Mon 3 Nov 2025
An Archived PI Review: L. J. WASHBURN – Wild Night.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews1 Comment
L. J. WASHBURN – Wild Night. Lucas Hallam #1. Tor, paperback; 1st printing, November 1987. Five Star, hardcover, 1998. Rough Edges Press, softcover, 2022.
Lucas Hallam is a former western lawman, now a part-time movie actor as well as a 1920s private detective. In this case, he’s hired by a charismatic new Hollywood evangelist who is also apparently ripe for blackmail. (Nothing ever changes.)
What I didn’t particularly care for was the use of a fortuitous tornado as a plot device, nor the scene where Hallam outshoots three men with tommy guns. His long bouts of reminiscing (though a bit repetitious) did give the man some character, however.
The Lucas Hallam series —
1. Wild Night (1987)
2. Dead-Stick (1989)
3. Dog Heavies (1990)
4. Hallam (story collection, 2022)
November 3rd, 2025 at 11:06 pm
I remember this book rather well, except for the details, of course, and I wish there’d been a lot more of them to go with it. I *think* there may have been other mystery characters with the same or similar career paths, but maybe I’m wrong, as nobody’s coming to mind right now.