RARA-AVIS: Re:Arthur Maling?

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 25 Sep 2007


Juri,

Re your question below:

"Has anyone here read any Arthur Maling? I just finished his novel FROM THUNDER BAY (1981) and would like to hear about the guy. I put a brief review on my blog: pulpetti.blogspot. com."

Maling was born and raised in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard. After a short stint of WW2 military service as a Naval ensign, he became a reporter for a short time on the San Diego JOURNAL. In 1946, he returned to Chicago and entered the family business, selling shoes. Actually, his family owned a very successful chain of shoe stories, and, as many of his novels would involve the world of high finance, his business experience would serve his writing well.

His first novel, DECOY, appeared in 1969. In 1976, RIPOFF, the first in a series of five novels about Brock Potter, a crime-solving financial security analyst, appeared.

He won the Edgar for Best Mystery Novel of 1979 for THE RHEINGOLD ROUTE, an international thriller about smuggling. I've read that one, and also LOVER AND THIEF, a one-off PI novel about Calvin Bix, an ex-cop who's quite the Chicago force to found a very prosperous private detective agency. Unlike most fictional ex-cops who become PI's, Bix becomes wealthy.

Good writer, but not one of my favorites. I'm usually put off by writers like Paul Erdman or Emma Lathen, whose mysteries involve big business, and I've never been tempted to try his Potter novels.

JIM DOHERTY

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