Dana Haynes wins "Spotted Owl" Award for CRASHERS

Friends of Mystery President Elinore Rogers presents 

the coveted Spotted Owl to Dana Haynes

Last Thursday I attended a meeting of the Friends of Mystery to witness the presentation of their 16th annual Spotted Owl Award. The revered Spotted Owl is awarded to what the Friends deem the best novel of the year by a Northwest writer.

The festivities got underway with a sale of second-hand books at extremely reasonable prices. I splurged and spent two bits for an old issue of EQMM with a Doug Allyn story. Imagine my chagrin, minutes later, when it was announced that after the meeting, the remaining books would be offered at half price. I could have had that sucker for twelve and a half cents!

I chatted with some folks I knew, including President Ellie Rogers and her husband Jim (Ellie claims we’ve know each other 40 years, but I think it’s a mere 36), rock stars Brian Trainer and Laurie Mills of legendary Portland band Rock Residue, BIG NAME AUTHOR Bill Cameron (who looks remarkably like a character from The Simpsons) and ZooMystery Queen Ann Littlewood.

A Rogues Gallery: Bill Cameron (author of Lost Dog, Day One, Chasing Smoke and the upcoming County Line), the award-winning Dana Haynes, and Katy King (author of City of Suspects).

Names withheld to protect the innocent.

Then it was on to the big moment. Ellie got up to podium, pulled out a really cool plaque inscribed with the image of a spotted owl, and placed it in the hands of Mr. Dana Haynes. Mr. H then proceeded to regale us with interesting stuff about the award-winning Crashers.

Crashers, in case you don’t know, involves a terrorist plot to down airliners using an ingenious (and hopefully impossible) method.

Among the secrets Dana divulged:

He began the book in 1999, but it was sidelined by certain events on September 11, 2001, and had to wait ten years to see print. Dana attributes its publication to at last finding the right agent, Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management, and the right editor, Keith Kahla of the St. Martins imprint Minotaur.

He got the idea from an article about the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigation of a crash near Philadelphia. Though there was almost nothing left of the plane, they were still able to figure out what happened.

Though the book displays an astonishing amount of technical info, he’s not a technical guy, so he had to learn as he went, doing a lot of research at Powell’s Technical Bookstore (just down the street from the City of Books) and on the NTSB website.

At various times, Dana referred to the book as having 200 protagonists, then 19, and finally 9. Having just read the book, I think the correct answer is pretty close to 9. To give them all distinct voices, he cut photos out of magazines to represent each character and stuck them up where he could see them as he wrote.

The first protagonist we meet, and the one I most identified with, is a pathologist named Tommy Tomzack. Dana said he had a tough time getting a handle on Tommy, who was originally envisioned as being from New Hampshire. Then he saw Billy Bob Thornton in Primary Colors. Once he gave Tommy a Texas accent and let him swear like a stevedore, the character practically wrote himself.

Someone asked if the book made him afraid to fly. Quite the opposite, Dana said. He learned so much about how well they’re put together, and how good the people are who build and fly them, that he’s more comfortable than ever.

When the book was published in Japan, the publishers wanted a minor change in the plot. Dana was hesitant until his editor said, “What do you care? You can’t read Japanese anyway.”

When it was published in Italy, the publisher produced a trailer. Dana swears it features a guest-scream from Kermit the Frog. What do you think?



Good news: A sequel is coming in November, also from Minotaur, reuniting all nine protagonists. Dana was determined to kill one of them, governmental liaison Susan Tanaka, in the second book, but his inamorata, author Katy King, put her foot down and refused to allow it.

More good news: Following the sequel, we’ll see a spin-off with only one Crashers character, former Israeli intelligence agent Daria Gibron. I’m anxiously awaiting both books.

Ann Littlewood, author of Night Kill and Did Not Survive 

(no, she's not an albino, it's just my cheesy camera) chats with fans.

In case you're wondering, here are the runners up for the Spotted Owl:

2. Jon Talton for Deadline Man

3. Robert Dugoni for Bodily Harm

4. Mike Lawson for House Justice

5. Patrick McManus for The Huckleberry Murders

6. Bill Cameron for Day One

7. Phillip Margolin for Supreme Justice

8. Greg Rucka for The Last Run

9. Steve Martini for The Rule of Nine

10. Michael Gruber for The Good Son

Lots of talented writers here in the Northwest territory.

Noticeably absent from this list are two books Davy and I feel are also deserving, so we’d like take this opportunity to present the 1st annual Ring-Tailed Raccoon Award to (in alphabetical order) Portland author Ann Littlewood for Did Not Survive and Tacoma’s notorious Robert S. Napier for The Toyman Rides Again. Yep, it's a tie. Congratulations, folks. (Sorry, no plaques.)

Overlooked Cartoons: Books Come Alive in "Have You Got Any Castles?"

Two weeks ago I posted one of the great Books Come To Life cartoons, Book Revue, from 1946. That's HERE. Now here's an earlier one, and it's a classic!



Sweet Freedom is your weekly headquarters for Overlooked Films, Etc.

Art Gallery: Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936)

An early attempt to portray real life hero/desperado Joaquin Murrietta.

Forgotten Stories: "Hunch" and "Death Song" by Paul Cain - Yours via email!

As I've said in various posts (as is, of course, common knowledge among Cain addicts), Paul Cain wrote 14 stories for detective pulps, plus the novel Fast One, which originally appeared in five parts in Black Mask. 

Seven of those stories appeared in the collection Seven Slayers (discussed here yesterday). William F. Nolan's notes in The Black Mask Boys hint that Cain himself (aka Peter Ruric, real name George Sims) may selected those seven stories himself, though whether he had editorial assistance is unclear.

In any case, that left seven stories unreprinted. One of those, "Trouble-Chaser," finally resurfaced in the 1995 volume Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories, edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian. Another, "Sockdolager," saw print again in 2008, in a facsimile reprint of the April, 1936 Star Detective, published by Adventure House. Both those books are readily available from Amazon and other sources. 

That leaves five still waiting to be reborn. Over the past year or so, I've offered scans via email of three of those: "555," "Chinaman's Chance," and "Dutch Treat," and at least 70 of you folks have written to request them. But the last two stories, "Hunch" and "Death Song," remained at large.

BUT NOW, thanks to Jeremy Burwell, who graciously provided us with the text of Cain's rare non-mystery, "The Tasting Machine," (published under the pen name Peter Ruric - and reprinted HERE), I finally got my hands on the last two tales. And with Jeremy's blessing, I'd like the share them with you.

Just so you know, these are scans of photocopies that may be 2nd or 3rd generation, so some of the words are a little smudged. But I had no trouble making them out, and the stories are well worth the eyestrain. 

So! If you're one of those seventy-odd folks who requested the first three stories - AND you received a message from me last week about "The Tasting Machine," I have you on my radar, and should be sending you these stories ASAP. But if you did not hear from me about "The Tasting Machine," and would like any or all of these stories, email me at delewis1@hotmail.com and I'll be pleased to shoot them back to you!

Forgotten Books is a weekly extravaganza hosted by Patti Abbott. Unless recent difficulties with Blogger prevent it, you'll find links to more great stuff at pattinase.

These cool Black Mask cover scans were borrowed from the fabulous Galactic Central. 

SEVEN SLAYERS by Paul Cain

Only one novel and 14 short stories appeared under the pen name Paul Cain, but that novel was Fast One, and 7 of those stories were collected in paperback Seven Slayers, cementing Cain's reputation as one of the hardest of hardboiled writers.

I re-read and reviewed Fast One not long ago (click HERE), and it was so good I couldn't resist having another go at Seven Slayers.

And once again, it was a pleasure. None of these stories seem quite as hard as Fast One, but all are tight, fast, edgy and take you in unexpected directions. Cain’s prose has wit, style and a certain savage grace that leaves you wanting more.

Two of these tales are in first person, which I found especially interesting. A first-person story creates at least the illusion of a more direct insight into the mind of the author. Even when the writer is taking on a personally wholly unlike his own, I believe (or maybe choose to believe) that some aspect of real personality seeps through. Third person, especially the ultra-tough third person narration employed in Fast One, creates a mask that is far more difficult to penetrate.

One of the most intriguing characters in the book appears in “Pigeon Blood,” a title derived from a set of rubies supposedly worth 175 grand in 1933. Our protagonist here is Druse, an ex-lawyer now free to employ his lawyerly skills without restraint. He keeps a luxury apartment in Upper Manhattan and professes to have one of the world’s finest collections of books on Satanism, demonology and witchcraft. It’s a shame Cain didn’t give us more stories about this guy, because he sure had potential.

Actually, Cain had only one series character, an underworld mercenary named Black, and he made only two appearances. The first, called simply “Black,” is in this collection. For the other, “Trouble-Chaser,” you’ll have to dig up the 1995 book Hard Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories.

Seven Slayers is now readily available, both under the original title and in an omnibus edition including Fast One. But five of Cain’s stories have never been reprinted. As I’ve mentioned before (most recently right HERE), I have three of those in the original magazines and am happy to share them with readers of the Almanack. If you’d like scans of the stories “Dutch Treat,” “Chinaman’s Chance” and “555,” email me at delewis1@hotmail.com and I’ll shoot them back to you.

As for the other two: “Hunch” from Black Mask 3/34 and “Death Song” from Black Mask 1/36 . . . tune in tomorrow for exciting news!

If you missed our presentation of Cain's 1949 sf/fantasy story "The Tasting Machine," you can still catch it right HERE.

Tomorrow! More Paul Cain featured in Friday's Forgotten Stories.

Art Gallery: G-8 and his Battle Aces, Pt. 2

The first three covers in this reprint series were stunning originals by Jim Steranko. There're HERE.

Overlooked Audio: King Kull in "The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" by Robert E. Howard

A couple of months ago I posted Side A of the LP From the Hells Beneath the Hells, read by Ugo Toppo. That side featured two Howard poems and a short short story. You can find it HERE.

Today, for your listening or downloading pleasure, here's Side B, featuring King Kull. The album, issued in 1975 by Alternate World Recordings, was produced and directed by Roy and Shelley Torgerson.

When I read a Kull story, or hear one, or even just hear his name, I see him as drawn by John Severin, so I couldn't resist tossing up a couple of those drawings here. At the end of this post is a two-page quickie version of the tale from the Marvel comic Conan 35. These pages, I believe, were penciled by John Buscema and inked by John Severin.

THE MIRRORS OF TUZUN THUNE - Listen Now


THE MIRRORS OF TUZUN THUNE - Click to Download

(click to enlarge)

For more of this week's Overlooked Cool Stuff, visit Sweet Freedom.

Yikes, I'm on YouTube!

My fifteen minutes of fame actually only lasted a minute, but it sure was fun.