My YouTube appearances with Heath Holland at his Cereal at Midnight continue, with what I think is the best so far: a discussion of Eliot Ness on screen, kicked off by the current Blu-ray edition of The Scarface Mob from Eureka.
Also on the YouTube front, Robert Meyer Burnett, on his Robservations and Let’s Get Physical Media, continues to provide updates on his audio “movie for the ears” adaptation of my novel True Detective. It’s called True Noir: The Casebooks of Nathan Heller, and I am writing the scripts myself. I have delivered the first seven of ten of what will be a fully immersive audio presentation directed by Rob, with an incredible Hollywood cast, and will run at least five hours.
Todd Stashwick of Picard and Twelve Monkeys (and much else) makes a terrific Nate Heller. If this project resonates with the public, look for three more Heller novels to become movies for the mind, all adapted by Heller’s creator himself.
You know – me.
Paperback Warrior posted the cover of the upcoming (it’s a fall release from Hard Case Crime) Quarry’s Return. That was a post on X, which I guess is what they’re calling Twitter now. It’s from Elon Musk, who named a ship after Ms. Tree, then didn’t follow up on his people asking to license the name from Terry Beatty and me. Somehow I’m reminded of the penny-pinching kazillionaires in classic Li’l Abner by Al Capp.
But since this cover image is floating around out there, I thought I should share it, though we’re a few months away from the novel’s release. I didn’t expect to be writing another novel about Quarry in his (ahem) later years; but sequels have a way of worming into my brain as if I were a Presidential candidate and then percolating there (that’s what we writer folks call a mixed metaphor).
Now I have a notion for yet another “old Quarry” story that is wormily percolating, and we’ll see. I had thought that The Last Quarry would be the last Quarry; but then a whole slew (past tense of “slay”) of ‘em followed, filling in the blanks of his life and varied career. Then came Quarry’s Blood, which was really designed to be the last, only when it was warmly received for a book about a cold-blooded killer, I changed my mind (again). And now here’s Quarry’s Return, with Quarry again a geriatric retired hitman kicking younger ass.
It isn’t that I was planning to retire the character. I figured I might do the occasional younger Quarry novel while I am still above ground. I am never anxious to retire a character completely, in my imagination anyway. It wasn’t hard at all to bring Nolan and Jon back in Skim Deep something like forty years later. I knocked on their door and they promptly answered, not much the worse for wear.
I think the reason why I’ve stayed with my series characters is that good ones don’t come along that often. The only one I’ve really consciously retired is Mallory, because there really isn’t a premise there to generate more novels, and anyway he’s essentially me and that bores my ass off.
But I will never understand mystery and suspense writers who do a new character each and every time. Most of these scribes, well, many of them are simply hanging a new name on the old character. Also, I am too aware of how unsuccessful some incredible writers have been, trying to create a second series character. You may have noticed, if you’ve been paying very close attention, that I like Mickey Spillane – the man and his writing. But what’s your favorite Spillane series character after Mike Hammer? And Velda and Pat Chambers don’t count. (Velda could carry a novel, and some would say she carried a whole comic book series under a separate name. Hint: Ms. Tree. But can you imagine the sheer snooze factor of a Pat Chambers novel?)
So with apologies to you Tiger Mann fans, Mike Hammer can’t be created twice. Edgar Rice Burroughs came close by writing John Carter of Mars, but that character was no Tarzan (and Carson of Venus wasn’t even Carter). Going back to Mickey, his second greatest series protagonist was Morgan the Raider (The Delta Factor); but I had to finish the only other book that character generated (The Consummata) from a few chapters in Mickey’s files.
Barb, a while back (in the throes of writing an Antiques novel and enduring the suffering that process creates in my talented wife), started talking about ending that series, fed up with the difficulties of generating more stories about Vivian and Brandy Borne. I insisted that she stick with it (not that my insistence carried any particular weight) because the Borne girls are fabulous fictional creations, in my unhumble opinion. They live and breathe on the page, and act of their own volition, as all great series characters do.
Here’s the thing: Rex Stout was a genius. His Nero Wolfe books are among the most readable and re-readable novels of any kind ever written. No other two fictional characters live and breathe like Wolfe and Archie. They are as good as fiction gets in the world of the creation of mystery genre recurring characters. Holmes and Watson never breathed as fully, and before Nero and Archie, they were the top.
And yet Rex Stout’s publisher kept after him to create another series. And of course he was a smashing success with his other incredibly famous character, Tecumseh Fox. Right? Right? Okay, how about Alphabet Hicks? There’s a banger of a character! Or how about giving Inspector Cramer a mystery of his own? Or that famous female PI, Dol Bonner?
Nope. One of the few true geniuses of mystery fiction, Rex Stout, stunk up the place with these more contrived creations. So I’m of the opinion that when a mystery writer stumbles upon a character that resonates with the public, said mystery writer should give the public what they want.
Are there dangers? Yes, artistic ones. For example, what if I’d been hugely successful right out of the gate with Nolan, who was after all an homage to Don Westlake’s Parker (“homage,” as we all know, is French for “rip-off”). I might still be writing nothing but Nolan books. I’d have written, say, 40 or 50 Nolan and Jon novels…selling millions…and writing nothing else.
Writers do need to flex their talents. That’s why Robert B. Parker wrote westerns on the side and did his own unsuccessful Dol Bonner-type female private eye novel. So it’s risky, sticking with one series. I do think, with the Antiques books, you have two interacting characters – like Archie and Wolfe – who provide a kind of engine for the story beyond the plot machinations.
Mickey wrote about Mike Hammer throughout his sporadic career. Early on he came to feel he’d characterized Hammer so fully, there wasn’t anything else to say. He compensated by writing Tiger Mann and some standalones, though he drifted back to what was essentially the same protagonist under various names. What kept him artistically sane (not a word used much in relation to Mike Hammer, I grant you) was his decision to make Hammer always reflect where he, Mickey Spillane, was in his life. He allowed Hammer to grow somewhat older (not realistically so, but older) and to allow this indomitable character to have frailties – Hammer went on a seven-year drunk; he was, in several novels (including some I completed) recovering from wounds or otherwise physically impaired. This reflected Spillane’s own advancing years, and the on-and-off nature of his writing career.
Look, every mystery writer – every writer – has to do this his or her own way. I am only suggesting that for me it’s been an interesting, rewarding ride, following my characters through their advancing years (and mine). That was true of Nate Heller in the current Too Many Bullets. It was true of Nolan and Jon in Skim Deep. And Quarry in Quarry’s Blood and Quarry’s Return. And if I ever return to Ms. Tree, you can bet your ass she’ll be in menopause.
Speaking of Ms. Tree, Terry and I are working on the sixth and final Titan volume of the collected Ms. Tree, which gathers almost everything he and I did with the character and her supporting cast (no The P.I.s, though). She had an impressive dozen-year comics run (1981 – 1993) and represents one of the most gratifying collaborations I’ve ever enjoyed. Terry Beatty and I, I am glad to say, will always be thought of by many comics fans as a team.
Right now Terry is working on helping put together (much as he has on the Titan volumes of collected Ms. Tree) our Dark Horse Johnny Dynamite graphic novel, Underworld, in an improved publication that will happen later this year.
It’s an enduring frustration to me that we both worked on Batman but never together. And that we both did syndicated comic strips (Dick Tracy and Rex Morgan respectively), but not as a team. He’s still doing Rex Morgan, but he doesn’t need me – he writes it himself. I like to think he had a good teacher.
As for Dick Tracy, the VCI Blu-ray collection of the four RKO Tracy feature films – with two new commentaries by me and lots of bonus features – will be out in early August.
Getting back to Ms. Tree, here’s Comic Book Treasury’s best crime comics write-up (it invokes Road to Perdition, but lists Ms. Tree).
And speaking of Collins/Beatty, here’s a look at Wild Dog at Tvtropes. It says: “The series was writted by Max Allan Collins with art by Terry Beatty.” I don’t know who “writted” this otherwise nice piece.
M.A.C.
