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The Distance: A Crime Novel Introducing Billy Nichols Hardcover – January 1, 2002

by Eddie Muller (Author)

12 customer reviews

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It's 1948, an era when newspapermen were stars -- and San Francisco sportswriter Billy Nichols is no exception. Known as Mr. Boxing throughout the city, he is the West Coast's answer to Damon Runyon -- an insider's insider who plucks and polishes his pearllike stories from the nonstop hustle of the city's nightclubs, gambling dens, and ringside seats. Billy Nichols is right where he wants to be, until he stumbles onto a shocking crime scene. Heavyweight boxer Hack Escalante has killed his manager, and for reasons Billy doesn't fully understand, he makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to protect the prizefighter. Soon Billy's in too deep, caught in a conspiracy of desire, deceit, and betrayal, and he sets off a chain of events whose consequences may cost him his beloved career -- and his life. As Billy himself struggles to escape suspicion, he must square off against relentless police detective Francis O'Connor, carry on business as usual with his colorful cronies in the boxing world, and resist his overwhelming passion for a woman he dare not love. Billy soon discovers that he's not the only yarn spinner in this nefarious netherworld: many of the characters inhabiting his well-honed newspaper columns have crafted their own alternative life stories, hiding scores of secrets. Whose story will emerge as "truth"? As richly ambient as James Ellroy's "L.A. Confidential," this debut novel brilliantly brings to life another time -- when pride and professionalism are sometimes more important than life itself.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, January 2002: This debut mystery is by an author who already has a claim on the hearts of his audience: he produced two splendid works of nonfiction that are must-haves for every mystery lover's library, Dark City Dames and Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir. Both take readers down new paths into a familiar, haunting landscape--that of the 1940s and '50s films that brought such a paradoxical blend of artifice and authenticity to the small, claustrophobic world of crime.

As the son of a West Coast boxing writer, Muller is writing from strength when he makes his protagonist, Billy Nichols, a newspaper boxing columnist who easily keeps pace with the mugs and thugs he covers. The setting is post-World War II San Francisco and Nichols is a journalist who pounds out his stories, stopping only afterward to ask the right questions.

His relationship to the heavyweight Hack Escalante takes a startling turn early in the story as Billy finds himself an accessory to a crime that it seems Hack has just committed. Gig Liardi, Hack's manager, is lying dead on the floor of his apartment, less than a half-hour after summoning Billy over for a scoop, and Hack's knuckles are bloody, though his eyes are wet. "This boy should never have been a fighter," Billy thinks, watching him. "Now he was a killer. A couple of his tears dropped on Gig's face."

Even if prizefighters do cry, this scene is still only one high point in a tough, vivid re-creation of a lost era of urban sports history that swaggers on for almost 40 more chapters. More mystery novels featuring "Mr. Boxing," as Billy Nichols is known, will certainly be welcome by mystery fans, but come early to the series now and get a ringside seat! --Otto Penzler

From Publishers Weekly

In his first crime novel, Muller gives an authentic if depressing view of San Francisco's downtrodden neighborhoods in the late '40s, when boxing was the way to fame and fortune. Billy Nichols, sportswriter for Hearst's Inquirer (aka "Mr. Boxing"), knows something is wrong when he finds promoter Gig Liardi's apartment door cracked open. Inside is rising fight star Hack Escalante, who has just beaten his manager to death for some unexplained insult to his wife. With the crime and the criminal apparently known at the outset, the two "go the distance" together and bury Liardi's body in Golden Gate Park. Nichols then shields his young prot‚g‚ from the police until the final championship bout. Det. Francis O'Connor works slowly and deliberately, while we meet numerous minor characters from the "fistic fraternity," most with little connection to the case. There is romance, graphically described, when Nichols has an affair with Escalante's wife during the young boxer's brief Navy stint. Muller knows Frisco's boxing scene well, and takes us through seedy arenas and nightclubs as his narrator (and maybe the reader) get "lost in the circuit" of unsavory bookmakers, gamblers and politicians exploiting young men eager to be written up in Nichols's columns, excerpts of which are interspersed between chapters. Those with an interest in boxing and a desire to know better the grim ambiance of the ring and locker room will be intrigued, but for others, the technical terms and sleazy characters in this sordid underworld may be too much to fathom. (Jan. 18)City: The Lost World of Film Noir, among other noir-related titles.

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Product details

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Scribner (January 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743214439
ISBN-13: 978-0743214438
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 12 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #991,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5059 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
- #7238 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical > Mysteries
- #34382 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Suspense

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And precious little whining ...

ByHerbert D. Saffordon March 25, 2003

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Eddie Muller's THE DISTANCE is a wonderfully atmospheric noir tale of murder and passion set in colorful, corrupt, post-war San Francisco. [Note that the San Francisco of the late 40s was much closer in time and ambiance to the period of the great 1906 earthquake and fire than to the glistening "city on a hill" tourist mecca for yuppies and trans-gendered folk it has become today.]
THE DISTANCE combines two cultural elements which are now fading memories: professional boxing and the great newspapers. The Brown Bomber has retired to debt, and the heavyweight crown is available for a price. San Francisco is served by five daily newspapers. [Television is just coming on board and has not yet swamped the ship.] Men are men and women are women, and don't bet on the outcome.
Noir fiction depends for its success on authentic speech more than on highly cultivated plot, and Muller does a fine job of recreating the languages of the period. Just listen, and you can hear the color!
I liked especially that Muller mixed it up, but never went for the knockout. THE DISTANCE, as a title, reflects that long 15 rounds which were the nature of a life then, the grinding working class struggle to survive. And precious little whining.

0Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

San Franciso and Boxing

ByAmazon Customeron January 30, 2003

Format: Hardcover

This novels takes you back to the late 1940's and the San Franscisso era of boxing. Muller brings this period of history to life with active characters and his insight into the boxing world is topnotch. Billy Nichols is a sports reporter and is beat is the boxing world and he befriends many boxers and managers
covering the sport. On the very first page Muller sets the bar high by having the murder committed and the murder revealed all by page 2. Nichols role in all this is the cover up. He helps the boxer clean up the crime scene and remove the body. Now remember this is the 1940's and DNA technology wasn't invented to the
caliber of what we have today. The rest of the story is told by Billy and his fast stepping to keep ahead of the deceptive assigned the case. Since Muller set his sights so high so early in the book the middle falls flat. He knew where he wanted the story to go he just couldn't grasp the words to get it there. Close to the ending the story picks up the high pace of the beginning chapters and the ending is full of tension. The big
question is will Billy be found out about his accessory to the crime and go to jail or will Muller save his character so we can have other book about him.

0Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A Knockout!

ByJoeon September 8, 2012

Format: Hardcover

Boxing is a dead sport. Which kills me to write, since I grew up with it. The only fondness left is nostalgia, in which The Distance is deeply steeped. Boxing has always been a corrupt game--except, here in the 1940s where The Distance is set, that corruption plays glamorous and charming (because everything in the 1940s seems glamorous and charming). Muller's father, a sports writer, was the inspiration for Billy Nichols, the book's protagonist, and the novel hinges on that authority. Muller has been nicknamed "The Czar of Noir" for his work preserving and promoting film noir, and that influence is plainly visible. The Distance reads like an old black and white detective pic, with crooked fedoras and crookeder cops, cigar-chomping promoters and dames harboring secrets (not to mention driving a fella wild). It's a behind-the-scenes trip back to the days when looking sensational mattered and boxing was the biggest game in town.

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Rich and Atmospheric Noir

ByD. Mooreon March 18, 2011

Format: Hardcover

When San Francisco's `Mr Boxing' - sportswriter Billy Nichols - turns up at boxing manager Gig Liardi's apartment one night in 1948, he finds Gig dead and his fighter, Hack Escalante, standing over him. Billy makes a snap decision to protect Hack and cover up the murder. It's a choice that he may later regret but, once taken, he sticks to it. This is a wonderfully told tale - very noir, full of corruption, moral ambiguity, betrayal and lies. The mean streets of San Francisco's sleazy underbelly in the `40s really come alive. The writing is gorgeous - really rich and atmospheric.

The outstanding appeal of this book - and its sequel SHADOW BOXER - is the character of Billy Nichols. His tough, cynical outer shell hides a vulnerable interior. He's not the typical macho noir protagonist. He's a sensitive, perceptive, flawed man. He's a storyteller - a chronicler of fact and, sometimes, a creator of fiction. But he's an honest liar, unlike many of the other characters in the book. Because Billy doesn't have that cold, self-destructive, caring for nothing and nobody streak that is the territory of a noir protagonist, the book is suffused with warmth, light, passion and heart. Eddie Muller turns the conventions of noir and hard-boiled novels on their heads.

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Most recent customer reviews

Excellent crime novel

Very easy to see why this won the Shamus, gumshoe, anthony. An excellent crime novel, very well written, with a noir 40s and boxing backdrop that's brilliantly drawn.

Published on July 8, 2004 by Bee-Bee

Excellent crime novel

Very easy to see why this won the Shamus, gumshoe, anthony. An excellent crime novel, brilliantly written, with a boxing world backdrop that kicks.

Published on July 8, 2004 by Bee-Bee

A compelling work with a strong sense of time and place

Billy Nichols is considered "Mr. Boxing" through his popular sports column in the San Francisco Inquirer in 1948.Read more

Published on March 9, 2004 by Larry

Solid performance for a pro, fantastic for a first-timer

Thought I'd try this one out after I heard it had won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel. The award was well deserved.Read more

Published on January 17, 2004

Ring Noir

Evokes the color and atmosphere of the fight game in post WWII San Francisco from a "roman noir" perspective.Read more

Published on February 13, 2003 by Stephen F. Abney

A Vivid Book Noir Debut

Read this recently and am wasting no time in recommending Muller's vividly drawn debut to those of you who're looking for something a little different, a little complicated, and a...Read more

Published on June 4, 2002 by Yvette

Runyon-Hemingway Revisited

I am a mystery buff and first edition collector. I am not a fight fan, yet Muller has captivated me. He has written a period piece mystery which captures the late '40s era.Read more

Published on April 4, 2002 by Susan Newman, Ph.D.

A Smashing First Novel

Raymond Chandler meets Larry Merchant (of HBO Boxing commentator fame). In Dark City, Eddie Muller illustrated his love of film noir and the pulp genre.Read more

Published on January 30, 2002 by Lara E. Fisher

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