Sun 20 Oct 2019
Archived Mystery Review: ART BOURGEAU – A Lonely Way to Die.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
ART BOURGEAU – A Lonely Way to Die. Claude “Snake†Kirlin & F. T. Zevich #1. Charter, paperback original, 1980.
If the setting is even minimally important to you when it comes to choosing what work of detective fiction to read next, there are of course hundreds of options available to you. Los Angeles and the Big Apple don’t have a universal monopoly on locations to choose from. It may just seem that way.
Take Cannibal Springs, Tennessee, for instance. It’s located about halfway between Nashville and Chattanooga. I didn’t look it up on the map, but even if there is such a place, I’m not no sure that anyone has bothered to tell Rand McNally about it.
Snake Kirlin and F. T. Zevich area couple of good ole boys, just out of the Marines and back in Snake’s hometown, looking for fishing holes and other fine memories of his youth.
An alternative title for this book might have been The Hardy Boys Get Laid.
The jokes are crude, pointed, funny, and old. According to F. T., as the two heroes prepare to investigate the death of the hairdresser’s assistant by rattleless rattlesnake poisoning, “When you eliminate all the shit, whatever you’re left with has got to be it.”
All devout Sherlock Holmesians, please take note.
My mistake, and don’t let it be yours, was in thinking that this was a detective story. Wrong. The clues lead nowhere, the deductions are a waste of time, and the pistons don’t work either. It sure was fun to read, though, and I’ll probably read their next adventure, if the fates be so kind, but even tied up in a gunny sack with a a typewriter in a dark room, I don’t think there’s one of us who couldn’t come up with a better job of working out a real mystery to go with all the good buddy fooferaw.
The Claude “Snake†Kirlin & F. T. Zevich series —
A Lonely Way to Die. Charter 1980
The Most Likely Suspects. Charter 1981
The Elvis Murders. Charter 1985
Murder at the Cheatin’ Heart Motel. Charter 1985
October 20th, 2019 at 1:23 pm
As I recall, Art Bourgeau was the owner of a mystery-oriented bookstore in Philadelphia. He also wrote a non-fiction book titled The Mystery Lover’s Companion (1986). I may have bought a copy at the time, but if I did, I can’t find it nor do I remember it.
I had to go to an Amazon review to find the following:
“The Mystery Lover’s Companion reviews and rates some 2500 books. The mini-reviews are typically 2-3 lines each and rate the book from one to five daggers. His definition of mystery is quite broad, encompassing thrillers and police procedurals. Some might say the reviews are too brief, but I don’t think that’s really a problem, as he’s able to summarize the relative worth of the book fairly well. I don’t really care for the way he has divided the book up into sections (The American Mystery, The English Mystery, The Thriller, The Police Procedural), as it makes it a bit annoying trying to look up an author you’re unfamiliar with.”
October 20th, 2019 at 7:39 pm
I knew I knew the name from somewhere.
Sounds like a not quite dry run for Hap and Leonard, not quite getting there, but thinking about it.
October 20th, 2019 at 8:04 pm
I don’t think the store is still there, was by the location a couple of weeks ago and I believe something else is there now.
He also wrote a “bigger” novel called The Seduction, but not sure if he did anything else.
His wife is also a published author, Patricia Macdonald, with a bunch of suspense stories to her name.
October 20th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
I hadn’t expected the bookstore, which was called The Whodunit Company, to still be there, and I’m not surprised to learn that indeed it isn’t. I’m not sure but I may have been there once. I attended a mystery convention there one year, and a friend and I visited some of the bookstores in the area. Bourgeau’s may have been one of them.
Besides THE SEDUCTION (1988), he also wrote another similar sounding book, WOLFMAN (1989). Not being a big fan of horror fiction, I didn’t know about either one until now.