Greg Clark Noir Art

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #62 COLUMBO The inverted detective story, which shows the commission of the crime and its perpetrator, removes the "whodunit" element of the detective story and replaces it with "howcatchem".  There was no finer example of this than the TV crime drama "Columbo" as portrayed by Peter Falk.  Frank Columbo was a homicide detective with the LAPD, and the show originally aired on NBC as one of the rotating programs on "The NBC Mystery Movie" broadcast on Sunday nights.  Columbo is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks are his rumpled raincoat, his unassuming demeanor, cigar, old Peugeot 403 automobile, an unseen wife (whom he mentions frequently), and his famous catchphrase "just one more thing" that he utters as he is about to leave a room.  The culprits are often affluent members of society who think that they've carefully covered their tracks and committed the...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #61 PETER GUNN Created by Blake Edwards, Peter Gunn was like nothing seen on TV before.  He was suave, sophisticated, hep to the jive, and groovin' to the oh-so-cool jazz beat.  Gunn hung out at Mother's, a swank jazz club on the waterfront of a big but never named city, wearing his Ivy league finest and with his best gal, singer Edie Hart.  Craig Stevens was Gunn, Lola Albright played Edie, Hope Emerson was Mother, and Herschel Bernardi was Lieutenant Jacoby, the long-suffering, sad-faced police pal of Gunn.  A highly innovative and influential show, it boasted a hit theme song by Henry Mancini and was the first private eye series created solely for television, that was not based upon any previous medium.  Edwards created Gunn from his earlier Richard Diamond radio and TV series.  It was the success of Diamond that prompted Edwards to revisit the concept as Peter Gunn.  Lola Albright said of her role as ...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #60 HONEY WEST According to co-creator Gloria Fickling, Honey was a "Beautiful, brainy and very much determined, sensual female."  She was the first successful female private eye in her own series of novels written by G. G. Fickling (pseudonym of husband-and-wife writers Gloria and Forrest Fickling).  She was described as having "taffy-colored hair, big blue eyes and a baby-bottom complexion."  She was more often a male fantasy than an icon of female empowerment.  In her debut novel "This Girl for Hire" she was searching for the murderer of her beloved father, Hank West, also a private eye, who was killed in an alley behind the old Paramount Theater in Hollywood.  Honey was tough but often in need of rescuing, which is where her ever-virtuous partner Johnny Doom came in. BIBLIOGRAPHY Forrest Fickling had been an Air Force gunner during WWII and was called back into service during Korea.  He created the G. G. F...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #59 THE 87th PRECINCT Creator Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) specifically stated that the 87th Precinct was not located in NYC, but the fictitious city of Isola was obviously Manhattan.  His starkly realistic police procedural novels dealt with social problems at the street level.  His tales had a range of subjects and approaches - from intangible terror to physical brutality to slapstick humor.  The most prominent member of the detective squad is Steve Carella, whose beautiful wife Teddy is a deaf-mute.  Other members of the squad are Lieutenant Peter Byrnes, Detective Cotton Hawes (a giant of a man with a white streak in his hair), Detective Meyer Meyer (whose father thought it would be amusing to give his son the same first name and surname), Detective Andy Parker (a braggart with few redeeming social qualities), Desk Sergeant Dave Murchison, and Detective Bert Kling (the youngest member of the team). BIBLIOGRAPHY Ed McBain...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #58 JAMES BOND The most famous spy in literature, 007 is a patriotic English espionage agent who takes on titanic villains with unmatched fearlessness and zest.  The "00" is a code number that designates him as an agent licensed to kill - a prerogative Bond exercises in each of his adventures.  Tall, dark, handsome, and rugged, Bond is an elegant man of the world who enjoys gambling, the best food, cognac, champagne, and other luxurious trappings of wealth - especially the beautiful women who are invariably attracted to him.  He spends an inordinate amount of time engaged in sexual activities, but not so much that he does not perform his primary job. The son of a Swiss mother and a Scottish father, Bond nevertheless feels deeply patriotic about England and is willing to endure torture and risk his life repeatedly in his efforts to smash plots engineered by Russian organizations and freewheeling super-criminals intent on worl...

GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #57 RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE   Created by Blake Edwards, Richard Diamond first appeared on radio from April 24, 1949 to September 20, 1953.  Dick Powell starred as Diamond, a wisecracking former police officer turned P.I..  Episodes typically began with a client visiting or calling the cash-strapped Diamond and agreeing to his fee of $100 a day plus expenses.  Sometimes Diamond took on a case at the behest of his friend and former partner Lieutenant Walter Levinson.  Most of the radio episodes ended with Diamond at a piano singing a song to his girlfriend Helen Asher in her penthouse apartment at 975 Park Avenue.  Lt. Levinson was played variously by Ed Begley, Ted De Corsia, and Alan Reed (Fred Flintstone).  Helen was played by Virginia Gregg.   Many of the shows were written and directed by Edwards.  The show's theme, "Leave It to Love", was whistled by Powell at the beginning of each ...