Joe Gores

• Born: December 25, 1931
• Birthplace: Rochester, Minnesota
• Died: January 10, 2011
• Place of death: Greenbrae, California

Types of Plot: Hard-boiled; private investigator; amateur sleuth

Principal Series: Dan Kearney & Associates (DKA) file, 1972-

Contribution

Like fellow mystery writer and hard-boiled pioneer Dashiell Hammett, Joe Gores is one of a handful of authors who has actually worked as a private investigator. He worked for a dozen years during the 1950’s and 1960’s in San Francisco—the same city where Hammett worked—at agencies specializing in skip tracing, repossessions, and embezzlement and insurance investigations. Gores immensely enjoyed detective work and from the beginning kept extensive case notes that he has mined for material ever since. His initial Dan Kearney & Associates (DKA) file short story, “The Mayfield Case,” appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1967.

Gores’s work has received critical acclaim from his first novel, A Time of Predators (1969), which won an Edgar Award. He also received Edgar Awards for best short story for “Goodbye, Pops” and for best episode in a television series for “No Immunity for Murder.” Two other novels, Come Morning (1986) and Thirty-two Cadillacs (1992), were also nominated for Edgar Awards, and Gores has received the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award. However, he has experienced considerably more commercial success from script writing than from novel writing. Gores has served as secretary, vice president, president, and on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America.

The first DKA file novel, Dead Skip, was published in 1972. Expanding on the format of Hammett’s Continental Op stories, Gores follows the activities of many DKA detectives individually and collectively as they pursue subjects and the solutions to questions such as What really happened? Who did it? What punishment fits the crime? Gores’s nonseries novels likewise often revolve around similar investigative techniques as employed by goal-oriented amateurs and professionals seeking answers to specific questions.

Biography

Joseph Nicholas “Joe” Gores was born on December 25, 1931, in Rochester, Minnesota, the son of accountant Joseph Mattias Gores and Mildred Dorothy Duncanson Gores. Raised Catholic, Gores entered Notre Dame University intending to become a cartoonist. Caught up more with storytelling than art, he began writing short stories, collecting hundreds of rejection slips before he made a sale.

On graduation in 1953, Gores worked his way west, holding a variety of part-time jobs along the way: truck driver, construction worker, logger, carnival worker, and assistant motel manager. Arriving in California, he worked as an instructor at a gymnasium in Palo Alto before landing a job that would influence the rest of his career: He became a private investigator at L. A. Walker & Company in San Francisco. He worked at the agency from 1955 to 1957 and took graduate-level classes. He also sold the first of many short stories, “Chain Gang,” to Manhunt magazine in 1957. After a stint in the U. S. Army (1958-1959)—served at the Pentagon, writing biographies of American generals—Gores returned to L. A. Walker & Company before moving to a similar job with David Kikkert & Associates. He worked at that agency from 1959 to 1962, meanwhile earning a master’s degree from Stanford University (1961). From 1963 to 1964, Gores taught at a boys’ secondary school in Kenya, then returned to San Francisco and Kikkert (1965-1967). In 1968, by which time he had published more than twenty short stories, Gores became manager and auctioneer at San Francisco’s Automobile Auction Company, where he remained until 1976, after which he turned full-time to writing. In 1976, he married Dori Jane Corfitzen, who bore the couple’s two children, Timothy and Gillian.

Gores’s first novel, A Time of Predators, appeared in 1969. The story of Curt Halstead, a Stanford sociology professor and former military commando who seeks revenge against a gang of thugs that raped his wife, the novel won the Edgar Award for best first novel. That same year, Gores’s “Goodbye, Pops” won a second Edgar for best short story.

In 1972, Gores introduced the series for which he is best known—DKA file—with the publication of Dead Skip, which concerns the activities of a group of investigators, skip-tracers, and auto repo men who work for Dan Kearney & Associates. In addition to his regular complement of short stories, Gores produced a nonfictional work (Marine Salvage, 1971), another DKA novel (Final Notice, 1973), a short-story collection (Honolulu, Port of Call: A Selection of South Sea Tales, 1974), and two nonseries novels (Interface, 1974; Hammett, 1975) before being invited to write for television. He wrote the episode “No Immunity for Murder” (1975) for Kojak (1973-1978), which won for Gores his third Edgar Award.

Gores concentrated on lucrative television writing for the next fifteen years, contributing dozens of scripts to such mystery-action series as Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988), Mike Hammer (1984-1987), Remington Steele (1982-1987), T. J. Hooker (1982-1986), and Columbo (1968-2003). He also wrote screenplays, often adapting his own work. His 1975 novel Hammett, about real-life author Dashiell Hammett’s fictional involvement in a mystery, became a film in 1982.

In the late 1980’s, Gores returned to novel writing. He resurrected the DKA file series after a long hiatus with a new entry, Thirty-two Cadillacs. Gores released another collection of short stories (Mostly Murder, 1992) and began writing more DKA file and nonseries novels.

Analysis

Joe Gores learned and refined his craft through the publication of dozens of crime-centered short stories over the course of a decade. These were written while he worked for private detective agencies and while he pursued a master’s degree (1954-1961), first in creative writing and later in English literature, at Stanford University. His detective work enhanced his persistence and gave him a wealth of plot material based on close contact with a wide range of people during investigations. His education—though the university discouraged commercial work and disparaged genre writing by refusing Gores’s proposed thesis exploring the works of Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald—provided the means to turn Gores’s craft to art.

Gores was writing short stories when Simon & Schuster invited him to submit a novel. The award-winning result, A Time of Predators, lifted him to a new plateau of creativity and recognition, realized particularly in his DKA file novels, which are widely regarded as superior private eye procedurals.

An invitation to write for television not only gave Gores new insights into visual storytelling but also rewarded him financially better than novel writing alone could. The monies generated by his screenplays gave Gores the security and the leisure to carefully hone his later novels, both nonseries and DKA entries, into true gems of the genre.

The main difference between Gores’s nonseries and series novels is the focus. The nonseries novels typically concern stories told from the perspective of characters outside or on the fringes of the law: a drug-dealing (Interface) or retired (Hammett) private eye with a personal agenda, a shattered loner (A Time of Predators and Dead Man, 1993) seeking vengeance, or hunter and hunted (Wolf Time, 1989, and Glass Tiger, 2006) who circle each other in a battle of wits. The series novels present the point of view of upholders of the law, who must sometimes resort to bad deeds to achieve justice. Suspense and pursuit, deceit and betrayal are themes common to both. Stories are told crisply and economically and enhanced with apt similes to fix images and motifs in the reader’s mind.

Despite Gores’s abilities to convincingly spin a variety of crime-flavored tales, it is probable that he will always be most strongly identified with the DKA file novels. In each new entry to the series, plots are more complex, characters are more fully rounded, relationships are more finely drawn, and the reading experience is ultimately more satisfying.

The DKA novels illustrate particular Gores fortes: his intimate knowledge of San Francisco and environs, his keen eye in observing human behavior, his ear for realistic dialogue, and his sense of absurd humor—especially from Thirty-two Cadillacs onward—which helps lighten the otherwise bleak and violent world in which his protagonists operate. Unlike many authors of private investigator novels, Gores details with authority the everyday frustrations of the job—paperwork, dead-end leads, burnout, and legal maneuvering—that plague detectives as they move through the broad spectrum of society.

Dead Skip

The first DKA file novel, Dead Skip, is a classic in the private investigator procedural genre. Operative Bart Heslip lies in a coma after an early morning attack, and the rest of the detectives, led by Larry Ballard, must examine Heslip’s current caseload to determine the cause of the crime and the culprit behind it. A straightforward race against the clock—in seventy-two hours, the facts of the case will be turned over to the authorities if a solution is not found—but with many detours to ratchet up the tension, Dead Skip includes an homage to Parker, the hard-boiled professional criminal character created by mystery writer Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark.

Come Morning

Gores’s terse suspense thriller Come Morning, his first novel after a long sojourn as a scriptwriter in Hollywood, concerns Runyon, who has spent eight years in San Quentin for the theft of two million dollars worth of diamonds that were never recovered and are, in fact, unrecoverable. Runyon’s plans to go straight are disrupted by a succession of individuals, including a dogged insurance investigator; Runyon’s former partners, who want their share of the loot; a beautiful would-be writer; and a mysterious stranger who picks off contenders for the jewels one by one in a fast-paced tale involving Gores’s familiar themes of betrayal and murder.

Cases

Cases(1999) is a fictionalized account of Gores’s 1950’s post-college journey across the United States and his subsequent employment with a San Francisco private investigative agency. In the book, the agency is run by shady Edward “Drinker” Cope. Through his alter ego, Pierce “Dunc” Duncan, Gores relives and embellishes experiences encountered while hitchhiking, carousing, and working at a succession of odd jobs. As Dunc wends through Georgia, across Texas, and into Nevada on his way west, he is unjustly imprisoned as a vagrant, swept up into violent bar brawls, enmeshed in a scheme involving illegal immigrants, involved in a rigged prize fight, and entangled in a weird California religious cult in a series of sometimes implausible coincidences. Part memoir, part love story, part mystery, and wholly a paean to lost innocence, Cases is a sweeping—if fragmented—novel that in passing pays tribute to various film noir traditions encompassing prison films (I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 1932), organized crime films (The Las Vegas Story, 1952), and boxing films (Body and Soul, 1947). An interesting if not entirely successful experiment in extrapolating from memory, Cases nonetheless contains the usual Gores trademarks: suspenseful situations, well-drawn characters, and occasional lyrical passages.

Principal Series Characters:

• Dan Kearney heads his own investigative agency, Daniel Kearney & Associates (DKA), in San Francisco. A gruff, no-nonsense, middle-aged married man with a chiseled jaw and bent nose, Kearney seldom shows his emotions at work, the result of a quarter-century of experience in repossession and collection work. He is capable of assuming subtle gradations of character—from tough to tender—as necessary to fit particular cases. Surreptitiously called the Great White Father by his associates, Kearney usually directs other operatives from the office and has dozens of valuable contacts throughout the city. Now and then he works in the field when his special talents in legal matters, leadership, or dissembling are required.
• Patrick Michael “O. B.” O’Bannon is a freckled, red-haired, middle-aged man. He is also a dedicated imbiber, a condition that is sometimes problematic in his work. He set up DKA with Kearney in the 1960’s after both men had gained considerable experience in their profession. A slight, flush-faced, married man, O’Bannon is the agency’s best field agent, thanks to his innate ability to charm his way into a target’s confidence.
• Gisele Marc is a smart and ambitious young woman whose emotions show on her face. She began as a secretary at the agency and worked her way up to office manager. She is responsible for assigning and coordinating various cases with the appropriate operatives. A sometime field agent as well, Marc is a tall, striking, blue-eyed single blond built like a fashion model.
• Bart Heslip is an African American agency operative in his late twenties. A former world champion caliber middleweight boxer with broad shoulders on a sturdy, 158-pound frame, Heslip exudes quiet menace and easily slips into street jargon when prowling among less savory denizens of the city on tail jobs, infiltrations, and stakeouts. Heslip has a steady girlfriend, Corinne Jones, who hates the effect that the agency business has on her man.
• Larry Ballard is young, idealistic, athletic, and good-looking in a rugged, masculine way. He was recruited to work at DKA by Heslip, his best friend. He pursues agency work with the innocence of a puppy and the tenacity of a bulldog as he—sometimes painfully—learns the tricks and techniques necessary to achieve his assignments. Ballard has an eye for the ladies but seems attracted more to physical attributes than compatibility, a defect in judgment that often costs him. He lives alone and makes terrific coffee.

Bibliography

Accardi, Catherine A. “The Cool Gray City.” Mystery Readers Journal: San Francisco Mysteries 11, no. 2 (Summer, 1995). Accardi identifies noteworthy San Francisco mysteries, citing Gores’s Thirty-two Cadillacs for its portrayal of the city in the 1990’s and Hammett for his description of the city in 1928.

Garfield, Brian. “Joe Gores: A Private-Eye Novelist You Should Know.” Chicago Sun-Times, March 2, 1986, p. 26. Profile of Gores on the publication of Come Morning looks at his personal history and his development as a writer.

Gores, Joe. “A Foggy Night.” In Discovering the Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade, edited by Richard Layman. San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2005. Reprint of an article that originally appeared in the November 4, 1975, issue of City of San Francisco Magazine. Employing the investigative techniques he used as a San Francisco detective, Gores sifts through the text of The Maltese Falcon to reveal the real-life settings of the book, including Sam Spade’s apartment, the Spade & Archer office building, and other locations.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “It Was a Diamond, All Right.” In Lost Stories, by Dashiell Hammett, edited by Vince Emery. San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2005. Gores’s introduction recaps the highlights of his life, focusing on his discovery of hard-boiled crime fiction, particularly the work of Dashiell Hammett, which inspired him to follow Hammett by becoming a private investigator and later a writer. Gores makes a compelling case for Hammett’s influence, not only on the hard-boiled writers who followed him but also on many mainstream writers and on films and television as well.

Kenney, Peter. “Specialists in Skip-Tracing and Repossessions.” Mystery Readers Journal 11, no. 2 (Summer, 1995). Kenney looks at private eye novels in San Francisco, including Gores’s DKA files series.

McKimmey, James. “Joe Gores.” Writer’s Digest (August, 1988): 31-35. Brief overview of Gores’s life and career that is particularly useful for Gores’s pithy advice to aspiring writers—“Believe in yourself”—and for its demonstration of how he writes and edits, based on a succession of prose-tightening and tension-increasing revisions of the opening page of his novel Interface.

Scaggs, John. Crime Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2005. Contains a chapter on the hard-boiled detective novel, which sheds light on Hammett’s work and provides background for Gores’s writings.

Schaal, Carol. “Mystery Writer Gores Shares Life Lessons.” Notre Dame Magazine (Summer, 2000). Comments from Gores regarding what he has learned in the course of living and writing.