Fri 16 Dec 2016
MARCIA MULLER & BILL PRONZINI – Double. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1984. Mysterious Press, paperback, September 1995.
I think that this may be the first novel co-authored by two MWA Grand Masters, but even so, my next thought was that perhaps it doesn’t count, since they weren’t Grand Masters when they wrote it. No, that’s nitpicking, I told myself. Of course it counts.
Double is told in alternating chapters by their best known series characters, Bill’s “Nameless” PI and Marcia’s Sharon McCone. They’re both attending a private investigators’ convention in San Diego, when (of course) they come across several suspicious events, including the supposed suicide (by jumping) of a former mentor of McCone’s.
Neither of them has a client, but neither can either of them sit back and let the police have all the fun. And reading this book is fun, with many a chapter ending as a cliffhanger, with the other character immediately taking over, totally unaware of what straits the previous author had left his or her fellow investigator.
This must have a book that was fun to write as well, but even I as a reader can tell what challenges the authors had to face and overcome to make it work as well as it does. Incidentally, while neither character spends much time at the PI convention, they do see in passing there a female PI based in Santa Teresa, plus a couple of gents named Brock Callahan and Miles Jacoby, among others.
December 16th, 2016 at 5:50 pm
Nice review, Steve; thanks. DOUBLE was in fact a fun book to write — a lot of it done tongue in cheek with insider references such as the two you pointed out — but it wasn’t an easy one in terms of cohesiveness of plot. We were celebrating the completion of the first draft when we realized that we’d left one of the three murders unmotivated and unsolved! It took a fair bit of head-scratching and rewriting to rectify the oversight. This is what sometimes happens to writers like us who don’t outline a book ahead of time, but instead let the characters and situational twists dictate the story’s development.
December 16th, 2016 at 8:10 pm
Glad you enjoyed the review, Bill.
I see I used the word “fun” three times in this review. Fun for the detectives involved, fun for the authors, and fun for the reader.
December 16th, 2016 at 8:13 pm
I should also point out that this review is part of a Tribute Day to Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller today on Patti Abbott’s blog, as part of her weekly Friday’s Forgotten books series.
Here’s the link to all of the reviews:
http://pattinase.blogspot.com/2016/12/fridays-forgotten-books-special-marcia.html
December 17th, 2016 at 2:14 am
Two writers who couldn’t deserve a tribute more and two of the best eyes in the business. Good book too.
December 17th, 2016 at 7:55 am
That was certainly the first collaboration of theirs that I read, and as good as you said. I have always been fascinated by authors who collaborate successfully and the different methods they use – of course the Queens are an early example of a different method – and the alternating chapters way always seems the most sensible (if not necessarily easiest) way to go.
December 17th, 2016 at 9:05 am
Both “Nameless” and McCone seem to usher in the era of “real” PIs not the caricature of the tough guy (or lady) from the 40′ and 50’s. Pretty amazing that 40 some years later both are still going strong, a testament to the ability of both writers.
Regarding collaborating on a book, I read a quote from Donald Westlake that said it was “twice the work for half the money”.