Dan J. Marlowe (1914-1986), author of The Name of the Game is Death, was one of the finest paperback suspense novelists of the 1960s and 1970s, so good that Stephen King dedicated a book to him. But Marlowe’s life was full of strange drama, some featuring his friendship with bank robber Al Nussbaum, a partner of the murderous sociopath Bobby One-Eye Wilcoxson. This biography interweaves the stories of Nussbaum, who became a mystery-story writer, Wilcoxson, who committed a savage murder after being released from prison, and Marlowe, who, stricken with amnesia, was haunted by the ghosts of his past, some of whom roamed the world of kinky sex. Book contains 16 photos.
Fantastic…This biography is almost as wild, compelling, dark and surprising as one of Marlowe’s books…Highly recommended! -Lee Goldberg, author and TV writer/producer who has scripted Diagnosis: Murder, Monk, Hunter and Spenser: For Hire.
A brilliant biography of the great noir and hardboiled paperbacker Dan J. Marlowe, written with novelistic flair by Charles Kelly. –James Reasoner, celebrated western/mystery writer and author of Texas Wind. Reasoner called Gunshots in Another Room one of his ten favorite books of 2012.
I still remember buying The Name of the Game is Death on a metal spin rack when I was in college. No novel except They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? had ever shocked me to the same degree. Marlowe had created a masterpiece. So has Charles Kelly. –Ed Gorman, legendary mystery writer and editor of The Big Book of Noir.
Kelly relates (the details of Marlowe’s life) with a sharp and sympathetic eye and a hardboiled style. Informative and well-written, Gunshots in Another Room makes for quite a story. –Woody Haut, author of Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War, Neon Noir, and Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood.
For anyone interested in the history of crime fiction, or the evolution and devolution of the paperback original industry, Gunshots in Another Room is an indispensable volume. -Cullen Gallagher, in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
(The book) demonstrates impeccable (and imaginative) research, perhaps not surprisingly since Kelly is an award-winning journalist. -Marvin Lachman, author of A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection.
Kelly’s delight in his subject is so palpable that we feel his excitement as if we’re handling the material ourselves…His biography unfolds like the best stories; truth that reads as fiction, containing narrative drive, setups and plenty of payoffs along the way, satisfying and literate. -Jessica Argyle, author of Arrest Me (before I write again), on KeysNews.com.
