Fred and Ed

I posted six years ago and again in 2011 about Ed McBain's far-flung influence on other crime writers, citing tributes from such authors as Ireland's Ken Bruen, Britain's David Hewson, and Sweden's Kjell Eriksson.

Still, I was gobsmacked when doing research for a review of Fred Vargas' latest novel to find that she, too, reveres the author of the 87th Precinct mysteries. "I am reading him for the third time," she told L'Express two years ago. McBain, she said, would "write a novel with five intersecting stories, and there was no relationship between them."

Quirky, fey Fred Vargas? I thought. Tough, gritty, Ed McBain? But by God, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, the novel that was the subject of my review and the occasion of Vargas' Express interview, juggles stories big and small, bringing them beautifully to the appropriate degree of conclusion, just as McBain did in Nocturne, the best of the few 87th Precinct books I've read.

And now readers, your question: What are your favorite examples of surprising literary influence?

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(Read the Detectives Beyond Borders interview with Fred Vargas.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2013

What sin a name?

Why does Steve Carella become Steve Carelli in Cop Hater, the movie based on Ed McBain's novel of the same name? Why does Lew Archer become Lew Harper, other than Paul Newman's possible predilection in the 1960s for characters and titles beginning with H?

I can guess why Carmen Sternwood became Camilla in Michael Winner's 1978 remake of The Big Sleep; England is probably not exactly crawling with Carmens. But why does Ned Beaumont become Ed Beaumont in both movies based on Hammett's The Glass Key?

What are your favorite or most eccentric character name changes from the page to the screen? Bonus points if you know why the movie makers changed the name. In two cases I know of, authors wanted to retain the rights to a character's name.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

The post I wrote

Another verbal habit of some writers:

"I fired two shots that sprouted into big red blossoms across the white cotton shirt he wore."

— "Carrera's Woman" by Ed McBain
writing as Richard Marsten, Masters of Noir: Volume One

Why not "his white cotton shirt"?  What does "he wore" add? What could the victim have been doing with his shirt except wearing it? If yesterday's writing quirk was common in American pulp stories of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, I associate this one with writers of the '40s and '50s, often when describing the attire of an attractive woman. But "the dress she wore" (rather than "her dress") always takes me out of the story, if just for a moment.

Why would Marsten/McBain/Hunter/Lombino use "the white cotton shirt he wore" rather than "his white cotton shirt"? Does one convey something the other does not? Was he merely using the words that came naturally at the time (1953)? If the fashion in words changed in favor of brevity, when? And why?

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

McBain around the world

I speculated idly four years ago that Ed McBain might be the most influential crime writer ever. I thought of that post again last month when preparing for Bouchercon 2011.

I'd read David Hewson's The Fallen Angel, then gone back to earlier books in the series and was surprised to see the nine books referred to as "the Costa series," after the young Roman police officer Nic Costa. The Fallen Angel is very much an ensemble piece starring Costa but also his colleagues on the Questura. "Almost like an Ed McBain novel," I said during my “PASSPORT TO MURDER” panel at Bouchercon, of which Hewson was a member. Yes, Hewson acknowledged, McBain was very much on his mind when he wrote the book.

Ken Bruen has one of his characters not just read McBain novels but try to write one, and Sweden's Kjell Eriksson pays tribute as well. Bill Crider's books work in mentions of McBain.  Anyone else?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Lone wolf or cast of thousands?

Yesterday's post, which asked Who is the hero in a Sjöwall and Wahlöö novel?, has given rise to a vigorous, ongoing discussion that suggests some practical advantages to deploying a cast of protagonists rather than a lone-wolf hero in a long-running crime-fiction series:

"As I.J. notes, it's simple common sense. The "lone wolf" detective (à la Harry Bosch), as appealing as this type can be, is not very realistic. Eventually, it's a dead end."

and

"another `why' might be: to keep characters and plots from growing stale."

Do multiple protagonists make it easier for an author to keep a long-running series fresh? How? Why? How do series with lone-wolf protagonists compensate?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Kjell Eriksson / Blurb comparisons, far-fetched and otherwise

Time constraints and fatigue prevent a full review for now, but I thought I'd say a word about critics' invocation of Ed McBain when discussing Kjell Eriksson. The comparison is apt, but Eriksson takes the ensemble approach farther in The Princess of Burundi. Killers, neighbors, workers, wives and lovers get their say in addition to police, the shifts in point of view evoking a reader's sympathy for all but the very worst characters.

The surprising though apt association of McBain and Eriksson brought to mind the question of odd blurbs. The ones that make me roll my eyes fall into three categories: invocations of Raymond Chandler (I would pay good money to read a book-jacket blurb along the lines of: "This exciting new crime novelist, whose work is not in the least reminiscent of Raymond Chandler's ... "), strained comparisons ("If Borges wrote chick lit, this is the chick-lit novel he would have written"), and testimonials that collapse under their own weight ("Take a touch of James Joyce, a dash of Kafka, a soupcon of Dashiell Hammett, a sprinkling of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a dose of William S. Burroughs, a pinch of Georges Simenon, a spoonful of P.G. Wodehouse, a samovar of Tolstoy, a snifter of Agatha Christie, and a thunderclap of the Old Testament, and you have just a hint of what this scintillating debut is like.")

Readers, the floor is yours. What is the weirdest book blurb you have ever seen?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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The most influential crime writer ever?

And I don't mean Arthur Conan Doyle; his influence is too remote. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are obvious choices, since Hammett influenced Chandler, and Chandler influenced everyone else.

My new dark horse, though, is Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct novels, featuring Detective Steve Carella and a cast of many. The manic Sgt. Brant in Ken Bruen's Calibre loves the 87th Precinct books so much that he tries to write one himself. More recently, I've come across this sly and surprising acknowledgment in Kjell Eriksson's The Princess of Burundi:

The Rastafarian locksmith worked on the lock for about thirty seconds. He whistled as he worked and Fredriksson asked him to be quiet.

"Cool," he said. "Are you Sweden's answer to Carella?"

Fredriksson has no idea what he was talking about, but nodded.

Eriksson's book has an ensemble cast, somewhat in the manner of – well, you can guess.

So, the floor is open to you once again, readers. What crime writers have influenced other writers? And what form has that influence taken?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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