Animals in Espionage
Spy literature and movies are chock-full of gadgets for the agents. Real-life agencies have another gimmick up their trench coat sleeves: trained animals.
Spy literature and movies are chock-full of gadgets for the agents. Real-life agencies have another gimmick up their trench coat sleeves: trained animals.
Sally Carpenter penned a new delightful series, A Psychedelic Spy Mystery, introducing Noelle McNabb. It’s 1967 with its flowery fashions, princess phones, vinyl records, and attitudes sans the contemporary “politically correct” filter.
It’s hard to imagine a singing teen-TV-sleuth idol of the 1970s with a name like Ernest Farmington, so they changed it to Sandy Fairfax when he starred in Buddy Brave, Boy Detective. He was a teeny-bopper magnet in the mold of Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. It’s a decade or so later, and he’s staying sober, finally, to have access to his kids, woo Cinnamon his choreographer-girlfriend, and get back into music and acting in The Quirky Quiz Show Caper: A Sandy Fairfax Teen Idol Mystery by Sally Carpenter.
Los Angeles, 1924
Tap ... tap ... tap ... tap... The man in the expensive suit rhythmically rapped the point of a silver fountain pen on the stained, scratched wooden tabletop the way one might drive a nail into a coffin lid. His clothes smelled like a mixture of musky aftershave and cigar smoke. His black fedora lay on the table. Big Mac’s black eyes bored into the two young women seated across from him in the second floor apartment.
Sandy Fairfax was a teen idol like David Cassidy. Once he got older, things didn’t go so well. Now after a wakeup call (aka threat) from his ex-wife regarding his kids, he’s stopped drinking, broke up with Crazy Helen and has found a way to make amends with his blind sister as well as getting a cool gig on a cruise ship.
Turn on the television at any time and it’s impossible not to see some young star actor/musician gyrating or getting arrested and think, “You’re going to regret this in twenty years.” Well, that’s something familiar to Sally Carpenter’s hero in her Teen Idol Mystery series, and while Sandy Fairfax may not enjoy his fall from celebrityhood, readers surely will in this follow up to his debut that explores our fascination with celebrities and their struggle to maintain their status.
Working most holidays, Darren discovered, was one disadvantage of his job as a government spy. Those Cold War enemy agents operated on the days when most loyal Americans were safely at home, feasting with their families. He’d spent last Christmas on surveillance, holed up in a grimy apartment–Fourth of July chasing a would-be bomber through Chicago during a heat wave–and Labor Day in a cheap motel room, deciphering an intercepted coded message. This year he could enjoy a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner with his family, even though he was on the dodge from a double agent.
“There’s something about the car.” That first line in Gary Phillips’ introduction to this collection of car-themed short stories by the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime perfectly encapsulates the enigmatic atmosphere and introspection that so often occurs in our beloved automobiles. The close confines of a car and hours spent in traffic force us to either contemplate one’s own thoughts or have deeply intimate conversations with a seatmate without the requirement of uncomfortable eye contact. Some of our most memorable experiences are associated with our cars, and this is reflected in this wonderful compilation of short stories of love, hate and violence, all occurring within our vehicles.
Here finally are some more of the Left Coast Crime Mining For Murder mystery author video interviews that have not yet been posted here in KRL! We have Simon Wood, Clark Lohr, Louise Crawford, Sally Carpenter, Jonnie Jacobs, Naomi Hirahara and Ken Kuhlken. Watch for our interview with Juliet Blackwell coming later this month.