Black Mask Boys Series by William F. Nolan
Black Mask Boys #1
The Black Mask Murders
William F. Nolan
Mystery and suspense readers are in for a rare treat
with The Black Mask Murders, a unique achievement in the art of
sophisticated action entertainment. It is the first in a series featuring the
three seminal authors of the American private eye novel-Dashiell Hammett,
Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner-each, in turn, as himself, the
detective-hero. In the first of this delightfully offbeat mystery series, "Dash"
Hammett is the narrator, with the other two in subsidiary roles; their turns
will come in subsequent books. The reader encounters high-stakes crime and
corruption in a dazzling murder case in the chic glitter-world of Hollywood
during its golden age. Colorful sequences extend from New York to San
Francisco's Chinatown to Southern California's Big Bear Lake country.
Authentically recreated, the legendary masters of
suspense fiction live again as they follow a complex, danger-filled blood trail
in pursuit of a fabled jeweled treasure-the real-life inspiration for Hammett's
classic novel. The Maltese Falcon.
Gritty and glamorous, fascinating and fast-paced, bold
and brilliantly conceived, here is a compulsive read for those who seek the
unusual in the best of mystery and suspense. There's never been a novel quite
like The Black Mask Murders.
***
From Publishers Weekly
Veteran author Nolan (Logan's Run) launches a
series to be narrated by those crime writers he calls "The Black Mask
Boys"-Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner. Hammett leads
off this 1935 plot, jam-packed with movie stars and moguls, gangsters,
blackmailers, nasty pre-Miranda cops and even a gem-encrusted human skull dating
from the Crusades. Readers will be reminded less of The Maltese Falcon
than of Hammett's early pulp fiction. This tale, featuring some incredibly
daring sleuthing by all three writers-made-characters, moves along like a
crumpled cocktail napkin caught up in the windstorm and seems to have about the
same weight in the end. Cameo appearances include those by Scott Fitzgerald and
Heinie Faust, who wrote as Max Brand (and other names). Nolan dredges up some
pretty portentous prose in this plumbing of the past (an encounter with
Fitzgerald leaves Dash ruminating: "All that talent-and all that booze. A bad
combination."). Of interest as a period piece and for its insider allusions,
this is no hard-boiled tale.
***
From Booklist
Dashiell Hammett was a real-life detective as well as the
author of several classic detective novels, including The Maltese Falcon. Now
he's also a fictional character, the narrator of this series debut that also
features two of Hammett's fellow contributors to Black Mask magazine, Erle
Stanley Gardner and Raymond Chandler. The real author, William Nolan, is a
scholar of Black Mask-era fiction and the author of Hammett: Life at
the Edge (1987). Set in Hollywood shortly before the appearance of the
Falcon movie, the story finds Hammett asked to deliver a jewel-encrusted ruby to
a local mobster. A shootout occurs, and the bad guy gets the icon and the girl
for which it was to serve as ransom. Hammett, Gardner, and Chandler work to
recover both the jewel and the girl. Nolan mixes as many biographical facts into
the narrative as possible, serving up a healthy portion of literary history
along with the action. There's gunplay, humor, and just enough realism to
humanize Hammett and his cronies. The premise may ultimately wear thin, but for
now, it's perfectly good fun for the hard-boiled crowd.
***
"A talented original."
-Ross MacDonald
"William F. Nolan is a hell of a writer! I have real
admiration for his stories."
-Peter Straub
"I envy Bill Nolan's successful productivity, and I also
envy the incredible spectrum of his work-fantasy, science fiction, mystery,
suspense-Nolan is a fine writer."
-Richard Matheson
"Nolan's scholarship is impeccable, his organization of
material flawless… his work belongs on every serious mystery reader's
shelf."
-Joe Gores
"Mr. Nolan has considerable skills… His stories are
bright and individual."
-The New York Times
"A gifted writer… intriguing and imaginative."
-The Los Angeles Times
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Black Mask Boys #2
The Marble Orchard
William F. Nolan
Mystery fiction's legendary trio, Raymond Chandler,
Dashiell Hammett, and Erle Stanley Gardner, are back as amateur detectives,
following their dynamic, critically acclaimed debut in The Black Mask
Murders. Here they interact in a complex, colorful, and ultimately dangerous
adventure, a richly textured thriller that also celebrates the joys of love and
marriage between Chandler and his exceptional wife, Cissy.
As narrated by Chandler, the adventure begins in East Los
Angeles with the discovery of what is apparently the ritual suicide of Cissy's
former husband in a Chinese cemetery. Action moves swiftly from the coastal
splendors of the Hearst castle, to the abandoned canals of Venice by the Sea, to
an ornate hotel on Coronado Island, to the rococo Victorian mansions of Bunker
Hill.
The characters are equally diverse: a mysterious screen
star known to millions as the Vampire Queen, a concert pianist who discovers
surprising romance, an ex-stage actor with a penchant for using his fists, a
missing sister who prefers to stay missing, and a pair of muscle-bound punks who
don't balk at kidnapping and murder.
Along the way readers will encounter such fascinating
real-life personalities as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, America's
cinema sweetheart Shirley Temple, comic genius Charlie Chaplin, Hollywood gossip
columnist Hedda Hopper, and a brash young Orson Welles.
Once again, William F. Nolan expertly evokes the surreal
world of Southern California in the 1930s, when Hollywood provided golden dreams
for a nation in economic crisis, as the all-time masters of crime fiction return
in a bold, inventive new novel that will stun, shock, and delight.
***
From Kirkus Reviews
A thousand dollars is a lot of 1936 dollars, and even
though Raymond Chandler's never walked the mean streets he writes about, he's
happy to take the money from self-styled "Countess" Carmilla Blastok (Ce Letty
Knibbs of Newark) to find her missing sister Elina-especially since he'd like to
quiz Elina about the death of her rumored lover, pianist/composer Julian Pascal.
The LAPD thinks Julian's death in a Chinese cemetery was a clear case of ritual
suicide, but Julian's ex-wife, Cissy, who left him for Chandler years ago, is
sure it was murder. With some help from Dashiell Hammett and Erle Stanley
Gardner, his buddies from Black Mask (The Black Mask Murders,
1994), Chandler goes after Elina's lowlife companion Merv Enright-and walks
right into a mulligan stew of fact and fiction, with many scenes he's evidently
planning to hoard for his own later novels. Despite clunky cameos by Orson
Welles, Hedda Hopper, Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, and Shirley
Temple, the shaggy story moves along briskly, with detection-on-the-fly very
typical of Chandler's own work, and inaccurate social prophecies ("Maybe Los
Angeles will someday even lead the way in race relations," muses one character)
that mark a nice change from the usual 20/20 hindsight of most historical
mysteries. It's not just because of his subject that prolific Nolan may well
represent the last of the pulp tradition. Black Mask fans will be waiting
eagerly for his Erle Stanley Gardner installment.
***
From Booklist
The Black Mask boys are back, and that's a cause for
celebration. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner,
introduced as detectives in Nolan's Black Mask Murders (1994), track down
the murderer of Chandler's wife's first husband, Julian, who has apparently
committed ritual suicide in a Chinese cemetery. Cissy Chandler, not buying the
suicide story, puts her husband on the case. Chandler follows Julian's trail to
horror-movie actress Carmilla Blastok, who leads the writerly sleuth to a thug
named Enright, who may have killed Carmilla's sister. When Chandler gets in over
his head, he calls his Black Mask cronies for help. Along the way,
Charlie Chaplin, William Randolph Hearst, and Orson Welles also make cameo
appearances. Nolan has obviously researched the Hollywood of the 1930s
thoroughly; his backgrounds are always convincing, even when you don't believe
the foreground for a minute. Entertaining for nostalgia buffs.
***
From Library Journal
Nolan's Black Mask Boys-Dashiell Hammett, Raymond
Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner-undertake their second amateur investigation.
The apparent suicide of Cissy Chandler's former husband entails visits to East
L.A., Hearst Castle, and Venice-by-the-Sea. Various famous people make
appearances. Especially good for fans of 1930s historical fiction.
***
"Masterfully penetrates the surreal Black Mask world of
Southern California in the 1930s. Nolan has captured the essence of both an era
and a literary form in one brilliant exercise."
-Robert R. Parker
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