Wed 10 Dec 2014
Archived Review: TIMOTHY HARRIS – Good Night and Good-Bye.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[17] Comments
TIMOTHY HARRIS – Good Night and Good-Bye. Delacorte, hardcover, 1979. Dell, paperback, 1980. TV movie: CBS, 1988, as Street of Dreams (with Ben Masters as “Kyd Thomas.”)
A book more solidly “in the Raymond Chandler tradition” is hard to imagine. From the opening impact of the first page of Chapter One to the ending that comes as inevitably as the passage of time to its sadly depressing conclusion, there is not a single doubt that Timothy Harris has read, devoured, and assimilated the complete works of the master.
This is not meant as disparagement. The tone and style are Chandler’s. The prose and dialogue are not, quite, but if they aren’t, they are Harris’s own, in a revised and updated typically Californian tale of modern morality.
Private eye Thomas Kyd, like his Elizabethan namesake, may have a talent for melodrama, but he lives it as well, instead of just telling it. There is a girl named Laura, and it is she whom the story is about. She is a junkie, and a liar, and she is in trouble.
She meets Kyd, who helps, but she marries a wealthy movie writer named Paul Sassari instead. He is murdered soon after. As she says, “People don’t get much out of knowing me.”
Kyd is a master of lost causes, a Sir Galahad on horseback, a champion of ladies in distress, but, as he soon discovers, he is not truly a denizen of the fast, jet-paced world of drugs, easy money, and expensive women.
On the other hand, since he is familiar with life in the shade of shabby sidewalks and sordid secrets, he almost makes out okay. Finer entertainment for the confirmed private eye aficionado is also hard to imagine.
Rating: A
Bio-Bibliographic Notes: There was but one other book in the series: Kyd for Hire (Dell, paperback, 1978) but published earlier in the UK in hardcover as by Hyde Harris (Gollancz, 1977).
The two other books by Harris included in Hubin are paperback novelizations of movies: Steelyard Blues (1972) and Heat Wave (1979). According to IMDb, Harris was also the screenwriter for ten films, including Trading Places and Kindergarten Cop.
December 10th, 2014 at 5:21 pm
I’d never heard of the TV movie based on this book before, and I didn’t have much hope that I could find it on DVD, but as it so happened, I did. It’s available at Amazon, for example, with used copies going for only a penny.
I didn’t buy that one, but whether the movie’s any good or not, I wasn’t going pass up another one at a price that didn’t set me back much at all.
December 10th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Harris published a third book in this series. Here’s the info and a review on my blog: http://billcrider.blogspot.com/search?q=thomas+kyd
December 10th, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Thanks, Bill.
I think I knew about the third book, but after a while, as you get older, you don’t remember everything as well as when you were 20.
Of course back then, there weren’t nearly as many authors and titles to keep track of as there are now.
But I meander. Here’s the important data, quoting from the first paragraph in Bill’s review:
“…I mentioned that after two really good private-eye novels featuring Thomas Kyd, Harris got into the movie biz and didn’t write any more novels until after a lapse of many years he published Unfaithful Servant in 2004.”
Obviously I relied a little too much on Al Hubin, whose cutoff date for inclusion in Crime Fiction IV is the year 2000.
Now everyone go read the rest of Bill’s review. Two reviews, actually, if you follow the link.
December 10th, 2014 at 6:47 pm
I recall being impressed with Harris and Kyd, but never found the follow ups. Unlike so many that imitated Chandler he did a good job of finding that same milieu and mindset so distinctive in the Marlowe books.
It’s a shame Kyd didn’t have a longer career.
December 11th, 2014 at 8:52 am
I liked the two books, which I read in 1980 and 1981. A nice touch on the British paperback edition was that they used one painting and put half on each book, so if you put them side by side they made the whole. I don’t have the books anymore but Bill probably has both of them.
December 11th, 2014 at 8:56 am
My memory wasn’t clear so I checked. The British paperbacks were from Pan.
December 11th, 2014 at 8:58 am
The cheapest copy of UNFAITHFUL SERVANT I could find was $58.62, so I won’t be buying it.
December 11th, 2014 at 9:30 am
Re: UNFAITHFUL SERVANT. Yipes. It was published in hardcover by Five Star books, who publishes only for libraries, and in limited editions. I see the same one you saw, Jeff, and it’s an ex-library copy in only Good condition. I guess it’s nice to know that there’s a demand for the book. There’d have to be, for that price to be what it is.
December 11th, 2014 at 9:24 am
Thanks for the reminder about the Pan paperbacks, Jeff. One of the great pair of covers of all time.
December 11th, 2014 at 7:42 pm
A kindle version is actually available from Amazon for reasonable $3.50.
Loved all his books, even Heat Wave, though Kyd for Hire’s ending was too melodramatic to my taste.
December 11th, 2014 at 9:12 pm
Thanks, Vadym. That’s good to know, even if I don’t own a Kindle, but a lot of people do and might take Amazon up on this.
December 12th, 2014 at 9:31 am
Loved these when they first came out. Didn’t realize their were more. Amazon has a 4th called Heat Wave listed. Only available as a e book.
December 12th, 2014 at 10:06 am
Steve
The book HEAT WAVE is not a Thomas Kyd book, as far as I know. Here’s a synopsis taken from the Amazon website:
“Bobby Paradise started out with talent, a camera and high hopes. Bad breads and booze left him snapping the shutter for a sleazy lawyer and a few fast bucks. Hustling wasn’t Tina’s business, but a beautiful woman on the run can’t always choose. Tough times threw them together, with Tina as bait and bobby behind the lens. The next they knew, a high-ranking city official was dead. Between them, they had enough to blow the whistle on a scheme that stank from L.A. to D.C. But Bobby Paradise didn’t want to die.”
According to Hubin in CRIME FICTION IV, the book is a novelization of a film called HEATWAVE made in 1981, and directed by Phillip Noyce.
But when I went to IMDb, I discovered that the movie Hubin is referring to is an Australian one
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084059/reference
described thusly:
“A planned housing development in the mid 70’s designed for an upstart Cockney immigrant developer, becomes the centre of controversy as tenants and squatters in the older houses refuse to move.”
Not the same movie at all.
I have the book but I’ve never gotten around to reading it. I think I should.
December 12th, 2014 at 11:36 am
I discovered GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD-BYE in the early ’80s and loved it, and immediately went out and bought KYD FOR HIRE. They reminded me in ways of THE LONG GOODBYE and THE BIG SLEEP, respectively.
I’m glad to see UNFAITHFUL SERVANT is finally available in an electronic edition. I just ordered it.
And to confirm what Steve wrote, HEAT WAVE is definitely not a Thomas Kyd novel. I read it way back when and don’t remember anything about it other than that I thought it unexceptional.
December 12th, 2014 at 11:54 am
When I first saw the title on the link (at Pattinaise) I thought “Lowell Thomas”. Then I realized it was your blog so that wouldn’t be. I recall reviews but didn’t read these… time, thief of us all.
December 12th, 2014 at 4:12 pm
The cover of the e book on Amazon of Heat Wave-says A Thomas Kyd Thriller. Obviously an error.
December 12th, 2014 at 4:27 pm
Re my comment #13, I told Al Hubin about the wrongly identified movie he had associated to the book HEAT WAVE, and besides fixing the error, here’s his reply:
“according to one listing of the book on ebay it’s a novelization of a screen play by Hershel Weingrod that was never produced.”