Sun 5 May 2019
A PI Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: STEPHEN HUMPHREY BOGART – Play It Again.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
STEPHEN HUMPHREY BOGART – Play It Again. R. J.Brooks #1. Forge, hardcover, 1995; paperback, June 1996.
R. J. Brooks is a Manhattan PI, and if he isn’t sleazy, it isn’t because he doesn’t do sleazy work. He’s also the son of a couple of movie stars; his father’s dead, but his mother, the glamorous if aging Belle Fontaine, is still around.
He doesn’t have much to do with her, though, and thinks she was a pretty lousy mother, all things told. But there’s a murder that changes all sorts of things, and R. J. has to face part of a past he turned away from long ago.
This isn’t quite a two-smiley, but it’s a solid smiley-plus. Bogart has a flair for dialog, and tells a pretty good story. His characters are well done, too, and Brooks comes across as a surprisingly real person for the most part.
The book isn’t compelling or anything that grand, but it will stand comparison with most of the PI stuff being done these days. There’ll be a lot of speculation as to how much of his real relationship with his parents found its way into the story, as I’m sure he realizes full well; it can’t do anything but sell books.
It’s blurbed, by the way, by Connie Chung and Liz Smith, if that tells you anything about how Tor/Forge intends to market it.
Bibliographic Note: There was one follow-up book in a series of only two: As Time Goes By (Forge, hardcover, 1997).
May 5th, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Not a great book, but it had potential and style as Barry says in the review. Enjoyable if not memorable.
May 5th, 2019 at 7:52 pm
It’s interesting that you and Barry had the same reaction: a good but not great book and maybe with potenntial.
The marketing ploy that Barry talked about didn’t work on me. I saw right through it, or so I thought. Nothing but a gimmick foisted off on the reading public, with the actual writing done by a totally anonymous ghostwriter, like all those Sci-Fi novels William Shatner was supposed to have written. Or Margaret Truman’s books.
So said to myself, no thanks, and I passe both books by.
My mistake.
Of course it’s not too late, except for Mr. Bogart’s royalty statements, as I’m sure that copies are still easily available.
May 6th, 2019 at 12:58 pm
Amazon has this book, the second book THE REMAKE: AS TIME GOES BY, and the book BOGART – IN SEARCH OF MY FATHER.
PLAY IT AGAIN is 99 cents on Kindle.
May 6th, 2019 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for the update on this, Michael. 99 cents is certainly affordable!
It may not be important to anyone else but me, I have discovered that the first book and maybe both were published in England as by Stephen Bogart only, not wishing I suppose to take advantage of the name recognition his middle name would have offered.
May 10th, 2019 at 5:20 pm
You’re a little kinder to the book than I would have been, but only a little. I confess I was put off by the treatment of the Bacall figure: psychodrama is a therapy best carried out in a small group.
I’m interested to learn from the comments that it was likely ghostwritten. I thought there were enough signs of amateurishness that it was likely SHB’s own work.
May 10th, 2019 at 6:55 pm
No, I did not intend to say that the books were ghostwritten, only that when they came first came out, that I thought they were.
They may have been, but there’s been no evidence that I know of to say that they were,
May 13th, 2019 at 2:15 pm
The unfortunate legacy of a famous man to a son whose name leaves him slim chance of being taken seriously. I guess it’s different with offspring actors. Wonder how the books would have been received had SHB used an obvious pseudonym–Samuel Spade or Rick Blaine or Fred Dobbs, risking obvious marketability for the more esoteric spicy bonus mystery? 99 cents on Kindle? Shweetheart, here I come!