Joe Gores

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Joe Gores is uniquely qualified to writer private eye fiction. Like Dashiell Hammett, he was a private investigator before becoming a writer. His widely praised Dan Kearny and Associates (DKA) books draw on his experiences; basically these are "private eye procedural" stories. These stories are witty, entertaining, and like nothing else in the private eye field. The author freely admits he wrote himself and many of the people he worked with into the series. Gores' alter ego Larry Ballard is the main character in many of the more serious cases, along with Bart Heslip; the notorious Patrick Michael "O.B." O'Bannion takes center stage in most of the hijinks. O.B. once bet a bartender on St. Patrick's Day that he had the more Irish name. Turns out the bartender's name was Sean Seamus Irish.

Gores' many other fine books show that he can do more than autobiography; among others, Hammett has the ex-Pinkerton's detective taking on one last case (Dan Kearny himself meets up with Hammett's Continental Op, once upon a time). Gores also penned the outstanding P.I. novel Interface, as well as the short stories "The Second Coming" and "A Sad And Bloody Hour", personal favorites of mine.