonard: I did record The Bone Field as an audiobook. It’s available as an audiobook, and I’ve also recorded The Body on the Bed, but it is not out yet.

Debbi: What a great voice!

Leonard: Thank you. Thank you.

Debbi: It’s beautiful. Beautiful writing, too.

Leonard: Thank you.

Debbi: What advice would you give to anyone who wants a writing career?

Leonard: That too is a great question. I would say rule number one: take chances. Art and science, the writing, the crafting of a novel, that art and the science of that art, art and science are subversive storytelling. They’re the risky search for uncomfortable truth, and that’s what those novels should explore. Uncomfortable truth. Writing a novel isn’t meant to be comfortable. I’m going to quote George Orwell. ��Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.��

Debbi: I love that.

Leonard: And for me, what always happens �� I think of the novel as an unbridled horse, a horse you cannot control. The novel is the wagon, and the horse is pulling the wagon, and you’re sitting on the wagon. Suddenly the horse goes down an alley that was unexpected, unexplored. Let your writing violate the storyboard if you use one. Go off the storyboard. I don’t use the storyboard. I let the horse and the wagon drag me where it does, and those alleys unexplored are the most rewarding moments of writing. Like many other authors would say, let your voice emerge naturally, unforced. Don’t try to imitate anybody else’s voice. Don’t worry about being off-key. You can always put it back into the key when you edit, but just let it flow.

I think of the novel as an unbridled horse, a horse you cannot control. The novel is the wagon, and the horse is pulling the wagon, and you’re sitting on the wagon.

Be smart, be scrupulous, be forthright. Like Steinbeck said, the discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. Be honest. Don’t be stupid. Do your research. Write what you know, know what you write. Immerse yourself in the research that goes into the novel. My advice and one I try and follow for every writer, when you write your novel, make readers want to pause at every sentence or at most sentences and say to themselves, damn, I wish I’d written that sentence because every elegant sentence is for me, a novel’s literary heaven, because otherwise, as William Styron quipped, writing is hell.

Debbi: Well, on that note, I just want to say thank you, and is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Leonard: No. The act of writing is one of the most enjoyable and painful. Writing is hell, but writing is also heaven bound.

Debbi: I hate to write, but I love to have written, as Dorothy Parker once put it. Well, I just want to thank you again for being here. It was great talking to you. I could talk to you for hours, probably about this whole subject.

Leonard: Thank you very much. Thank you for this podcast. I really appreciate it.

Debbi: It’s my pleasure, believe me. So everybody, if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review if you would on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you are a regular listener, check out our Patreon page. My work is up there. I’ve got samples of my work, ad-free episodes, and bonus episodes as well. So with that, I will just say, until next time, I’ll be seeing you and take care. Enjoy a good book. Happy reading and talk to you later.

If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll get more if you !

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Hi, it’s me again. Today. I’m doing a review of����by��. I read it on my iPad. On a Kindle app. Yes. It was a free copy that I got from the publisher and thank you very much and I enjoyed the book very much. Yet another book in which a woman goes around killing guys all over the place and well, it’s also very, very funny and I highly recommend it. It’s just good, clean, fun, killing awful guys everywhere and justifying it somehow. I mean, yeah, some of them are horrible, some of them maybe are mistakes?

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Okay, that’s all I’ll say. So, I highly recommend this book. Really. It’s wonderful. It’s a funny read. It’s gruesome. It’s women who kill guys, awful guys, and it seems to be a whole new genre. At least it seems that way to me. I keep getting these books about vengeful women or whatever. Makes you kind of wonder. Okay. Alright then. That’s all I’ll say, but it’s good stuff and I recommend it highly. I’ll talk to you later. Thanks. See you be seeing you.

PS: Here’s��!

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You can buy the ebook from any of��.

You can also buy it in print from����and support indie bookstores.

Plus, get early access to my reviews on or .

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This week’s guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is paleontologist and crime writer .

We discuss crime writing and things paleontological (is that a word?).

��

And someone else likes the hardboiled stuff! 🙂

Check us out on !

The post appeared first on .

Hi. Today I am reviewing����by��. I can’t show you a cover, unfortunately, but it looks like a really cool cover. I wish I could show it to you, but I got it on interlibrary loan, and I picked up this book from the library because somebody I think described it, had something to say about it on RaraAvis, the list for hardboiled fans, I guess I should call it. Hardboiled crime fans and old books, too. People who like old pulp fiction and stuff like that. Anyway, that’s what the list is. RareAvis. Anyway, I’ve always enjoyed kind of hanging out there, even if I have nothing to say. But, in any case, yeah, I picked up this book at the library and really enjoyed it. It’s about two different sets of journeys, actually. I was going to say two different sets of people.

It is really about two different sets of people. There’s a woman whose husband was injured during the Korean War, and it affects, of course, his life, his outlook in a negative way, and he’s also a war veteran and it’s the Fifties and she’s an actress and trying to do something. She’s trying to do a Dick Powell, basically. She’s trying to go from light song and dance stuff, fluffy stuff, to dark stuff with real meat. So anyway, she’s on a journey. Literally,. She’s going home to New Jersey or something like that, but she ends up kind of hanging around in the southwest for a while.

Anyhow, I don’t want to go into the whole story, but there’s a parallel kind of, not parallel really. I mean, it’s different. There are two women in this story that the narrative jumps back and forth between. There are two women back in the Twenties who are crossing the country from where, was it somewhere in New York? I’m trying to remember. Or was it New England? No, I think it was New York. Or maybe it was Pennsylvania. No, it wasn’t Pennsylvania. I can say that for sure because they talked about how big Pennsylvania was, but I remember feeling shocked at how slowly the journey was going at first, and what they do is they keep journals, so you get to know the story through the journals, and the different journals reflect their personalities so perfectly that it’s just a joy to read. Two cents for stamps every time. [You’ll understand that if you read the book.]

One of them is just like budget-wise. She is obviously the homemaker, and then the one with her is single. I will allow you to get to know these characters on your own, but in any event, it is just fun to read and at the same time very touching and has heartbreaking moments and so on. On top of which there’s this screenplay interspersed throughout the book. No comment. I love that though. I will just say, that’s my only comment. I loved it. Hey, Jessica Brockmole, you want somebody to produce that screenplay of yours or maybe finish it or whatever. I really liked it. It was just such a nice touch and yeah, yeah, I’ve thought of my life as a movie and maybe this is the end of the Second Act. I would love to think so, really.

Okay. Enough of that. I really enjoyed the book. That’s all I can say. The only other thing I can say, I’m almost finished with it. I know I’m going to enjoy the book. It’s due back at the library. So, anyhow, talk to you later. See you.

You can buy the ebook from��.

You can also buy it in print from����and support indie bookstores.

PS: There is SO much I did��not��mention in this review. It has various themes and layers of backstory. Plus the writing is exquisite.

The post appeared first on .

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe features another story from .

This episode comes to you ad-free. Relatively. 🙂

The following is an unedited AI-generated transcript. Does an awesome job, huh? 🙂

(00:00:12):
Hi, everyone.

(00:00:14):
This is The Crime Café, your podcasting source of great crime suspense and thriller writing.

(00:00:20):
I’m your host, Debbi Mack.

(00:00:22):
Before I bring on my guest,

(00:00:23):
I’ll just remind you that The Crime Café has two e-books for sale,

(00:00:28):
the nine-book box set and the short story anthology.

(00:00:31):
You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbiemack.com, under the Crime Café link.

(00:00:38):
If you’d like to

(00:00:39):
You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a .

(00:00:45):
You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on ,

(00:00:49):
along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

(00:00:53):
Unfortunately, our scheduled guest was unable to make it this week.

(00:00:58):
However,

(00:00:58):
I have instead another episode from the files of Philip Marlowe,

(00:01:02):
Private Eye,

(00:01:04):
Daring Young Dame on the Flying Trapeze.

(00:01:06):
Enjoy!

(00:01:11):
For the safety of your smile, use Pepsodent twice a day, see your dentist twice a year.

(00:01:27):
Lever Brothers Company presents the Pepsodent program,

(00:01:30):
The Adventures of Philip Marlowe,

(00:01:32):
starring Van Heflin.

(00:01:40):
Pepsodent presents Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s famous private detective.

(00:01:45):
You’ve seen him on the screen in Lady and the Lake,

(00:01:47):
Murder,

(00:01:47):
My Sweet,

(00:01:48):
The Brasher Doubloon,

(00:01:49):
and The Big Sleep.

(00:01:50):
Now Pepsodent brings you the adventures of Philip Marlowe on the air and starring

(00:01:55):
MGM’s brilliant and dynamic young actor,

(00:01:57):
Van Heflin.

(00:01:59):
Pepsodent

(00:02:15):
There comes a certain time in the year when I don’t want to see midget auto races.

(00:02:19):
I just want to see midgets.

(00:02:21):
When I prefer sawdust to stardust, and popcorn to all other kinds of corn available in Hollywood.

(00:02:28):
The circus was moving in on the grounds at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street,

(00:02:32):
and I was turning in my usual fine job as sidewalk supervisor.

(00:02:37):
It was exciting.

(00:02:38):
It brought back all the sounds and sensations and convictions of childhood.

(00:02:43):
And then someone had me firmly by the wrist,

(00:02:45):
and I turned to look into a pair of steady,

(00:02:47):
smoky,

(00:02:48):
dark eyes that could be dangerous.

(00:02:51):
Excuse me, sir, but you are a private detective?

(00:02:54):
I’m a detective, but I don’t get much privacy.

(00:02:57):
Yeah, my name is Ralph Tassinari.

(00:03:00):
Who told you I was a detective?

(00:03:01):
My feet aren’t that flat.

(00:03:03):
Do you know a gentleman named Al Sicanolfi?

(00:03:06):
Well, I know an Al Sicanolfi.

(00:03:08):
He pointed you out.

(00:03:09):
He asked me what was the big idea.

(00:03:11):
What was my angle hiring a private detective?

(00:03:13):
He gave me an idea.

(00:03:14):
When has Al Sicanolfi had any ideas to spare?

(00:03:17):
Mr. Marlowe, besides owning one-third of this very fine little circus, I am Tassinari.

(00:03:23):
Of Tassinari, the Swede, and Glorian.

(00:03:26):
Trafisto.

(00:03:27):
The most brilliant aerial act in the business.

(00:03:29):
I own this circus with Glorian and the Swede.

(00:03:32):
Well, where does Al Sicanolfi fit in here?

(00:03:34):
Now, the Swede gets drunk and gambles fantastic sums of money.

(00:03:38):
This circus is worth a quarter of a million dollars.

(00:03:40):
Already, the Swede has gambled away much more than his third of the circus.

(00:03:44):
And a partner may sell out his other partners without even consulting them.

(00:03:48):
Oh, you’re afraid the Swede will sell you out to pay for his debts.

(00:03:50):
Yeah, and if he did that, I should not hesitate to�� Uh-oh, watch yourself.

(00:03:58):
Uh, I’ll take it off.

(00:04:00):
It has made it plain that the gamblers expect payment immediately.

(00:04:04):
Would you consider giving us your protection during the three days we’re going to be here?

(00:04:09):
$25 a day in expenses.

(00:04:10):
That’s the nut.

(00:04:12):
Cheap enough.

(00:04:13):
I know, but you see, I’m a sucker for circuses.

(00:04:28):
Yeah?

(00:04:28):
Is this the office of Philip Marlowe?

(00:04:30):
Better still, this is Philip Marlowe.

(00:04:34):
Didn’t he?

(00:04:35):
Go ahead.

(00:04:35):
This is his partner, Glorianne.

(00:04:37):
I’m in a downtown bar with a Swede, and he’s terribly drunk.

(00:04:40):
I know this isn’t your job, but won’t you come down and help me get him sobered up for the night?

(00:04:45):
Please?

(00:04:46):
All right.

(00:04:47):
Mother Marlowe will be right down.

(00:04:48):
I found the Main Street bar where Glorianne said I’d find her and the Swede.

(00:05:01):
The Swede was potted like Grandma’s begonia.

(00:05:04):
And with the help of the bartender and four professional loafers, we got him into my car.

(00:05:09):
I told Gloria to drive.

(00:05:10):
Ah, ah, lay me alone, will you?

(00:05:12):
I’m all right.

(00:05:13):
Well, just take it easy.

(00:05:14):
Where shall I drive, Mr. Marlowe?

(00:05:15):
Jordan Street Receiving Hospital.

(00:05:17):
I’ll stay back here and wrestle the Swede for the championship.

(00:05:20):
I just left him alone for an hour to do some shopping.

(00:05:25):
I’m telling you something, honey girl.

(00:05:27):
That Tesson there, he makes any more passes at you, I’ll beat him brainless.

(00:05:31):
Oh, please don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:05:34):
He thinks everyone at this circus is in love with me.

(00:05:36):
Okay, now back in your seat, Roger.

(00:05:37):
Yeah, yeah, and that flip doctor, too.

(00:05:39):
Oh, be still.

(00:05:40):
I’m telling you something, honey girl.

(00:05:42):
One of these days,

(00:05:43):
I’m going to get absent-minded on that trapeze,

(00:05:46):
and I’m not going to catch you,

(00:05:47):
friend Tassinari.

(00:05:48):
How’s that, huh?

(00:05:49):
Don’t listen to him, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:05:50):
Well, then tell muscles to let go of my ear.

(00:05:53):
Yeah, perfect crime.

(00:05:56):
Who’d know it was an accident or not?

(00:05:58):
And then I’d own half a circus instead of just a third.

(00:06:02):
Please, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:06:02):
He’s drunk.

(00:06:03):
Yeah, but drunk or sober, you’ve got one doozy of an idea there.

(00:06:06):
Drunk or sober.

(00:06:07):
Hey, my wrist.

(00:06:08):
Watch that.

(00:06:14):
I knew some interns at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital who obliged with some oxygen and a mask.

(00:06:21):
A half hour of breathing that oxygen deeply in the Swede was stone cold sober and back in my car again.

(00:06:26):
He was making certain cagey explanations.

(00:06:31):
Uh, Marlowe, you don’t want to take that stuff I was mumbling about seriously, you know, I��

(00:06:37):
I was drunk.

(00:06:38):
You certainly were.

(00:06:39):
After all, Gloria Ann’s my wife.

(00:06:41):
Oh?

(00:06:42):
Naturally, I don’t like other guys giving her the eye.

(00:06:45):
But that screwy talk about me dropping Tassinari accidentally on purpose.

(00:06:49):
Oh, forget it.

(00:06:50):
Oh, no.

(00:06:51):
Yeah, the perfect crime.

(00:06:53):
I was only talking, Marlowe.

(00:06:55):
I wouldn’t do that to Tassinari.

(00:06:56):
Of course not.

(00:06:57):
He’d be all broken up about it, wouldn’t he?

(00:07:07):
I sat in a field box that evening at this small, neat circus unwound toward the big act.

(00:07:13):
And the big moment arrived with butterflies warming up in my stomach and a pulse

(00:07:19):
thumping madly in my neck.

(00:07:41):
on the high trapeze.

(00:07:46):
Ladies and gentlemen,

(00:07:49):
the living and justifying Passaneri and the Swede came bounding into the arena and

(00:08:00):
over to the two spidery ladders that zoomed up into the very peak of the big tent.

(00:08:04):
Up there where it was hot, high, and dangerous.

(00:08:07):
Two magnificently made men climbing that slim ladder.

(00:08:11):
Their brilliant capes flowing behind them, going up higher, smaller, higher.

(00:08:16):
And then�� They were on their tiny platforms, removing their capes grandiosely.

(00:08:21):
And they turned, faced each other across the void like divers.

(00:08:25):
Not a voice, not a breath, not a sound.

(00:08:28):
I began to perspire.

(00:08:31):
The net was being gathered back��

(00:08:36):
Then suddenly,

(00:08:37):
Passaneri raised his right arm and smiled,

(00:08:40):
dropped his arm,

(00:08:41):
and the Swedes shot out into space like a comet,

(00:08:43):
and the gay,

(00:08:44):
waltzing,

(00:08:45):
somehow insane music began.

(00:08:47):
The End

(00:08:57):
It was all the announcer said, at least to me.

(00:08:59):
Daring and terrifying.

(00:09:01):
Whirl and spin and contact.

(00:09:04):
Swing, swing, swing and spin.

(00:09:08):
Spinning and whirling, contact and break.

(00:09:11):
Hands locked to rosined hands, contact and break.

(00:09:14):
Spin, whirl, cartwheel and contact.

(00:09:18):
Swing, swing, swing, and leap.

(00:09:22):
Split second timing and the split second split again,

(00:09:25):
with crappies bars flying into place where and when they were needed.

(00:09:28):
I left away my head drumming and swimming.

(00:09:32):
And I looked up again.

(00:09:33):
I looked up and the thing that had been tying my stomach in cold hard knots,

(00:09:37):
the thing I was afraid of,

(00:09:38):
happened.

(00:09:39):
Look out!

(00:09:49):
The music played a gay tune.

(00:09:51):
The clowns poured into the arena, grinning happily.

(00:09:54):
I saw the youngish, handsome doctor race across the sawdust, followed by Gloria.

(00:09:59):
Across the arena, I saw Al Sicanolfi get up and disappear into the crowd.

(00:10:04):
I went out, too.

(00:10:11):
Outside, I managed to get a shaking match to a quaking cigarette.

(00:10:17):
In my mind, I heard again and again the drunken voice of the flying Swede come back to me.

(00:10:23):
One of these days,

(00:10:24):
I’m going to get abso-minded on that trapeze,

(00:10:26):
and I’m not going to catch your friend,

(00:10:28):
Tassinari.

(00:10:29):
How’s that, huh?

(00:10:30):
Only it was all wrong.

(00:10:31):
It didn’t add up.

(00:10:33):
Because the body that had plummeted to the ground hadn’t been the body of Ralph Tassinari.

(00:10:38):
but of the man who had plotted the perfect crime, Gloriana’s husband, the flying Swede.

(00:10:51):
Mother.

(00:10:52):
What?

(00:10:52):
Oh.

(00:10:53):
Oh.

(00:10:56):
You were in there?

(00:10:57):
Yes, I saw it, Gloria.

(00:10:59):
I think I could kill Ralph for this.

(00:11:02):
You think Tassinari dropped your husband purposely?

(00:11:04):
What do you think?

(00:11:06):
Look, Lorraine, I took this job, you know why.

(00:11:10):
Well, all this reminded me of myself when I was a kid reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and believing.

(00:11:15):
Well, I still believe in him.

(00:11:17):
I felt the same way about the circus.

(00:11:20):
The last childish illusions.

(00:11:21):
The man holds on to you so he doesn’t get too hard.

(00:11:24):
You’re not tough at all, are you?

(00:11:27):
I was going to like this job, and then this happened.

(00:11:31):
Do you know what I’m talking about?

(00:11:33):
Yes, sir.

(00:11:34):
I’m sorry we failed.

(00:11:38):
Look, Lorraine, the Swede is dead and you think Tassinari killed him, but it’s the perfect crime.

(00:11:42):
You can’t prove anything.

(00:11:44):
Look,

(00:11:44):
maybe I didn’t love the Swede very much,

(00:11:46):
but he was my husband and on the square��

(00:11:48):
Did you love Tassinari?

(00:11:49):
If I did, it’s all over now.

(00:11:51):
I’m going to prove to everybody in circus business at least that he killed my husband.

(00:11:54):
Yeah, well, how?

(00:11:56):
You’ll see, little boy.

(00:11:57):
Good night.

(00:11:59):
Good night.

(00:12:06):
I watched her go back into the big tent,

(00:12:09):
and then I drove home and dreamed all night of Al Saganolfi smiling his yellow

(00:12:13):
smile and disappearing into the crowd.

(00:12:17):
I got up late and went down for coffee in a newspaper.

(00:12:20):
The story was there on page one.

(00:12:22):
Also,

(00:12:23):
a silky,

(00:12:23):
leggy picture of Gloriana beneath it,

(00:12:25):
the caption reading,

(00:12:27):
Show must go on,

(00:12:28):
dares high trapeze in the passenary after mate falls to death.

(00:12:33):
I looked at my watch.

(00:12:33):
It was late, later than I thought.

(00:12:36):
For the daring young dame on the flying trapeze, it was almost too late.

(00:12:50):
You are listening to The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, starring Van Heflin.

(00:12:55):
Yes, families all over America have named their favorite toothpaste.

(00:12:58):
New Pepsodent with invigorating irium foam.

(00:13:02):
New, fresh-tasting Pepsodent with the new, cool, minty flavors.

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It’s the three-to-one favorite over all other toothpastes in recent home tests.

(00:13:11):
So why not have your family try New Peptidon, the only toothpaste containing irium?

(00:13:17):
Get it without delay.

(00:13:26):
We continue with the adventures of Philip Marlowe,

(00:13:28):
created by Raymond Chandler and starring Van Heflin,

(00:13:31):
who appears by arrangement with Metro-Golden-Mare.

(00:13:34):
Producers of The Hucksters, starring Clark Gable.

But first, let me remind you that the podcast offers membership benefits on .

Check out today. After you buy your toothpaste.

(00:13:47):
The Lion Act was going on when I arrived at the circus grounds and practically ran to Gloria Ann’s tent.

(00:13:53):
She was in her tights and cloak ready to go on.

(00:13:56):
Look, Gloria Ann, you’re kidding.

(00:13:58):
This is a gag.

(00:13:59):
You’re not going up there.

(00:14:00):
One minute, little boy.

(00:14:01):
Well, you’re out of your mind.

(00:14:02):
I’m going up with Pastor Nari to prove you to killed a thief.

(00:14:05):
You add that up.

(00:14:06):
My arms are full of bundles.

(00:14:07):
Pastor Nari agreed to go up with me.

(00:14:10):
Why?

(00:14:11):
Why aren’t his nerves shattered after yesterday?

(00:14:13):
Because he knows he didn’t make a mistake yesterday.

(00:14:16):
He knows he dropped my husband purposely.

(00:14:17):
And not because his timing or reactions were wrong.

(00:14:20):
Do I make sense?

(00:14:22):
Up to a point.

(00:14:23):
You’re thinking he may drop me.

(00:14:25):
And I wouldn’t like that.

(00:14:27):
He won’t drop me.

(00:14:28):
What makes you so sure?

(00:14:29):
Because Tosinari loves me.

(00:14:32):
He wants me.

(00:14:33):
Does that make sense?

(00:14:35):
Yeah.

(00:14:36):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

(00:14:39):
Well, go to it, little girl.

(00:14:50):
I watched Glorianne so small and slim and fragile as she went up that thin ladder.

(00:14:55):
My throat swelled tight and the butterflies took off in my stomach again.

(00:15:02):
She was on the platform, removing her silk cape, folding it carefully over the rail.

(00:15:06):
They were facing each other, smiling.

(00:15:09):
Smiling.

(00:15:11):
Dead, sultry silence.

(00:15:13):
�ճ�����

(00:15:25):
For minutes, I sat there, petrified, watching her cold sweat channel down my back.

(00:15:32):
For ten minutes, I stopped breathing.

(00:15:34):
I died.

(00:15:36):
Once, only once, I had to close my eyes.

(00:15:38):
And in that second, I heard the crowd roar.

(00:15:46):
Everyone was standing up, screaming and goggle-eyed.

(00:15:49):
I groped to my feet, and there she was.

(00:15:53):
Bowing and laughing and throwing kisses into the crowd and at Tassinari and at me.

(00:15:58):
Then she pirouetted and ran up the ramp to her dressing tent.

(00:16:05):
I got there with Tassinari.

(00:16:06):
Her eyes warmed for me and then froze again for Tassinari.

(00:16:11):
Come in, little boy.

(00:16:12):
And you, Tassinari.

(00:16:15):
Tassinari?

(00:16:16):
Ralph also is a name I bear.

(00:16:18):
Today I talk to Tassinari.

(00:16:20):
Now I want Mr. Moller to hear what I have to say to you.

(00:16:23):
Which is first that I’m through with you.

(00:16:25):
Corianne, not because of the accident.

(00:16:28):
Yes, but because it was not an accident.

(00:16:32):
You don’t believe that?

(00:16:33):
May I suggest that maybe Al Sicanolfi has a meaty part in this picture?

(00:16:37):
No.

(00:16:38):
Hasanari here killed a Swede.

(00:16:40):
Corianne, that’s not true.

(00:16:41):
Dr. Stowe seems to think as I do.

(00:16:44):
Ah, yes, Dr. Stowe.

(00:16:46):
I did pass your tent last night after the accident.

(00:16:49):
Accident?

(00:16:50):
I heard you and the kaffite unsuccessful doctor speaking together, oh, so intimately.

(00:16:55):
Bear your insult, Hasanari.

(00:16:57):
Speaking together, deciding conveniently, perhaps, that I’d kill a Swede.

(00:17:02):
Richard never accused you.

(00:17:03):
He only said that�� Oh, he’s the one, eh?

(00:17:05):
Richard.

(00:17:07):
Get out.

(00:17:07):
If I wanted to murder a man, it would be easy to take my gun from my trunk and shoot him.

(00:17:12):
Yeah, but that wouldn’t be the perfect crime.

(00:17:14):
Why should I want to kill the Swede?

(00:17:16):
Because he might have sold you out to pay his debts.

(00:17:20):
Because you’d get half of his share of the circus.

(00:17:24):
Because you were in love with his wife.

(00:17:28):
I see.

(00:17:31):
You think you have a case, huh?

(00:17:33):
I hope not.

(00:17:34):
Florianne knows what I mean.

(00:17:35):
Only perhaps Tosinaya better go now.

(00:17:38):
Yeah.

(00:17:40):
Yeah.

(00:17:42):
I’m very sorry, Florianne.

(00:17:45):
For all of us.

(00:17:48):
Good day.

(00:17:50):
Good day, Miss Tamaro.

(00:17:57):
He padded out softly like a panther, resentment and hatred smoldering in his eyes.

(00:18:03):
That was horrible, little boy.

(00:18:07):
I’d better lie down now.

(00:18:09):
I left wondering if there’d be a show that night, tradition or no tradition.

(00:18:14):
I walked for a half an hour and then a police squad car came screaming down

(00:18:18):
Washington Boulevard toward the circus grounds.

(00:18:21):
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun, but Marlowe runs in it.

(00:18:30):
I found a small colony of cops in one of the dressing tents.

(00:18:34):
The man on the cot.

(00:18:35):
had taken a lot of pulses in his time, but he didn’t have a single one to show for it, not even his own.

(00:18:42):
Good-looking, youngish Dr. Richard W. Stowe was dead.

(00:18:46):
Detective Lieutenant Ibera held out a small automatic to me.

(00:18:49):
Hello, Marlowe.

(00:18:51):
I hear you’ve been masterminding things around here lately.

(00:18:55):
Ever see this gun before?

(00:18:56):
I may have heard of it.

(00:18:58):
A man named Ralph Tassinari, connected with his show, has disappeared.

(00:19:03):
Know something about that?

(00:19:04):
He was fresh from a lover’s quarrel last I saw him.

(00:19:07):
Ah?

(00:19:08):
Well, maybe just out walking it off.

(00:19:11):
Possibly.

(00:19:12):
But the dead doctor and Tassinari both went for a pretty little trapeze queen named Gloria Ann.

(00:19:17):
Was anything stolen here?

(00:19:19):
No.

(00:19:20):
The circus hand who heard the muffled shot came running before anything could have been taken.

(00:19:24):
Well, the gal, Gloria Ann, how does she feel about this?

(00:19:28):
She’s in her tent, heavily committed to a case of hysterics.

(00:19:33):
Uh, Marlowe, divvy’s on any information you get out of her.

(00:19:45):
Look, Laurie Ann, you can’t go on like this.

(00:19:47):
Now let me get something for you.

(00:19:50):
I’ll be all right.

(00:19:51):
Just to set it, to settle your nerves.

(00:19:54):
Oh, no, we never take that thing.

(00:19:56):
It’s bad for going up on a trap.

(00:19:59):
No.

(00:20:00):
No, I’ll sleep.

(00:20:02):
That’s the best thing.

(00:20:04):
Sleep.

(00:20:06):
You can’t go up there tonight.

(00:20:07):
Anyway, Tassinari’s missing.

(00:20:10):
I’ll go see what I can find for you.

(00:20:21):
I rummaged through Dr. Stowe’s medical bag while Ibera watched from across the tent

(00:20:26):
I found a small black book.

(00:20:28):
I leafed through it with my hand still hidden in the bag.

(00:20:32):
It was a small case history book with sketchy data about his cases,

(00:20:37):
the treatment given,

(00:20:38):
the medication prescribed.

(00:20:41):
I very quietly tore out the last page,

(00:20:44):
palmed it,

(00:20:44):
and slipped it in my pocket as I creaked to an approximate upright position.

(00:20:48):
Find anything to quiet the little woman, Myron?

(00:20:51):
No, not a thing, Lieutenant, not a thing.

(00:20:54):
I’ll try a drugstore.

(00:21:02):
Tablets of cyclodome, grains one and a half.

(00:21:06):
One tablet with warm water for nerves or sleep.

(00:21:09):
What is it?

(00:21:10):
It’s a common sedative, but I can’t sell you any without a prescription.

(00:21:15):
Well, can you tell me anything about those drugs?

(00:21:17):
Some, but you will find a lot more in Dr. Toral Solman’s textbook on pharmacology.

(00:21:23):
Textbook on pharmacology.

(00:21:25):
It’s only in the main library, I think, but it’s complete.

(00:21:28):
That’ll tell you all you want to know, I’m sure.

(00:21:39):
The druggist was right.

(00:21:40):
The textbook of pharmacology told me all I wanted to know.

(00:21:43):
Also, this was a very limited edition.

(00:21:48):
It was probably the only one of its kind that had on the page devoted to cyclodrome

(00:21:54):
a smudge of lipstick in the shape of a woman’s finger.

(00:22:08):
It was all and more than I wanted to know.

(00:22:11):
And all at once, I was old.

(00:22:14):
Very old.

(00:22:16):
From now on, I was going to leave illusions to high school girls and magicians.

(00:22:24):
Hello, little boy.

(00:22:28):
Back again.

(00:22:29):
I see you’re dressed for work, Lorianne.

(00:22:31):
Has the night returned?

(00:22:33):
I wouldn’t know.

(00:22:35):
But I think I do know who killed the Swede.

(00:22:37):
Tassinari.

(00:22:38):
I gravely doubt that.

(00:22:39):
Well, then who?

(00:22:41):
Not Alfred and Alfie.

(00:22:43):
Glorian,

(00:22:44):
you’re a dainty little thing,

(00:22:45):
and that’s a particular reason why you should break yourself of little unsightly habits,

(00:22:51):
like touching your fingers to your mouth to turn back pages in books.

(00:22:57):
Are you all right, little boy?

(00:22:59):
Was the Swede all right when he went up with Tassinari last night?

(00:23:04):
Or was he just slightly under the influence of a sedative drug that calms the nerves?

(00:23:08):
Yes, but slows up their reaction time.

(00:23:12):
I don’t understand such matters.

(00:23:14):
You admitted to me today that it isn’t wise to take such sedatives before your act.

(00:23:19):
But you did get a prescription for such tablets from Dr. Stowe and you said nothing about them.

(00:23:23):
Well, I was upset after the Swede was killed.

(00:23:25):
I needed something.

(00:23:26):
But according to Dr. Stowe’s case book, you got the tablets before the Swede was killed.

(00:23:31):
And you left him at the bar for an hour yesterday while you did a little medical

(00:23:35):
research at the main library.

(00:23:37):
And that night, the Swede split second time.

(00:23:40):
He didn’t quite split, did he?

(00:23:43):
Of course you weren’t afraid to go up with Tassinari today.

(00:23:48):
He didn’t miss the Swede.

(00:23:49):
The Swede missed him.

(00:23:50):
I hated him.

(00:23:54):
You didn’t want him.

(00:23:56):
You just wanted the circus, all of it.

(00:23:58):
So you killed the Swede with his own perfect crime.

(00:24:01):
Only it was too perfect.

(00:24:03):
You couldn’t pin the murder on Tassinari.

(00:24:06):
You had to think of something more down to earth.

(00:24:10):
Go on, little boy.

(00:24:11):
Make Gloria Ann proud of you.

(00:24:14):
Dr. Stowe knew that you hated your husband.

(00:24:17):
He knew that you had those tablets.

(00:24:18):
He knew that the Swede didn’t make mistakes.

(00:24:22):
Last night when Tassinari heard you and Stowe whispering together,

(00:24:25):
Stowe was telling you what he suspected,

(00:24:27):
wasn’t he?

(00:24:28):
He was a doctor and he is furious at the thought of being used in a murder.

(00:24:31):
You’re raising your voice.

(00:24:33):
You look certain.

(00:24:33):
No.

(00:24:35):
Well, if you didn’t shut up the doctor, he’d talk.

(00:24:37):
So you shot him with Tassinari’s gun after staging a very nice row with Tassinari in front of me.

(00:24:43):
That would pin it on Tassinari.

(00:24:46):
You let Stowe take you in his arms to muffle the shop.

(00:24:50):
That was particularly pretty.

(00:24:53):
No, little boy.

(00:24:54):
It was not.

(00:24:56):
No, it was not.

(00:24:59):
Little boy, you’ve had a busy day.

(00:25:04):
Well, it’s time that I grew up anyway.

(00:25:07):
That’s for my act.

(00:25:08):
Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Harry and Gloria.

(00:25:16):
And Gloria.

(00:25:17):
And Gloria.

(00:25:18):
I’ve sent for the police, Gloria, and they’ll be here pretty soon.

(00:25:21):
Little boy!

(00:25:22):
Asanay is there.

(00:25:24):
He’s waiting in the runway across the arena.

(00:25:26):
He came back!

(00:25:27):
He doesn’t even know he’s wanted, probably.

(00:25:29):
Oh, little boy, I have let you down.

(00:25:32):
Let me make it up a little.

(00:25:34):
Let me go out there.

(00:25:35):
Will you come down again?

(00:25:37):
Yes, of course.

(00:25:38):
By the ladder, I mean.

(00:25:39):
I won’t let you down again, little boy.

(00:25:41):
I promise it.

(00:25:42):
We circus people won’t disappoint you again.

(00:25:45):
Please.

(00:25:46):
They’re waiting.

(00:25:48):
Well, the show must go on, mustn’t it?

(00:25:51):
All right, go ahead, lady.

(00:25:52):
They’re waiting.

(00:25:56):
She ran out laughing, throwing kisses, and I walked out after her.

(00:26:01):
Stood in the runway watching.

(00:26:02):
I watched the small, delicate figure going up the ladder.

(00:26:06):
Then she was at the platform.

(00:26:08):
Rosin on shoes, rosin on the hands and wrists.

(00:26:12):
And sultry silence, not a voice.

(00:26:20):
raising her hand in a gesture of exquisite grace and sureness and smiling and pessimism.

(00:26:26):
Smiling.

(00:26:28):
And there it was.

(00:26:29):
This was it.

(00:26:31):
There.

(00:26:41):
Ghostly packs of small fry from my school days gaped up with me and shivered with kid delight.

(00:26:48):
I was a kid again, walking up at the circus guy and the circus lady.

(00:26:53):
The daring young dame on the flying trapeze, Passaneri and Glorianne.

(00:26:58):
Or positively, the last performance anywhere on earth.

(00:27:13):
You have just heard Van Heflin starring in the new mystery series,

(00:27:17):
Raymond Chandler’s The Adventures of Philip Marlowe,

(00:27:19):
brought to you by the Lever Brothers Company,

(00:27:21):
makers of Pepsodent.

(00:27:23):
Van Heflin will return in just a moment.

(00:27:26):
Now, here is Van Heflin, star of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.

(00:27:29):
King Leopardi had the hottest trumpet and the coldest eye in show business,

(00:27:35):
and he loved yellow silk,

(00:27:36):
so they called him the King in Yellow.

(00:27:39):
We consider his short,

(00:27:40):
eventful life next week when,

(00:27:42):
as Philip Marlowe,

(00:27:43):
I have some business with the King in Yellow.

(00:27:51):
Tonight’s story was written by Milton Geiger,

(00:27:53):
based on the character of Philip Marlowe,

(00:27:55):
the screen’s most famous private detective,

(00:27:57):
created by Raymond Chandler.

(00:27:59):
Heard with Van Heflin tonight as Glory Ann was Lorene Tuttle.

(00:28:03):
The original music was composed and conducted by Lynn Murray.

(00:28:06):
This is Wendell Niles inviting you to listen again next week at this same time to

(00:28:10):
another exciting mystery on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe,

(00:28:13):
starring Van Heflin with a distinguished cast.

(00:28:17):
This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.

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