A Welcome Grave (Lincoln Perry) by Michael Koryta

Lincoln Perry tracks down the son of his ex-fiancee Karen when her husband dies. When he arrives the young man shoots himself through the head, making Lincoln a murder suspect. I was a bit worried that this would turn into a 'falsely accused' story, a type of tale I usually don't enjoy that much. It didn't however. The incident starts a fast-paced thriller in which LP is aided by hitman Thor. His reporter friend, now his lover Amy is endangered and Lincoln is forced to get very hardboiled.
More noir and more violent than the first two novels Michael develops even more of a distinct style while still very much appealing to fans of Robert B. Parker and Robert Crais, now dragging along the readers of Marcus Sakey and Duane Swierczynski.

The Blue Door (Eddie Cero) by David Fulmer

David Fulmer, better known for his Storyville-series introduces us to 2 new characters, based in Philly: boxer Eddie Cero and PI Sal Gambrioni.
Eddie saves Sal from being beaten up in an alley and is subsequently hired by Sal to help him out with his PI-work. He shadows a teenage girl and discovers she has some dark secrets. He also gets involved in the search for a missing singer, Johnny Pope and falls in love with Pope’s sister who seems to disagree with his quest.

The picture David paints of sixties Philadelphia and the bars, music scene and racism is incredibly vivid without getting lost in too descriptive scenes that slow the pacing.

It’s interesting to see Eddie evolve into a better investigator and he’s a very likable, ‘real’ character. The writing is nice and hardboiled, really evoking the old days of the genre without getting too pulpy.

I’d love to see Eddie and Sal return!

Q & A with John Rickards

Q: What makes Alex Rourke different from other PI's?
Not much, probably. He's basically a nice enough guy, which sets him apart from some, without being a total white knight figure, unlike others, and isn't a colossal screw-up. I suppose the main difference is that - if I remember right, anyway - he doesn't do much actual private investigating. The only time Joe Public hires him is for an incidental job in the second book. In one and three he's basically a consultant to the cops/Feds, in the main part of two he's working for himself and in the fourth book he's just caught up in something else. He's basically a thriller character masquerading as a PI.

Q: What are your thoughts on the psycho sidekick in PI novels? Bloody dreadful device. It's a cheap way of keeping the hero(ine)'s hands clean and their moral character above question while still allowing the book to contain plenty of dirty work. Very cheap.

Q: Do you do a lot of research?
Less and less as time goes on. I don't write much in the way of technical stuff and by choice I make my settings up.

Q: Has your writing changed a lot over time?
Oh boy, yes. Hopefully for the better. My style's grown shorter and more terse, I'm better with some of the more mechanical aspects of story construction and I don't feel the same need to fill books with cheese as I used to. Parts of Winter's End make me wince these days. But that's probably the way it should go; no sense in keeping going if you know everything there is to know.

Q: How do you promote your books?
I carve their titles into my forehead and run screaming through the centre of town. That, or pay performing midgets to spell them out from the rooftops in semaphore. (Lies upon lies. I only *wish* I could do that.) Q: What's next for you and Alex? Book Five is done and off being read by people who'll tell me just how awful it is. But it's unlikely to be an Alex Rourke book when all's said and done on it. It's very much a departure from the other novels, which has been great fun doing. I understand the genre's thirst for series fiction, but I've found it starts feeling like a straitjacket at times, even with the amount of variation I've been able to put into the last couple of books.

Q: Do you have any favorite Sons of Spade yourself?
As much as it pains me to inflate Banks' already gargantuan ego, I like Cal Innes a lot. The Jack Taylor books, too. And even though it's a one-off, 'shit magnet' Mike McGill from Warren Ellis's Crooked Little Vein was a great character. Every cliche present and correct, and then turned on their heads.

Q: In the last century we've seen new waves of PI-writers, first influenced by Hammett, then Chandler, Macdonald, Parker, later Lehane. Who do you think will influence the coming generation and in what way?
I know I'm not the only person here to suggest Ken Bruen - both stylistically and in terms of the, well, misery that the genre embraced in its early days, which he's been able to bring back to the fore without it seeming stupid. Laura Lippman deserves to; her fiction carries the social and emotional side without falling into the trap of being overpowering.

Q: Ray Banks came up with the following question: When are you going to write a real book?
I'll do it when he does, the swine! Or, equally accurately, probably never. I'm basically a big kid at heart.

Q: What questions should we ask every PI writer we interview and what is your answer?
What do you bring to the genre that few others have? If I've brought anything to it it'd be an ambivalence and a lack of resolution, but I don't think that's anything much new. Bugger me, what a disappointing answer to my own question. I wish I'd asked something else now.

Review: The Last Refuge (Sam Acquillo) by Chris Knopf

Sam Acquillo used to be an engineer before he decided to quit the business and his wife left him. Now he lives in his dad's old place in Southampton where he spends the time doing not much besides drinking vodka. When he discovers the dead body of his neighbor, an old lady he sets out to fulfill a role as her administrator but also investigates wether her death was really a natural one.

Chris writes Sam as a very 'real' man and he made me care for the character. That's what he excels in, the original characters and the story of a man who seems to have lost all and chosen to. He also writes pretty witty dialogue although some conversations do seem to take a bit too long. That's also the most important gripe I had with the book. It went on a bit slow for me. As a literary novel it works better almost than as a crime novel.

Good reading if you like something slower and different, skip it if you only read Lee Child, Robert Crais and James Patterson.

Q & A with Peter Spiegelman

Q: What makes John March different from other fictional private eyes?
March is the black-sheep son of a prominent New York banking family. He walked away from the family business to become a small-town cop in upstate New York, and eventually a private investigator back in NYC. March’s cases are set in the world of finance (or have that world as a backdrop in some way), and March’s background makes him a sort of outside insider to that world. He knows his way around Wall Street, but he’s got a healthy skepticism about what goes on there—a vital critical distance.

Another thing I’ve tried to create in March is a character who is in retreat from life. Rather than taking refuge in drink, drugs, etc., March has made his life very small, very spare. He’s stripped it down to things he can control. His life consists of his work and his running. It’s somewhat monk-like—simple, disciplined, and with little in the way of emotional entanglements. He’s much more comfortable examining other people’s lives than his own. Needless to say, his retreat from life is imperfect, and his control over things is mostly illusory.

Q: What are your thoughts on the psycho sidekick in PI novels?
I have no particular problem with sidekicks per se, as long as they’re fully-realized characters—people I care about, and who are important to the story. The cartoonish, two-dimensional variety that exist only to do the heavy-lifting the PI is too squeamish for don’t thrill me.

Q: Do you do a lot of research?
Not a huge amount—though hopefully enough. My stories tend to take place in milieus that are familiar to me. If I’m writing about something I don’t know a lot about, I try to do my homework, to get the facts and the atmosphere right.

Q: Has your writing changed a lot over time?
I think so. I’ve become a harsher editor, and as a result, I think my writing has become tighter and somewhat more spare.

Q: How do you promote your books?
In the usual ways—touring, interviews, website, conferences, etc. My publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, does a great job getting review and media coverage. There’s no magic promotions bullet that I know of, but little by little you eke out an awareness of your work amongst the reading public.

Q: What's next for you and John?
I’m working on March #4, which takes place mostly in L.A., and in the world of hedge funds.

Q: Do you have any favorite Sons of Spade yourself?
Too many to name. Certainly Spade himself, as well as Marlowe, Lew Archer, Travis McGee, Spenser, Matt Scudder, Dave Robicheaux, Milo Milodragovitch, Easy Rawlins, Arkady Renko (I suppose technically he’s a cop)--though they’re the tip of the iceberg.

Q: In the last century we've seen new waves of PI-writers, first influenced by Hammett, then Chandler, Macdonald, Parker, later Lehane. Who do you think will influence the coming generation and in what way?
That’s a tough one. I actually think that world events will probably be a bigger influence on PI-writing than any particular contemporary author will. The PI archetypes that we know and love arose to a great degree in the wakes of the Depression and WWII. Between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the disruptions in the global economy, we seem to be in another period of great flux. I suspect we’ll see this turmoil manifest itself more and more in PI writing.

Q: David Fulmer came up with the following question: Why did you want to write in this genre?
Another good question. My PI jones dates from the time I first read the Maltese Falcon, when I was about 12 years old. I was hooked on Hammett’s narrative voice, the strong sense of place he created, and his characters—especially the character of Sam Spade. I went on to read the rest of Hammett’s work, and then Chandler, MacDonald, etc…, and I knew I wanted to try my hand at it. Which I finally did—about 30 years later.

Q: What questions should we ask every PI writer we interview and what is your answer?
Other than PI writers and PI novels, which authors and what sort of writing has had the greatest influence on your work?

For me, the answer is poetry. It was my first “serious” writing, and I still write and read it today. Some of my favorite poets are: William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Jorge Luis Borges, Rilke, Mark Strand, Charles Simic, John Allman, Jane Mead, and Stephen Dunn.

For more info about this author: www.peterspiegelman.com