The Old Dick by L. A. Morse. New York. 1981. Avon Books. 0380783290. Paperback Original. 236 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION - They thought he couldn’t handle the rough stuff. That’s where they were wrong... Retired private eye Jake Spanner may have gotten old, but he hasn't gone soft. When an old gangster Jake put away some forty years ago shows up at his door, it's time for Jake to grab his hat and Browning automatic and get back to work. Old? Sure. Slower to catch his breath? Maybe. But, sharp as a tack and with a lifetime of investigating know-how, Jake Spanner has nothing to lose and everything to prove. Sniffing out leads between Sunset Boulevard and the Hollywood Hills, Jake pulls in old friends to help. The work is hard; it's gritty. So is Jake. And, with a three quarters of a million dollars ransom at stake, the bad guys don't stand a chance.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Larry Alan Morse grew up in Los Angeles. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State College, and somehow managed to get two degrees in English Lit. He moved to Toronto in the late ‘60s, and has had the usual variety of jobs, including a brief stint in educational television and five years as an administrator at the University of Toronto. Upon returning from extended travels through Southeast Asia, he decided to try and write a novel - something delicate and sensitive and artistic. He discovered just what he was looking for in the true story of Sawney Beane and his family, The Flesh Eaters, the 15th century cannibal clan who ate their way through a good part of Scotland. L. A. Morse has written four other crime novels. The Old Dick won an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America; The Big Enchilada and Sleaze, featuring Sam Hunter, the L. A. private eye who, according to one reviewer, “makes Dirty Harry look like Mother Teresa”; and he was instrumental in arranging the publication of An Old-Fashioned Mystery, the lost masterpiece by the enigmatic and reclusive author, Runa Fairleigh. He shifted to another medium with the publication of Video Trash and Treasures, a two-volume guide to the obscure and bizarre movies of the 1980s. For the last 15 years, L. A. Morse has worked as a visual artist, primarily sculpture. He is an avid birder with over 1,500 species on his world list. When not off looking for birds in the tropics, he currently divides his time between stone carving and making a living in the stock market. L. A. Morse won a Best Paperback Original Edgar Award from the MWA (Mystery Writers of America) for his first novel, The Old Dick, an homage to the classic detective tale with an eighty-year-old working detective. He went on to publish two novels in an over-the-top re-take of the private-eye-style mystery, Sleaze and The Big Enchilada. Under the pseudonym Runa Fairleigh, he switched subgenres and created a perfect example of the classic cozy mystery, An Old-Fashioned Mystery. In a complete change of styles, he then wrote a period thriller based on the historical character Sawney Beane, the notorious and legendary cannibal killer of Highland Scotland, called The Flesh Eaters.
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