Marty Greenberg, R.I. P.

As many of you know my best friend Marty Greenberg died two weeks ago. I've been trying to write about him ever since but II'm not satisfied with anything we've done. When John D. MacDonald died (Marty had done a few books with him) we published a trade paperback (The Mystery Scene Reader) dedicated to him. Everybody from Donald Westlake to Charles Willeford wrote short pieces about what JDM's work had meant to them. Marty and I were big fans of his novel A Deadly SShade of Gold and in particular a moving passage he wrote about death. That passage seems appropriate here:

"It is so damn strange about the dead. Life is like a big ship, all lights and action and turmoil, chugging across a dark sea. You have to drop the dead ones over the side. An insignificant little splash, and the ship goes on. For them the ship stops at that instant. For me Sam was back there somewhere, further behind the ship every day. I could look back and think of all the others I knew, dropped all the way back to the horizon and beyond, and so much had changed since they were gone and they wouldn't know the people aboard, know the rules of the deck games. The voyage saddens as you lose them. You wish they could see how things are. You know that inevitably they'll drop you over the side, you and everyone you have loved and known, little consecutive splashes in the silent sea, while the ship maintains its unknown course. "