Wed 27 Mar 2019
ARTHUR LYONS – Fast Fade. Jacob Asch #9. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1987; paperback, July 1988.
PI Jacob Asch goes Hollywood in this one, his ninth overall. His client thinks a well-known director was once her husband, under another name, The director is also into kinky bondage, and when he’s found dead, they have a name for it: autoerotic asphyxiation.
An underlying themes seems to be the built-in insecurities of show business, and the people in it. While the case itself is as heavily plotted as an X-rated Erle Stanley Gardner story, the wrapup comes a little too quick. I anticipated more than I got.
–Reprinted from from Mystery*File #14, July 1989.
March 27th, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Lyons was one of those writers from this period I really liked, then one day I realized I was three or four books behind and had little desire to catch up.
March 27th, 2019 at 5:18 pm
My reviews at the time I wrote this one were deliberately short and sometimes cryptic, which is how this one reads to me now.
I wish I’d said more about Asch himself. Whatever made him stand out as a characters is lost to me now. I’ll have to read another of his adventures sometime soon, but it needn’t be this one. (There were 11 novels in all, and 6 short stories.)
March 27th, 2019 at 6:15 pm
Lyons was one of the first PI writers that I read, and I loved the Asch books. He started in the early 70’s, a little before the PI boon came through. An ex-newspaper reporter who was thrown in jail because he wouldn’t reveal his source and then got into the PI field if I remember correctly. Very southern California feel to the books also.
May have to go back and re-read his stories, it has been years since I’ve read one.
March 27th, 2019 at 6:52 pm
David P
That short background description you just provided for Asch sounds right to me, along with the Southern California setting. I’m inclined to start reading the series again myself, beginning with the very first one.
March 27th, 2019 at 7:07 pm
Be interesting to see if the stories hold up as well as I remember them.
March 29th, 2019 at 6:53 am
I read them all, but little remains in my recollection other than the whole Southern California thing.
March 29th, 2019 at 6:58 pm
Like Jeff, I read all the Asch mysteries, but my recollection is dim. Maybe, like Steve, I should read them all again.
March 29th, 2019 at 9:08 pm
All in all, you certainly could do a lot worse.
March 29th, 2019 at 10:19 pm
I have a life long habit of writing notes on a piece of paper concerning my reactions to reading pulps, novels, and non-fiction books. My library is full of these notes which are in the books and pulps.
For instance my note on CASTLES BURNING by Arthur Lyons shows that I read it in December 1987 and thought it was outstanding. I also scribbled:
“Very well done. One of the better tough PI series. Made into an HBO movie titled “SLOW BURN”, which didn’t look too good when I fell asleep on it after a half hour.”
I also mention influence of Hammett and Chandler and possibly Ross Macdonald. I know I read FAST FADE because I liked all the Arthur Lyons novels but the note is missing and somehow got lost over the decades.