The Amazing Mr. Rifkin

“Shepard Rifkin, who turns 90 this year, is not famous – but he's led one of the most interesting lives of any author I know,” says Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime. “During World War II, he survived being torpedoed in the North Atlantic; after the war ended, he joined the crew of the famous S.S. Ben Hecht” -- the sister ship of the Charles MacArthur? -- “which was captured while trying to run the British blockade of Palestine...”

As a birthday present, Hard Case is rescuing from out-of-print limbo what could well be Rifkin's best mystery. The Murderer Vine is about the killing of three young Civil Rights workers in Mississippi, and the father of one of them who hires a New York private eye to find the men responsible -- and not come home until they are dead.

Happy 90th, Mr. Rifkin. Keep writing.

The Dick Is 167 Today

According to the Writer’s Almanac, the first detective story met the world on April 20, 1841 with the publication of a story by the esteemed Mr. Poe:

In 1841, on this day, the first detective story was published. In his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” published in Graham’s Magazine, Edgar Allan Poe created mystery’s first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The story introduced many of the elements of mysteries that are still popular today: the genius detective, the not-so-smart sidekick, the plodding policeman and the use of the red herring to lead readers off the track.

Ma! They're At It Again!

The Sons of Suicide, survivors of the late Suicide Club of Farmers Market infame ("How come you guys never spend any money but take up a table for hours?") are at it again, coagulating at my favorite book store, Mysteries To Die For in Thousand Oaks, CA (about 50 miles from L.A.) at 11:30 on May 10th to help sell John Shannon's The Devils of Bakersfield. Crime fiction lovers in general and Shannon enthusiasts (how could you not be?) in particular are welcome to join us at MTDF, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd. Bring your wallet; they have lots of pens for signing.

Here's John, just north of Dick Lochte.


(photograph by DAN ADLER)

Coming to Blows in the Windy City

There's a new no-nonsense female private detective in Chicago: Georgia Davis, a former cop who is tough and smart enough to give even the legendary V.I. Warshawski a run for her money. And Warshawski creator Sara Paretsky provides Libby Fischer Hellmann, her colleague from the blog The Outfit, with a gracious nod in the jacket copy for Hellmann's new book, Easy Innocence.

Hellmann, who put together Chicago Blues, a wonderfully evocative anthology of mystery stories, also writes a series about video producer and single mother Ellie Foreman (who we learn was involved in the case that led to Davis' suspension). Davis is something else again: deeply moral in the best way, grittier, more noir, a throwback to the best of Dashiell Hammett.

Hellmann knows how to distill the essence of a character in a few unadorned but dead-right sentences. "If anything was wrong with him, his wife Joyce, a strong plain-speaking woman with so much energy she could power the lights at Wrigley Field by herself, would be all over him with a list of remedies she'd discovered on the Internet," she says of a former police mentor who gets Davis her first decent private case.

A beautiful, smart junior at Newfield School in Winnetka ("considered one of the most prestigious public schools in the country, but it was a place that mirrored both the best and the worst of teenage life") is murdered in a park. She is involved in a nasty hazing incident by a group of senior girls who cover her head with a bucket filled with fish guts and leave her. A mentally troubled man sees the incident and hears her cries for help, but before he can get to her someone else beats her to death with a baseball bat. The police find the man, a registered sex offender, nearby with the bat in his hand and the girl's blood on his shirt.

But some people - the man's caregiver sister, Davis' police friend and soon Davis herself, hired by the sister - doubt his guilt. Nagging questions arise: Why did police not mention the hazing incident until they were forced to acknowledge it? What pressure was brought from above to steamroll the case to trial? Could it have something to do with the fact that one of the girls involved is the daughter of the ambitious new state's attorney?

In the end, after more blood has been spilled and a chain of lies has been broken, a friend of Davis' asks:

" 'This life of yours. How can you do it day after day? Doesn't it get to you? Don't you ever want to be—normal?' "

Davis answers:

" 'Who says I'm not "normal," whatever that is?' "

All our detectives should be so normal. And all of them should have Hellmann on hand to get the message out.

Stacking the Blochs

Charles Ardai, my absolute favorite editor, says of his latest Hard Case Crime release that “no one has published a classic 'double' edition like this in many, many years.” Begging your pardon, Charles, but my own very first novel, The Mozart Code, was published by another hard case – Mary Z. Wolf of Hard Shell Word Factory, who has a line of double paperbacks confusing to many readers because of their upside-down format.

That being said, this is certainly a classic – and classy – coupling: two terrific books by Robert Bloch which have been endangered species since their original publication in the 1950s. And both have those terrific Hard Case covers which scream “Pulp!” in a loud, sexy voice. (My favorite is Arthur Suydam's art for Shooting Star, but then I've always had this thing for women in panties and garter belts.)

Bloch, of course, is the genius who wrote Psycho, which Hitchcock liked so much that he hired Bloch to write many episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Stephen King, Peter Straub and Harlan Ellison still speak highly of Bloch, who died in 1994. Thanks to Hard Case for helping to keep his memory alive.