Edward Gorman - Wake up little Susie: a mystery

Wake Up Little Susie A Mystery by Ed Gorman Volume I of Two Volumes Pages i-Xi and 1-188 Published by: Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc. A division of Avalon Publishing Group 19 West 21st Street New York, Ny 10010-6805. Further reproduction or distribution in other than a specialized format is prohibited. Produced in braille for the Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, by National Braille Press Inc., 2003. This braille edition contains the entire text of the print edition. .Los Angeles Times Wonderfully evokes the sorrows and pleasures of a certain Midwestern past; [this] engagingly low-key novel proves much more genuinely affecting than many a more high-profile thriller. .Wall Street Journal Gorman knowingly invests his whodunit with all the right retro cultural touches but, by not ignoring the racism and sexual taboos of the time, he elevates it to a story with bite and substance. .Chicago Tribune No writer captures the mood of 50s America better than Gorman. ..Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine What a pleasant treat this book is! ..Washington Post Book World In his ea red Ford ragtop and a charming new mystery set in the rock and rolling Eisenhower years, Sam McCain is back. ..Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine What a pleasant treat this book is! ..Washington Post Book World In his ea red Ford ragtop and a charming new mystery set in the rock and rolling Eisenhower years, Sam McCain is back.

On September 4, 1958, with hoopla and picnics and fireworks the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel to America. In Black River Falls, though, the baton-twirling, hog-calling, drum-rolling celebrations to introduce the small Iowa town to the car of the future go sour when the local Ford dealer discovers a dead body in the trunk of one of his brand-new, equally illfated Edsels. Very A young lawyer with a private investigators license, Sam McCain prefers rock and roll to murder, but he soon finds himself embroiled in the case of Susan Squires, which doesnt want for cluesa broken taillight, tire tracks, an Illinois license plateor for suspects. Prime among them stands David Squires, the victims abusive husband and the countys politically ambitious attorney, until he himself turns up dead. Neither his jealous ex-wife, Amy, a sexy lady with an immoderate palate for Chablis, nor Susans one-time lover, the hostile and evasive Dr. Todd Jensen, clear the air of McCains suspicions, which also take him to the trailer park where an indigent ex-con prosecuted by Squires lives with his disa4 fifteen-year-old daughter.

Then McCains former high school sweetheart, Mary Traversthe one friend with whom Susan Squires might have shared the secret that could crack the casemysteriously disappears. And Sams stakes in the action get quickly more personal. Ed Gorman, winner of the Shamus, the Spur, and the International Fiction Writers Award among others, is the author of many novels, including Cold Blue Midnight and The Day the Music Died. He lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Jacket design and collage illustration: Saksa Art and Design Author photograph: Amy Kinney Books by Ed Gorman The Sam McCain Series The Day the Music Died The Jack Dwyer Series New, Improved Murder; Murder Straight Up; Murder in the Wings; The Autumn Dead; A Cry of Shadows The Tobin Series Vii Murder on the Aisle; Several Deaths Later The Robert Payne Series Blood Moon; Hawk Moon; Harlots Moon Suspense Novels The Night Remembers; Night Kills; Black River Falls Thrillers The Marilyn Tapes; The First Lady; Runner in the Dark; Senatorial Privilege Short-Story Collections Prisoners; Cages; Dark Whispers; Moonchasers; Famous Blue Raincoat The author would like to thank Larry Segriff for his indispensable help with this book. William R. William R.

Finn Readers of The Day the Music Died will note that this novel is set a year previous. Xi Theres not much to see in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it. August Derleth There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful. Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio Wake Up Little Susie

Whats it look like? He grinned. It looks just like a womans He whispered a word naming the most private part of a womans anatomy. He wasnt really Elvis, of course. On this Saturday, September 14, 1957, in Black River Falls, Iowa, on the lot of Keys Ford-Lincoln, there were at least a dozen Elvises, maybe eight James Deans, six Marlon Brandos, and maybe as many as twenty Kim Novaks. Everybody had to be somebody, so why not be somebody famous? I suppose its kind of sad, feeling that you need to be somebody else. For a long time I wanted to be Robert Ryan.

I really like that crazed Irish intensity of his. But he didnt wear anything distinctivel Elviss hair or James Deans red jacket or Marlons rolled-up T-shirts even when I walked down the street pretending to be him, nobody knew. It was real frustrating. Maybe Ryan will start wearing an eye patch. Being something of a car aficionado, I had been waiting for this day for months. This was the day that the Ford family of Detroit, Michigan, would bestow upon us the most futuristic, the most exciting of all family automobiles, the Edsel.

I guess its kind of funny how we look at cars. I remember this Russian diplomat saying that Americans were the only people he knew who wrote pop songs about their cars. Heck, I did even better than that. I dreamed about cars. Oh, sure, I dreamed about girls, especially the beautiful Pamela Forrest, but I also dreamed about cars. About owning, in addition to my red Ford ragtop, a black chopped and channeled di Merc.

Or one of those little red street rods. I even had a couple of dreams about the Edsel, and what it would look like would be downright fantastic. According to Time magazine, Ford had spent $10 million advertising this launch. Even poet Marianne Moore had been asked to help name the vehicle. Her choice had been the Moongoose. Declining her suggestion was about the only smart thing Ford had done in bringing this car to market.

Keys Ford-Lincoln was so crowded, theyd had to hire extra cops to direct traffic. An hour before the unveiling, right on the same concrete slab where the cloth-covered Edsel would be brought, there had been a talent show. All the expected acts appearedbaton twirlers, tap-dancing twins, pig-call masters, Elvis impersonators, Lawrence Welk imitators, baggy-pants drunk acts, and two (god love em) little girls wearing spangly top hats who sang God Bless America with tears in their eyesbut the one I liked best was the saw player who kept cutting himself on the teeth of his instrument. By the time hed finished Ebb Tide he was badly in need of medical attention. There was the high school marching band. There was a speech by the mayor.

There were pennants and three dozen Brownies with hula hoops and two dozen Cub Scouts in Davy Crockett coonskin caps and twenty-three college boys trying to stuff themselves into a single phone booth. And then there were all the Elvises. Not only wasnt the guy next to me really Elvis, his opinion wasnt even original. A number of other men had expressed the same thing earlier in the day. About what the Edsel grille looked like, I mean. And that was about the only good feature on the whole car.

The rest of it looked like something out of a cartoon. Piss elegant was the proper term. It had gadgets previously unseen in automobiles; it had pastel colors heretofore unknown to automotive metal. This wasnt just my reaction. You could see it on virtually every face. It was like opening a birthday box to find a rat crawling around inside.