You start out as a reader, you love mysteries and maybe you know someone else you does and perhaps more likely, you don’t. The authors, the people who write the books, why they’re in a category by themselves. But you write to some of them, you meet other fans and you hang around them long enough and before you know it, sooner or later, some of them go professional and become mystery writers themselves. But you knew them before they went pro, and somehow that puts them into a separate category.

The first fan I knew who went down this route was Bill Crider, whose contribution to the Nick Carter canon, The Coyote Connection, came out in 1981. There have been a number of others in between, but I’d like to bring to your attention the latest, Ed Lynskey.

Ed was an contributing editor to both the print version of Mystery*File, and when I took it digital, the M*F website. He specialized in interviews with mystery writers then, and if they were no longer with us, overviews of their careers. Authors in either or both categories are Robert Wade, Ed Lacy, Stephen Greenstreet, and Dennis Lynds.

In the past year or so Ed, as I said up above, has turned author. His first book was a private eye novel entitled The Dirt Brown Derby (Mundania Press, 2006). No one should have been surprised that his first novel was a PI affair, given the authors above whose work has he’s obviously enjoyed.

Derby

Frank Johnson is the private eye who’s in The Dirt Brown Derby, and now he has a second case under his belt, or he will have in March, a book called The Blue Cheer (PointBlank, 2007).

Publisher’s Weekly has a review of it, and I quote:

The Blue Cheer

Ed Lynskey. Point Blank (www.pointblankpress.com), $12.95 paper (224p) ISBN 978-0-8095-5667-0

Set in the remote mountains of West Virginia, this gritty contemporary detective novel, Lynskey’s second to feature former PI Frank Johnson (after 2006’s The Dirt-Brown Derby), will remind many of such masters of hard-boiled prose as Loren Estleman. Johnson has sought to still the memories of a deadly encounter with the Ku Klux Klan by retreating to the Appalachian town of Scarab, where people—and friends—are few and far between. Johnson witnesses what appears to be a Stinger missile strike against an unmanned aerial drone hovering above his yard, and he calls on his closest local companion, Old Man Maddox, a retired CIA agent. When the pair pursue the mystery with the local sheriff, a cascade of violence overwhelms the quiet community—murders that may be connected with a shadowy local racist cult known as the Blue Cheer. Despite a somewhat predictable resolution, the first-rate writing will leave readers eager to see more of Johnson. (Mar.)

Cheer

Here’s a bit more about Ed, taken from the PointBlank website:

Ed Lynskey is a crime fiction writer and poet living near Washington, D.C. His first two books are mysteries featuring his PI Frank Johnson: THE DIRT-BROWN DERBY (Mundania Press, 2006) and THE BLUE CHEER (Point Blank/Wildside Press, 2007). Two sequels include PELHAM FELL HERE (Mundania Press, 2007) and TROGLODYTES (Mundania Press, 2008). His work has been anthologized by St. Martin’s Press and University of Virginia Press. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. His reviews have appeared in New York Times Book Review and Washington Post. His mystery fiction has been praised by Linda Fairstein, Ken Bruen, Bill Pronzini, and John Lutz.

What more can I add? Way to go, Ed!