Wed 11 Nov 2015
MAX BYRD – California Thriller. Bantam, paperback original, April 1981. Reprinted several times.
This is the first of three private eye novels written before the author turned his hand to historical fiction and three well-received novels about three of this country’s presidents: Grant, Jefferson and Jackson. The PI in California Thriller, though, is Mike Haller, who calls San Francisco home, having made the transcontinental trek from Boston some twenty years before.
When I read this book when it first came out, I recall not caring for it all that much, although I haven’t been able to locate the review I’m sure I wrote about it at the time. I thought the characters too similar to those of a certain Robert B. Parker. Haller has a good lady friend named Dinah Farrell, who is a well-established psychiatrist in town, and while he doesn’t have a good Hawk-like buddy, Haller does have a world-weary fellow working for him named Fred Wrigley, an older fellow whom he can talk the case over with and exchage witty dialogue with each other at the same time.
Haller is hired to find a missing newspaper columnist in this one, a married man who is probably off on some kind of fling, whch would have been interesting enough, but the more Haller begins to connect the case up with some academic biochemists who have competing theories of how to treat problems with the brain — surgery vs. medical therapy — the more I began to lose interest.
Then came the thugs working for a big shot in the security business, and a Chinese crime lord who quotes to Haller inscrutable passages from the Koran. I apologize to you by saying that here is where I gave up, after already having worked my way through 100 pages of long, dense and overly descriptive paragraphs. I said to myself, even though this is a private eye novel, this is not the book for me.
To me, the book simply didn’t flow. Byrd, on this first attempt, doesn’t show the down-to-earth appeal that dozens of paperback PI writers of the 50s and 60s had. Those are the writers whose tales went down the same streets this book tries to do, without succeeding. Not for me, it didn’t.
On the other hand, California Thriller was awarded a Shamus for Best Paperback novel of 1981.
The Mike Haller series —
California Thriller. Bantam, 1981.
Fly Away, Jill. Bantam, 1981.
Finders Weepers. Bantam, 1983.
November 11th, 2015 at 9:56 pm
I found CALIFORNIA THRILLER in a thrift shop about ten years ago, and tried to read it. I made about 50 pages before putting it down. My experience with it was very much as you describe; too many words, and not enough beat.
November 11th, 2015 at 10:23 pm
I could not read this one. I liked his Jefferson book, but this reads like it was written in the 18th century. Should have won a Sham instead of Shamus Award.
November 11th, 2015 at 10:48 pm
Others in the running that year were
BEST ORIGINAL P.I. PAPERBACK
California Thriller by Max Byrd (Mike Haller)
Carpenter, Detective by Hamilton T. Caine (Ace Carpenter)
Brown’s Requiem by James Ellroy (Fritz Brown)
The Old Dick by L.A. Morse (Jake Spanner)
Murder in the Wind by George Ogan (Johnny Bordelon)
November 12th, 2015 at 2:32 am
I’ve read all three of Byrd’s Haller novels. Not terrible but not memorable either. The third book has a fun scene where Haller actually has his P.I. license yanked….first book I can remember where the cops actually follow up on their threat: “…Or I’ll pull your license, you worthless gumshoe!” The books got better as they went along, but that’s not saying a lot.
November 12th, 2015 at 7:43 am
I tried the Byrd too, but had the same result as the rest of you. I did read the next three nominees in that list (never heard of the Ogan) and would have voted for the Ellroy.
November 12th, 2015 at 9:52 am
The Ogan book was published by Raven House, and was one of three he did for them. My vote would have been for Ellroy, too. It was his first book, and not expecting anything when I read it, it knocked my socks off.
November 12th, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Ellroy would clearly have my vote with this a distant fourth.
November 13th, 2015 at 1:36 am
Gee, I liked all three.
November 13th, 2015 at 8:09 am
Ah, yes. I subscribed to Raven House at the time so I must have had the Ogan after all, but I didn’t read it.
As an aside I met James Ellroy – then just getting started – at the second New York Bouchercon in 1983 and got copies of his first two books signed. On BROWN’S REQUIEM he wrote: “This novel is a Sleazeburger of L.A. delights! Dig it!”
November 16th, 2015 at 9:09 pm
My vote back then would have been “Brown’s Requiem” first and on its heels “The Old Dick.”
Steve, I remember when we visited Walker Martin that year and he is the one who told us how good these two books were!!
A really long time ago!
November 16th, 2015 at 10:09 pm
Yes, I remember, indeed I do. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, but then I think again,