Spade and Archer by Joe Gores (the prequel to The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett)

If you've just stumbled upon this page looking for information about shovels and arrows, let me educate you. This is a review of Spade and Archer, the prequel novel to possibly the best-known and most influential private eye novel (that it's one of the best goes without saying), Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, and the title characters are business partners in a detective agency.

The "Spade" of the title is Sam Spade, star of the novel, its 3 film adaptations, and a long-running old-time radio series. We don't learn much about Archer in The Maltese Falcon, other than that he's a bit of a lecher and that Spade is having an affair with his wife, whom Spade refuses to be the one to inform when her husband is murdered early in the book (in part due to his being a bit of a lecher).

I hope I'm not spoiling The Maltese Falcon for anyone who's not experienced it, but if you don't know and love it, why are you reading about a prequel? Anyway, what relatively few people know is that there was a sequel to the book written for the radio show Suspense. Writer/producer William Speir at the time was overseeing both Suspense and The Adventures of Sam Spade, and, great marketer that he was, thought it would be a good idea to get listeners of the former to check out the latter. Unfortunately, "The Khandi Tooth Caper" (broadcast in January 1948) is a weak attempt to resuscitate the major characters, so I'm not sure the experiment worked, especially since the radio Spade (as played by Howard Duff) is a much more light-hearted fellow than the one Bogart made famous.

So, it's about time somebody like author Joe Gores — a former P.I. himself, the winner of three Edgar Awards (for first novel, short story, and teleplay) and the author of Hammett the novel — made a really decent try at reusing these characters in a way that's not simply exploiting their popularity.

Gores does this and more. In giving us insight into the previous lives of Spade, Archer, and Effie, Gores actually enhances the experience of rereading The Maltese Falcon. So, what he's done here is not only create an entertaining novel of his own, but in the process he's also made the source material better! Gores does an excellent job with the period (1921–1928) and setting (San Francisco), even referencing the Fatty Arbuckle case, one that Hammett himself worked on while with the Pinkerton Agency during the same period Spade and Archer takes place. Gores also paints a realistic portrait of a younger Spade, not quite as jaded (though a colleague married Sam's best girl three months after he enlisted in the Army) but still nobody's sap.

It's 1921, and private detective Sam Spade has left the Continental Detective Agency (a thinly veiled portrait of the Pinkerton Detective Agency of which Dashiell Hammett himself was an operative) after "too much head-knocking and not enough door-knocking" and goes out on his own. His new secretary, Effie Perrine, is the first of four girls to answer his ad, and she smoothly tells the three that follow that the position has already been filled. The book continues and covers two other cases, in 1925 and 1928. Since this is a novel, the three cases are of course related, but Gores does a good job of keeping things interesting in the meantime.

Readers looking for a replay of The Maltese Falcon will find a less polished Spade with a penchant for undercover work. (Once he uses "Nick Charles" as an alias.) They may be less than interested in the decidedly unsexy mystery involving a stowaway teen and stolen gold, the death of a bank president, and the search for recognition by an illegitimate Chinese daughter. Also disappointing is the lack of a memorable supporting characters on par with Casper Gutman (except for Effie, who deserves her own book).

Reader Scott Brick's low-key delivery suits the noir atmosphere admirably in the audiobook version of Spade and Archer. His Spade manages to sound familiar without resorting to impersonation. (For a stellar recent interpretation, hear Michael Madsen in the Grammy- and Audie-nominated audiobook adaptation of The Maltese Falcon written and directed by Yuri Rasovsky. It also features stunning turns by Sandra Oh — who embodies the femme fatale using only her voice, quite a feat if you think about it — and Edward Herrmann, whose mimicry of Sidney Greenstreet is akin to resurrection.)

At over twice the length, Spade and Archer doesn't have the tight feel of its "sequel." But Gores' portrayal of Spade is authentic and multidimensional. It is what will keep you reading when the other portions no longer hold your interest. Rich with detail and character (I had forgotten that Spade wears green and white pajamas), it is a respectable companion that adds to the big picture and stands fine on its own.

Whether Gores has created a classic of his own remains to be seen, but Spade and Archer is as good an attempt to define Sam Spade as anyone could have done. Readers looking for deep insight into Archer will be disappointed, however, since not much is learned that wasn't already known from Hammett. But those simply wanting to see Spade solve another case (or three) will be more than pleased. Gores taps into the reader's nostalgia for the '20s (both real and fictional) with great success and leaves the reader smiling.

Further Reading:
Hammett by Joe Gores — the writer comes out from behind the typewriter to solve another case.
Devil's Garden by Ace Atkins — fictionalizes Hammett's work on the Arbuckle case.
Interface by Joe Gores — Thrilling Detective describes the ending as "possibly the best ... since Sam Spade refused to play the sap for Brigid O'Shaughnessy."

Where Everything Ends by Ray Bradbury (an omnibus of Death Is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard for Lunatics, and Let's All Kill Constance)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission.

The subtitle "The Mystery Novels of Ray Bradbury" quickly tells us what's between the covers of Where Everything Ends, a collection of an underappreciated portion of the author's bibliography: three crime novels written between 1985 and 2003 that feature an unnamed narrator/protagonist (very much Bradbury's doppelganger) and detective Elmo Crumley dealing with mysteries during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The title piece, published here for the first time, is the short story that came first and inspired the rest. Reading it after the novels (it is placed at the back), it comes across as definitely a lesser work: one written by an author still trying to get his bearings in the genre. And he makes the beginner's mistake of focusing too much on how the crime was done instead of on his own forte, character. Luckily, Bradbury eventually combined the two and produced three novels that equal his speculative output in skill and heart, if not necessarily excitement.

In 1985, over twenty years since the publication of his last full-length work, 1962's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury reentered the novel-writing world with the release of Death Is a Lonely Business, his first foray into a genre epitomized by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald — namely the crime investigation novel.

The narrator of Death Is a Lonely Business is a writer living in Venice, California, where the local carnival pier is being demolished. He discovers the body of Willie Smith, underwater and trapped in a disused lion cage. Then a strange shadowy figure begins appearing in hallways and outside windows at night, and the number of murders increases. The narrator teams with local police detective Elmo Crumley — reluctantly, at first, on Crumley's part — to solve the case. The only clues they have are the writer's intuition, articles that go missing from the deceased's residences, and a blind man's keen sense of smell.

Death Is a Lonely Business has many layers to it. First, on the surface, it's a fine noir pastiche. Second, our hero is especially interesting as a portrait of Bradbury himself in 1949. The naive, plump, 27-year-old writer, who is just becoming successful, inspires immediate identification from fans of the master's work. We already like the author, so we immediately root for his doppelganger.

I especially enjoyed the personal clues Bradbury laid within the story, some of which take a brave person to lay bare in print. But they work to gain our sympathy, which is quite necessary; in the beginning the writer is painted — whether deliberately or not — as a somewhat unsympathetic character prone to outbursts.

The other characters are just as fascinating: Crumley, the cop who just happens to also be a writer; Fannie, the 380-pound sedentary soprano; A.L. Shrank, the psychiatrist with the downbeat library; Cal, the incompetent barber with the ragtime past; John Wilkes Hopworth, the ex-silent film star who still pines for former love Constance Rattigan, his former costar who is dead set on not becoming Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard ("That dimwit Norma wants a new career; all I want most days is to hole up and not come out"); and Henry, the blind man, who is the only one who can identify the killer — by his smell.

Five years later, the author revisited the genre with 1990's A Graveyard for Lunatics, subtitled "Another Tale of Two Cities." It is now 1954, and the Bradbury character is working for Maximus Films as a screenwriter. The studio is separated from Green-Grade Cemetery by a single brick wall, and during a late-night studio party on the eve of Halloween, the screenwriter receives a note that "a great revelation awaits" him on the other side of the wall: "material for a best-selling novel or terrific screenplay." A timid soul, he hesitates but cannot resist. There he finds a body — or is it? Because the body is that of a studio head who supposedly died twenty years ago.

A Graveyard for Lunatics centers around the solving of the mystery, but it's primarily of interest to fans as a lengthy roman à clef of Bradbury's time working on King of Kings.

Famous Hollywood figures appear, operating under pseudonyms, such as the screenwriter's best friend, special effects master Roy Holdstrom (obviously Bradbury compatriot Ray Harryhausen). Even Jesus Christ (called "J.C.," resident of 911 Beechwood in Hollywood) is a prominent character, given his starring role in the film.

Though inspired by hard-boiled works, Bradbury's protagonist/alter ego is as soft-boiled as you can get. He's a sweetheart, an innocent — when Constance Rattigan arises nude from the sea, he looks her in the eyes — a bright child in a man's body. (Yet he's completely up to the task of a heart-racing fight to the death underwater.) The tone more closely matches that of Agatha Christie, but A Graveyard for Lunatics is a solid mystery as only Ray Bradbury could write it.

In 2003, Bradbury revisited Elmo Crumley and company with Let's All Kill Constance. In the opening, Constance Rattigan comes into the Bradbury character's home bearing two books: a 1900 telephone directory and her own personal address book. Some names in both books are crossed out entirely: these are names of those no longer of this earth. Others are circled with a cross beside them, one of them Constance's, and she believes that this means she is one of the next to die. On leaving the books with the writer, she disappears.

Let's All Kill Constance is not quite as good as its predecessors, but any Bradbury is worth reading. His particular style is always welcome, its familiarity alone bringing a level of comfort to the experience — like revisiting an old friend.

The mystery itself is not as interesting as the characters and their relationships with each other. Although it feels at times (as with the female impersonator) that Bradbury is simply creating a character to fill his plot needs, he still makes each real enough to justify the time spent with them.

The bulk of Let's All Kill Constance concerns the search for the title character. Teaming up again with detective Elmo Crumley, the Bradbury character meets several people involved with Constance's past (many of whom she has just left when the writer and Crumley arrive) and puts together the pieces into a disturbing yet satisfying solution illustrative of the difficulties inherent in being a Hollywood actress.

But through all this Bradbury's youthful exuberance shines. The writer's enthusiasm for life comes through as unadulterated innocence. He seems not to be jaded at all by the modern world, and so the novels contained in Where Everything Ends are not as "noir" as they would have been in other hands. And yet, it's refreshing to have, as a hero in this genre, a person whom the world has not made a pessimist.

Where Everything Ends is a trio of fine novels from Bradbury (together with the short story that provided the starting point), detective novels done in Bradbury's inimitable style. He plays with the conventions, but since he so obviously loves the genre, this is easily forgiven — embraced, even — because the end results are, simply put, fine additions to the canon. This trilogy plus one is also dear to fans because it is likely the closest thing to an autobiography we will receive from this man who has brought so much joy to so many people for so many years.

Dark Side of the Morgue by Raymond Benson (prog-rock mystery)

Oddly enough, I got this book because I'm excited about an upcoming book. Raymond Benson is one of six authors tapped to write for the newest venture from Hard Case Crime founder Charles Ardai: pulp adventure novels in the old style featuring a new character, Gabriel Hunt.

I've been highly anticipating this series since it was first announced because the other five authors (Ardai himself, David J. Schow, Christa Faust, James Reasoner, and Nicholas Kaufmann) have proven themselves to be quite skilled at fast-paced narratives. Benson is the only one I'd not read before, so when I saw that his second Spike Berenger novel, Dark Side of the Morgue was available, I leapt.

Part of the attraction came from the concept of a rock and roll P.I. Spike Berenger used to be in a progressive rock band called The Fixers, but they didn't last long (though they still have some devoted fans). Now Berenger and his partner Rudy Bishop run Rockin' Security, a service for the music industry. Berenger also has his private investigator's license because it sometimes helps with business. Suzanne Prescott, a former Goth devotee now into Transcendental Meditation (T.M.) and martial arts, is his investigation partner.

A blonde wearing sunglasses and a big, floppy hat has been killing members of Chicago's prog-rock scene (known locally as "Chicagoprog"), and Zach Garriott (guitarist and vocalist for the seminal bands North Side and Red Skyez, but gone solo since 1980) wants Berenger's help finding the suspect — he's on the list. The trouble is, the main suspect is Sylvia Favero, and she's been dead since 1970.

Berenger, a little bored with his current caseload involving Iggy Pop's dogs and Debbie Harry's landlord, decides to take the case, partly because he's friends and former colleagues with many of the participants. Here, Benson's knowledge of the prog-rock industry serves him well (he wrote The Pocket Guide to Jethro Tull and is himself a composer and songwriter). After a long exposition introducing character relationships and band histories, Benson's feel for the high points brings authenticity to the story and never feels just like some guy trying to write a rock novel. (A Chicagoprog "family tree" at the front of the book is great for reference, and the table of contents is actually a "track listing" of song titles.)

Dark Side of the Morgue is funny, disturbing, and filled with deep knowledge of the music industry and abnormal psychology, all combined to make a really terrific read that I wanted to pick up whenever I had a free moment. It is assembled from P.I./thriller tropes we've seen many times before, but Benson has put them together in a way that feels fresh and original, and results in the reader responding to them as if they were brand new (a skill no doubt useful in his upcoming Gabriel Hunt novel, Hunt through Napoleon's Web).

Also speaking well of his skill at adventure, Benson is the author of six recent original novels featuring Ian Fleming's James Bond — only the fourth author chosen to do so — in addition to the first two Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell novels (written under the pseudonym "David Michaels") and other thrillers like Sweetie's Diamonds and the first Berenger "hit," A Hard Day's Death.

My only real complaint is that protagonist Spike Berenger is the least interesting person in the book. But Berenger's transparency allows the supporting characters to truly shine (for example, in how Prescott's T.M. skills actually figure into the plot instead of being just an interesting character quirk). Dark Side of the Morgue is an intelligent mystery with a twist as layer after layer of the story is slowly revealed to the reader's joyous satisfaction.

Benson obviously spent a great deal of time developing his musicians' relationships and histories, and the hard work pays off in an engrossing read that is as much for rock fans as it is for fans of conventional P.I. novels. Honestly, Dark Side of the Morgue is so good that if it's not nominated for both the Edgar and the Shamus awards, somebody's just not paying attention.

Code of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

Walk into any place that sells books and, even if they don't carry many Westerns, you're likely to always encounter two names: Louis L'Amour and William W. Johnstone. I've tried L'Amour, like most people, but burned out on his dry, heavily descriptive style — and there was never anything about the Johnstone books that appealed to me.

But I saw Johnstone's name so often (he's still putting out new books, even though he died in 2004), I started to wonder if I was missing out on something. (This despite the fact that I usually try to avoid the immensely popular.) So, I got a copy of Code of the Mountain Man — the 8th in the long-running "Last Mountain Man" series — from the library just to try it out.

It's been at least a year since I put a book down before finishing the first chapter, but Code of the Mountain Man was so riddled with cliches by that time that I just couldn't stomach any more. Johnstone starts in the correct way, right in the middle of the action. A band of outlaws ride into Big Rock, Colorado, for no apparent reason and shoot up several citizens. One of the victims is the wife of Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man.

From the start, Jensen is painted as such a lone, invincible, penny dreadful–type character that it's hard to believe he could be married. But maybe he just has to be in order for there to be a reason for his revenge. He instantly begins preparations to go after the outlaws, and Johnstone goes right along with him in the kind of ridiculous language usually reserved for genre spoofs: "Nobody shot his wife. Ever."

And if that's not laughable enough, soon after comes a scene where Jensen convinces the sheriff that he'd be safer at home with his family, letting Jensen take the law into his own hands. And the sheriff agrees: "Come to think of it, my wife just baked a fresh apple pie. It'd still be warm." I was so disgusted, I threw the book on the floor — another thing that hasn't happened in a long time. In any case, I've learned an important lesson: I've tried Code of the Mountain Man and Johnstone now and don't have to worry I'm missing out on some great writing.

The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan (starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal)

The Dark Knight (2008). Screenplay by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, from a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer and characters by Bob Kane.

I never intended to review this movie — or, originally, even see it. It's just one more in the constant string of superhero films constantly fed out by Hollywood. But then The Dark Knight became one of the highest-grossing films of all time, and was suddenly declared the best film of all time by Internet Movie Database voters, and I just had to see what all the fuss was about and have my say.

Because it's simply not all that. Other than a riveting — probably a great — performance by the late Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight has little going for it besides the expected high production values and some interesting directorial choices by Christopher Nolan (particularly during the lengthy chase sequence).

Christian Bale has proven his acting abilities in numerous other films, but — and this is the main problem with every film featuring the Caped Crusader — he is given nothing to do here but react to events caused by the villains and the other characters. In a movie called "The Dark Knight," shouldn't the focus be on Batman? Just call this movie "The Joker" and be done with it because, really, even Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart) is mostly forgotten by the time the credits roll.

[Does no one else think it's a problem that role of Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins) was taken over by Maggie Gyllenhaal and, not only can you hardly tell but it also seems like an improvement? And what happened to Gary Oldman? He had challenging roles in the early 1990s, but here he mostly looks lost and confused while trying to look focused and determined.]

To me, the huge success and unabashed acclaim of The Dark Knight is merely a symptom of the generally poor entertainment being produced by Hollywood these days. When someone comes out with a movie that is better than average, it is instantly hailed as a modern classic. And that's just sad.

The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane with Max Allan Collins (Mike Hammer)

"Do we need an attorney, Mr. Hammer?"
"No," I said. "You need me."

Mike Hammer is back! Twelve years after his last appearance in print (1996's Black Alley), America's best-selling private detective adapts to a post-9/11 world, complete with Islamic terrorists on his tail.

The Goliath Bone is the 14th in the long-running series that has spanned over 60 years. Mickey Spillane was never what you would call a prolific writer. Probably because he didn't write because he had to write: he only wrote when he needed money. Thus, for there to be years, even decades, between books was not unexpected. In fact, the 12 years since the last entry doesn't seem quite so long when you consider the nearly 20 that passed between #11 (Survival ... Zero!, 1970) and #12 (The Killing Man, 1989).

A little backstory: After Spillane's death in 2006, his friend and sometime collaborator Max Allan Collins (still the most vocal supporter of Spillane's influence on the crime genre) was given the task of finishing some of the incomplete works found in Spillane's files, with the most excitement focusing on a handful of unfinished Mike Hammer novels.

Though a standalone novel called Dead Street was published by Hard Case Crime under Spillane's sole byline, a Mike Hammer novel called The Goliath Bone was actually closer to completion when Spillane died. The job required Collins to do a combination of editing and writing throughout, getting his fingerprints, so to speak, all over the book.

Therefore, Collins's influence is felt throughout The Goliath Bone, where in Dead Street it was mainly in the final three chapters. Collins does a masterful job at matching Spillane's terse style, but his own more literary tendencies are likely to be noticed by a Collins devotee (such as myself).

The story is a little odd by usual Hammer standards. Two stepsibling grad students (the children of Nobel Prize candidates) possess a valuable artifact presumed to be the femur bone of Philistine giant Goliath ("that champ who went down for the count with an underdog's creek rock in his forehead") wrapped in brown paper. On their way down the subway stairs, someone tries to kill them, and Hammer (who just happened to be exiting a nearby bar when his Spidey-sense tingled) steps in just in time, making himself their bodyguard in the process.

Unfortunately, this new case comes at a very inconvenient time. Hammer and his long-time secretary/girlfriend Velda were just about to head off to Las Vegas and get married, and this puts that off for a little longer. But Velda knows who she's dealing with, and so doesn't put up much of a fuss, offering her own exemplary mental and armamentary services in addition.

No longer the lone wolf, Hammer is surrounded by the other characters for much of The Goliath Bone. The modern Mike Hammer is a man in love: he holds hands with Velda often and discusses the options with her, respecting her input. This is the Hammer of the 21st century, a man who doesn't live in the past, though he certainly talks about it a lot ("I was in all the papers").

Readers used to the tight pacing of the classic Spillane novels will notice instantly that The Goliath Bone has a great deal of talk in it. The exposition — including lengthy discussions on the history and origins of the bone, the intentions of the different factions concerned (handled with some degree of sensitivity), life in a post-9/11 world, and especially far too much of "here's what might happen and here's what we're going to do about it" — takes up over a third of the novel. But once it gets going, the book offers international intrigue on the level of Eric Ambler and John LeCarré.

More Hammer novels are slated for the next few years, but The Goliath Bone is meant to be the last chronologically in the Hammer "timeline" (much like Collins's own Quarry series "ended" with 2006's The Last Quarry, with The First Quarry coming two years later). With a final-chapter reference that ties back to I, the Jury, the series comes full circle in a satisfying way.

Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub (unabridged audio book read by Frank Muller)

Authors Stephen King and Peter Straub's second collaboration is much more than just a sequel to their first, The Talisman. In fact, Black House, draws from the earlier book's mythology only in a few scenes. An older Jack Sawyer returns as the protagonist, but now he's a talented police detective called out of voluntary retirement to help solve a rash of child murders in his newly adopted home of French Landing, Wisconsin.

This makes the vast majority of Black House reminiscent of Straub's murder mysteries (like The Throat) — which is a welcome change from the King-dominated tone of The Talisman. But King fans need not think of eschewing Black House outright because the authors have a trick up their collective sleeve: they've managed to also tie this story into the Dark Tower mythos — solidly but without overdoing it.

Everything is crafted so well and flows so smoothly that "even a blind man can see" (as the eminently quotable George Rathbun would say) that Black House is the best thing either of them had written up to that point — and is a shining example of what can be achieved when a pair's talents combine to enhance each other. Straub's literary bent gives style and intelligence to King's average-guy prose, and King's skill at pacing keeps Straub's tendency toward lengthy description from slowing things down. As a result, it offers the best of both authors with very few of their flaws remaining. The quality even transcends the distracting narrative style (using first-person plural, in the manner of screenplay directions, to reflect the book's dual storyteller).

Black House also manages to turn the impossible into the believable and can be enjoyed fully by the uninitiated, though fans who have already read The Talisman and the Dark Tower series will undoubtedly be the most rewarded and have the most fun. But I'm not sure the book as written is even as good as the audiobook as read by the late Frank Muller. His legendary vocal skills enhance the storyline with unforgettable characterizations of the colorful cast. The abovementioned George Rathbun and the villainous Mr. Munshun are particularly remarkable, making this original, exciting, suspenseful and intelligent story into something even better than the words on the page. "Case closed, game over, zip up your fly."

Strip for Murder by Max Allan Collins (a Jack and Maggie Starr mystery)

Manhattan, 1953 — Rehearsals are underway toward the opening night of the musical Tall Paul, based on the popular comic strip of the same name by Hal Rapp. Rapp's ex-employer (and chief rival), Mug O'Malley creator Sam Fizer, has threatened to sue, saying Rapp's characters were originally created by Fizer when Rapp was working under him on the O'Malley strip. To make matters worse, Fizer's estranged wife has been hired for a role in the musical.

On Halloween night, shortly after a party at Rapp's apartment, Fizer is found dead in his own room — an apparent suicide but with painfully obvious signs pointing to Rapp as a murderer. Rapp asks Jack and Maggie Starr for help. Maggie runs the Starr Newspaper Syndication Company, and her stepson Jack is a private investigator "with one client: the Starr Syndicate." (Maggie is a former ecdysiast only 10 years Jack's senior — a situation that is a constant source of Oedipal-incest jokes at Jack's expense.)

Rapp has offered his new strip, Lean Jean, to the Starrs, so they are very invested in keeping him out of jail — especially since it looks like he is being framed. Jack takes on the case, hoping to remove the frame from Rapp before Captain Pat Chandler can nail it on tight.

Though Strip for Murder has some basis in history, author Max Allan Collins plays around with the facts here more than with his other historical-mystery novels, which usually hew closely to the facts with just a fictional character thrown in.

In fact, in this case, even the main participants' names have been fictionalized right along with the timeline of events and the characters' relationships, though their real-life counterparts can easily be discovered with a little research. Collins gives them names that aren't obvious caricatures, but realistic names in the style of the real ones. (Even the fictional characters in the musical get this treatment, like turning Daisy Mae into Sunflower Sue.)

Artist Terry Beatty, Collins's collaborator on various comic projects, including Ms. Tree, serves up era-appropriate comics-style drawings at the beginning of each chapter, and also adds a cute feature illustrating the motives, means, and opportunities of all the suspects just prior to the denouement.

Beatty's illustrations do a lot to keep the reader immersed in the world of comics, because once you've seen his renderings of the characters, it's impossible to imagine them any other way. Even with his work isn't on the page, it's still there in the mind's eye. So, though Collins likely had real humans in mind when he created these characters, I had Beatty's renderings in mine while reading Strip for Murder, which gave it a surprising "graphic novel" quality uncommon in a prose volume.

The characters are as two-dimensional as the illustrations — but that may be intentional given the milieu (Collins did write Dick Tracy for 15 years, and his lengthy experience provides fodder for some very welcome comics-business in-jokes). What's important is that Strip for Murder gives a remarkable snapshot of Manhattan in the 1950s and a mystery solution that is as surprising as it is satisfying.

The Thin Man directed by W.S. Van Dyke (starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on Video Vista. Copyright 2002.

The Thin Man (1934). Screenplay by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich from the novel The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett.

This first in the series — the only one actually adapted from the Dashiell Hammett novel — set the stage for the five sequels that followed. In The Thin Man we are quickly introduced to Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta (who became a star in his own right and is still a favorite of crossword puzzle creators) in a scene that typifies their relationship: the opening club scene.

From there on, William Powell and Myrna Loy are the best things on the screen. Their banter floats The Thin Man from being a normal sleuth picture to another level. I really believed that these two are a married couple. Or, rather, I realized that this was my idea of the perfect married couple.

The wordplay in The Thin Man gives a welcome break from the detection. For example, there is a particularly tense shootout in their apartment. The next morning they are reading about it in the papers:

Nick: "I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune."
Nora: "I read where you were shot five times in the tabloids."
Nick: "It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."

That is not to say that the crime doesn't matter. In fact, The Thin Man is the only one in the series that treats the murder inspection equally with the banter between the two main characters. It is therefore much darker than its successors. But a balance is struck by director W.S. Van Dyke between light and heavy that is perfect, whereas in the sequels the focus was placed more on Nick and Nora and barely gave lip service to the crimes.

The sequels are all fun, though, and I recommend the entire series without reservation. Although the quality does decline steadily throughout, Powell and Loy make these characters so enjoyable that you hardly notice.

The Thin Man was nominated for four Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director [W.S. Van Dyke], Best Actor [Powell], and Best Screenplay Adaptation [Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett]), but won none, losing all those awards to It Happened One Night.

(Incidentally, contrary to what the titles of the sequels would suggest, Nick Charles is not the Thin Man. It was how the character Clyde Wynant in this film was described in a police bulletin.)

Movie Sequels That Are Better Than the Originals

The main problem most film sequels have is their attempt to recapture the success of the original by replicating its cast, story, etc. The best sequels avoid that trap by going off in their own directions, or by expanding on what made the original so popular. Here is a list of what I think are the best improve on their predecessors:

1. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 — Now don't get me wrong: I loved The Blair Witch Project. But unfortunately most of its success, in addition to a very effective fear approach, was due to the "this really happened" marketing gimmick. Instead of trying to catch lightning in a bottle again, director Joe Berlinger and his co-screenwriter Dick Beebe created an original story of the effects the first movie had on a group of young filmgoers.
   
   
2. Superman II — The original Superman is a classic, but it is primarily devoted to what comics aficionados call "the origin story": where Superman comes from, the people in his life, his super powers, etc. Where Superman II takes off (pun intended) is by expanding on three fringe characters seen only in the beginning of the first movie. Giving Superman three villains (four if you count Gene Hackman's return as Lex Luthor, though he is mostly relegated to the sidelines) to fight ratchets up the suspense level. And allowing for more humor (related to the three aliens' unfamiliarity with Earth customs) simply makes for a more entertaining film.

(More to come, including Aliens, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and Toy Story 2.)

By the way, I believe I am the only person I know who does not believe that The Godfather II is better than The Godfather. The continuation of the Michael Corleone story is much welcomed, but the Young Vito clips are just boring and unnecessary.