Friday, July 16: Bandersnatches
KILL YOUR DARLINGS
by Steven Steinbock
Last night I finished reading Max Allan Collins’s 1984 novel Kill Your Darlings. I enjoyed the book thoroughly and found it unique in several respects. To my knowledge, it’s the only novel in which EQMM book reviewer (and frequent Criminal Brief visitor) Jon Breen appears as a character. For another thing, the entire book is set at Bouchercon. The real-life 1984 Bouchercon was set in Chicago, and that’s where the one in the book takes place. But fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no one was murdered in the real one.
The hero of Kill Your Darlings is Mallory, the crime-solving mystery writer who has appeared in five of Al Collins’s books. Aside from Breen (who received the “Best Short Story” award in the book – did you get it in real life, Jon?) most of the character that are based on real people are given mash-up and made-up names. One character, named for Collins’s friend and mystery great Ed Gorman, is called Gregg Gorman (and he’s not a very nice character).
Other thinly veiled character who appear in Kill Your Darlings include Bill DeAngelo (the late great Bill DeAndrea), and Tom Sardini (who I assume is supposed to be Bill Pronzini. Pronzini is mentioned by name in the book also, but doesn’t actually appear in the book). More deeply veiled is short story writer R. Edward Porter (get it? “REPorter”?) who I surmise must be Ed Hoch.
One passage made me laugh out loud, not because it was supposed to be funny, but because it illustrated how much things have changed since 1984. On page 90, Mallory is browsing the Dealers Room and comments that some high-end first editions are selling anywhere from $40 to $100. Oh, those were the days.
Mallory, and his creator Al Collins, can be pretty dismissive of traditional mysteries, which I think is unfortunate. Collins is well known for his outspoken admiration of Mickey Spillane and similar macho PI writers. But there are a lot of good contemporary mystery writers – Jon Breen, Robert Lopresti, and Martin Edwards all come to mind – who have proven that one can write a traditionally plotted mystery and still be masculine.
Great review, Steve. I’ve always missed Mallory. If I ever unpack my books, I’m going to have to reread the series. On a related note, have you read Isaac Asimov’s Murder at the ABA? Asimov’s main character is a based on Harlan Ellison.
Really appreciate the nice review, but I am anything but dismissive of traditional mysteries. In my “disaster” series for Prime Crime, I wrote mystery novels in which Agatha Christie, S.S. Van Dine and Jacques Futrelle were the respective detectives (LONDON BLITZ MURDERS, LUSITANIA MURDERS, TITANIC MURDERS). Not long ago I did two Rex Stout-style mysteries, set in the world of comic books and strips — A KILLING IN COMICS and STRIP FOR MURDER. And I write a series of cozy mysteries with my wife Barb as “Barbara Allan,” the fourth of which just came out (ANTIQUES BIZARRE) and the third of which (ANTIQUES FLEE MARKET) won the Romantic Times award last year for best humorous mysteries.
Sardini was based on Bob Randisi.
Thanks again, but lumping in as a strictly macho crime writer was out of date even when I was doing the Mallorys…which are traditional mysteries themselves.
In a somewhat similar vein, Paul Jeffers’ Corpus Corpus takes place at a Wolfepack gathering, though I don’t know that there’s a real author as the source of a character. Fun read for Nero Wolfe fans.
Al, sorry for the mischaracterization vis traditional mysteries. I might have been more on track had I said that Mallory dismissive of parlor mysteries. (When I made my original comment, I was thinking of an debate I remember between you and Marv Lachman when Marv was unfairly dismissive of Spillane).
Damn, I should have picked up the Randisi-Sardini thing. Like the Sardini in the book, Pronzini is a serious collector, which is why I made the wrong connection.
Bob, your comment reminds me of another mystery set at a mystery event: The Shattered Raven by Ed Hoch. The setting is the Edgars.
A funny connection between the Collins book and Ed’s book: one of the nasty characters in Kill Your Darlings is known for publishing books without paying authors. In real life, one of the paperback editions of The Shattered Raven was unauthorized, published without Ed’s knowledge or compensation. (I think the Lancer was authorized and the Magnum edition was not but I may have it backwards).
As Neal mentioned in the first comment, Asimov wrote Murder at the ABA, a mystery set at the American Booksellers Association conference. (The ABA conference evolved into BookExpo America – BEA – which the ABA participates in but no longer runs. It happens each spring in NY – although I attended one in Chicago a decade ago – and it is an overwhelming orgy of books. Too much even for me).
Alas, no, Steve, my best-short-story Shamus Award was strictly imaginary, though I’m still grateful for it. I would have jumped in to defend Al Collins against the charge of being anti-traditional, but he beat me to it. He’s done some of the best formal puzzles in recent memory, especially in the comics series, which even include (in comic-strip form by illustrator Terry Beatty) a challenge to the reader a la EQ. On the Hoch question, the Lancer was the first edition, so the unauthorized one must have been the Magnum, as you surmise. By now the list of mysteries based at Bouchercons, MWA dinners, and other mystery gatherings must be fairly long. One of the best was John Harvey’s LIVING PROOF, set at a Shots in the Dark festival in England and including a terrific pastiche of female private-eye writing.
Jon modestly fails to mention that his two Edgars for Best Critical/Biographical Work are quite real.
Before Sharyn McCrumb eschewed the distasteful (to her, at least) characterization of being a mystery novelist (her website says: “Although she is a serious novelist, and not a mystery writer, McCrumb’s first books, notably the satirical Elizabeth MacPherson novels, written while she was in graduate school at Virginia Tech, were marketed as mysteries”), she wrote a mystery novel—oops, I mean a “caricature of S-F fandom”—called Bimbos of the Death Sun, winner of the 1988 Edgar for Best Paperback Original. It also takes place at a fan convention, although not one for crime fiction.
In contradistinction to Asimov, whose detective in Murder at the ABA, Darius Just, was modeled after Harlan Ellison as Neal points out, it has been consistently rumored that Harlan was the model of McCrumb’s victim, Appin Dungannon. I wonder if anybody has ever cast a “serious novelist” of Appalachiana as a victim.
Finally, let me join in the chorus by adding that I don’t think there’s a stone in mystery or suspense fiction that Al hasn’t turned over at one time or another. He’s probably the most versatile writer I know.
Wow! Wonderful posts, wonderful article! Almost any book I could mention was mentioned, some by the authors! “Rocket To The Morgue” as by H.H. Holmes(1942) fits in here: Murder is commited at an early science-fiction writers gathering, with some real-life writers appearing in disguise or under their real names (Including Anthony Boucher, who wrote the novel.)
I actually bought Rocket to the Morgue and The Shattered Raven on the same day.