Mike Shayne Article

Courtesy of the current issue of The Rap Sheet, here's a link to an article about Mike Shayne that appeared a couple of days ago in the Miami Herald:

Seedy Town's Seedy PI

You have to register to read it, but it's fairly interesting despite some factual errors and a vaguely snobbish attitude. Here's a brief quote:

"More than three decades before Carl Hiaasen, Edna Buchanan, Les Standiford, James Hall and the rest of South Florida's current pack of crime novelists began sending their squirming menageries of creeps, psychos and off-kilter heroes into our grimy landscapes and glitzy tourist deadfalls, Miami, sultry and dangerous as the dame on the cover of a 35-cent Dell paperback, was Michael Shayne's town."

I have a soft spot for Mike Shayne, of course, and always will. Just as I'll always think that Davis Dresser, when he was at the top of his game, was a very underrated writer. Even his lesser efforts are reliably fast-moving and entertaining.

For a much more extensive look at Mike Shayne in all his various incarnations, check out Flagler Street, the only site I know of devoted entirely to the big redhead.