Earl Emerson
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Earl Emerson (born 1948 in Tacoma, Washington, United States) is a popular American mystery novelist and author.
Emerson is the author of two series of mystery novels, the Mac Fontana series and the Thomas Black detective series, as well as several thrillers. He has received the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America and an Edgar award nomination for his work. Emerson also works as a lieutenant with the Seattle Fire Department.
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Emerson now lives in North Bend, Washington.
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[edit] Novels
[edit] Thomas Black series
Thomas Black is a bicycling-enthusiast private detective in Seattle, Washington. While not quite the flake that Richard Hoyt's JOHN DENSON is, he certainly has his moments. Especially when he teams up with his best buddy, Kathy Birchfield, who, through the course of the series, evolves from kooky law student renting a room from Thomas to full-fledged kooky lawyer with her own practice and apartment. She plays Pancho to Thomas' Cisco, June to his Ward. She gets a big hoot out of dressing up in bizarre costumes, and revels in Thomas's various embarrassments and gaffes.
Not that it's all laughs — that would be too easy. Thomas is more complex than that. He was a ten-year veteran of the Seattle police force until, in the line of duty, he shot and killed a fifteen year old car thief intent on mashing Thomas against a wall with a hot car. Thomas lost his nerve, and quit the department. Once a crack shot, he doesn't even carry anymore. He lives off his police pension and the occasional P.I. job. He rents the basement of his two-room house in the University district out to students. He has a rarely-used office downtown that he shares with a religious nut, and a bright red Ford pickup from the late sixties. He makes do. He likes to bicycle, he doesn't drink, he favors jeans and track shoes, and his once-platonic relationship with Kathy seems to have recently lead to marriage, after one of the more roundabout courtships in detective fiction.
This is a quirky, witty, literate series, worth checking out. There's a wicked slice of black humour, balanced against the slapstick antics of Thomas and Kathy, to keep things bouncing. The characters are well-drawn, and flaky enough to be interesting. And there's some great local colour to boot. Poverty Bay, one of the first P.I. novels of the Reagan era to focus on the problems of the homeless, won a Shamus award for Best Private Eye Novel in 1985. Thomas Black is featured in:
- The Rainy City (1985)
- Poverty Bay (1985)
- Nervous Laughter (1985)
- Fat Tuesday (1987)
- Deviant Behavior (1988)
- Yellow Dog Party (1991)
- The Portland Laugher (1994)
- The Vanishing Smile (1995)
- The Million-Dollar Tattoo (1996)
- Deception Pass (1997)
- Catfish Cafe (1999)
[edit] Mac Fontana series
MacKinley Fontana is a veteran firefighter, formerly a captain in "a large metropolitan fire department in the East," later an arson investigator. A widower with a young son, Mac is now the Fire Chief (and on occasion the Sheriff) of the sleepy town of Staircase, Washington, a fictional suburb of Seattle. The stories combine small-town quirkiness with hard-boiled action, and offer humor, suspense, and engrossing fire-fighting scenes.
The Mac Fontana novels are:
- Black Hearts and Slow Dancing (1988)
- Help Wanted: Orphans Preferred (1990)
- Morons and Madmen (1993)
- Going Crazy in Public (1996)
- The Dead Horse Paint Company (1997)
[edit] Other books
- Vertical Burn (2002)
- Into the Inferno (2003)
- Pyro (2004)
- The Smoke Room (2005)
- Firetrap (2006)
- Primal Threat (2008)