Just the Wright Touch

I used to think that my reading within the crime and mystery genre was rather impressive. But every day now reminds me of how much I haven’t read. Peter Rozovsky’s fine Detectives Beyond Borders piece of the other day, in which he recalled Fergus Hume’s phenomenally best-selling (for 1886) Australian novel, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab; the recent “rediscovery” by Nathan Cain, at Independent Crime, of Spike Morelli (Coffin for a Cutie, This Way for Hell); and Glenn Harper’s infectious curiosity about International Noir Fiction--all of these help add height to my already teetering to-be-read pile. If only clones of me were able to take up some of this load ...

And now Steve Lewis, from Mystery*File, brings up another little-known author worth noticing: South African John Wright, who--under the pseudonym “Wade Wright”--penned at least 14 books between the early 1960s and early ’80s, many of them private-eye yarns (such as Suddenly You’re Dead and Shadows Don’t Bleed). Armed with questions of his own, plus some supplied by writer Bill Pronzini, Lewis pumps the 73-year-old Wright for information about his anger-infused start as a crime fictionist, why his mysteries are set in the United States, the part he played in early comic books fandom, his role in “saving the South African version of The Avengers for posterity,” and Wright’s own experiences as a radio-drama script-writer.

You’ll find that whole interview here.