The Deadliest Show in Town

Mathew Swain #3

by Mike McQuay

The 21st century's toughest private eye in a future that doesn't work, where crime is the national pastime & the su percorps have the cops in their hip pocket. In a world like that, you've got to be quick--or crazy. Mathew Swain is a little of both.Still reeling from the near death of the woman he loves, Swain tak es a contract from the Fish Man, head of a media conglomerate that plays w/reality like a baby plays w/fire. Swain's supposed to locate their prize anchorwoman, a sleek redhead who gets her kicks in t he city's sleaziest sex shops. Trying to keep ahead of a rival network that plays for keeps, he uncovers a plot to kill the Governor--and this time, even Swain's comrade-at-arms, Hermanita may not be able to save him.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery

182 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1982

About the author

Michael Dennis McQuay was an American science fiction writer. He wrote for several different series. His work in that field includes Mathew Swain, Ramon and Morgan, The Executioner, and SuperBolan. The Book of Justice series he wrote as Jack Arnett. He also wrote the second of the Isaac Asimov's Robot City novels. His non-series novel Memories was nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award for 1987.

McQuay taught creative writing at the University of Central Oklahoma for more than ten years, and died of a heart attack at the age of 45 in 1995.

Reviews

[Phil]

Swain returned from Freefall (an orbital city) only to find himself broke. Well, opportunity soon knocks! A huge media conglomerate, headed by the 'Fish Man', hires Swain to track down their leading anchorwoman, who has been missing for days. Turns out she likes to go on benders in the seedy parts of town, so Swain figures this will be easy money. Right!

McQuay takes aim at the media here in full snark mode. We already know the cops only solve crimes if someone pays them to do so; well, the media goes for broke to get ratings and they will do anything for them. Anything! Swain finds himself for most of the book trying to get his head around the idea that the media could be so deadly, even if purely legal. They sign contracts to video fights to the death. They sign contracts with bank robbers (who have to name their beneficiaries for the payments) and then film them as they rob and kill. The line between reality and fiction seems pretty thin.

Many, many completely amoral people populate the pages here and Swain tries to keep it real as possible. I love the bantering dialogue, the livid action sequences, the rentacop 'Fancy Dans' who act a security for all the well to do. Nonetheless, The Deadliest Show in Town possesses a rather melancholy flavor. Swain seems to be rushing at windmills, trying to make do in a ruthless, uncaring world. 4 video stars!

[Snakes]

A whole bunch of double-dealing and backstabbing. Another great read. I love this series. Kind of like the Flashman of the hard-boiled noir mystery set. Perhaps this one wasn’t quite as funny as the last two, but it’s certainly hard to rank them against each other in any sort of order.

[SB]

This was fine, but I didn't like it enough to read anything else in the series. The near-future premise of a global news conglomerate that owns its so-called competitors and directly creates/manipulates the news is even more darkly relevant today than it was in the 80s, and I particularly liked the legal framework hinted at which allowed the organization to operate (e.g., if people came to a network and offered to fight to the death for money on camera, that was fine, as long as the organization didn't directly solicit them to come forward; it's also OK to film a bank robbery as it happens and to make suggestions to the robbers in real time about the additional financial backend they would be entitled to if there just happened to be civilian casualties, because that's just another way of compensating someone fairly for something they were already going to be doing anyway). But I tend to not have much patience for the sort of (minimal) mental energy required in these novels to suss that "frump" means "gun" and "bullet" means "car." I get the need to have these verbal signifiers to remind the reader that we're In The Future, but it I find that it usually just hinders my enjoyment and slows down what should be a quick read. Plus, although well-written, the plot was too on-rails to feel like Swain was doing any real detective work, rather than just moving from encounter to encounter.

[Rob Griffin]

Interesting mix of Sci-fi futurama and hard-boiled crime. This gradually picked up steam for a satisfying climax. Great fun!

[James]

Average wear, pages slightly yellowed.

[Beauregard Shagnasty]

All of the Mathew Swain books are worth reading, however, this is my least favorite of the quartet.It is a shame Mike McQuay never wrote any more of these Swain books because they are an awful lot of fun. All of the books have very nice artwork on the covers too!