Michael Z. Lewin
Michael Zinn Lewin (born 1942, Springfield, Massachusetts) is an American writer of mystery fiction primarily known for his series about Albert Samson, a distinctly low-keyed, non-hardboiled private detective who plies his trade from a modest walk-up apartment in Indianapolis, Indiana. Lewin himself grew up in Indianapolis, but after graduating from Harvard and living for a few years in New York City, has lived in England for the last 40 years. Most of his fiction, however, continues to be set in Indianapolis, including a secondary series about Leroy Powder, a policeman who frequently appears in the Samson novels, generally in a semi-confrontational manner. He is the son of Leonard C. Lewin, author of the 1967 bestselling satire The Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace.
Albert Samson
The Samson stories are told in the breezy first-person narrative form typical of private-eye novels and are witty and somewhat off-beat, both for their plotting and their somewhat unusual setting, as well as for the sharply drawn relationships that Samson has with his mother, who owns a diner, and with his long-time but nameless girlfriend, whom he refers to only as "my woman". He eschews whiskey and chasing women in the manner characteristic of his fictional confrères, does not own a gun, makes modest, non-gourmet meals for himself from cans, and shoots hoops as a recreation. Although the stories start off in modest, understated fashion about seemingly trivial domestic matters, they eventually escalate to scenes of startling violence. Of major importance in the stories is the locale itself, the city of Indianapolis and its surrounding countryside, and Samson is certainly one of the most important of the regional detectives in mystery fiction, as well as being one of the very first to appear in what is now a widespread genre.
Indianapolis novels
Books that take place in Indiana
Albert Samson novels
- Ask the Right Question, Putnam, New York, 1971
- The Way We Die Now, Putnam, New York, 1973
- The Enemies Within, Knopf, New York, 1974
- The Silent Salesman, Knopf, New York, 1978
- Missing Woman, Knopf, New York, 1981
- Out of Season, Morrow, New York, 1984; British title: Out of Time, Oldcastle Books, 1984
- Called by a Panther, Mysterious Press, New York, 1991
- Eye Opener, Five Star, 2004
Leroy Powder novels
- Night Cover, Knopf, New York, 1976
- Hard Line, Morrow, New York, 1982
- Late Payments, Morrow, New York, 1986