Private Eye Action As You Like It [Paperback]

Joe R. Lansdale (Author), Lewis Shiner (Author), George Pratt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1998

A collection of detective fiction by award winning authors Joe R. Lansdale and Lewis Shiner. This book collects for the first time some of Lansdale and Shiners earliest works including the first piece of fiction Joe R. Lansdale ever sold.

The collection features: The Slater Stories which include: The Full Count, Long Gone Forever and One Blonde, Well Dead by Joe R. Lansdale, The Sloane Stories which include: Deep Without Pity, The Killing Season and Prodigal Son by Lewis Shiner and The Talbot

Stories which include Black As The Night and Man Drowning which were collaboratively written by Joe R. Lansdale and Lewis Shiner. Each group of stories includes new introductions by the authors. The book features cover artwork by George Pratt, artist of DC Comics' Enemy Ace. Private Eye Action As You Like It is limited to 1000 copies and is signed by the authors.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The busty blonde was frightened. Her black, platform shoes beat a staccato rhythm against the peeling grey dock boards. Their sound sharply puncuated the gentle lapping of the waves, the creaking of the pilings. She glanced over her shoulder, trying to discern what she could sense but could not see. There was nothing. Just the dock, the tumbling water, the smell of fish, and a chain of tin boathouses standing out under the moonlight like a row of marble tombstones. She hurried on faster. Ahead of her lay light and refuge in the form of the gulf side restaurant, The Pelican's Table. It seemed to her as far away as the Hawaiian Islands. That's when she started to run. It was a decision made too late. There was a sudden jerk at her throat followed by biting pain. She felt herself lifted up and off her feet, and the cry she started became a gurgle. Something wet and warm splashed beneath her chin, onto her low-cut, white blouse. The lights of The Pelican's Table began to spin before her eyes like a roulette wheel, seemed to blaze with a white hot intensity. Then suddenly, the pain was gone. In its place came darkness... and then nothing... from One Blonde, Well Dead by Joe R. Lansdale

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crossroads Pr (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892300028
• ISBN-13: 978-1892300027
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A blast from their pasts, August 15, 2001

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Private Eye Action As You Like It (Paperback)

Here's a quiz for trivia fans. Identify the following:

Ray Slater. Dan Sloane. John Talbot.

Give up? Ardent Lansdale fans may recognize the Slater moniker, but I'd bet most of you are hard pressed to come up with anything on the other two. Here's the answer: each is a fictional private detective, created by Joe R. Lansdale, Lewis Shiner, or both. All starred in early attempts by the authors to write hard boiled mysteries, and all first appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine in the late seventies and early eighties.

Private Eye Action As You Like It (the title is based on an in-joke between Lansdale and Shiner) presents eight stories featuring these characters-three Slater tales by Lansdale, three Sloane adventures from Shiner, and two collaborative efforts starring Talbot. Typical of the men's action-adventure genre, they bear titles like "Long Gone, Forever," "One Blonde, Well Dead," "Deep Without Pity," "The Killing Season," and "Black as the Night". None of the stories are particularly stellar, but all are well written and entertaining, notable for the insight they provide into each writer's professional development and evolution of their particular voices. All the stories contain flashes of the author they become-Lansdale, in naming a character Eclipse, "on account of he's so big he blocks out the sun," and Shiner in his already polished prose.

From the tenor of their editorial remarks, I sensed both authors look back on these stories with a measure of disdain and affection. This is to be expected, but the disdain is probably not justified. Sometimes clumsy, sometimes amateurish, the stories represent the best work they could do at that stage in their careers, and as such are nothing to be ashamed about. So, in the final analysis, I'd have to say the collection is interesting primarily for its historical perspective, secondarily for the entertaining author's notes filled with insight and good natured ribbing between the two friends (Shiner's piece, "Can You Run With It?" is particularly funny). As such, the book is primarily for Lansdale and Shiner completists, not for casual readers. Even so, those unfamiliar with either author will find things to like.