Sun 6 Apr 2025
PI Stories I’m Reading: JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.”
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[2] Comments
JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” PI Alo Nudger. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1982. Reprinted in Home Sweet Homicide, edited by Cathleen Jordan (Walker, 1991), The Eyes Still Have It, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Dutton, 1995). Also released individually on audio cassette (1997). Winner of the Shamus Award for Best Short Story.
Alo Nudger’s day begins with two lugs beating him up in his office, followed by a moon-faced female doctor asking him a series of questions after injecting him with truth serum. Problem is, Nudger doesn’t know any of the answers. After the troupe leaves, a client comes in with a wad of money to offer him. After some thought, Nudger turns him down.
But what, he wonders, is going on?
Lutz must have had a lot of fun writing his stories about Nudger, because they’re sure a lot of fun to read, with lots of light sarcastic touches. This most certainly includes the St. Louis-based PI’s predilection for antacid tablets whenever the going gets tough – a circumstance that occurs frequently in all of his recorded adventures.
In one sense the plot of this tale is rather skimpy, but it certainly fulfills its duty of covering the ground as well as it needs to have been done. Stories such as this one are highly addictive.
April 7th, 2025 at 7:37 am
I miss Alo Nudger (and Danny’s grease-laden donuts), as well as Lutz’s other early character Fred Carver. Once Lutz moved on to best-selling paperback original thrillers about Frank Quinn and others, these two were sadly put on the back burner. But no matter what he wrote, Lutz was first and foremost a pleasure to read, a true professional.
April 7th, 2025 at 1:33 pm
In spite of all the books and stories he wrote, along with the movies that were made from them, then if you add in all the nominations and awards he accumulated while doing that, I think John Lutz was an underrated writer. His work was always clear, solid and readable, if not a notch or two above that. If he made more money writing thrillers than he did for his PI novels and stories, which he probably did, so be it. Good for him!