Detective author James Crumley has died at the age of 68 from complications associated with kidney and pulmonary disease
It is being reported that James Crumley, detective author has died at the age of 68 from complications associated with kidney and pulmonary disease.
Crumley is best known for 11 detective novels based on the lives of two detectives named C.W. Sughrue and Milo Milodragovitch.
His most popular book is entitled “The Last Good Kiss” which opens with a line that many believe to be the best in all crime fiction:
“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonora, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”
Despite the fact that his books were very popular, Crumley never managed to have a best seller: “He just never found a vast mass audience,” said Otto Penzler, owner of Mysterious Bookshop in New York.
Other famous crime fiction writers including George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly attribute their success to the work and influence of Crumley.
“If you asked us to name one book that got us jacked up to write crime novels, it would be ‘The Last Good Kiss,’ ” Pelecanos said Thursday. “He tried to describe the country in the wake of Vietnam. It wasn’t a detective novel. It wasn’t a cop novel. He showed us a crime novel could be about something bigger than the mystery itself.”
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