Black River Falls is the stage for a religious war in Ed Gorman’s fourth Sam McCain mystery, Save the Last Dance For Me. John Muldaur runs a radical church on the edge of town that is stirring up controversy because of their extreme views and use of rattlesnakes during ceremonies. Muldaur thinks someone is trying to kill him, so he hires lawyer and sometimes-PI Sam McCain to find out who. When McCain and reporter Kylie Burke take a trip to see the rattlesnake services in person, they get more than they bargained for when Muldaur collapses dead in the middle of his sermon. Finding the killer, however, proves difficult when McCain realizes that someone in town was secretly financing Muldaur’s church, and they’d do anything to prevent the truth from coming out. With Judge Whitney’s good friend Senator Richard Nixon paying a visit in just a few days, it is up to McCain to clean up this mess as soon as possible.

Save the Last Dance For Me is important in the McCain series for a couple of reasons. First, because it introduces one of my favorite characters: Kenny Thibodeau, the local paperback sleaze writer. Kenny dresses like a beatnik to look the part of a writer, and he does hackwork to pay the bills, but Sam recognizes that he’s got not only got real literary talent but also a great eye for humanity, both of which pop up now and then in his lesbian-themed novels.

Another reason it is important is Sam’s relationship with Kylie. After finding himself caught between Pamela Forrest (he would-be lover) and Mary Travers (his should-be lover), he’s decided to move on and try to start a new relationship. The problem this time, however, is that Kylie is married. Her husband is a wannabe writer compared to Kenny, someone who goes to grad school and talks fancy and walks the walk but can’t produce anything worth while. He also treats Kylie like dirt. And there is Sam, who once again is trapped in a relationship that is doomed from the start. But we feel for him, especially because he does really care for Kylie. The tragedy is that he understands all too well what it means to hold on to a fantasy, and to give up everything to try and make a relationship work even when you know it is futile. Gorman’s books are filled with damned sad truths that we’ve all suffered in our own lives. Touches like these make the books come to life.

It might not seem obvious to call Gorman a stylist, but when you look at some of his paragraphs and sentences, there’s remarkable a subtlety, clarity, and precision to his prose. It’s style without bombast or distraction. These are some of my favorite lines from the book. The first passage, in particular, hits home—Sam and I are about the same age, so it is easy for me to identify with a lot of his thoughts and problems.

“And then at the grocery store last Saturday, everybody crowded in there buying potato chips and beer and Canada Dry mixes for highballs. I saw a lot of the kids I’d graduated with from high school. And they all had wives and kids in tow. And looked happy. And grown up. And I thought of what a mess my life was and how in a lot of ways I was still a kid and sometimes that was all right but other times it made me ashamed of myself. Maybe I’d never be Robert Ryan but at least I could be an adult like my dad. He had to quit school when he was in tenth grade to help support his family. I guess that grows you up pretty fast.”

“Sometimes, it feels sorta good to be sad. You know what I mean? But most of the time it just feels like shit to be sad. Could you turn up that song? I love it.”

“Judging by the entertainment shows on the tube, everything was just okey-dokey here in the land of Lincoln. But we knew better, didn’t we?”

“But you know something, it was quite likely that both portraits were true. We’re heroes or villains depending on who’s talking.”

The McCain series keeps getting better and better. Up next: Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.

Wake Up Little Susie, the second of Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain books, has just been released as an eBook for Kindle. It is set in 1957, one year before the first book in the series, The Day the Music Died.

The novel opens with the unveiling of Ford’s latest creation, the Edsel. Susan Squires, the wife of District Attorney David Squires, is found dead in the trunk of one of the cars. The local chief of police, Cliffie, suspects the murderer is Mike Chalmers, whom the DA sent to prison many years ago. Of course, Judge Whitney asks Sam McCain to do some investigating of his own. Assisting Sam this time is Mary Travers, a close friend of Susan’s, and Sam’s should-be lover. Mary’s been in love with Sam since they were kids, but Sam has always been more in love with Pamela Forrest who, of course, is not in love with Sam. Working close together, Sam starts to wonder if maybe was wrong about Mary all these years. When Mary suddenly goes missing, however, Sam realizes there might be more to the case—and his feelings—than he realized.


Readers of Pulp Serenade know that I’m a big fan of Gorman’s novels, and his Sam McCain books are some of my favorites. Wake Up Susie has all the hallmarks of his best writing – a compelling mystery, great period detail, a tender but tragic romance, nice laughs, and keen social observations. The book also has several remarkable paragraphs I wanted to share.

“The sky was darker now, stains of mauve and gold and amber, a few thunderheads brilliantly outlined with the last of the day’s sunlight. There’s a loneliness to Saturday night, at least for me, that no amount of noise and movement can ever assuage. There’re a lot of popular songs about Saturday night, about how you live all week for it to roll around so you can go out and have yourself a ball. But deep down you know it’ll never be quite as exciting as you want it to be, need it to be, and the lonesomeness will never quite go away. I think my mom used to feel this when my dad was in Europe during the war. She’d kind of fix herself up on Saturday night and then sit in the living room by herself with her one highball in her hand and a Chesterfield in her fingers. Even when she’d laugh at the radio jokes there’d be a lonesomeness in her eyes that made me sad for her and scared for my dad. But we were lucky. Dad came home.”

This first one is just downright beautiful writing. There’s a real sense of movement to the paragraph, and it could work as a stand-alone story, or even a prose poem. The image of the mother alone by the radio is a powerful one. Despite its simplicity, it evokes such deep feelings. And that last line – just three words, but man, they pack a punch. The words Gorman uses are just as important as the ones he does not, and there’s a lot being said in between the lines. Somehow, he seems to capture the experiences of a whole generation in just a few sentences.

This next paragraph starts out as an astute piece of criticism about John D. MacDonald, and ends up as a strong and insightful comment on the nature of literature and what it means to our own lives. And everything Gorman says about MacDonald’s writing I’d say goes for his own, as well. I’m not sure if that was Gorman’s intention or not, but he sums up exactly why I love reading his own books so much.

“There are no heroes in John D. novels, and that’s probably why I like them. Every once in a while his man will behave heroically, but that still doesn’t make him a hero. He has a lot of faults and he always realizes, at some point in every book, that he’s flawed and less than he wants to be. I think that’s why John D.’s books are so popular. Because we all know deep down we’re sort of jerks. Not all the time. But every once in a while we’re jerks and we have to face it and it’s never fun. You see how deeply you’ve hurt somebody, or how you were wrong about somebody, or how you let somebody down. But facing it makes you a better person. Because maybe next time you won’t be quite as petty or arrogant or cold. Good books are always moral, contrasting how we are with how we should be. And the good writer know how to do this without ever letting on.”

These last two passages capture Gorman’s uniquely sympathetic worldview that characterizes all of his novels. He’s a realist, seeing the best and worst in people, and like he said about John D. MacDonald, there are no easy heroes (or villains, for that matter).

“He was corrupt, violent, stupid, and yet he suffered. I’d seen him in the park holding her one day on his knee. I saw a tenderness and love I wish I hadn’t seen. Even bad guys have good sides. Sometimes that can get downright exasperating.”

 “Good men don’t go around murdering people. But sometimes bad people are good people too. Or good people can do bad things. Life is like that sometimes.”