Crime Novelist Charles Salzberg on Why We Can’t Get Enough

Why has crime (true and fictional) seized the culture? From books, plays, docs, features, series, and podcasts, crime is on a spree. This week Jim and JB talk to veteran crime novelist Charles Salzberg (author of the popular Swann series) about how everyone is a criminal at heart. As a bonus, Charles shares his top crime books and films. 

Also, JB celebrates the centenary of a living British national treasure and salutes a woman in a café who has her two young kids reading books instead of phones. Readership lives!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to Boomer Hazard. I'm Jim Jelamis, coming to you from the Twisted Spine bookstore. It's New York City's horror bookstore. And it's right here in Williamsburg. And we have a special show tonight. But first, who do we have in London?

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Hi. JB Miller here in London in my apartment.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

And following our podcast about British royalty, we're trading King Charles III for a man who truly reigns over the crime thriller. Our very first guest, Charles Salzburg. Charles is a veteran journalist and author of the five-part Henry Swan crime series. And what makes his books so compelling is that Henry Swan is a skip tracer, a professional who locates people who don't want to be found, like people with very, very, very bad credit or a court witness or a missing person. So a hearty welcome to Charles Salzberg here on Boomer Has It.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Thanks. Hi guys. You left out the most important thing, and that is that I am a three-time nominee for the Seamus Award, and I lost all three times. So I'm going after the Susan Lucci record of the Sheamus Award.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Good work. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

We'll be anxiously waiting, Charles.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yes. Great. Charles.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Susan Lucci.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Charles, it's great to have you on board as our first guest. And as you are a king of crime, what we wanted to ask you is why has crime captivated society? It absorbed itself into all forms of media, starting with podcasts and their um adaptations, uh, even dramatic series, and which are based on fictitious podcasts like Only Murders in the Building. But it feels like crime and true crime have just taken over the culture. How has that happened?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Well, first of all, you you're giving me a headache really early in the morning, asking me to think about these things. But uh I I think it's because everyone has either committed a crime, big or small, fantasized about committing a crime, uh, and planned a crime in their in their mind. And so I think that's why. And the other thing about most crime novels is um the the formula is this the world is fine. Then something happens to turn this world upside down. And then either the detective or the cop or the lawyer or whoever it is, it's their job to put the world back in order again. So uh when you have these true crimes like Dateline and 48 hours and 2020, um, that's exactly what happens. There's a crime, uh, you know, it turns people's world upside down, and then it's solved usually, uh almost always, actually, because I wrote a uh my first crime novel, and I didn't mean it to be a crime novel, was Swan's Last Song. And um the innovation was that the skiff tracer, Henry Swan, follows all these clues throughout the book. And when he finishes um following all these clues, it turns out that the crime had nothing to do with any of these clues. It was completely random. And so so he the reader finds out who committed the crime, the murder, but um the detective, in this case Swan, has nothing to do with solving a crime. And I sent the book around, and everyone, agents, editors, said we love this book, but we can't publish it because the your detective doesn't solve the crime. And readers of um crime fiction want the crime solved by the the protagonist. And so um I finally gave up, and 20 years later, uh, I thought, well, maybe like you know, everything has changed. And I sent it to an editor and he said, I love this book, but not with this ending. And so I changed the ending so that he does solve the crime. I paid uh, you know, so the lesson there was um uh I caved in. Uh uh I did what the what publishers wanted. And so I think that that that kind of proves my point is that people want conclusions, they want the world to get back in order, and that's what crime fiction does, um, most of it, or or practically all of it. So that's the only answer I can come up with this early.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Do you see fair enough?

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Everyone, what were your three points? Everyone wants to commit a crime? Was that one of them?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

No, no. I said either everyone has committed a crime, and uh, and I'm talking about if you take a pencil from work, you're you know, without permission, you're or or jaywalking in many cities, you're committing a crime. Right, yeah. Um, or fantasized about it. Uh or fantasized about committing a crime. And um they are people are just fascinated by that uh by doing something wrong that they don't get punished for.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

But they're also so you know, again, your lesson is also that readers, audiences are really engaged in finding a conclusion, but I think that also means they're they're really committed to the main character. I mean, it you have to have a nice strong main character like Henry Swan for audiences to stick with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Except some people are that's very true of my work. I'm very uh character-oriented, but um there's another there's another kind of uh uh for people people either love the characters or they love plots. So a good plot will keep people reading too. My problem with the plot is that um I'm not a really good plotter, uh I'm much better with character, and I think character is more important. And and people, when you think about it, they they connect with characters. If I and I've had this happen too, I I've read a book five years ago. I can't remember the plot necessarily, but I remember the the character.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yes, that's sort of how it is with a lot of the lot of the greatest detective fiction.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, and the plot escapes you, but the in you know the character is so vivid. It's that it keeps you reading.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Right. Unless you've got something like, you know, um Black Sunday, which was about the super really high concept where they're gonna blow up the Super Bowl and you have to stop them. In those kind of thrillers, I don't think character means as much as it does um in in other countries. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

So Charles, I mean the question the question is why crime and true crime now? Because presumably people have always wanted solutions and people have always wanted things to kind of work out and and be solved. So now it seems that um crime and true crime and cozy crime, which we could talk about later, uh seems to be the sort of preeminent, one of the most preeminent genres um in our culture today.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Well well, one reason I think is the availability. And that is when when I was growing up, there were three channels on uh, you know, there three major channels on television. So uh now we've got cable, you've got you know streaming services. Um, and so it there may have been as much interest back then, but there were you you couldn't access true crime. And but and I think if I had to um point to uh to an event that really uh made true crime as popular as it is, I think it was Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Um I I think that was probably the the at the time, and we had I think it was after the Joe McGuinness book about the um the murders by McDonald murders. Um I think that came after Cold Blood. So, and then we had the executioner song uh after. And so I think that opened the door to um to true crime. And and again, there are more there are more places that you can um watch it. Uh every street, you know, Netflix, um, crime or whatever, it's all about true crime and crime.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Uh and that's because that's just because people with Truman Capote, Joe McGuinness, and Norman Mailer, we're going back 40 years now. So this is something that's been bubbling under the surface and had an opportunity to explode with the internet.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, and I think the the more publicity, for instance, probably the first big case that that took over the besides the um the the Lindbergh kidnapping was the Black Dahlia. I mean, newspapers picked up that story and it was it just they never let go of it.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Really gruesome, graphic, horrible miracle. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Um still writing about it, yeah, because still writing about it and portraying it in film and television.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

I mean, that was never solved, uh, unlike the other ones. That's an unsolved murder. Executioner song, um, and then cold blood and the Joe McGuinness were all solved murders, right? So Black Dahlia continues to um interest people. Do you think there's also an aspect of everyone now feels that they could solve a crime on their own? I mean, that's the premise of only only crimes in the only murders in the building.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I I do, and I think also one of the ones I forgot that made True Crime really popular was Joe Wombow. Joe Wombaugh, you know, the ex-cop who who wrote uh Onion Field, which is, I think is it that was his first big seller, and then um uh the Charles Manson case. I mean, those they were big news on the news, and so more people had access to it, and they found that they really liked true crime. You know, they liked this thing that was sort of outside their um their experience. And one of the things that about my books is I rarely I don't write detective um novels where someone dies. I most of my novels, there aren't any deaths. And even in in Swan's Last Song, the only murder is the first one that starts that that um occurs before the book even starts. You don't even see the murder. And uh the other book that I um that I based on a true crime, Devil in the Whole, um, was uh there's the murders all happen before the book even opens up. So uh I'm more interested, for instance, many of the Swan books have to do, they all have to do with crime, but they're minor crimes. And one of them, Swan dives in, you don't know what the crime is till halfway through the book. And by the end of the book, you're not even sure there was a crime. And so um, so so I'm more interested in those smaller crimes that more people can relate to, I think.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Um that's very you know, I I that's to me is very admirable because you know it sort of proves that you can you can write something that's thrilling based on human complexity characters without having gunplay or a murderer. But does it make your job harder as you know for me?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Well, for me, it makes it easier because as I said, I'm not that creative. I I can't do things that that that have been done too many times before. So um I I have I would have a hard time if you said I did one one of my books, Canary in the coal mine, is kind of a murder mystery. But what what what moves the book along is not that that murder. But there it is, it is very um very much in line with with the old-time um detective novels, where someone's murdered and the detective has to solve the crime. Uh the I'm always looking for the different kinds of crime. I mean, I want my old, I don't know if I'll ever write this book, but I want to start a book where the crime is jaywalking, the smallest crime ever. Because here in New York, it's not even illegal to jaywalk. It used to be. And how that can snowball into something bigger and bigger. Um, because to me, that's more within the experience of people like us. I mean, it's unlikely that the three of us are gonna murder anyone. Well, I I hope not. But we may then know. We might cheat on our taxes or something like that. Not that any of us would or have. Um, but those I didn't. Yeah, I I haven't either. I'm I'm much. You can pay mine any year now. Yeah. When I when I made enough to uh a whole other story is uh what I made in one year where I made eleven thousand dollars, um, that was my that's what all I made that year, I got audited by the uh you and they're um adding insult to injury my my apartment twice, once with the supervisor, and at the end we found out why because someone at the IRS had um had entered twice everything I made that year. So uh uh I got let's say five thousand dollars from Hearst, and um it was entered, and somehow they doubled it, they entered it twice. I made it look like I made $22,000 that year instead of eleven thousand dollars, and that's why they audited me. And so I had two days of that.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Well, IRS. I think you should write that book, by the way, about the Jaywalker, and you get a great title, Jaywalker. Yeah, but um uh that you know I already um what is there a tension between true crime and fictional crime? Are they are they very connected or are they separate?

SPEAKER_00 14:21

I think I'm very connected. I'm very connected with me. I'm all I'm usually inspired by a true crime. So I'll I'll give you an example. Years ago, I read an essay in the New Yorker called The Silver Thief, and it was about this guy who only he broke, he was the second he he broke into houses, but he only stole silver. That's all he stole. And this this stayed with me for a long time, this essay. And I was looking for a new book to write, and it was the beginning of the rise of Trump. And I wanted to write a book that had a little something, but not political, and Trump is not in it, but had to do with this idea that uh America is to me, um they are totally absorbed in winning, which is what Trump wants, and they will do anything to win, anything to do. And so I created a uh second story, a thief at this point, who um who is like he's the best ever, he's never been caught. Um, he uh uh breaks into homes um very much like the uh silver thief. Uh and I also so I based him on the silver thief and another thief called the dinner time bandit. And his thing was he only broke into homes during dinner time when people were home eating dinner. And the theory his theory was this if they're home, all the valuables are gonna be home. And so while they were downstairs eating dinner, he would break in. Uh he was very agile, you know, he would climb up to the second floor where the bedrooms were, and he would steal the valuables. Uh, but he only worked during dinner time.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Uh that's a great premise.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Both those true, you know, true things in answer to your question, and created a uh uh a fiction, a novel.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Uh I can see how I can see how uh crime would be influenced by true uh true crime, but is true crime ever been in influenced by fictional crime?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Uh I I'm sure it has. I mean, I can't give you particular cases, but I'm sure because now what happens is murderer or or whatever, they watch Dateline. They they watch um, you know, the uh CSI and stuff like that. So they're much cleverer. So in that way, I think that true crime has affected um fiction and and vice versa. Yeah, break connect with it. Yeah. See, I I I wanted to be uh to write a true crime book. And the problem was that the guy who committed it was never found while I was wanting to write this. He eventually was um found, and so I had to fictionalize it. But after a while I realized writing true crime is a lot of work. I'm really lazy, and it's a lot of work to write a true crime book. You have to do all this research, you have to, you know, it's just it's so much easier to home.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

To make it up, easier to make it up, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

You still have to solve, I mean, well, I guess I mean I I like the idea of of not of not having uh either a murder or or solving a crime, because I could never solve a crime. Even when I read about crime, I can never figure out how they solved it. My wife is always having to explain the plots of movies. Actually, my daughter's always having to explain the plots of movies as we're watching them. And so I find it difficult. So you're you're the annoying person in a movie theater who we always see, hey, what was that? What happened? What no? I always whisper that I'm a very quiet one. What's going on? Who's that guy? What's that guy doing? Does it irritate the hell out of your wife and your kids when you do that? No, I actually irritate them more when I pontificate on how that director had made three other films and uh how this is influenced by Wilson Wells. And uh that that it that annoys them even it doesn't annoy my daughter, it annoys my wife, but uh my daughter, yeah. Um but um the plot plot is difficult. Uh I was never very good at writing a plot. I would think crown fiction necessitates pretty good plotting. I mean, you said I mean you said character is as important as as plot.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

I to me more important for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

But you still would have a plot in, you know, in the spine of your in your book.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Oh absolutely. But I'm one of those people, uh, and I hate the term, but uh I I don't I don't know what's gonna happen on the next page or the next sentence when I sit down to write. So I don't know what's gonna happen. Uh it it it just comes to me as I'm writing. So uh so in that reviv it's not a disdain for plot, but i it doesn't really matter to me. But that you get a writer like Jeffrey Deaver, and he, and I've interviewed him, he will write a 140-page outline of his book before he writes it. And he can't write it without that outline. To me, that would be not only pointless, uh I uh I wouldn't want to write the book after I um spend all that time outlining it. For me, surprise, even to me, is very important.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Uh I think that I think that's what happens too, is you can tell you can feel as a reader when there's spontaneity in the writing. As opposed to feeling very planned and outlined. I think that's that's easy to it's easy to see in a book.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, and sometimes happen is this is magic. I'll I'll give you an example from that that book I mentioned, Second Story Man. Um, he uh the the the general plot is this he's a master burglar. He's never been caught caught, and two guys team up to catch him. One of them is a Connecticut State investigator, and the other is a um uh a Miami cop who's a um his name is Manny Perez. He's uh uh an ex-Cuban uh cop in Miami who has been suspended, and he's been suspended having to do with this something that had to do with this second story man, Francis Hoyt. So they team up to find uh Hoyt. And so, and the book is told from three points of view. Each chapter is one of those guys. But um I had no idea if this guy was going to be caught by them or um or not. And so I'm about two-thirds through the way through the book, and I get this idea of this guy's so brazen. He goes to the house of the Connecticut State investigator, and that's where the Miami cop is staying while he they're teaming up, and he knocks on the door and he introduces himself. And so, you know, they they can't arrest him for anything because they don't know anything, he hasn't done anything wrong that they caught him at. So he goes in and there's a conversation, and he's taunting these guys. And uh I'm writing the chapter, and I thought I I I end the chapter, and I thought, wait a minute, what would a guy like this do in a situation like this? Well, this guy is so arrogant. You know something? He probably steals something from that house, right from underneath the the eyes of the two guys who are trying. To catch him. And so he does. He steals an ashtray, a silver ashtray. And after he leaves, they realize it and they uh they realize they that he's stolen something from them. Well, I I won't give it away, but this act, this this uh arrogant act of stealing from under the the eyes of the two guys who are after him, uh ends in his downfall. That's that has to do with the ending of this one act that was very much within character of this guy gets him um uh arrested. But I won't. Exactly. And and my point is sometimes yeah, and and my point is that's or part of the point is that that winning has its downsides too. I mean, it it can wind up destroying you if you if you will do anything to win. Um, it may very well lead to your downfall.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Well, if we're if we're making parallels to our conservative government today, uh let's have at it then. More more winning and let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

What do you think, Charles, of of cozy crime? Is that a British sort of invention introduction to the genre?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

You know, years a few years ago, I was a judge for the Edgar Award, and so I had like 600, literally 600 novels sent to me. And you know, I I I I hope I I hope millions listen to this, but I'm gonna deny it anything that I say now. But within the there's not a separate category for for cozies. So I would get these cozies, and I after a while I thought, uh, before I'd read any of them, I thought, you know, I'm not gonna even read a book where there's an animal on the cover, or if it has a uh acute title like Pause and Order. Um I was gonna comment it's because they come up with some really good funny titles that they don't really mean to be, you know, mocking, but I I found found them mocking because I thought, you know, no matter what, I'm not gonna choose a cozy as the winner of the Ed Group.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

But I mean, these sound extra cozy. Uh these are these uh are these about animals that that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Well, there are certain cozies. Uh one of the rules is no blood. Uh, you know, you're not you're not gonna have a bloody crime scene. The other is that there's usually a pet involved, uh, not in the crime, but in the book, like a cat or a dog or or whatever. And um and and that it takes place in, you know, it's it's really the most popular ones are the ones that take place in small towns or um or uh in libraries or or some kind of or antique and and old age, old age homes.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Retirement community.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

What is the crime usually? What kind of crime is it? Usually almost always murder. But it it almost all of them have amateur detective detectives. Right. Oh, okay. Right. Jessica, you know, in that TV show that ran forever with Cove and you know, where she lived in, there were like more murders in that cove, you know, like hundreds of murders.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Well, I thought she had just I wouldn't I wouldn't move to uh that building where Steve Martin and uh who's it uh the only murders in the building that seemed to have a very high level of um of uh death in the in a single single building. Was Agatha Christie um cozy on? I don't remember animals in her books.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Um no, but she wasn't, you know, that was even before Cozy's, but she led to Cozy's, I think. She was the entry point, she was the uh But I don't know. Listen, she wrote so many books, but I don't know if she really dealt ever with a serial killer um or or something like that. Uh but but that she she was and and I I don't mean to denigrate cozy's, but they do have a formula. Um and um and people love them, they are incredibly popular. Uh and maybe part of the popularity has to do with the amateur detective. Um, you know, I mean, her fuel pro row is not a cozy.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Um but um uh no, I read the the uh Thursday murder club and it was four four um four uh older people in a in a seniors senior home who solve who solve uh a couple of murders. And then it became a series, cozy series.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Um that seemed uh the plot seemed quite intricate. I never could have come up with something like that. Uh are are are are crime writers using um the AI at all to figure out complicated plots?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I I I don't know if they are, but um I I during the pandemic, um I zoomed with four other every Monday night I zoomed with four other crime writers. Or the Monday night. Yeah. Farrell Coleman, Matt Goldman, Mike Wiley, and Tom Straw. And Tom and Matt were recovering um sitcom writers. Matt started his career on um Seinfeld, writing for Seinfeld. And um Tom wrote for um Nightcourt, every almost every every uh sitcom he he has written for. And he was the showrunner for Nurse Jackie. Um and and we talk about the guy. Yeah, and and we we liked each other so much that we still zoom every other Monday night, and we actually hang out together. We live in uh Reed lives in Long Island, Tom is in Connecticut, Matt is in Minneapolis, and um Ike is in Florida. But when we go to these conferences together, we hang out together, and and the other night, two of them were in town, so the three of us went to a steak joint in um Grant Central. But the reason I bring that up is because we um consume every other night, we talk about things like I um AI. Uh, and to my knowledge, no one has um no one has used it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do. They would admit it, would admit it if they if they did.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Yeah, I don't know if they'd be the one into it to admit it. I mean, I wouldn't be I'd be surprised if it wasn't being used in crime fiction only because it's being used in everything else.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

And as a matter of fact, when I first started, Mike went into chat GBT and asked it to write a like two pages of a crime novel in each of our styles. Oh wow. And it did. And it did. Uh and it was really interesting. But the outset, the you know, the the the kind of the the thing about that is obviously someone fed into chat GBT um at least one of our books. Because how else would they know what our style was?

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Right. SI put creepy to think that. I mean, they have everything about it is kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Right. But um, I'm with you, JB. I would surprise be surprised if someone hasn't tried it at the very least.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

I mean, yeah, I would imagine they're using AI to solve true crime, right? Why wouldn't use it to solve fake crime?

SPEAKER_00 29:24

And probably the best use of to me uh of AI is medical.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Um, I've I agree. The only good uh the good use of it is in my book. Uh, you know, they're gonna be uh no more actors or screenwriters, or pretty soon that's here's something that's really sad.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Uh I I have a new publisher now, and my old publisher went out of business and I had done um nine novels with them. And five of all five Swan novels were put on um or audible, available in Audible. We sold the rights to those, but four i crime novels were were not on audible. So when I signed with this new publisher, Regallo, bringing out my new book, um, they said we will republish all your nine novels because I got the the rights back, and they did. And they also said we will put the four novels that aren't don't have audio versions yet, we will we will do audio versions of of it, which was great. And they sent me one day, they sent me like seven samples of voices to do the narration.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

They were all AI, non-human, uh non-human narrator. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

So all those actors who made a living doing um books, audible books, are out of work now. And I have to say the voices were damn good. I mean, and they were all different. One was, you know, uh southern uh accent and whatever. And and so that's really sad, but that's how AI, at the very least, is going to affect them because it's cheaper for them to use AI.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Yeah. Another actor out of business.

unknown 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

That's really um that's really unfortunate. I know Steven, Stephen Fry narrated the original um Harry Potter releases, and I think he made a fortune out of them because I think he I think he had royalties. Uh, and now they they wouldn't need that. They wouldn't need to do it. That's sad. So do you have a now?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I'm gonna cry.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Do you have a list of some of your favorite uh I I did my homework.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Jim gave me homework.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Okay, we asked, we should explain. So we asked Charles to list his 10 favorite um what was it, crime films and crime books? Is that what we asked? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Okay. Drum roll. Drumroll. Okay. I'll start with books. And the first one is going to surprise people, I think. My favorite crime novel is Lolita, which people would think, wait, Lolita's not a crime novel. Oh Humbert Humbert is a pedophile. He takes a uh a young girl across state lines. To me, it's the ultimate crime novel, and so that's my fate. That would be at the top of my list. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

And pretty well. That's a profound and nuanced choice, Charles. That's why you're getting you one.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

That's why I've earned my keep with that one edge. Okay. So my others, I don't know if I actually came up with 10. There's probably gonna be someone out there who's gonna count them and say, wait a minute, he promised us 10, and there are only eight. Uh well, screw you.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Well, maths, you know, that's not our strong point. We're not all maths professors, for God's sake. I would think well, how many we have in our list? We're rumors. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, and we make our rules.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

We make our own rules.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Okay, number two. All right, well, number two is anything by Dashiel Hammett. Um, uh, I I love the Continental Ops series, I love um Red Harvest. Um uh then um then I would put In Cold Blood, mixing fiction with nonfiction, and the Executioner song that that would be on my list. And um I also uh there's a a Cali California Light and Power. I I hope I got the the title right by Don Winslow, which is really good. Um so uh, you know, and I I know Raymond Chandler, almost anything by him, too.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Um the he's just such a you got the two pillars of hard boiled detective novel writing.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah. Um and and I like some of um I like some of the pulpit writers like uh Big Jim Thompson. Uh you know, kind of fun to read. So so those those would be my uh my my top ten list. Films, there's one to me that's on the top um above everything else, and I know this is a little bit um controversial because there's always this this thing. Uh Goodfellas. Uh I can watch Goodfellas once a week. And film, it's hard to argue with Goodfellas. Well, people will always say if crime film they're almost always the big the they will almost always say The Godfather.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Oh, I prefer, I think I prefer, well, they're good, both good films, but yeah, Goodfellas.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Years ago, I I had um I was contacted by this guy, um uh Joe Castone. And Joe was a um an under an undercover FBI uh who had a a book out already, uh Donnie Brasto. He was his his mob name was um I had dinner with him, and so I got to ask questions, you know, uh that that I've always wanted to ask. And I asked him about that, and he said, Goodfellas is the most realistic mob film ever. He said they got everything right, and it was it was you know based on real people, obviously Nick Ledging um wrote it uh about specific people.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

It also seemed to have more more um uh influence than I think the Godfather had. If you think of the the Sopranos was much more based on Goodfellas than anything, you know, Coppola did. It wasn't based, you know, Godfather is much more sort of operatic. Goodfellas. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

I I have a I have a quick um godfather story, and that is one of my favorite writers, not not a crime writer, um, was just Bruce J. Friedman. And uh I got to meet him once, and I've heard this story.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Oh, he's so great and so funny.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Uh I heard this story that uh a lot of these guys, when they came here in the 50s, Bruce J. Friedman, Mario Cruzo, my friend John Bowers, who died um a few months ago, they all worked for these um for the sleazy men's magazine. Uh, you know, they would they they would put out issues, you know, with um uh girls, scantily clad girls on the cover or whatever. And Bruce was the editor-in-chief of of that mag particular magazine. And so two of his writers were John and um Mario Puzo, John Bowers. And uh I'd heard the story, and I asked Bruce, and he said it's absolutely true, that um he was approached one day by Puzo. And Puzo said, you know, I've just finished this novel about the mob. What do you think of um as a title, The Godfather? And Bruce goes, thinks about it and he says, No, no, too domestic. So um fortunately he did not listen to him.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah, we didn't call it the godfather, that never would have succeeded. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, I'd love to know. I wonder what the title was of the magazine where they worked. Was it sort of like Stag magazine? Uh I could find out. I know.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Men's because I actually have someone who is alive who owns magazines. Uh, you know, like True Detective or whatever, but I I can find out, Jim, because as I said, I met someone who who was younger than those guys who actually worked with them.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Uh so there are any more films on your list?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yes, definitely. Um Casino, another Scores Azy, Heat, um, Michael Mann, um Charlie Varrick, with uh very unlikely crime person, uh Walter Mathau in the lead. Um Internal I've never heard of that film. It's called Charlie Varrick. Yeah, watch it. It's really good. It's on it's on Netflix or one of those things. You can find it.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Is it contemporary? Uh well he it couldn't be if it's Walter Mathau.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Yeah, it's only as contemporary as Walter Mathow, but he did it later in his career. Um, and then uh Internal Affairs with Richard Gere. Um and um two by uh Hitchcock, North by Northwest and Decatch a Thief. Um, so those would be, you know, there are others that are really great, but those would be the the the top ones for me.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

I would I would I one I would add, and I wonder if you've ever seen this film, the big clock directed by John Fuel, starting Ray Merland.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Was written, I have the original novel. It was written by a poet, Kenneth Thering. Uh, it may have been the only novel that he wrote. Ray Milan was in the movie, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Yeah. Not only Ray Milan, but Elsa Lanchester, formerly a bride of Frankenstein. She plays a dizzy artist. Yeah, and Kenneth They're asked for a composite photo of someone. One of my favorite films. And she produces a cubist image of what she interprets the Rio.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Uh, what's the one with Robert Mitchum where he has fear uh uh uh tattooed on his um on his finger? Oh Night of the Hunter. Yeah, Night of the Hunter. That's a great one, too. Yeah, there are there are so many older, you know. There's some people now, and my friend Ross teaches um screenwriting that will not watch black and white white films. Yeah. We have a generation uh really, and even contemporary films that are black and white, um, they will not watch them.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Shame well, it's their loss. Their luck.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

By the way, so wait, I I'd like to hear more about that. So Ross teaches this class and and he gets resistance from his audience because the films are in black and white.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

A lot of a lot of the classic films like The Third Man, you know, he he will take it apart, use it as an example of why it's such a great screenplay. And these kids, they're not always kids. I mean, we're talking about maybe even 20s and 30s and early early 40s, have never seen it because they don't like watching black and white films. Uh, you know, and and I think for instance, the the latest Ripley series, um right. That that's done in black and white. Black and white. Um, yeah, but I'm not sure they watched it.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

After the film Um Some Like at Hot came out, Billy Wilder used to ask his friends about it. He said, What do you think of the film? They said, It's great, it's great. And he said, Well, uh, but what do you think of the color in it? They said, The color was fantastic, I loved it. And of course, the film's in black and white. People didn't even think about it. It was just a great film. You know, they didn't worry about whether it was color or black or white.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Absolutely. Um I I I have a really short Billy Wilder story that's not mine, but it was told to be.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Oh, please tell me, uh I'll I'm all ears for anything about about Billy Wilder.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Charles, Charles, you're quite the raccoon tour. Well, you're not only a you're not only a novelist and journalist, you're a raccoon tour.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Well, I no, what I am is a good listener, and so and I have a good memory, at least so far. Um, so what were we talking about? Billy Wilder, right? Um, I have a friend, Richard Dubin, who um was a professor up at Syracuse uh with me uh at New House, and he was a very, very successful sitcom writer and uh you know, did movie cleanups and all that. And he hadn't worked for a while. And so um he called his agent and said, let's let's meet and let's talk about this. You know, I I I need work. So they met at a restaurant, and they met at a restaurant where one of the famous restaurants, I don't know if it was Ma Maison or not, but it was one of those famous restaurants where there was a uh banquette. You sat at a banquet, and then someone would sit opposite you on a chair. And so Richard was and and three or four, and the place was pretty empty. Three or four tables to the left was Billy Wilder having lunch with someone. So Richard is talking to his agent and he's complaining about you know, where's the work, blah, blah, blah. And his agent stops and says, See that guy over there, Billy Wilder? He hasn't worked in a couple of years either. And so Richard had no, you know, no leg to stand on after that. When was that about what he wilder's career? Yeah, it was probably toward the end.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Um, well, he used to go into the office every day.

unknown 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

And he would work, try to get projects started, and you know, he was um people wouldn't wouldn't hire him. He was in his he died at the age of I think 96. So he, you know, he was it was one in years.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

And you and you know, in the in the context of of crime, I mean, he's produced some terrific crime movies, Double Jeopardy, Sunset Boulevard, just and just interesting, fun.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Double indemnity, gripping.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

But but this generation, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Well, he was pretty he was pretty cynical, yeah. Uh, and a great, a great director. I wanted to ask you, going back to those twin pillars of uh detective fiction, Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Am I right in remembering that Raymond Chandler was British, was English, and he'd moved to I think he was born.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Definitely, he was definitely English, yes.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

So did he I don't know his books well enough to know if there's any sort of English sensibility in them. Is there would you know that he was English born if you didn't uh if you just read his work?

SPEAKER_00 43:36

I I haven't read all his work, but I don't think so. I mean I haven't American.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

I've I've read every single thing by him. Okay, so you can answer this. You would think you would think it is some you know, people talking right off the you know the mid century in Los Angeles. I mean, you wouldn't get a sense of anything English about it, uh except maybe just precision of language.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Well, I write I write I write plays in in British, and I would hope that no one would detect from them that that was an American uh upstart writing. You know, if you live in a place long enough, you should be able to write in in the dialect of the local of the locals.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

You are you one of your books, one of your early books, JD, has my favorite title ever. Um uh Satanic Nurses.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

Satanic nurses.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

And I have a copy. Is it still in print?

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Uh it's available. You can find it. Uh when I was giving copies to um the nursing staff or telling people at the hospital that I I'm at a lot, and they say, Oh, what was your book called? And I say the satanic nurses, and they would do a double take because they thought I it was a well, it was the main book of nursing staff. Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

But you were flirting with the nurses.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

For people who don't know, it was a pun on satanic verses.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Um, you both that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

It's right up there with Swan's last song, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Yeah, but the funny thing was, Jim, I I never wanted to write another crime novel. So it didn't occur to me to you know to have a a series where the first book is Swan's last song. Uh so I just ignored that. But I all all the books have Swan in the title, like Swan Dives In and uh Swan's Lake of Despair. Um, and out of good titles using Swan.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

Was there any any Proustian um sort of resonance in that?

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Absolutely. People thought one of the one of the titles is Swan's Way Out, which is a direct from Proust.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Well, that's brilliant. So um Jim, you don't have a uh headquake for us this week, but I've I've got one, and that's uh here in England, uh we're all celebrating the centenary of Sir David Attenborough, who's a hundred years old. I think his birthday was yesterday, and that's a huge event here. Um, and he's still working. And um, and uh so so a salute to him. And um Charles, that's a great list. Are there any more? Sorry, did I uh did I interrupt you?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

I think I pretty much covered it. And and there are so many, now that we talk about it, there's so many of those black and white films, the crime uh the noir films that are that are great, you know.

SPEAKER_03 46:30

Um, but uh I only had uh so much uh I have to say anyone anyone who who refuses to watch a black and white movie is just uh limited from their own enjoyment, you know. It's just uh so silly. Um I guess there's no there's no book equivalent to that. Are there some people who refuse to read, you know, uh paperbacks and they only read hard stuffers?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

I won't read any book until the equivalent is that no one reads books anymore.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

That's that's it ain't so. I don't know. I I I I was at I was at a cafe yesterday, a woman came in with her two young children. Her son was about six, her daughter was four, and you won't believe what they were doing at the table. They were reading books, they were both reading books, and I congratulated, I congratulated the woman for good mothering, and she was very pleased to hear that. I wasn't sure if it would come across as patronizing, but it's just such a rare sight. And but I said yes, get them reading early, you know, not on phones. So there's hope. I hope there's hope in that that those two will grow up to be great readers of all.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

I think that counts for two headquakes for you, JB.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

I was wondering, Matt, we interrupt. Do you have a headquake?

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Wait, just to remind our audience that headquake is a cross between a headache and an earthquake. It's something that's we've observed during the week that merits discussion.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Well, all right, I'll take that as my second headquake. It was just Richard Attenborough still alive, David, David Attenborough. Right, Richard Richard's still alive? Oh uh Richard Attenborough's no longer with us. David Attenborough just turned 100. Richard would have been the older brother. Uh um, but David's still here and um and still working and at presence on the BBC. And he's the one person, we talked about it in our earlier episode about national treasures. He's he's the one guy, the one person in Britain that everyone kind of can agree on that they like. He's above politics, and he's for the environment and animals, and it's just hard to argue with. So don't even try. He's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Don't try, Charles. Don't try to argue.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

I'll try to help you. Charles, thank you so much for our first guest. And uh it's been a great discussion. And um, Jim, anything you want to add?

SPEAKER_02 49:16

It's it's great that we could have some old friends together in this format that talk about what we like and what we don't like.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Sounds great. Anytime you want me back, uh it's fun.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

Right. We'd love to have you back. So that's all this week from Boomer Has It. I'm JB Muller in London.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

I'm Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

And Charles Salzburg from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Thanks. Bye.