The Big Shake: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake in Mystery Fiction - Guest Post by Randal Brandt

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906—one hundred and twenty years ago today—the landscape of San Francisco was permanently altered by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake and the massive fires that followed. Countless books on the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 have analyzed the disaster from every conceivable angle: historical, geological, sociological, political, pictorial, etc. The quake has also proven to be a popular and durable plot device for mystery writers from soon after the calamitous event to the present day. 
 

The events of 1906 provide the backdrop for a significant number of crime and mystery novels. In these works, the disaster drives otherwise law-abiding citizens to commit criminal acts, provides the opportunity for people to change their identities, exposes criminal activity to the harsh light of day, and shows up as the ultimate deus ex machina, providing a solution—sometimes a permanent solution—to a particularly sticky situation. 

The first earthquake novel on the scene was Travers: A Story of the San Francisco Earthquake by Sara Dean. Although not a traditional mystery story, crime plays a central role in the plot. Published in February 1908, Travers is the ripped-from-the-headlines story of a San Francisco socialite named Gwendolyn Thornton who is awoken by a thief in her home. As she confronts the intruder, the earthquake strikes, destroying her house. After escaping—with the help of the intruder—to the safety of a refugee camp on Twin Peaks, Gwen learns that her rescuer, a British ex-army surgeon named Keith Travers, had been dismissed from his regiment following a scandal and forced into a life of crime. The earthquake offers Travers an opportunity to reclaim his reputation and standing in society. Written so soon after the actual earthquake, the novel features graphic descriptions of the city and its residents in the wake of the disaster. 
 
The great California writer Gertrude Atherton used the 1906 earthquake to propel the plot of her one foray into mystery fiction—although the mystery in The Avalanche (1919) is more genealogical than criminal. In San Francisco, in the years immediately following the earthquake, Price Ruyler is married and has firmly established himself in business and society. After he overhears an exchange between his mother-in-law and a man known to have made his living as a pimp and a gambler before the earthquake and fire, he begins to suspect that his wife’s past might not be as innocent as he was led to believe. He hires a private detective to investigate and uncovers a plot involving blackmail, betrayal, and the consequences of losing an entire city’s public records.
 

The earthquake arrives at a key moment and dramatically alters the course of the narrative in Shaken Down (1925) by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry. On an evening in April 1906, Patrolman Jerry Boyne of the San Francisco Police Department discovers that four-year-old Jamie Claiborne has been kidnapped and his nurse murdered. The boy’s father is convinced that his older daughter is behind the plot and vows that he will not be shaken down by the kidnappers. After being frozen out of the investigation by his superiors, Jerry decides to conduct his own investigation and soon ends up with both the kidnappers and the police after him. Just as he is about the break the case wide open—and expose the corruption of some of San Francisco’s most powerful men—the earthquake strikes and the city itself is literally shaken down.
 
Phyllis A. Whitney’s The Trembling Hills (1956) is a gothic romance/mystery novel set in 1906, where a woman's search for love unearths a dark secret involving a manipulative family and a sinister matriarch. The story follows Sara Bishop as she goes to San Francisco to pursue her childhood sweetheart, only to find herself entangled in a web of mystery, family secrets, and the devastating earthquake, which finally brings the past to light. 
 
The British join the party in The Golden Crucible (1976) by Jean Stubbs. Retired Scotland Yard Inspector John Joseph Lintott is enlisted to investigate the kidnapping of Alicia Salvador—who is the sister and assistant of the famous magician, Felix Salvador. Lintott follows the kidnappers from London to San Francisco and discovers that the plot is part of an elaborate revenge scheme. He negotiates Alicia’s release from a Barbary Coast brothel and as they are on their way to reunite with her brother the earthquake strikes. This novel stands apart from other earthquake mysteries in that the mystery is effectively solved before the quake hits. However, the disaster does manage to tie up some loose ends, meting out punishments that Lintott has no control over. 
 
Mignon G. Eberhart, who wrote over sixty novels in her long career, set exactly one story in San Francisco: Casa Madrone (1980), which takes place in April 1906. Mallory Bookever travels from New York to San Francisco in order to marry young and wealthy Richard Welbeck. When she arrives in San Francisco, she finds that Richard is an invalid in his Nob Hill mansion. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Richard is shot and killed. At first Mallory and Richard’s best friend, Scott Suydam, believe that a stray bullet fired by a patrolling soldier struck him. However, they soon suspect that Richard has been murdered in order to prevent his marriage. As the fire approaches, they relocate to Scott’s home, Casa Madrone, where they struggle to put their lives back together and unmask the killer.
 
Readers of Dianne Day’s Fire and Fog (1996) do not have to wait long for the earthquake to strike. The story opens precisely at 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906 as Caroline “Fremont” Jones, a plucky, independent typist-for-hire, is tumbled out of bed by the earthquake. At her office, she discovers several crates filled with Japanese artifacts, leading her to suspect that her landlords are involved in a smuggling operation. Unable to stay in her room or occupy her office, Fremont relocates to the tent city in Golden Gate Park and makes herself useful driving for the Red Cross. She also becomes entangled in uncovering the mystery of the stolen Japanese treasures. In addition to vivid descriptions of the quake and fire, this novel offers interesting visions of life in a tent city, the emerging importance of the automobile, the relief efforts, and the outdoor kitchens set up around the neighborhoods. 
 

Michael Castleman’s The Lost Gold of San Francisco (2003) is distinct in the canon of earthquake novels—its plot provides a direct link between the Big One in 1906 and the “pretty big one” in 1989. In April 1906, the San Francisco Mint is preparing to send a large shipment of misstruck gold pieces to Denver to be melted down. In the chaos following the earthquake, the coins disappear. In 1989, the director of a museum slated to receive a donation of one of the 1906 coins is murdered. Reporter Ed Rosenberg, assigned to cover the donation, turns his attention to the murder investigation.  As he reaches the end of the mystery, the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes, causing the death of the killer. Although this novel is filled with an incredible amount of historical detail, the central premise of the lost gold is fictional. However, an item in the San Francisco Chronicle written by columnist Herb Caen in 1987 inspired Castleman’s plot: a laborer digging the foundation for a Financial District high-rise discovered a gold coin minted in 1849 by the Miner’s Bank of San Francisco. 
 
Readers do not even have to open the cover of James Dalessandro’s 1906 (2004) to know that the earthquake and fire play a major role in this novel. The dust jacket features a photograph of a devastated San Francisco street with the burning Call Building in the foreground. Marketed with the tag line “Every disaster has a backstory,” Dalessandro’s tale is told by young newspaper reporter Annalisa Passarelli. Annalisa is secretly assisting Chief of Detectives Byron Fallon to gather evidence of the graft and corruption of the city’s mayor, police chief, and political boss Adam Rolf (an obvious reference to the notorious “Boss” Abe Ruef). When Fallon is murdered, his son Hunter takes up the investigation. The earthquake hits just as Hunter, Annalisa, and a group of honest police officers are about to enter Rolf’s Nob Hill mansion to make the arrests. Rolf and his thugs use the ensuing chaos to turn the tables on their enemies and Annalisa and Hunter have to battle both the killers and the fire in order to save themselves and their city.
 
Locked Rooms (2005) is the eighth book in Laurie R. King’s long-running series about Mary Russell, the wife and partner-in-crime-detection of Sherlock Holmes. In 1924, Russell and Holmes are in San Francisco so that she can sell the Pacific Heights house that she inherited after her family’s death in an automobile crash ten years earlier. When an unknown assailant shoots at Mary, she and Holmes begin an investigation into the secrets of the long-shuttered house and her family. Holmes hires a young, ex-Pinkerton agent/struggling writer named Dashiell Hammett to assist him. Hammett quickly uncovers evidence that the “accident” that claimed her family was no accident—it was murder. Although all of the action in this novel takes place years after the earthquake, the solution to the murders eventually leads directly back to the chaotic days of April 1906, when extraordinary events caused ordinary people to commit drastic, and sometimes illegal, acts. 
 
In the third novel in the Cree Black series, Bones of the Barbary Coast (2006), author Daniel Hecht blends historical mystery with the supernatural as a psychologist investigates a mysterious human skeleton from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake unearthed in the foundation of a fine Victorian home, uncovering secrets from the city’s infamous Barbary Coast through historical research and the 1889 diary of a woman with secrets of her own.
 
Anthony Flacco’s The Last Nightingale (2007) tells the story of twelve-year-old Shane Nightingale who survives the 1906 quake only to witness the horrific murder of his adoptive mother and two sisters at the hands of budding serial killer Tommie Kimbrough. After the fire destroys the Nightingale home, all evidence of the killings is erased, and Shane becomes just another anonymous orphan in the city. Before the quake, Sergeant Randall Blackburn of the San Francisco Police Department had been on the trail of a Barbary Coast killer nicknamed “The Surgeon” for the mutilation he performs on the bodies of his victims. When Blackburn meets up with Shane, the two become an unlikely detective duo. Shane has an unusual sense of intuition and deductive reasoning and Blackburn is experimenting with new methods of police work. 
 
Shortly before the Great Earthquake, Pirate Vishnu sailed into San Francisco Bay. In Gigi Pandian’s second book in the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, Pirate Vishnu (2013), globe-trotting historian Jaya Jones is drawn into the story when she learns about a map of the Barbary Coast drawn by one of her ancestors who came to San Francisco from India and died in the earthquake. Her quest to uncover her ancestor’s secrets and decipher the cryptic treasure map takes her to India. Along the way she also has to solve two murders that took place a century apart and untangle a love triangle. 
 

Rhys Bowen’s series heroine Molly Murphy ventures to San Francisco in Time of Fog and Fire (2016). After seeing a newsreel showing that her husband, New York City police captain Daniel Sullivan, is in San Francisco, Molly travels across the country with her young son. She discovers that Daniel is in danger and arrives just as the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires devastate the city.
 
In the days before the great earthquake and fire of 1906, Levi Hayes returns from San Quentin Prison with a plan of revenge in Dietrich Kalteis’ House of Blazes (2016). After serving five years for the theft of $30,000 in gold coins from the San Francisco Mint, Levi is ready to take back what’s his from the now-powerful Healey brothers who set him up. Levi recruits his nephew, Mack Lewis, in a wild scheme that propels them through saloon halls, gambling dens, back alleys, and brothels before it backfires. In lock-up as the earthquake hits, Levi and Mack must escape the collapsing building and burning city to get to the gold coins, with the Healeys now after them.
 
Violet is one of three people grateful for the destruction of the big earthquake in The Two Mrs. Carlyles (2020) by Suzanne Rindell. The temblor leaves Violet and her two best friends unexpectedly wealthy—as long as the secret that binds them together stays buried beneath the rubble. A whirlwind romance with the city’s most eligible widower, Harry Carlyle, lands Violet in a luxurious mansion as the second Mrs. Carlyle. But all is not right and Violet soon finds herself trapped by the lingering specter of the first Mrs. Carlyle, and by the inescapable secrets of her own violent history.
 
As described in The Phoenix Crown (2024) by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, San Francisco in 1906 is a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts. Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs a boost, and Suling, a petite and determined Chinatown embroideress who is resolved to escape an arranged marriage, are two very different women hoping to change their fortunes. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown. His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when the earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears. When the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, Gemma and Suling are thrown together again in one last desperate quest for justice.
 
Susie Hara’s Earthquake Shack (2025) is her second novel featuring Sadie García Miller. Sadie’s not an ordinary private investigator. She doesn’t claim to look for missing persons or solve murders; she specializes in finding lost things. When her estranged cousin Al offers both money and information about her father’s mysterious death years before, Sadie agrees to take his case. His daughter Ruth’s house has disappeared—completely vanished! It was one of the original cottages, or earthquake shacks, built by the Army and the Parks Commission after the 1906 San Francisco quake to provide housing for displaced people. About 5,000 tiny wooden homes were constructed, all with redwood walls, fir flooring, and cedar shingles. They need Sadie’s help to find it. She soon discovers that there is much more at stake than just a missing building. 
 

***

Randal Brandt is a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley where, among other things, he is curator of the Bancroft Library's California Detective Fiction Collection.
 

LEFT COAST CRIME 2026: San Francisco Schemin'

Can't wait for Left Coast Crime 2026: San Francisco Schemin'. Be sure and sign up and reserve your room at the hotel. This is going to be an epic convention.  Convention rate includes convention with panels and special events, banquet, two full breakfasts, and opening reception--but so much more. It's all about friends and writers. And, San Francisco--everybody's favorite city!

 

LEFT COAST CRIME 2026 NEWS!

Special Guests forLeft Coast Crime 2026 in San Francisco, California
February 26 – March 1, 2026

The 36th annual Left Coast Crime Convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco — on the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building — from February 26 through March 1, 2026. We are finally going back to where Left Coast Crime began in 1991.
 

Registration is now open!

Visit the LCC 2026 website for more information about the convention.
 

TAX DAY & ACCOUNTING MYSTERIES

The Tax Man Cometh! I've done several posts over the years about Tax Day Mysteries. Surprisingly there are many that deal with Finance and Accounting, but not all that many that deal with the average Joe filing his taxes on April 15 (or 18th as in this year!). Surely it's enough to commit murder. So here are a few mysteries that deal specifically with Tax Day. At the end of this post, I have an updated list of several accounting/accountant mysteries. 

Perhaps the most well known Tax Day Mystery is David Dodge's Death and Taxes--an oldie but goodie (1941). It's been reissued. Read Librarian and Editor Randal Brandt's posts on David Dodge HERE and HERE.

San Francisco tax accountant James “Whit” Whitney is summoned home from a vacation in Santa Cruz to help his partner, George MacLeod, recover a hefty tax refund for a beautiful blonde client named Marian Wolff. When he returns to his office, Whit finds MacLeod dead in the firm’s vault, “with a small hole in the bridge of his nose.” In order to complete the tax return and uncover the murderer, Whit becomes a reluctant detective and nearly gets himself killed in the process. To prevent Whit’s murder, if possible, the SFPD assigns him a bodyguard named Swede Larson. Whit and Swede tangle with ex-bootleggers and Telegraph Hill gangsters in their efforts to unravel the mystery, which climaxes with a shootout in the Mission District and a dramatic car chase across the Bay Bridge. Along the way, Whit resists the advances of Marian Wolff and begins a romance with Kitty MacLeod, George’s widow.

Before becoming a novelist, David Dodge worked as a Certified Public Accountant. No wonder his first fictional hero was also a tax man. A notable aspect of the Whitney novels is the volume of information about taxes and finances that Dodge effortlessly weaves into his plots. To read more about David Dodge, go HERE.

Sue Dunlap's 7th Jill Smith mystery is also entitled Death and Taxes. 

Until someone put a poisoned needle in his bicycle seat, Phil Drem was the meanest, most nit-picking IRS agent in Berkeley, California.

But when Detective Jill Smith began searching Berkeley's backwaters for the tax man's killer, she found a different picture of Drem: a caring Drem, whose once-beautiful wife was "allergic to the world" and whose friends and enemies, old hippies and would-be entrepreneurs, enjoyed a ghoulish pastime called The Death Game. Did the Death Game KO Drem? Was someone's schedule a motive for murder? And what about a CPA who drove a red Lotus ruthlessly and guaranteed his clients they'd never be audited?

Only one thing is for sure, —somewhere in Berkeley's backwaters, a killer is still on the loose. And for a detective who loves her city, doubts her lover, and has a knack for solving the toughest of crimes, finding the truth is about as inevitable as...Death And Taxes.

A continued search reveals another title: A Little Rebellion: April 15 Surprise by Rodney Sexton published by Writers Club Press (2000) an iUniverse book. Not having read it, I thought I'd post the Editorial Review:

After a client’s suicide and an unprecedented IRS attack on his tax practice, Certified Public Accountant Karl Mendel plans what he hopes will be the final solution to an income tax system out of control.

Assisted by close friends and professional associates, Mendel uses a personal tragedy and his belief in American freedom to fuel his war on what he refers to as the American KGB. With flying skills honed as a Marine pilot in the Vietnam War Mendel takes to the air in his planned assault on the U.S. income tax system. Help from Beatrice Gimble, a former IRS programmer and current CPA partner of his best friend, Terry Garcia, leads Karl inside the main computer facility run by the IRS. Unaware that he is being watched by powers beyond the IRS, his “forced” dealings with a Russian “mole” leads Karl and his partners into dangers they had not considered and threatens the woman he loves more than life itself.

About the Author: Rod Sexton is a practicing Certified Public Accountant living near Houston, Texas with his wife. While in Vietnam, Sexton was attached to the First Marine Air Wing. After active duty, he earned his Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Taxation degrees. A Little Rebellion is his first work of fiction.

Sure sounds like this fits the bill! Anyone read it? Any comments?

And then there's the cozy tax series that includes Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli by Diane Kelly. This mystery fits with both this blog and my DyingforChocolate.com blog. Diane Kelly's series --Death, Taxes, and ... are about IRS special Agent Tara Holloway. Can't get more tax-related than that..at least in the U.S. There are 13 books to keep you reading.

A further search for other mysteries uncovered a few other titles maybe a bit further afield but with an accounting theme, so in honor of Tax Day, I thought I'd post a few Accounting-Accountant crime fiction titles.

ACCOUNTING FOR MURDER: A List

Paul Anthony: Old Accountants Never Die
Cindy Bell: Birthdays Can Be Deadly
Paul Bennett: Due Diligence, Collateral Damage, False Profits, The Money Race
Leeann Betts: Petty Cash

Ann Bridge: The Numbered Account 
Elizabeth Chamberlin: Jane Mayhew Mysteries (about a retired accountant)
Cory Doctorow: Red Team Blues

David Dodge: In addition to Death and Taxes, Dodge wrote three more novels about San Francisco tax accountant James "Whit" Whitney: Shear the Black Sheep, Bullets for the Bridegroom and It Ain't Hay.
Marjorie Eccles: Account Rendered and other Stories
Gail Farrelly: Beaned in Boston
Connie Feddrsen: Amanda Hazard Mysteries (CPA/sleuth)

Dick Francis: Risk
Kate Gallison: Unbalanced Accounts
Emmy Grace: Lucky and the Axed Account
John Grisham: Skipping Christmas
Ian Hamilton: The Ava Lee Mysteries

Carolyn Hart: A Settling of Accounts
Mary Ellen Hughes: Scene of the Brine
James Montgomery Jackson: Bad Policy
J.A. Jance: Duel to the Death
Marshall Jevons: Murder at the Margin, The Fatal Equilibrium, A Deadly Indifference
Diane Kelly: Tara Holloway Death and Taxes Series (IRS criminal investigation agent) - My favorite is Death, Taxes and a Chocolate Cannoli

Emma Lathen: Accounting for Murder
Linda Lovely: Final Accounting
Sharon Potts: In Their Blood
Chrisopher Reich: Devil's Banker

Peter Robinson: Final Account
Connie Shelton: Charlie Parker Series (accountant)
Patricia Smiley: Tucker Sinclair Series (financial advisor)

Maris Soule: Eat Crow and Die; As the Crow Flies
Karen Hanson Stuyck: Held Accountable
Maggie Toussaint: Cleopatra Jones Series (accountant sleuth)

William C. Whitbeck: To Account for Murder
M.K. Wren: Nothing's Certain but Death
Vincent Zandri: The IRS Agent Came Calling for Blood 

Short Story: "The Ides of Mike Magoon" in Ellery Queen's The Calendar of Crime (written when tax day was March 15, not April 15)  

Other Fun Accounting Mystery Info:

One of my favorite films on the subject: The Accountant 

Raymond Chandler was an accountant. He lost his job during the depression, and he  started writing stories for Black Mask Magazine. The rest is history!

Interested in true IRS vs a Mystery Author. Read this article about Karin Slaughter's IRS Travails.

Anyone have a favorite mystery with a Tax Day theme? Any titles I've missed?
SaveSave

A Walk Through Literary South Berkeley, Featuring Anthony Boucher: Led by Randal Brandt

Sponsored by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association:

A Walk Through Literary South Berkeley, Featuring Anthony Boucher
Sunday, 21 July 2019
1:00 pm–3:00 pm
Led by Randal Brandt

Berkeley has an astonishing number of literary associations, and this walk will explore some of the most intriguing. We’ll wend our way through the pleasant south-of-campus Le Conte neighborhood and nearby, seeing interesting buildings and sites connected to important writers and their works, hearing the stories behind them, and sharing literary excerpts and anecdotes.

The walk will feature places associated with William Anthony Parker White (aka Anthony Boucher), the highly influential mid-century mystery and science fiction writer and editor, who was a Cal alumnus. He made his home in this neighborhood from 1942 onward, and set several of his stories in Berkeley. We’ll also see places associated with Boucher’s fellow mystery writer Mary Collins, the California Writer’s Club, pioneering film critic Pauline Kael, and others.

Guide is Randal Brandt, Head of Catloguing at the Bancroft Library, UC. Berkeley, who curates the Bancroft Library’s California Detective Fiction Collection, which includes over 2,000 mystery, crime, and detective novels with Bay Area connections.

To sign up: go here.

http://berkeleyheritage.com/calendar.html

Genre Fiction of California: Special Exhibit

The Bancroft Library at the 50th California International Antiquarian Book Fair special exhibit on:

Genre Fiction of California

February 10-12, 2017 at the Oakland Marriott City Center

The Bancroft Library has a long history of collecting the literary fiction of California, including mystery and detective fiction, fantasy and science fiction, and western fiction. This special exhibit will highlight California authors’ notable contributions in genre fiction and will emphasize recent donations to the library by featuring materials from the extensive collection of influential author, critic, and literary mentor Anthony Boucher, first editions by early members of the Northern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, selections by MWA Grand Masters Ross Macdonald, Margaret Millar, Marcia Muller, and Bill Pronzini, and more.

The exhibit is open during all hours of the Fair:
Friday, February 10: 3pm-8pm
Saturday, February 11: 11am-7pm
Sunday, February 12: 11am-5pm

Come meet Randal Brandt, Bancroft Curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection on Saturday, February 11, from 1:30-4:00pm.


The world’s largest antiquarian book fair returns to the Oakland Marriott City Center in downtown Oakland, February 10-12, 2017. The three-day event, sponsored by Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, features Thousands of Rare Books and Manuscripts; Special Seminars and Events; Hundreds of Booksellers From Around the World.

For more information and to purchase tickets see https://www.cabookfair.com/visit.php

Farewell to Bullets Across the Bay

Farewell to Bullets Across the Bay
by Randal Brandt

To celebrate the conclusion of the popular exhibit, Bullets Across the Bay: The San Francisco Bay Area in Crime Fiction, the Library at the University of California, Berkeley is holding a closing reception on Friday, February 24, 2012 from 6:00-8:00pm in the Morrison Library. The reception is co-sponsored by Mystery Writers of America, NorCal Chapter and Sisters in Crime, Northern California Chapter and will be open to the campus community and the general public. The program will feature five local mystery authors—Mark Coggins, Janet Dawson, Diana Orgain, Sheldon Siegel, and Simon Wood—reading selections from their favorite Bay Area crime and detective novels, followed by an opportunity for audience members to engage the readers and exhibit curators in Questions and Answers.

Bullets Across the Bay exposes the richness of the University Library collections for the study of detective narrative and genre fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 19th-century dime novels to today’s bestsellers, the exhibit features examples of novels both iconic and obscure that provide commentary on topics such as cultural diversity and historical events represented in popular literature. It also highlights resources for the academic study of the mystery genre and chronicles the careers and influence of some of the titans of the Bay Area mystery scene: Dashiell Hammett, Anthony Boucher, Marcia Muller, and Bill Pronzini—as well as the work of many other authors whose writing contributes to the richness of fiction on either side of the Bay Bridge.

The exhibit is on display in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery through February 29, 2012. It is free and open to the public during the operating hours of Doe Library.

Randal S. Brandt is a librarian at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. He is the creator of Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography of crime fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one of the co-curators of Bullets Across the Bay.

The Long Escape: Randal S. Brandt on David Dodge

Guest blogger Randal S. Brandt is a librarian at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and the creator of two critically-acclaimed websites: Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography of crime fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area, and A David Dodge Companion, chronicling the life and works of mystery/thriller writer David Dodge (1910-1974). He has recently written the introductions to new editions of Dodge’s Death and Taxes (July, 2010), To Catch a Thief (October, 2010), and The Long Escape (December, 2011). Randal Brandt will be a guest at a Mystery Readers NorCal Literary Salon in the New Year.

RANDAL BRANDT: This is how it all began

David Dodge’s fifth mystery, THE LONG ESCAPE, originally published in 1948, has been reissued by Bruin Books and is now available in a handsome new edition. After four novels starring San Francisco tax expert James “Whit” Whitney, written while Dodge was working as a C.P.A. in San Francisco, this book marks the first adventure of Dodge’s second series character, expatriate private detective Al Colby.

By the time THE LONG ESCAPE was written, Dodge had relocated to Guatemala City, so it is only natural that Colby walks the mean streets of Latin America, operating out of Mexico City. The story begins when Colby is hired by a Los Angeles attorney to find one Robert R. Parker, who deserted his wife and $250,000 worth of property in Pasadena five years before. The wife doesn’t want him back; she just wants clear title to the property. Colby’s job is to find him and either prove him dead or persuade him to contact the attorney in order to sign the necessary documents transferring the property. The attorney had been able to trace Parker to Mexico City. Colby picks up the trail and follows it through Central America to Santiago, Chile.

This book holds a very special place for me. Not only was it the first Dodge novel I ever read, but the story of the circumstances surrounding my discovery of it is one that I’m sure Dodge would have appreciated. In 1994, my wife and I went on a vacation to Mexico City. One travel habit we share is to take along novels to read that are set in the locales we are visiting. For this trip my wife had taken along a tattered paperback she had picked up years before in a thrift store. The book, a 1950s Dell mystery “mapback,” featured a colorful map of Mexico and South America on the back cover, promised “A man hunt (girls included) from California to Chile,” and featured Al Colby, a Mexico City private eye. Perfect.

One morning I awoke feeling under the weather, as it were. Although we had been very careful, it turns out that even the most vigilant of norteamericanos can succumb to la turista. And it was raining. We decided to forego our sightseeing plans and spend the day resting and relaxing in our hotel room. To pass the time, my wife, whose digestion was untouched, got out her paperback, The Long Escape, by David Dodge. She kindly offered to read it aloud, giving me what I thought would be an excellent opportunity to sleep it off.

Several hours later I still had not slept a minute, but not because of la turista. She had read that book aloud, cover to cover in one sitting. When we finally closed the book I was feeling much improved, and my wife and I had a new author to pursue and, apparently, a new cure for the Aztec Two-Step.

People often ask me why I like David Dodge. My answer is pretty much the same as it is for any author. It all starts with the writing. Dodge’s books are consistently well-written. They are tightly-plotted with crisp, believable dialogue. About halfway through the first chapter of The Long Escape, Colby interviews a woman who is the current owner of the Buick that Parker drove to Mexico City:

Señora Molly Jean Mendoza lived in a pretty good apartment house out toward Lomas de Chapultepec. A frowsy maid let me in without asking my name or business, then went to call the señora while I parked my hat on a pile of American movie magazines.

Molly Jean turned out to be a rubia, a brassy blonde of the type a lot of Mexicans go nuts about. She was any age you want to guess, with a sulky mouth. She greeted strange gentlemen visitors in a form-fitting housecoat with a zipper running from neck to hem in front that practically said Pull me, kid. The handle of the zipper was a little bell that tinkled when she walked.

I don’t know about you, but Mr. Dodge had me at “Pull me, kid.”

Randal S. Brandt is the creator of A David Dodge Companion and Golden Gate Mysteries.

Return of the Cat

I welcome once again  Randal S. Brandt as Guest blogger. Randal S. Brandt is a librarian at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and the creator of two critically-acclaimed websites: Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography of crime fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area, and A David Dodge Companion, chronicling the life and works of mystery/thriller writer David Dodge (1910-1974). He has recently written the introductions to new editions of Dodge’s Death and Taxes (July, 2010) and To Catch a Thief (October, 2010). Thanks, Randal!

Return of the Cat by Randal S. Brandt

In 1951, a novel called TO CATCH A THIEF, still in galley form, landed on the desk of film director Alfred Hitchcock. The story had everything in it that Hitchcock was looking for in a film: mystery, suspense, romance, glamour, and—best of all—an exotic setting in the South of France. The French Riviera had long been one of Hitch’s favorite vacation spots, and he bought the film rights to the novel in December 1951, a month before the book appeared in hardcover in January 1952.

TO CATCH A THIEF was written by well-traveled author David Dodge and tells the story of American expatriate John Robie, a retired acrobat-turned-jewel-thief (known in the newspapers as “Le Chat”) living peacefully and quietly in a villa in the South of France. Robie had been arrested before World War II and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. But, during the occupation of France, the German army foolishly set the prisoners free. The prisoners promptly went into the maquis, the French underground, and used their skills and talents against the Nazis. After liberation, in gratitude for their “service,” the French government gave the prisoners provisional paroles—paroles that could be revoked at the first suspicion that they had returned to their old ways. Robie’s provisional liberty is threatened when a copy-cat thief starts working in the Riviera. Determined to avoid his prison sentence, Robie goes undercover to catch the thief himself. During the course of his investigation, he makes the acquaintance of the wealthy, bejeweled Mrs. Stevens—an irresistible target for the new Cat—and her beautiful, aloof daughter Francie (who wears no jewelry, herself), a London insurance man, and a pretty young French girl named Danielle.

So far, that sounds a lot like the Hitchcock film, right?

Even a casual student of Hitchcock knows that the director freely adapted his source material to reflect his personal vision for the film treatment. TO CATCH A THIEF, released by Paramount Pictures in 1955 with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the starring roles, is no exception. Several years after the film was released, Dodge observed: “All that survived in the end were the title, the names of some of the characters and the copyright, which was mine.” It was a little more than that. Several plot points and locations are lifted directly from the novel. But the changes are indeed numerous and significant. Key characters in the novel are either radically altered or dropped altogether. When Robie goes undercover in the book, he employs a disguise that would have made the casting of the svelte Cary Grant in the role extravagant. And, it is certainly not giving anything away to reveal that Dodge’s Francie is a brunette, not a cool Hitchcock blonde like Grace Kelly.

But, while the film version has been readily available to viewers for a number of years on home video, TO CATCH A THIEF, the novel, has been virtually out of reach to most readers. No doubt spurred by the rumors that Hitchcock was interested in it, initial sales of the hardcover edition were brisk enough that the novel caught the attention of Reader’s Digest, which issued a condensed version later that same year. A Dell paperback edition appeared in 1953—with a cover illustration of a beautiful, bikini-clad blonde that looks suspiciously like Miss Kelly. And that, as far as U.S. publication is concerned, is basically it. In England, a hardcover appeared in 1953, followed by a green-and-white Penguin paperback in 1955. A British book club edition was published in the 1970’s and a trade paperback surfaced in 1988. In the last twenty years, copies of any of these versions of the novel in the used book trade have steadily climbed in price, effectively eluding the hands of all but the most serious collectors.

Fortunately, this problem has now been solved with a new edition of the novel published by Bruin Books. Issued as part of the Bruin Crimeworks line, TO CATCH A THIEF is now available in the United States for the first time in over fifty years and fans of Alfred Hitchcock and David Dodge alike will at last be able to take a long look at the book that inspired one of the iconic films of the twentieth century.


Postscript: A brand new adaptation of the novel is coming soon! On January 8, 2011, TO CATCH A THIEF, dramatized by Jean Buchanan (who contributed the afterword to the Bruin Books edition), will be presented on BBC Radio 4 as part of the Saturday Play series.


Randal S. Brandt is the creator of A David Dodge Companion and Golden Gate Mysteries.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dodge

Today I welcome Guest Blogger Randal S. Brandt. Randal S. Brandt is a librarian at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley and the creator of two critically-acclaimed websites: Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography of crime fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area, and A David Dodge Companion, chronicling the life and works of mystery/thriller writer David Dodge (1910-1974). He has recently written the introductions to new editions of Dodge's Death and Taxes (July 2010) and To Catch a Thief (forthcoming, fall 2010).

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dodge

David Dodge was born one hundred years ago today on August 18, 1910 in Berkeley, California. Now, just in time for Dodge’s centenary, his first novel, DEATH AND TAXES, has been published in a new edition by Bruin Books. Originally published in 1941 and out of print in the U.S. for over sixty years, the mystery introduces San Francisco tax expert James “Whit” Whitney who is reluctantly drawn into the investigation of his partner’s murder. The case revolves around the recovery of a quarter of a million dollars in overpaid taxes, Prohibition-era skullduggery, flying bullets, and a seductive blonde. It also involves witty dialogue, romance, and heavy drinking—aspects that immediately drew comparisons to Dashiell Hammett’s THE THIN MAN. Venerable San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was the first to make the comparison: “Macmillan will bring out … a moiduh mystery with a Thin Mannish S.F. background; it’s called Death and Taxes, and was written by David Dodge, a local accountant, f’goshsakes.”

After spending much of his childhood in Los Angeles, Dodge settled down in San Francisco in 1933. Trained as a tax accountant, he turned his hand to mystery writing on a five-dollar bet with his wife, Elva, that he could produce a better mystery than the ones they were reading on a rainy family vacation. Macmillan published his DEATH AND TAXES and Dodge won the bet.

Three more Whitney novels soon followed. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dodge joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, holding down a desk job in San Francisco for the duration of World War II. Upon his release from active duty in 1945, and with the assistance of a modest inheritance from one of Elva’s distant relatives, Dodge packed his family—which included five-year old daughter Kendal—into a car and headed for Guatemala via the Pan American Highway in search of new plot devices and cheaper living south of the border. The move inspired Dodge’s second mystery series, featuring an expatriate private investigator named Al Colby working in Latin America, and his second writing career as a best-selling author of humorous “travel diaries” that documented the family’s (mis)adventures on the road.

The travel bug bit Dodge hard. Fortunately, travel and writing were the perfect compliments. In 1947, Dodge began a long, profitable relationship with Holiday magazine as a free-lance writer; he also had a deal with Pan American airlines for free airfare in exchange for contributions to their guidebooks. Dodge’s travels provided him with backgrounds, settings, characters, and experiences for his novels, travel books, and numerous magazine articles; his books and articles provided him with enough money to continue his travels. Except for the four years that Kendal was in high school, when they “settled down” in Princeton, New Jersey, the Dodges were constantly on the move, with stops in Peru, the Côte d’Azur, Casablanca, South Africa, and countless other places.

It was the south of France that provided Dodge with the raw material for his most successful novel, TO CATCH A THIEF, published by Random House in 1952. Alfred Hitchcock liked it so much he immediately bought the movie rights and brought the story to the screen in 1955 with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the lead roles.

For the remainder of his career, Dodge alternated between whimsical anecdote-filled travel adventures and taut suspense thrillers set in exotic locales. His final novel, THE LAST MATCH, remained unpublished at his death in 1974 and languished among the family papers for over thirty years until it was finally published by Hard Case Crime in 2006.

TO CATCH A THIEF—also out of print for decades—is on deck for a new edition by Bruin Books in the fall. I think David Dodge would have been pleased at having the centennial of his birth marked by a renewal of interest in his work. Happy Birthday, Mr. Dodge.

Randal S. Brandt is the creator of A David Dodge Companion and Golden Gate Mysteries.

Links:
A David Dodge Companion
Hard Case Crime
Bruin Books:
Golden Gate Mysteries

Randal Brandt: Creator of Golden Gate Mysteries

At Home Online with Randal Brandt, creator of Golden Gate Mysteries, an online bibliography of mystery and crime fiction in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I host author At Homes (Literary Salons) in Berkeley, CA. For those who can't make those, I have At Home Online on the Mystery Readers International site. Usually these are author to author interviews, but occasionally I interview authors or other mystery related people.

Mystery Readers Journal recently had two issues focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area. These were great issues, and we were lucky enough to have Randal Brandt contribute two articles, one in each issue. In Volume 24, No. 3 (Fall 2008), he wrote an article on Golden Gate Mysteries, and in Volume 24, No. 4 (Winter 2008-2009), he wrote an article on The Birthplace of Modern Crime Fiction: A survey of San Francisco Mysteries Before The Maltese Falcon. So, I thought it was time I found out more about Randal Brandt and why he does what he does. Hence this At Home Online. Feel free to ask follow-up questions in comments.

JR: What made you decide to start Golden Gate Mysteries: A Bibliography of Crime Fiction Set in the San Francisco Bay Area?

RB: I’ve been a fan of genre fiction, and especially mystery fiction, for a long time. I’ve also had a long-standing interest in geographic locations in mystery fiction. When my wife and I travel, we like to take books along on the trips that are set in the places we are planning to visit. Sometimes, finding appropriate—and interesting—books is easier than others. So, I started looking at various reference books that included settings indexes. I noticed that San Francisco always had a lot of entries, including many books and authors I had never heard of. Then I started working at The Bancroft Library, which collects San Francisco fiction, and decided to see how many Bay Area mystery titles I could come up with. That first list, created in 2002, had just over 900 titles, dating back as early as 1853—which is amazing when you consider that the city of San Francisco was still in its infancy then.

JR: Why do you think so many mysteries are set in the Bay Area?

RB: The sheer number of mystery, crime, and detective novels set in and around San Francisco never ceases to amaze me. I haven’t done the math, but San Francisco certainly rivals much bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. From its beginnings as a Wild West gold rush town, with the Barbary Coast, the Committee of Vigilance, Chinatown, and political corruption, crime has always been a big part of San Francisco’s history. Then, of course, the modern private detective novel was born here in 1928, when Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon in his apartment on Post Street. And, its popularity as a setting continues today, with literally dozens of mystery novels published each year with Bay Area settings.

JR: How did you do your initial research?

RB: I describe my research methods it pretty much detail on the website (see the Methodology page), but one of the most important strategies is missing from that page: serendipity. I can’t tell you how many times a book has caught my eye—often just the spine—and I’ve picked it up, only to discover that it is a crime novel set in the Bay Area. The most recent occurrence of this was just last week, when I found a copy of The Lost One by Dana Lyon. It is a 1958 suspense novel about the kidnapping of an infant from an East Bay hospital. I do have a couple of other titles by Lyon in my list, so it was actually her name that caught my eye. But, I had never heard of this one before.

JR: Have things changed in terms of research since you began your online bibliography?

RB: Things have not really changed that much, at least not since the early 2000s. I guess the biggest change is that there is a new interface to the WorldCat database that is accessible to the general public. When I was using that database to compile the bibliography—and in ongoing research—you had to be affiliated with a library that paid for access. So, I guess I’ve lost my “librarian advantage”; anyone can do this now! Actually, that’s a really great thing. Another change is that additions to Hubin’s Crime Fiction bibliography are being made online, so it is easier for me to keep up with new entries.

JR: Have you read all the books in your bibliography?

RB: Ha! That’s a good one! There are, at present, over 1,600 titles in the bibliography. Even if I were a fast reader (which I’m not), it would take many years to read them all. But, I would love to have plot summaries for every book. So, I’m always looking for contributors willing to provide short (200-300 words) summaries. There’s no money in it, but I give credit where credit is due.

JR: What are the latest additions to your Bibliography?

RB: The latest additions are a mixture of the new and the old. On the new side: The Incredible Double (2009) by Owen Hill; Jump (2009) by Tim Maleeny; The Big Wake-Up (2009) by Mark Coggins. And the old: Death for Safety by Eve Dennis, a 1949 British novel featuring an amateur sleuth in San Francisco; and a trio of juvenile novels (1980-1992) by Patricia Elmore featuring a grade-school detective named Susannah Higgins who investigates some pretty serious mysteries, including a suspicious death, poisoned Halloween candy, and arson.

JR: Do people send you titles?

RB: Occasionally. The Eve Dennis title I mentioned earlier came from a fan of the website. I had never heard of it before he sent me the citation. He was very proud to have located a title that I didn’t know about. And I was extremely grateful to receive it.

JR: Would you like people to send you more titles?

Absolutely! I would especially love to hear from authors who have new books coming out.

JR: Who are your favorite 3 authors on your bibliography and why?

That’s a really tough question. The Bay Area has been the literary home of some of the greatest icons of crime fiction, Edgar Award winners (and Grand Masters), and best-sellers. But, if I had to name my favorites, I’ll have to go with some of the forgotten writers of the past. Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry collaborated on a series of pre-Hammett novels about a San Francisco police officer-turned-private detective that provide an interesting take on detective fiction before Sam Spade showed up on the scene. Nancy Barr Mavity wrote six novels in the late 20s-early 30s about an intrepid investigative newspaperman named James Alyosius “Peter” Piper, who solves several murders in and around the East Bay and has a different colorful catchphrase in each book. Whitman Chambers was a prolific author of the 30s and 40s, who set several standalone suspense novels in the Bay Area. My favorite is 13 Steps (1935) about an Oakland man condemned to hang in San Quentin, who recalls the events leading to his execution as he climbs the gallows stairs. And, of course, there is David Dodge, who is probably the most to blame for this whole bibliography. You can find out more about Dodge than you ever wanted to know at my other website, A David Dodge Companion. Okay, that’s four. Sorry.
JR: What do you do for a “living”? (or tell us about yourself)

RB: I have been a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley since 1991, working in a variety of libraries. Currently, I am Principal Cataloger at The Bancroft Library (where my website is hosted). The Bancroft Library is the special collections library of Cal and collects everything from ancient Egyptian papyrus to modern literature (including Bay Area mystery novels!). I specialize in cataloging rare books and many of the coolest books the library owns cross my desk at one time or another.

JR: If you could change something about the bibliography and website, what would it be?

RB: I would love to change the website from static HTML pages to an interactive database, with different search features so that users could do more research based on the site. I once got an email from someone who was trying to locate a book. He couldn’t remember the author or the title, but it concerned a present-day mystery that could be traced back to the Haight-Ashbury music scene in the ‘60s. The way my website is now, unless there is a summary, there is no way to track something like that down. (I did eventually locate the book, Concert of Ghosts (1992) by Campbell Armstrong, but only through sheer dumb luck, not research.) Anyway, I am recording much of this type of information; I just don’t have the skills—or time—to put it into the website…yet.

JR: What do you read when you’re not reading Bay Area mysteries?

Contrary to popular belief, I do occasionally read other things. My tastes tend to run towards the hard-boiled and thriller schools. I really like Val McDermid, especially the Tony Hill novels. I just started reading Ian Rankin (I know, finally!) and I tend to take two or three Hard Case Crime paperbacks with me whenever I fly somewhere. But, my favorite author has to be Greg Rucka, who writes two series that I just love. He’s also a prolific comics writer and graphic novelist, and I highly recommend his books.