Ask the Author: Ray Dyson
Answered Questions (3)
Ray Dyson
Write. Obviously, an author must write about what he knows, but he has to write in order to learn his craft. There is no substitute for writing, whether it is short stories, blogs, longer works or whatever. Just write.
Ray Dyson
I have a follow-up to Ice Cream Blonde, in which Neil Brand tries to save the careers of two young actresses who are mixed up in the murder of a motion picture director. It is tentatively called The Naked Nymph in the Dark Flickers.
Ray Dyson
I am a junkie for film noir movies and dark crime stories, and Ice Cream Blonde grew out of those two genres. When I was young, we moved into a house in which the previous occupant had left several paperbacks of the crime and hard-boiled type, among them a Perry Mason tale, The Case of the Empty Tin. I read it and the hook was set. A short step from there to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and on to James M. Cain, Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy. All those authors – and many others –inspired me in one way or another. Ice Cream Blonde came generally from an idea to set a private eye tale in a movie studio. I went back to 1931 for the story. In that year, the Great Depression began to crumble American society, Prohibition violence raged front and center, mobsters and gangsters ran amuck, and the old Hollywood studio system neared its zenith. I used all those ideas to spin a yarn involving sex, drugs, blackmail, murder, movie stars and moguls, clean cops and dirty cops. The protagonist – Neil Brand — is a former World War I doughboy, disgraced ex-cop and now head of security for a large movie studio. The main thrust of the story is Brand’s quest to unravel the mystery of a movie star’s death.
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