By
Susan Rogers Cooper
For
the past few months my mind has been wandering back to a couple of
mysteries I read back in the 80s. They were my second introduction
to the mystery genre after I'd read everything John D. MacDonald had
ever written. Of course I'd gone through Nancy Drew and the Hardy
Boys as a child, and Agatha Christie as a teenager, but it wasn't
until my early thirties that I got back to the mystery genre. But,
alas, those mysteries I'd read after Mr. MacDonald alluded me. I
didn't remember the authors' names, the book titles, or even the
characters' names. Which began to gnaw at me. But far be it from me
to let a little thing like lack of knowledge stop me. I have access
to the internet! Voila! And, after several aborted attempts, a lot
of swearing, and a couple of phone calls to my eleven year old
grandson, I was able to find what I was looking for. And was
delighted to find out things about two of my early influences that I
never knew.
The
first author I found again was Dimitri Gat, author of the Yuri Nevsky
series. These were written and were read (by me) before the fall
of the Soviet Union, so “white” Russians in America were still
the good guys, as opposed to the way they are portrayed these days.
There were three Nevsky novels, NEVSKY'S DEMON, NEVSKY'S RETURN, and
THE ROMANOV CACHE. I truly loved these books. Great characters and
vivid descriptions. I was delighted to see that Mr. Gat is still
writing, both under his own name and under pseudonyms. But then I
found out something I never saw coming. Like I said earlier, I was a
great reader of John D. MacDonald. But in Googling Mr. Gat, I
discovered that NEVSY'S DEMON was admittedly a direct “homage” to
Mr. MacDonald's THE DREADFUL LEMON SKY. Having read both within
probably a year or two of each other, I was shocked I hadn't seen it.
But it was such a direct “homage” that the publishing house had
to recall the book and Mr. Gat was asked to apologize to Mr.
MacDonald, which he did.
The
second rediscovered author is Lucille Kallen who passed away in 1999.
She was the creator of four C.B. Greenfield mysteries, INTRODUCING
C.B. GREENFIELD, THE TANGLEWOOD MURDER (one of my favorite all-time
reads), NO LADY IN THE HOUSE, and A LITTLE MADNESS. These were
definitely cozier than the Nevsky books, which were rather dark, but
an enjoyable read. Personally I can travel between cozy and
hard-boiled without suffering any kind of whiplash. But in Googling
Ms. Kallen, I discovered something I didn't know: She was the lone
woman writer on Sid Ceaser's “Your Show of Shows,” and the
prototype for such TV characters as Sally Rogers from “The Dick Van
Dyke Show.”
In
reading about Ms. Kallen and her books, it has dawned on me that
perhaps I never read A LITTLE MADNESS. It appears that Amazon will
be hearing from me shortly. But, in reality, I can't remember that
much about the other books in the Greenfield series, or, to be
honest, in the Nevsky series. So maybe I'll be adding a little to my
Amazon cart. Oh, and I really should get another copy of THE FEARFUL
YELLOW EYE, just for comparison's sake. But if I do that, I should
probably restock my Travis McGee selection. Does anyone know if
Amazon does lay-a-way?
I
hope that someday, thirty or forty years from now, some other writer
will re-discover my work and think as highly of me then as I do of
these two now.
