Warren Murphy

Got the new Crimespree today and went immediately to the interview with Warren Murphy. In the early days of Mystery Scene Warren was a frequent contributor. He was always a hoot to work with. Great guy.

In the interview his talk of the Destroyer series brought back a lot of early seventies memories. There was a small newstand-bookstore down by the tracks into which drunks, junkies and hippies reeled while staggering their way home. Some of them were pretty funny literary critics. Long talks about science fiction and action series and conspiracy books.

One of the hot topics was always Sapir-Murphy and how cool the Destroyer series was. The two reading favorites were The National Lampoon (headed downhill by then but still a lot of fun) and the Remo Williams books.

Warren talks about his health in the Crimespree piece. I hadn't been aware of how many problems he's facing.

Here's to you, wild man, your Remo books gave us a lot of pleasure. Not to mention the Trace novels that won all those Edgars.

Get better, man, and that's an order.