Having Read Michael Z. Lewin's "Out of Season" 10/16/2014

[ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 6/29/2025] 

What a change from The Invisible Man, or my European fiction writers. Out of Season comes from 1984. [6-29-2025: I forgot to mention in the original note that it is set in Indianapolis. sch.] It mentions Stark and Wetzel meats, Wasson's, and L.S. Ayres. I thought Ayres was still around in '84, and not all sure of Wasson's. I once got stuck in the elevator at the Wasson's in Eastgate. [6-29-2025: the next sentence I wrote back in 2014 makes no sense to me now: "Market Square still stands." There was never a Market Square Mall; there was a Washington Square Mall and the City Market. sch]

I cannot recall if this is the third or fourth Albert Samson detective novel I have read. I know Larry Sweazy gave me two, and I finished one. I recall reading one before those two. I cannot remember why I quit reading Lewin. Maybe because he was doing something I wanted to - write about a modern, realistic Indiana - and reminding me of my laziness, my cowardice. He still inspires me.

"Damn it, I want some answers. Unless you no longer know what is a truth and what is fiction."

Hoosier determination for survival comfortable swamped the learned submissiveness. "I know what happened in my life," she snapped. "Nobody else does." 

Out of Season, Chapter 31

 Lewin lacks the pyrotechnics of Robert B. Parker's Spenser stories. To my mind, Albert Samson hews closer to Ross MacDonald's Archer, and TV PI's like Harry Orwell and Jim Rockford: more brains than firepower. I wonder if Lewin still writes. I wonder if Lewin still writes.

sch 

6/29/2025: items found while searching for links to add to my original note.

The Thrilling Detective Web Site – Come on down these mean streets…

Forgotten Books: The Archer Files - Ross Macdonald (Rough Edges)

Remembering Harry O, The Seventies’ Second Best, Mostly Forgotten Private Eye Series (CrimeReads)

Rough Edges

- - -  Michael Z. Lewin  - - - -

He kept writing, but there appears nothing after 2012. One thing noted today, after doing the searches that got the links above, is that Lewin must have set this story in the Seventies. sch 6/29/2025