Sun 3 May 2026
A 1001 Midnights Mystery Review: RON GOULART – Ghosting.
Posted by Steve under Uncategorized[3] Comments
by Julie Smith
RON GOULART – Ghosting. Raven House, paperback original, 1988.
A writer of very funny mysteries and science fiction, Goulart has said he likes to mix “murder, bug-eyed monsters, and satire.” Ghosting contains no BEM’s, but there is plenty of murder and satire. The hero, Barney Kains, is “a defrocked commercial illustrator who got dragooned into the comic book business” as a ghost writer for the comic strip “Poor Little Pearl.”
It seems Archie Judd, the creator of the strip, is down with the flu for the moment. And since Archie’s granddaughter, Beth, is the first woman who’s been able to get Barney’s mind off his ex-wife, a top model whose picture is everywhere, the job is all the more enticing.
But Barney begins to have his doubts about Beth when he learns that Archie’s tirades from his sickroom are on tape: There’s no one in Archie’s bed. What’s happened to the artist? Barney has no choice but to poke around and find out.
This is a delightful piece of fluff with lots of laughs and good material about the comics biz.
Another good Goulart mystery with a comics background is A Graveyard of My Own ( 1985) which introduces Bert and Jan Kurrie, a husband-and-wife team of amateur sleuths. Goulart’s other whimsical crime novels include the futuristic Hawkshaw (1972) and four books in the John Easy private-eye series, the best of which is One Grave Too Many (1974).
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
May 4th, 2026 at 9:21 am
I’m a big fan of Goulart’s mystery and Sf work. A talented writer who could have been a major one if he had ever bothered, but he seemed happy in his little corner of the market. I’ve read all of his books — even his few not-very-good regency romances and his (I don’t know what the word is but it’s not novelization) of the old PBS series AN AMERICAN FAMILY, which was probably his biggest-selling book — and enjoyed almost every one. Never met him, but I did sit next to him at an old Bouchercon when he was gleefully telling Ed Hoch that he had just picked up the collected works of Captain Marryat; his enthusiasm was infectious.
May 4th, 2026 at 10:51 am
AN AMERICAN FAMILY is a new one on me, but I’m not in a hurry to go looking for it. Ron was a great guy to hang out with, which in my case were the monthly encounters we had at the local comic book show, well over 30 or 40 years’ worth. A good friend Paul Herman and I were also at his house a few times, looking for things he was willing to sell, but what I enjoyed most was looking at the treasures he wanted to hold onto and listening to all of the stories behind them. I still miss him, a lot.
May 7th, 2026 at 6:42 am
I was a fan from first reading his Max Kearney stories as a kid…never met him, and will believe that is my loss. Condolences.
These days, they tend to call the likes of the AN AMERICAN FAMILY volume (a non-fictional series, with perhaps some inherent “video verite” performing) a “companion” to the series. Probably then, as well.