Guest Feature: 5 Private Investigators That Influenced Joe Rey by Tom Leins

Tom Leins, author of the Joe Rey stories is kind of enough to visit  my little site and tell you all about his biggest influences...

Joe Rey is the protagonist of my Paignton Noir series, which started with 2017’s SKULL MEAT, and continues this year with MEAT BUBBLES & OTHER STORIES (Near To The Knuckle) and REPETITION KILLS YOU (All Due Respect). He is a cut-price private investigator with a nasty side-line in muscle-for-hire work. As the series progresses his investigative skills are honed, and his client list improves, but he never really loses his willingness to get his hands dirty for personal gain and his unwavering commitment to revenge. His influences are a mixture of anti-heroes, rogue cops and bareknuckle fighters, but a number of private eyes have also permeated his character. I’m sure they are all obvious to varying degrees, but that is for the readers to judge!

1. Matt Scudder (Lawrence Block)
The first Matt Scudder novel I read was one of the later books in the series, when he was less tormented, and (I think) living in domestic bliss with Elaine. While I enjoyed the mystery, it wasn’t until I went back to the first book in the series – The Sins of the Fathers – that the character clicked into place for me. Again, that book isn’t one of my favourites, but it does a great job of introducing the character of Scudder – a man seemingly trapped in a purgatory of his own making, numbing the pain with booze and making a meagre living doing ‘favours for friends’. It is a unique, irresistible set-up, and the winning formula is only really tweaked when Scudder gives up the alcohol. Rey’s rooming house is a brief nod to Scudder, although my character’s ‘tragic back story’ – the traumatic episode which has set him on his current path – hasn’t made it into print yet. (All will be revealed in the still-in-progress BONEYARD DOGS...!)  


2. Burke (Andrew Vachss)The early Burke books were shocking, brutal tales which gripped me with their beyond-the-pale narratives about exploitation and degradation in 1980s New York. After reading a number of books featuring more conventional private investigators, coming face to face with the shadowy Burke was a real shock to the system. His survivalist tendencies set him apart from the crowd, and he is a man whose methods can come uncomfortably close to those of the ‘freaks’ he is trailing. In some ways, Rey could be likened to a sloppier, less paranoid version of Burke, but that has never really been a conscious decision. I appreciate Burke’s moral code and his ‘Family of Choice’, but the shocking, transgressive cases that he takes on really showed me how dark noir could get.


3. Patrick Kenzie (Dennis Lehane)I really enjoyed the Kenzie and Gennaro books back when I first read them, and Ben Affleck’s 2007 film version of Gone Baby Gone was pretty damn impressive as well! Affleck’s brother Casey was brilliantly cast as Kenzie and excels in some of my favourite scenes in the book, perfectly capturing the character’s inner turmoil. While I have tried to steer clear of a brooding protagonist, I like the moral dilemmas that Lehane presents his characters with. Another element that I have embraced from time to time is the conscience-free tough guy sidekick, in the vein of Patrick’s buddy Bubba Rogowski. It may be a cliché, but sometimes you need to lean on a violent supporting character to get the job done, and Bubba is one of my favourite sidekicks! 

4. Nick Stefanos (George Pelecanos)I read the Nick Stefanos books many years ago, and I was always struck by how much of himself the author had seemed to put into the character’s personality, while preserving that fictional angle. In an interview Pelecanos once admitted: “He is my alter ego. He is whatever age I am or was, depending on the period of the book.” I like that idea, and it is something that I have fooled around with when writing Joe Rey’s character, and filling in certain blanks in his personality. He is nothing like me, but I have no qualms about letting him share certain minor personality traits and features. Also, it is important that he ages in real-time, which is another theme that comes to the fore in future books!


5. Joe Pitt (Charlie Huston)
My fifth and final choice is probably the biggest curve-ball. I read very little in the way of supernatural fiction, but I really enjoyed this series. Joe Pitt is an unaffiliated ‘vampyre’, living in New York, carrying out assignments for the city’s various ‘clans’ in exchange for blood and freedom. Ultimately, it was Pitt’s relationship with the clans that captured my attention more than anything. Due to the awkward logistics of travelling between the Five Boroughs, the Clans tend to remain within the confines of their own stomping ground, while Pitt is free to drift between the different regions of the city. I found myself loosely applying this rule to the Paignton Noir-scape – partitioning up different parts of town along perceived criminal fault-lines. Rey has increasingly uncomfortable relationships with most of the town’s would-be kingpins, but he is similarly free to explore all corners of Paignton without fear of reprisal – for now! 
Bio:
Tom Leins is a disgraced ex-film critic from Paignton, UK. His short stories have been published by the likes of Near to the Knuckle, Akashic Books, Shotgun Honey, Flash Fiction Offensive, Horror Sleaze Trash and Spelk Fiction. A pair of Paignton Noir novelettes, SKULL MEAT and SNUFF RACKET, are available via Amazon. MEAT BUBBLES & OTHER STORIES will be released by Near To The Knuckle on 2nd June 2018, and REPETITION KILLS YOU will be published by All Due Respect (an imprint of Down & Out Books) in September 2018.
https://thingstodoindevonwhenyouredead.wordpress.com/

Guest Post: Marked for Life by Emelie Schepp

I haven't done any guest posts in awhile but I couldn't refuse this one by Scandanavian bestselling author Emelie Schepp, whose Jana Berzulius is a very interesting character. Although a public prosecutor she has some of Spade in hter. Emelie explains why.

In MARKED FOR LIFE a man has been found brutally murdered in his own home. The victim, Hans Juhlen, had no shortage of enemies. But the case stalls when a child's handprint is found inches from where the dead man fell. Hans Juhlen had no children. Public prosecutor Jana Berzelius has perfected the art of maintaining a professional distance from her cases. But when the body of a small boy is found - and with him, the weapon that killed Juhlen - Jana's impenetrability is tested to its limits. Berzelius is drawn more deeply into the case for as she attends his autopsy, she recognizes something strangely familiar in his small, scarred, heroin-riddled body. Cut deep into his flesh are initials that scream child trafficking and trigger in her a flash of memory of her own dark, fear-ridden past. Her connection to this boy has been carved with deliberation and malice that penetrate to her very core. 

Because of an accident as a child, Jana lost her memory and she doesn’t know anything about her childhood. But she realizes that the small boy can lead her to the truth. So, in parallel with the investigation, and off the record, Jana tries to understand who the boy is and where he is coming from. The more she finds out about the boy’s background, the more she finds out about her own. And to protect her own hidden past, she must find the suspect behind these murders, before the police do. 

I would consider Jana a private investigator. She is focused in trying to understand herself, who she is, why she is capable to doing things no one would be capable of. She has a personal connection to the case, and so is investigating it separately from, and in competition with, the police. Her motivations are not purely for legal justice so she is not committed to following procedure and the investigation becomes her own.

Emelie Schepp’s Marked for Life is out 6th July (HQ, £7.99)
www.emelieschepp.com
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A Writer Under the Influence - A Guest Post by Ben Solomon

Aside from being a swell guy, Ben Solomon had a story in the Shamus Sampler and writes the kind of hardboiled PI fiction in the style that started it all. Because his stories are now being collected in a handy volume I figured it might be nice to have him tell all of you about his influences...

A Writer Under the Influence
By Ben Solomon

The Great Edgar with his great head propped upon a scarecrow frame, awash in absinthe or opium or both. Dylan Thomas spitting and slurring poetry through sprays of whiskey at the White Horse Tavern.
Romantic images, after a fashion. Bleak and dark, stark takes on the artistic life. The stuff of sickness, ill spirit, madness. The stuff of creative myth and bloated legend.
A pathetic panorama of writers and painters sprang to mind when Sons of Spade suggested I riff on my influences. My reflection pales and runs and hides behind vast quantities of coffee, an over-indulgence in vaping. Tame egresses by anyone's comparison.
Of course they had in mind the influences behind my latest book.  What inspired me, moved me and otherwise sparked the fire behind "The Hard-Boiled Detective 1"? It sure wasn't no contract with Doubleday. No Helen of Troy, either. Chalk it up more to the likes Rocky Sullivan and Cody Jarrett.
You could say I grew up with James Cagney. The golden age of Hollywood, presented on late night TV, dazzled and captivated me throughout my childhood. Fairy tales, King Arthur and other bedtime stories gave way quick to "Angels With Dirty Faces," "I was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" and "Flash Gordon." I'm not talking about glitz and glamour or sheer spectacle. What got me most were rough and tumble characters telling a hard-nosed tale, larger than life performers dominating the silver nitrate, their patter and manner and dress. The energy and spirit of those flicks captured me like nothing else.
For a crash course in narrative form, you can't do any better than the Warners gangster cycle. Plotting, pacing, character arcs and dramatic arcs, comic relief and the big finish—those movies had it all, with plenty of action and sex thrown in, too.
The work of Bogart, Huston and Hawks led me to books. S.S. Van Dine, Hammett and Chandler led the way, the simplicity and strength of Chandler making the greatest impact on me.
Funny thing, it took a bad boy writer of the form to impel my taking a crack at it. My first read of a trio of Mike Hammer stories by Mickey Spillane knocked my socks off. Sure, this wasn't no Dashiell Chandler, no great shakes in the literature department. But Spillane was like Black Mask grown up. Adult comic books in words. For me, this work translated that hard-boiled spirit from the cinematic screen to the page.
It's awful subjective when a piece of creative razzle-dazzle knocks the stuffing out of you. But I saw plenty in Spillane's work. I could taste Edward G. Robinson's cigar, feel Bette Davis's stiff swagger, run with George Raft down the sidewalk.
Those yarns made me want it, to capture the zest of those films, to interpret and reinvent every flavor I got from those movies into the black and white combination of letters on the page.
Call it homage. Call it a valentine. Short stories on mugs and molls and murder, a celebration of a vanished era, a world where losers outnumber winners, where right and wrong spar like some two-headed jack-in-a-box. Call it "The Hard-Boiled Detective 1."


Ben Solomon, a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, lives and writes in Chicago.  He launched his ongoing, short story series in February 2013, offering three yarns a month to subscribers. His sleuth has appeared in e-zines across the web as well as the 2014 anthology "The Shamus Sampler II." Another adventure is scheduled to appear in an upcoming anthology published by Fox Spirit Books.

"The Hard-Boiled Detective 1," the first collection from Solomon's series is available in paperback from Amazon.

The eBook is available from many distributors, including:
Untreed Reads
OmniLit.com
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
and coming soon to Apple iBooks, etc.

Subscription info about his series and samples can be found here:
http://thehardboileddetective.com/

Guest Post: Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir by Steve Brewer

This week, I introduce eighteen college students to Sam Spade.
We're viewing the John Huston film "The Maltese Falcon," watching Humphrey Bogart outsmart Mary Astor and pals as they pursue "the black bird."
The students are enrolled in a class I teach in the Honors Program at the University of New Mexico. The class is called "Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir." I've taught it before, and always come away amazed at how little these very bright students have been exposed to private eyes in fiction and film. Most have never heard of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald before they take this course. A few have never watched a black-and-white movie before.
They do have a sense of what a private investigator is and what he does, but it's a vague notion of fedoras and trenchcoats and window-peeping. Until we talk about it in class, they're not aware of the place the private eye holds in the fiction tradition of the lone hero facing overwhelming odds and an uncaring society.
For those of us who write contemporary P.I. series, this lack of knowledge in the next generation of readers feels daunting and worrisome. Is there no place for the private eye anymore? Do today's youth only care about Harry Potter and sparkly vampires and Grand Theft Auto?
Here's the good news: It takes only a little exposure to get young people jazzed about private eyes. Once they've read some stories, they uniformly love the Continental Op and Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. My students will debate long and loud over the merits of other types of hard-boiled stories or films noir, but they always recognize the private eye as a heroic figure, even when he doesn't act heroically. The students respect a man who does his job, no matter how nasty or dangerous it becomes. And that's been the lure of the private eye all along.

(Steve Brewer is the author of 20-plus crime novels, including nine stories featuring Albuquerque private eye Bubba Mabry. The latest in the series is the new novella PARTY DOLL.)

Guest Blog by Stephen D. Rogers

Stephen D. Rogers is the author of SHOT TO DEATH(ISBN 978-0982589908) and more than six hundred storiesand poems. He's the head writer at Crime Scene (where viewers solve interactive mysteries) and a popularwriting instructor. For more information, you can visit his website, www.stephendrogers.com, where he tries to pull it all together.
He's also our special guest blogger today.

You could learn a lot about a community by analyzing how they dealt with their trash.- APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY
So begins one of the 31 stories contained in SHOT TO DEATH(ISBN 978-0982589908). Within that beginning lurks the endingto the story and everything that happens between the beginningand the end. Or at least it seems that way to me.
The main character in APPEARANCES TO THE CONTRARY has to be a private investigator. Who better to learn about a community or analyze trash?
I felt the opening sentence consisted of two parts that pivoted around that "by." Learning about community depended on analyzing trash, and knowing what trash to analyze depended onunderstanding the community. The juxtaposition of the singular "a community" and the plural"they dealt with their trash" raised the specter of a communityof communities. The private investigator thus interacts with his client who spends much of their conversation interacting with her friends. The private investigator only gets anywhere with the target after separating him from his coworkers. The client and the target live in the same community and were once a community unto themselves. What is the trash produced by each community? What does that trash say about each of the communities represented?
Where does community end and trash begin?
In the two-part opening sentence, the words in the power positions are "community" and "trash." That told me both that the story was going to keep visiting those two ideas and, since "trash" was in the more powerful position, that the story was not going to end happily ever after. But one person's trash is another person's treasure. How wasthat truism going to play out for the victim? For the target? For the private investigator?
Does the lone wolf private investigator comprise a community? If so, what trash is produced by that community of one? Whattrash is produced by the community of private investigator and client, by the community of private investigator and target?
As soon as I wrote that opening sentence, I stood astride it,one foot on either side of the pivotal "by," gaining enough height to see where the story had to go. All that remained was the writing.
For a chance to win a signed copy of SHOT TO DEATH, click on over to http://www.stephendrogers.com/Win.htm and submit yourcompleted entry. Then visit the schedule at http://www.stephendrogers.com/Howto.htm to see how you can march along. And then come back here to post your comments. Phew.

SHOT TO DEATH contains thirty-one stories of murder andmayhem.
"Terse tales of cops and robbers, private eyes and bad guys, with an authentic New England setting."
- Linda Barnes, Anthony Award winner and author of the Carlotta Carlyle series
"Put yourself in the hands of a master as you travel this world of the dishonest, dysfunctional, and disappeared. Rogers is the real deal--real writer, real story teller, real tour guide tothe dark side."
- Kate Flora, author of the Edgar-nominated FINDING AMY and the Thea Kozak mysteries
"SHOT TO DEATH provides a riveting reminder that the short story form is the foundation of the mystery/thriller genre. There's something in this assemblage of New England noir to suit every aficionado. Highly recommended!"
- Richard Helms, editor and publisher, The Back Alley Webzine