OH, SHOOT: I have to admit that western fiction isn’t my cup of bovril. But the nice thing about having a prejudice is that you can retain the capacity for being surprised when something excellent refutes your negative expectations. The Ox-Bow Incident and Night of the Hunter, for example, are sort-of westerns that cannot fail to give pleasure. When a great storyteller goes to work, he can force you to turn pages in any genre. Edgar-winning Brian Garfield began his writing career with westerns before turning to mystery, crime, espionage, and suspense thrillers, and he has reverted with a charming big book called Wild Times (Simon & Schuster, $11.95). To prepare you for this splendid entertainment, you should know that it is a novel with the subtitle: “The True and Authentic Life of Col. Hugh Cardiff,” the famous dime-novel hero. Told from Cardiff’s point of view, the second sentence sets the tone: “I mean to set down an account... as straight as I can but you have to keep in mind that I used to have something of a reputation as a liar.”
Bloody Visions
by Chris Steinbrunner[12]
All the festive excitement in the last few months over the fiftieth birthday of Walt Disney’s beloved Mickey Mouse has tended to obscure the fact that — at least during much of his active comic-book career — Mickey was deeply involved in mystery and melodrama. His triumph over the dreaded shape known as the Phantom Blot has become a legendary metropolitan crime story, and the hulking, sinister Pegleg Pete appeared and reappeared across more than two decades (as the mouse’s nemesis, each time at the helm of some new criminal venture) to establish himself as a classic childhood villain. Now Abbeville Press presents us with a huge, pictorial volume, Walt Disney’s Best Comics: Mickey Mouse ($15.95), tracing the early years of the rodent’s newspaper-strip appearances — first in mere gag situations, writer-illustrator Fred Gottfredson informs us, but after the first few months graduating to melodrama continuity.
And what razzle-dazzle continuity it is! The very first adventure, Mickey in Death Valley (1930), involves a lost will, a lost mine, and the epitome of a Depression crooked lawyer, Sylvester Shyster. Grin-faced Mickey breathlessly rushes on to open up a private detective agency (“Hot dog! Our first case! Our first clue!”) to round up a gang of counterfeiters, saves a caliph’s sacred jewel from infidels, campaigns against machine-gun wielding gangsters with his very own big-city newspaper, unmasks a coven of seven “ghosts” spooking an old manor house, flies his own tiny plane against air pirates, and is generally up to his ears in mystery doings. A companion volume of Donald Duck strips from the forties has similar thrills. For a children’s hero Mickey is throughout surprisingly adult, always sensible in his assessment of people and situations, never-failingly cheerful, and a charmer. Now merely a bland amusement-park host and television king, we wish him one more tangle with the Phantom Blot.
A new feature film involving Sherlock Holmes is on the horizon, and from advance reports it is to be spectacular. Murder by Decree pits Holmes and Watson once more (as did A Study in Terror) against the most notorious real-life murderer of the 19th century, Jack the Ripper. The star of this Anglo-Canadian co-production filmed in London is Christopher Plummer, who was superb as the detective in the recent Learning Corporation of America half-hour adaptation of The Silver Blaze (also filmed in England, and intended for network television, but as yet unreleased). The supporting cast is first-rate as well, and quite intriguing: James Mason as Watson, David Hemmings as a police inspector, Frank Finlay as Lestrade, Anthony Quayle as the Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir John Gielgud as the Prime Minister, as well as Genevieve Bujold, Donald Sutherland, and Susan Clark in other roles. A great deal of authenticity has gone into the swirling fog and squalor of East End London, as well the more elegant corners of the city. Young director Bob Clark, known previously for zippy modern terror films, and screenwriter John Hopkins insist they have retained the flavor of the plot and the two main characters, but with a difference. “This is a passionate and caring Holmes. The key was to develop a real Holmes and Watson, with motivations that you really cared about.”
As well, comedy team Peter Cook and Dudley Moore have done a new British version of one of the world’s best-known mystery novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles — as outrageous parody. Cook is a popinjay, Fagin-accented Holmes, and Moore’s Watson is so abysmally stupid he makes Nigel Bruce’s portrayal approach Einstein level. (Moore also plays Holmes’s tyrannical mother, who insists on calling her dismayed son “Sheri.”) However, throughout this travesty the bare bone of the famous story still surfaces; Terry Thomas is a surprisingly thoughtful Dr. Mortimer, and Joan Greenwood a bewitching (in more than one way) Beryl Stapleton. The moor sets are picture-postcard good. So far no American release has been announced, but given the current popularity of both Holmes and Moore, it probably will be. Beware this Hound — it’s a dog.
Interview: Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block is one of the rare practitioners of mystery fiction who manages to successfully combine humor with crime — arguably the most difficult type of mystery story to achieve. Most recently, he has written about two series characters — burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr for his novels (he is the title character of Burglars Can’t Be Choosers and Burglar in the Closet, both Random House, $6.95) and Ehrengraf for his short stories.
EQMM: You have written a great number of books involving series characters. Why do you prefer to write about the same hero again and again?
BLOCK: Their worlds evolve as the books accumulate. If I like a character, I want to stay with him. Also it is due to a general failure of imagination. It’s easier than dreaming up a new character for each book.
EQMM: It seems as if a large proportion of your series characters are crooks, or at least work outside the law. What is your attraction to the criminal mind?
BLOCK: Well, the characters are outsiders, certainly; they have that in common. When I conceived Matt Scudder, I first decided that I’d make him a member of the police force. Then I realized that I couldn’t really be comfortable writing about somebody working within an organization. I also did a foreign intrigue type of series (seven books) about a character named Tanner who was also very much an outsider, who played a lone hand.
EQMM: Do you understand specifically what makes you return to this type of personality?
BLOCK: Beats me! I do believe it’s possible that this is my way of dealing with that aspect of myself — by writing about it. When I wrote the first “Burglar” book I was at a very low point in my career. I was living in Hollywood, I was not writing, not making any money, and trying to figure out what to do. So I considered, with a certain degree of seriousness, burglary. It had several things to be said for it, several things in common with free-lance writing: it’s equally uncertain, you set your own hours, you work alone, you avoid human contact. It was not without appeal to me. You get in and you get out. And the pay is much better, there’s less haggling. I tried picking my own lock in the hotel, to learn various techniques. It’s hard for me to know exactly how serious I was, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.