Deming Did It

Although I’ve had a couple of Richard Deming’s 1960s Sergeant Matt Rudd novels on my shelves for some time now, it was only while flying back recently from a Midwest vacation that I cracked one of them open. And I enjoyed it so much, I went on to read the second, and am currently looking for an old copy of the third book in that trilogy.

If you’ve never dived into Deming’s too-short Rudd series (Vice-Cop, Anything But Saintly, Death of a Pusher), I hope my new Kirkus Reviews column will encourage you to do so. As I write:

At his best, Richard Deming was a smooth, solid mystery-maker, who offered up enough dynamic twists to keep readers awake into the wee hours. Yes, like other U.S. crime writers of his era, he made sure his stories blended violence with sometimes unnecessary, titillating sex; and though he was less guilty of this than, say, Frank Kane, Deming had the habit of repeating—almost word for word—chunks of basic information about his main players (particularly, in the case of Rudd, on the subject of the man’s brown eyes, which seemed devastating to women). But those things can be forgiven in tales that, while short, deliver multi-dimensional characters and ample
droll dialogue.

You’ll find the whole of my new column here.

LISTEN UP: In its 32nd podcast, the blog Paperback Warrior undertook what it called “a deep-dive into the life and work of Richard Deming, including a review of his novel, She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow.”