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Broadway Can Be Murder
STRANGE EMBRACE started out to be a novel based on Johnny Midnight, a TV series which everyone has long since forgotten.
Except, of course, that nothing manages to be forgotten in the Internet Age. I, whose job it was to knock out 50,000 words of Johnny Midnightish prose and dialogue, had forgotten when it ran and who was in it, but Google took no time at all to remind me that the title role was played by Edmund O’Brien, and that the series ran during the first nine months of 1960. And if you want to know more about it, well, Google and Wikipedia are there to enlighten you.
I was in New York, newly married, living at 110 West 69th Street. I was writing short stories for crime fiction magazines, erotic novels for Midwood and Nightstand, and fielding assignments that my agent steered in my direction. Two of these were from paperback publishers who had acquired the book rights to a TV drama and wanted to hire someone to write a book.
First up for me was a show called Markham, which starred Ray Milland. Belmont was to be the publisher, and I had to write the damn book twice. My first effort turned out to be too good to waste its fragrance on Belmont’s desert air, and my agent had me change the title and the names of the characters and sold the thing to Gold Medal. So I had to write it again, and I did, and they liked it okay and published it.
Next up was Beacon Books, with “Johnny Midnight” as both the book’s inspiration and its title. I wrote it, but by the time Beacon was preparing it for publication, the series had been canceled. The publisher saw no reason to pay a licensing fee for a moribund show, and accordingly changed names: Johnny Midnight became Johnny Lane, and his trusty servant morphed from Uki to Ito.
And Lawrence Block became Ben Christopher for the occasion. I don’t know what kept me from using my own name, the book was crime fiction rather than the erotica that seemed to call for a pen name, but I do remember that my great friend Donald E. Westlake had recently done some sort of tie-in novel and hung the name Ben Christopher on it, telling me it would be his pen name for tie-ins he was anxious to forget. I horned in on the name, and if Don found this irksome he kept it to himself.
Someone at Beacon picked the title. STRANGE EMBRACE. Well, there’s a lesbian element in the book, and I guess they wanted to play it up, and “strange” was a useful code word toward that end. I could call it something else now that I’m republishing it as part of my Classic Crime Library, but it’s had enough transformations over the years.
Ray Milland I should add, had no better luck than Edmund O’Brien; his show Markham was canceled after a single season. Belmont evidently didn’t get the news in time to act on it, and they dutifully published the book as Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos. When I okayed a reissue years later by another publisher I changed the title to You Could Call It Murder—and it’s available now with that title, in paperback or ebook, as Classic Crime Library #12. (And the book it was written to replace, which Gold Medal called Death Pulls a Doublecross, is now #13 in the Classic Crime Library with my original title restored: Coward’s Kiss.)
And here’s CCL #19, Strange Embrace. Enjoy it!
Except, of course, that nothing manages to be forgotten in the Internet Age. I, whose job it was to knock out 50,000 words of Johnny Midnightish prose and dialogue, had forgotten when it ran and who was in it, but Google took no time at all to remind me that the title role was played by Edmund O’Brien, and that the series ran during the first nine months of 1960. And if you want to know more about it, well, Google and Wikipedia are there to enlighten you.
I was in New York, newly married, living at 110 West 69th Street. I was writing short stories for crime fiction magazines, erotic novels for Midwood and Nightstand, and fielding assignments that my agent steered in my direction. Two of these were from paperback publishers who had acquired the book rights to a TV drama and wanted to hire someone to write a book.
First up for me was a show called Markham, which starred Ray Milland. Belmont was to be the publisher, and I had to write the damn book twice. My first effort turned out to be too good to waste its fragrance on Belmont’s desert air, and my agent had me change the title and the names of the characters and sold the thing to Gold Medal. So I had to write it again, and I did, and they liked it okay and published it.
Next up was Beacon Books, with “Johnny Midnight” as both the book’s inspiration and its title. I wrote it, but by the time Beacon was preparing it for publication, the series had been canceled. The publisher saw no reason to pay a licensing fee for a moribund show, and accordingly changed names: Johnny Midnight became Johnny Lane, and his trusty servant morphed from Uki to Ito.
And Lawrence Block became Ben Christopher for the occasion. I don’t know what kept me from using my own name, the book was crime fiction rather than the erotica that seemed to call for a pen name, but I do remember that my great friend Donald E. Westlake had recently done some sort of tie-in novel and hung the name Ben Christopher on it, telling me it would be his pen name for tie-ins he was anxious to forget. I horned in on the name, and if Don found this irksome he kept it to himself.
Someone at Beacon picked the title. STRANGE EMBRACE. Well, there’s a lesbian element in the book, and I guess they wanted to play it up, and “strange” was a useful code word toward that end. I could call it something else now that I’m republishing it as part of my Classic Crime Library, but it’s had enough transformations over the years.
Ray Milland I should add, had no better luck than Edmund O’Brien; his show Markham was canceled after a single season. Belmont evidently didn’t get the news in time to act on it, and they dutifully published the book as Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos. When I okayed a reissue years later by another publisher I changed the title to You Could Call It Murder—and it’s available now with that title, in paperback or ebook, as Classic Crime Library #12. (And the book it was written to replace, which Gold Medal called Death Pulls a Doublecross, is now #13 in the Classic Crime Library with my original title restored: Coward’s Kiss.)
And here’s CCL #19, Strange Embrace. Enjoy it!
190 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1962
20 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
757 books3,007 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 12, 2017
"Strange Embrace" by Lawrence Block...Lawrence Block is a master at writing mystery, Strange Embrace is one of those stories that keeps you turning pages to find out "who dunnit"! Apparently this was a story written as a tie in to a TV series, however, remembering this was written in the 1950's, refreshed to current times, it would have no problem competing with current mystery authors!
May 10, 2017
Not one of his best; the author doesn't even remember writing it. lol
February 18, 2023
Written in 1963 so despite the boasts on forensic science advancements, these were early days. A nice noir set in NYC.
July 15, 2017
Strange Embrace is a 1962 novel by Lawrence Block, originally published under a pseudonym, Ben Christopher. Block explains that it was published by Beacon and Beacon was a particularly chessy publishing house of softcore stuff so no one put their real names on Beacon books at that time.It was originally intended as a tie-in to a tv series, Johnny Midnight, starring Edmund O’Brien as a theatrical producer with a wisecracking Japanese butler, Ito. The series ran for a full season of 39 episodes, but was then not renewed. With the name of the title character changed to Johnny Lane, the book was off and running. Although it is packaged by Hard Case Crime with 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is the better of the two novels and the more complete novel. What the two works have in common is a connection to the East Village of Manhattan in 1962 where the hippies, beatniks, and other purveyors of alternative lifestyles gathered and engaged in drugs, orgies, and other behavior, sometimes violence like murder, at least in novels portraying the alternative generation. But, the connection between the two novels doesn’t go much further than that. Unlike 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is a solid pulp whodunit mystery novel that is focused more so on the mystery of who is doing the killings than on the East Village itself.
September 12, 2014
Strange Embrace exemplifies why I like Lawrence Block so much. This “lost” novel from 1962 was only supposed to be a second-rate mystery tie-in to a subpar television show. However, under Block’s hand, even this basically throwaway effort turns into a tight narrative with a lot of humor and some great vintage noir writing.
Block chose to use a pseudonym because tie-in novels were viewed as second-rate, plus the publisher was a cheesy erotica shop. However, as it turned out, the show got yanked off the air after the book was written but before it was printed. The publisher decided to do a quick fix--change the last name of the lead character--and publish it as a standalone work instead.
I found myself highly engrossed in this whodunit about a theater troupe whose leading lady is murdered under mysterious circumstances. Block creates a cast of flamboyant suspects, and the blending of the Broadway motif with the seedier sides of Greenwich Village imparts a distinctive New York flair. The detective character could have used a little more backstory and polish, which is probably symptomatic of the fact tie-in novels assume readers are already familiar with the main characters. The ending was a lot of fun, even if a tad predictable.
Some of my favorite noir-ish quotes:
“This should have made her less desirable, he thought. When a girl has been had by half the world—the male half—it’s no great source of triumph to get her into the rack. But somehow Jan seemed more desirable than ever, at least to him, no matter how much mileage she had on her. Maybe it was the fascination of a mechanic for a highly complex and inordinately efficient piece of machinery.”
“The dark-haired actress literally oozed sex from every pore. And with her in that outfit, he could see all the pores.”
“Johnny closed his eyes and tried to think straight. He was damned if he knew who would want to keep a play from opening. There were people who tried to make sure plays closed early—they called themselves critics—but few who didn’t want a show to open in the first place.”
“I didn’t think there were any virgins left in the world… Well, we’ll find that out by morning when the Medical Examiner’s report comes in. That and other things. If she was raped. If she was pregnant. Anything like that, we’ll find out. You get yourself murdered and you don’t have any privacy at all. It’s one hell of a thing.”
Block chose to use a pseudonym because tie-in novels were viewed as second-rate, plus the publisher was a cheesy erotica shop. However, as it turned out, the show got yanked off the air after the book was written but before it was printed. The publisher decided to do a quick fix--change the last name of the lead character--and publish it as a standalone work instead.
I found myself highly engrossed in this whodunit about a theater troupe whose leading lady is murdered under mysterious circumstances. Block creates a cast of flamboyant suspects, and the blending of the Broadway motif with the seedier sides of Greenwich Village imparts a distinctive New York flair. The detective character could have used a little more backstory and polish, which is probably symptomatic of the fact tie-in novels assume readers are already familiar with the main characters. The ending was a lot of fun, even if a tad predictable.
Some of my favorite noir-ish quotes:
“This should have made her less desirable, he thought. When a girl has been had by half the world—the male half—it’s no great source of triumph to get her into the rack. But somehow Jan seemed more desirable than ever, at least to him, no matter how much mileage she had on her. Maybe it was the fascination of a mechanic for a highly complex and inordinately efficient piece of machinery.”
“The dark-haired actress literally oozed sex from every pore. And with her in that outfit, he could see all the pores.”
“Johnny closed his eyes and tried to think straight. He was damned if he knew who would want to keep a play from opening. There were people who tried to make sure plays closed early—they called themselves critics—but few who didn’t want a show to open in the first place.”
“I didn’t think there were any virgins left in the world… Well, we’ll find that out by morning when the Medical Examiner’s report comes in. That and other things. If she was raped. If she was pregnant. Anything like that, we’ll find out. You get yourself murdered and you don’t have any privacy at all. It’s one hell of a thing.”
April 3, 2015
An early Lawrence Block, written under a pseudonym and now published under his own name. This has a good story with an interesting protagonist, Broadway producer Johnny Lane. Before he can get his show to out-of-town rehearsal showings, his star is killed. He sets out to find out who killed this young innocent and why. Suspects are others in his show--the washed up leading man looking for another shot, a actress who exudes sex appeal, the broken down director looking for redemption, and a couple of no-names who round out the cast. I wouldn't mind a series of mysteries with Johnny Lane, which is funny since the book was based on an old TV series.
December 24, 2016
7/10
156 pages
1962 noir thriller about a play which is threatened by the murder of re of its stars. Johnny Lane, the producer, is our protagonist, searching for clues as to who is attempting to disrupt his upcoming Broadway feature.
Solid Block offering more in line with his classic noir work.
156 pages
1962 noir thriller about a play which is threatened by the murder of re of its stars. Johnny Lane, the producer, is our protagonist, searching for clues as to who is attempting to disrupt his upcoming Broadway feature.
Solid Block offering more in line with his classic noir work.
February 22, 2019
Nothing really to say, only read to read all of the Blocks
August 28, 2013
A bit hokey! But fun just the same.
Read
June 26, 2017Strange Embrace is a 1962 novel by Lawrence Block, originally published under a pseudonym, Ben Christopher. Block explains that it was published by Beacon and Beacon was a particularly chessy publishing house of softcore stuff so no one put their real names on Beacon books at that time.It was originally intended as a tie-in to a tv series, Johnny Midnight, starring Edmund O’Brien as a theatrical producer with a wisecracking Japanese butler, Ito. The series ran for a full season of 39 episodes, but was not renewed.
Although it is packaged by Hard Case Crime with 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is the better of the two novels and the more complete novel. What the two works have in common is a connection to the East Village of Manhattan in 1962 where the hippies, beatniks, and other purveyors of alternative lifestyles gathered and engaged in drugs, orgies, and other behavior, sometimes violence like murder, at least in novels portraying the alternative generation. But, the connection between the two novels doesn’t go much further than that. Unlike 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is a solid pulp whodunit mystery novel that is focused more so on the mystery of who is doing the killings than on the East Village itself.
The basic plot to Strange Embrace is that Johnny Lane is a Broadway producer who has a play that is about to hit the road the next morning: “A Touch of Squalor.” Lane is a little concerned about the fact that his lead actress, Elaine James, is not returning his calls. Elaine is twenty-two “with all the requisite curves in their proper places.” Since Elaine is about as straight-laced, small-town, virginal as could be, Johnny becomes concerned and goes to her apartment, a run-down tenement building in the East Village. Finding her door unlocked, he goes in and looks around and, as any purveyor of pulp mysteries can guess, he finds her nude body sprawled across her bed with her throat slashed. Here, it never occurs to Johnny that he could end up being the chief suspect and, even though his fingerprints are everywhere in the apartment, he calls a friendly homicide detective, Haig. “Elaine James was a lovely girl, she was lovely from the neck down. She was also lovely from the neck up. But her neck was not lovely at all, because somebody had slashed a hole in it.”
Even as the police are trying to solve the puzzling crime, Johnny investigates on his own, interviewing actors in the play, throwing out accusations, and talking to Elaine’s neighbors, including those who are bearded beatniks, those who hang out in marijuana-filled coffeeshops and aren’t sure if they are attracted to men or women. As he explains, Elaine hung out with a “pretty strange crew of Village types. Girls who don’t comb their hair and boys who don’t shave. I think they call them beatniks this year.” He visits one neighbor who won’t get up from his full lotus position and talks about being on a Zen kick and turning on to visions of hallucinatory reality. In the coffeeshop, he sees young men with beards who look like actors on the skids with “torn sweaters, uncut hair, unshaved faces – sprawled over chairs, their eyes shut and their mouths hanging open.” When he finds Sondra in the coffeeshop, she sat “glassy-eyed and inert” and had “violet eyes” that were “unfocused, blank, opaque.” She fits every stereotype of the alternative lifestyle hippies and drug-addled beatniks known to inhabit the East Village.
In some ways, the plot bears a little resemblance to Violence in Velvet by Mike Avallone as both stories focus on murders in a Broadway play.
All in all, it is one terrific novel, solidly hardboiled, solidly humorous, and just plain filled with damn good writing. As a reader, you don’t want to put it down until the mystery is solved. Good stuff, indeed.
Although it is packaged by Hard Case Crime with 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is the better of the two novels and the more complete novel. What the two works have in common is a connection to the East Village of Manhattan in 1962 where the hippies, beatniks, and other purveyors of alternative lifestyles gathered and engaged in drugs, orgies, and other behavior, sometimes violence like murder, at least in novels portraying the alternative generation. But, the connection between the two novels doesn’t go much further than that. Unlike 69 Barrow Street, Strange Embrace is a solid pulp whodunit mystery novel that is focused more so on the mystery of who is doing the killings than on the East Village itself.
The basic plot to Strange Embrace is that Johnny Lane is a Broadway producer who has a play that is about to hit the road the next morning: “A Touch of Squalor.” Lane is a little concerned about the fact that his lead actress, Elaine James, is not returning his calls. Elaine is twenty-two “with all the requisite curves in their proper places.” Since Elaine is about as straight-laced, small-town, virginal as could be, Johnny becomes concerned and goes to her apartment, a run-down tenement building in the East Village. Finding her door unlocked, he goes in and looks around and, as any purveyor of pulp mysteries can guess, he finds her nude body sprawled across her bed with her throat slashed. Here, it never occurs to Johnny that he could end up being the chief suspect and, even though his fingerprints are everywhere in the apartment, he calls a friendly homicide detective, Haig. “Elaine James was a lovely girl, she was lovely from the neck down. She was also lovely from the neck up. But her neck was not lovely at all, because somebody had slashed a hole in it.”
Even as the police are trying to solve the puzzling crime, Johnny investigates on his own, interviewing actors in the play, throwing out accusations, and talking to Elaine’s neighbors, including those who are bearded beatniks, those who hang out in marijuana-filled coffeeshops and aren’t sure if they are attracted to men or women. As he explains, Elaine hung out with a “pretty strange crew of Village types. Girls who don’t comb their hair and boys who don’t shave. I think they call them beatniks this year.” He visits one neighbor who won’t get up from his full lotus position and talks about being on a Zen kick and turning on to visions of hallucinatory reality. In the coffeeshop, he sees young men with beards who look like actors on the skids with “torn sweaters, uncut hair, unshaved faces – sprawled over chairs, their eyes shut and their mouths hanging open.” When he finds Sondra in the coffeeshop, she sat “glassy-eyed and inert” and had “violet eyes” that were “unfocused, blank, opaque.” She fits every stereotype of the alternative lifestyle hippies and drug-addled beatniks known to inhabit the East Village.
In some ways, the plot bears a little resemblance to Violence in Velvet by Mike Avallone as both stories focus on murders in a Broadway play.
All in all, it is one terrific novel, solidly hardboiled, solidly humorous, and just plain filled with damn good writing. As a reader, you don’t want to put it down until the mystery is solved. Good stuff, indeed.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews