RARA-AVIS: Re: Mute Winess to Bullitt

From: jimdohertyjr ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 01 Jan 2007


Mark,

Re your questions below:

> Can I infer from this that Mute Witness was not the first novel to
> feature Clancy? Or were the earlier series entries short stories?
And
> were they written as Fish or Pike -- my movie tie-in copy of Bullitt
> creates on Pike on the cover and title page, but Fish on the
copyright
> page.

MUTE WITNESS was, in fact, the first Clancy novel, but it was followed by THE QUARRY and POLICE BLOTTER, both of which appeared prior to BULLITT.

As near as I've been able to find out, Clancy made his debut in a 1961 short story called "Clancy and the Subway Jumper." I'm pretty sure there were other Clancy short stories, including the one that was later expanded into REARDON, but I don't recall the titles. I think the story that he expanded into the novel had "Eyes" or "Cat's Eyes" in the title.

All the Clancy and Reardon entries were written as "Pike." This was, apparently, a pun as a pike is a type of fish. He also wrote as A.C. Lamprey, a lamprey being another kind of fish.

The other Reardon novels, by the way, are THE GREMLIN'S GRANDPA, BANK JOB, and DEADLINE 2 A.M. The first book in the series acknowledged the technical assistance of SFPD's then-police-chief, Tom Cahill, for whom the San Francisco Hall of Justice is now named, though, despite that high-powered assistance, he still managed to make a lot of errors.
 
> Jim, ever give any thought to setting up a police procedural site
> comparable to Kevin's Thrilling Detective site? I may snipe at
some of
> your semantics, but I definitely look to you as an authority on
anything
> having to do with police procedurals. Of course, you're probably
too
> busy with real police procedures to spend the time setting up a
site.

I've thought about writing a book, but it's already been done several times. Don't really have the technical expertise or the inclination for a full-blown website. The one I have now was set up for me by my publisher.

I've talked with a publisher about an idea for a book to be called RADIO PATROL, which would trace the development of the police procedural on Old-Time Radio, culminating in the debut of DRAGNET, but I've got too much on my plate now to do more than think about it.

Thanks for the kind words.

JIM DOHERTY



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 01 Jan 2007 EST