Fatale-istic: An Essay about Dan Marlowe

I’ve done an essay–actually a short biographical sketch–of the late hardboiled mystery writer Dan J. Marlowe that will appear in Fatale, a graphic novel by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips in March.  Brubaker is fascinated by the life and work of Marlowe and horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, so he has incorporated elements of those stories in the storyline of Fatale.  Brubaker was especially struck by Marlowe’s experience of loss, first losing his wife, then–in his early sixties–losing his memory, a blow to his writing career from which he never really recovered.

 


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A Novel of True Crime

I’ve finally published GRACE HUMISTON AND THE VANISHING on Amazon and Smashwords.  It’s a novel, part thriller, part adventure, about the solution of a true crime case that occurred in New York City in 1917.  I’ve also entered this novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.  We’ll see how that goes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve also published a 12-page article about Grace Humiston on Amazon.  It appears as a 99-cent “ebook.”  It’s called THE CRIME LAWYER: THE TRUTH ABOUT GRACE HUMISTON.

 

 

 

 

 


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The Footsteps Die Out Forever

Got an e-mail yesterday from a man named Mark Moore, who is investigating a homicide case  that has haunted him for years: the murder of three young boys on the Gila River Indian Reservation in the summer of 1976.  The boys’ bodies were found near the railroad tracks southeast of Phoenix.  They had been stabbed to death. Mark went to grade school with Richard Chase, the oldest of the three victims. Mark contacted me because I wrote about the case about a decade ago as part of a series on Unsolved Mysteries in Arizona.  If, after all these years, any of you have any information on this case, contact Mark at markuswelby66@yahoo.com or send me a message.  I’m not sure I have my notes on the case any more.  If I do, I’ll write more about it in this blog and pass the information to Mark.  A very sad echo from the past.  Here’s the Unsolved Mystery story: http://www.azcentral.com/news/famous/articles/0520Unsolved-Boys20.html?&wired


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Can you format an ebook?

Ebooks are all the rage, and if you have a book-length manuscript written, or even a long article, you can upload it and sell it on Amazon and Smashwords.  The question is: can you format it, and how tough is that?  The answers are, “Yes,” and “Kind of tough, but possible if you stick with it.”  By far the best place to start is uploading to Amazon, and the best place to learn how to do that is a blog called CJ’s Easy as Pie.  CJ, a very nice lady, takes you step by step through the process.  Also download the Smashwords formatting guide and read it carefully.  If you have a friend who knows a little HTML, all the better.  Give it a shot.  The feeling of control in being able to publish your own work is awesome!


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The Plea of Tony Mancini

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was recently reviewing photos related to a 1931 American trunk murder.  They put me in mind of the Brighton Trunk Murder trial in 1934 in London, as described in A Second Companion to Murder.  The accused was Tony Mancini, a thief and lowlife.  The body of Violette Kaye, a prostitute with whom Mancini had been living, had been found in a trunk in his residence.  He asserted she had died in a drunken fall.  Who would believe him?  However, he was defended by the finest advocate in England, Mr. Norman Birkett, and Birkett made an impassioned argument on his behalf.  Mancini’s story was simple.  He had not fetched the police when he found Kaye dead, he said, because, “Where the police are concerned, a man who’s got convictions never gets a square deal.”  Mancini said he had no ill feeling against Kaye.  “I did not kill her,” he said.  “Strange as it is, I used to love her.”  The jury acquitted him.


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Flat-tops and firearms

I had almost forgotten the hair style referred to as the “flat-top” until I saw it referred to in the 1966 thriller  The Vengeance Man by Dan Marlowe.  Used to be plenty of flat-tops and firearms around in southeastern Nebraska, where I grew up.  The Vengeance Man has only one flat-top, but there are guns galore.


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