(This is a "rebroadcast" from 2010. Back to new FFB posts next week....)
Before they were stars, everyone's favorite literary private
eyes had to start somewhere. Many jumped to life fully-formed in novels, but
others began their lives in short
stories. Robert Randisi, a lifelong champion of P.I. fiction and founder of the
Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), in
addition to being an author himself, put together a collection of First Cases:
First Appearances of Classic Private Eyes in 1996. Fortunately, that volume was
successful enough that Randisi was able to compile three additional collections,
the last in 2002.
The 1996 volume (and the one that started it all) includes stories
in which now-beloved protagonists first saw the light of day, such as Bill Pronzini’s
Nameless Detective in "It’s a Lousy
World," first published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in 1968; Joe Gores's
Dan Kearny and company in "File #1: The Mayfield Case," printed in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1968 (a banner year, it seems); Linda Barnes's
Carlotta Carlyle in "Lucky Penny," published in New Black Mask in 1986; and Robert
Randisi's own ex-boxer Miles Jacoby in "The Steinway Collection," first
published in Mystery Monthly in 1977.
Other entries are the first short story appearances of
detectives who had already made a splash in a novel, such as Lawrence Block's
Matthew Scudder in "Out of the Window," Sara Paretsky' V.I. Warshawski in "The Takamoku Joseki," and Max Allan
Collins's Nathan Heller in "The Strawberry Teardrop," all three of which were
published just barely one year after each character's debut novel.
Most
of these authors and their detectives went on to win
major awards, including several Shamus nods--awards Randisi initiated as
part
of the PWA. In this book and the following volumes, the stories and
characters
include hard-boiled and soft-boiled, covering a range of settings
(Block's
Manhattan, Jeremiah Healy's Boston, Gores's San Francisco), but the most
interesting aspect, as Randisi says, "It's interesting to go back and
read an
early story about a series character. In some cases the character you
meet is
very different from the character as he or she appears in later
stories." In some cases, these include a switch of POVs from third to
first, or major life
changes as with Block's pre-AA Scudder who still drinks bourbon with his
coffee.
These collections should be both inspiration and caveat
to contemporary writers of crime fiction short stories. If you're fortunate
enough to produce a long-lived private eye series after having auditioned the
character first in the short format, you might just wind up in a future Randisi
anthology. So make it good and make it count.
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