Left Coast Crime

Presents 2024 Lefty Awards

Left Coast Crime presented its Lefty Awards at the “2024 Seattle Shakedown” in Bellevue, Washington Saturday night. The winners in all four categories were:

Best Mystery Novel:

• Tracy Clark, Hide (Thomas & Mercer)

Best Humorous Mystery Novel:

• Wendall Thomas, Cheap Trills (Beyond the Page Books)

Best Historical Mystery Novel

• Naomi Hirahara, Evergreen (Soho Crime )

Best Debut Mystery Novel

• Nina Simon, Mother-Daughter Murder Night (William Morrow)

Left Coast Crime is an annual mystery convention sponsored by mystery fans, both readers and authors. Congratulations to this year’s winners, and all nominees.

The Golden Age Of The

Paranoid Political Thriller

     Impeachment. Charges of sedition. A president with a very low approval rating. Treasonous members of Congress. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff leading a movement to oust the president in a coup. If all this sounds familiar, it should: all these stressful plot points are from director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May [pictured left], and ably demonstrate why political thrillers are not only thrilling, but also sometimes predictive and all too believable.

     As noted by Keith Roysdon last week in Crime Reads, the film is one of the greatest paranoid political thrillers in movie history. But right behind it in suspense and prescience is The Manchurian Candidate, released a full year before the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It's also eerie in its story of a plot to kill the Democratic Party front-runner for the presidency and replace him with a flag-waving, pro-America populist who is secretly an agent for a foreign power.

     Political thrillers have been a part of movies since the industry began. One of the best mid-century examples is Saboteur, released in 1942 and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Robert Cummings plays an aircraft factory worker who chases a saboteur across country, along the way uncovering a plot by neo-Nazis to unleash domestic terrorism in the United States. Among other things, the film is chilling in its depiction of a high-society band of Nazis in their efforts to reach out from their New York mansions and undo America’s efforts in World War II.

Don Winslow Says He’s Retiring

To Focus On Political Activism

     The first Don Winslow thriller I ever read was Satori, his sequel to Trevanian’s classic novel Shibumi. That started me on a genuine thrill ride that took me through drug cartels, the NYPD, dysfunctional families, the ultra-cool SoCal surf scene, and brutally efficient hitmen. I’m currently tearing into City in Ruins, book three in the Danny Ryan series featuring the Rhode Island mob, and it’s difficult to believe that when I turn the last page, there will be no more Winslow.

     Or so the bestselling author claims, having recently announced that he is retiring from writing to devote more time to political activism ahead of November’s election. “I’m old enough to know never say never, but my decision’s pretty firm,” he recently told Inside Hook. “The upcoming election is of critical importance to the United States, so I’ll be really involved with that. If Donald Trump is elected president, I don’t think we’ll recognize this country. It will inflict a wound on this country from which we may never heal. Who knows what it will look like, but it wouldn’t be good.”

     While Winslow is shifting his focus to real-life issues, he says fiction helps readers get closer to the truth than journalism, to the point where they gain an understanding of what actual people are going through. “Headlines have a way of becoming cliches,” he explains. “It’s one thing to think about a stereotypical ‘illegal immigrant,’ but if I can get you to share a boy’s journey from Central America up into the United States, you’re going to see that situation somewhat differently.”

There Once Was A Secret Society

Known As The Order of the Pug

     The rise of Freemasonry in Europe during the 18th century sparked tensions within the Catholic Church, which regarded the secretive nature and political influence of the fraternal order with suspicion. As recently reported by History Facts, in 1738, in response to this unease, Pope Clement XII issued a decree prohibiting Roman Catholics from participating in secret societies, including Freemasonry—a ban that continues to this day. In defiance of this papal prohibition, a Catholic leader (whose identity remains unknown, although many suspect it was Archbishop Clemens August of Bavaria) established a para-Masonic secret society called the Order of the Pug, drawing its name from the breed’s qualities of loyalty, trustworthiness, and steadfastness.

     The group attempted to reconcile elements of both Freemasonry and Catholicism, instituting their own initiation rituals, oaths of loyalty, and hierarchical framework. Diverging from Masonic tradition, however, the Order of the Pug welcomed women as members and allowed them to assume positions of authority.

     The clandestine group’s existence was short-lived, thanks to Catholic abbot Gabriel-Louis-Calabre Pérau, who exposed the Pugs and their rituals in 1745. Despite its brief tenure, the Order of the Pug remains a curious footnote in the history of secret societies.

Of All The Pulp Fiction Knockoffs,

1999’s Go May Have Aged The Best

     Pulp Fiction changed movies forever. Its script balanced three stories told out of chronological order, and it pushed the boundaries of filmmaking as its plots careened off each other. The Boondock Saints, The Usual Suspects, and Get Shorty were just a few of many movies to capitalize on “Tarantinomania” with rollicking urban quests fueled by drugs and profanity. But, as Dais Johnston recently noted in Inverse, “One particular movie found success by aping the three-part structure Pulp Fiction had rapidly made familiar. The result may have been derivative, but it launched multiple careers and highlighted the strengths of a creative director who’s still putting out strong work today.”

     Set around Christmas despite its April release, the 1999 film Go begins with young supermarket cashier Ronna (Sarah Polley) roping her mousy best friend (Katie Holmes) into a harebrained scheme to sell fake drugs at a rave. Then it switches to the perspective of Sarah’s coworker, Simon (Desmond Askew), who’s on a Vegas adventure with friends, before finally showing us soap opera stars Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) as they attend a dinner party that quickly gets out of hand.

     “Go was referred to derogatorily as ‘junior Pulp Fiction,’ and it is tamer, more good-natured, and undeniably a copycat,” Johnston writes. “But there’s also much more to it than just its Tarantino-for-teens vibe. Under the direction of Doug Liman, Pulp Fiction’s non-chronological structure, the hardest part to replicate, manages to translate well here. Go proved he had the chops to tackle nontraditional stories and, with a quarter century of hindsight, it’s clear Go deserves more than just standing in Pulp Fiction’s long shadow.

Now Available!

Beyond All Doubt

[Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed]

“Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York

​

“Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue

“Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels

“In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6

“Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did