Tue 6 Aug 2019
Archived PI Review: MICHAEL J. KATZ – Last Dance in Redondo Beach.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[8] Comments
MICHAEL J. KATZ – Last Dance in Redondo Beach. Andy Sussman & Murray Glick #2. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1989. Pocket, paperback, 1990.
Here’s a first. It’s gotta be. A professional wrestler dies, apparently of a heart attack, in a network’s “celebrity sports” competition. It’s really murder, of course, and on the scene, in his second brush with detective work is CBS sportscaster Andy Sussman.
Doing most of the legwork, however, is his pal, a sleazy Chicago PI named Murray Glick, who works out of a Northbrook Court mall. You may have gotten the idea by now that the tone of this book is not entirely serious, but I surprised myself and enjoyed it anyway. (*)
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(*) I’d be remiss in pointing out, however, that I found the ending to be a bit too slick. The final confrontation works out far too easily — and not easily enough to avoid leaving a mess behind. Katz seems to think that justice is done, or at least his characters do, and in a sense they’re right, maybe as well as it ever does in real life, but I still think there’s some guilt not yet accounted for.
The Andy Sussman & Murray Glick series —
Murder Off the Glass. Walker, 1987.
Last Dance in Redondo Beach. Putnam, 1989.
The Big Freeze. Putnam, 1991.
August 6th, 2019 at 12:15 am
On a general note, what constitutes a private investigator novel? Does it have to have an actual PI — i.e. a person employed or self-employed in that job — or will any non-police/non-law enforcement person, say a journalist, qualify? How about duos?
August 6th, 2019 at 9:49 am
That’s a good question. My immediate answer, off the top of my head, was, I know one when I see one.
But obviously, while that’s good enough for me, isn’t very likely to be very good for anyone else. Sp, I thought, the best place to go looking for a real answer, is Kevin Burton Smith’s Thrilling Detective website, which is dedicated to PI fiction in all its many forms, and sure enough I found this page , entitled “What is a private eye?”
https://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv78.html
Of several definitions you can read there, I kind of like this one:
A private eye is someone who “… seeks clients, accepts pay for his services, and is not a member of an official law enforcement agency; thus both Sherlock Holmes and Mike Hammer are included…as are investigators working for private firms — such as insurance companies — and lawyer-sleuths.”
But as with all such definitions, it’s always the borderline cases where disagreements ensue.
August 6th, 2019 at 1:43 pm
Kevin Burton Smith’s Thrilling Detective website is terrific!
I was agreeing with everything he said. Until he included lawyers. I always thought of lawyer-sleuths as a separate category, NOT private investigators.
Similarly, I think of reporters and photographers as NOT private eyes.
And I agree with him that Sherlock Holmes, and yes, Hercules Poirot are private investigators. Admittedly, one thinks of Tough or Medium-boiled PIs, like Pronzini’s great Nameless, as typical of the private eye tale.
August 6th, 2019 at 4:25 pm
For the most part, I agree with you about lawyers, and I wouldn’t call Perry Mason a PI, either, but Kevin does include him on his website. You might be able to justify him by the amount of actual legwork he does on a case.
But I think I would include Flashgun Casey as a PI, and so does Kevin, but if someone would tell me I was crazy,I wouldn’t argue about it for very long.
August 6th, 2019 at 7:27 pm
I’m sure the problem is with me but I’ve tried to read this at least four times, captured by the opening. And each time he and his pal go out the desert and I lose interest
August 6th, 2019 at 8:53 pm
That’s at least three times more than I give a book, Rick, no matter how well it starts.
August 6th, 2019 at 10:42 pm
Steve, I have two walls of bookshelves in my condo’s attached garage. Often I grab something to read and throw it in my car. That’s how this one’s lured me in so many times. I like the pro wrestler color at the beginning…
August 7th, 2019 at 8:01 pm
This sounds like a late bloom of the screwball school, which featured as many reporters and non private eye husband and wife teams as actual eyes. Sometimes it’s more about tone and voice than technical details about the protagonists profession.