Benjamin Drake
Created by Dashiell Loveless (pseud. of Jim Pascoe and Tom Fassbender)

He's a P.I. with "a passion for small cigars and Old Grand-Dad, and a weakness for women in trouble", the hot shot op for the Always Reddy Detective Agency in Testacy City, a "crime-filled desert city," where there are always some strange shenanigans going on, full of mysterious women, gangsters, murder and...um...bowling. He's BENJAMIN DRAKE, and he's the hero of one of the funniest parodies/tributes I've seen in years. And I had decided that before I had even read it.

Ben originally appeared in By the Balls, a 1998 paperback that exactly mimics all those great old Dell Mapbacks, right down to the size, the map on the back and those cryptic first pages that detail "The Persons This Mystery Is About..." and "What This Mystery Is About..." It also features illustrations throughout by Paul Pope. It's a blast of fresh air in a genre that's starting to take itself way too seriously. And I guess enough folks found Bo Diddley's warning, that "you can't judge a book by looking at the cover..." to be wrong, to make way for a sequel of sorts, 1999's Five Shots and a Funeral. It's a "collection" of five short story "crime capers," and also comes highly-recommended.

Ben's creators, Jim Pascoe and Tom Fassbender, besides being two of the sharpest-dressed dudes on the planet, and relating the adventures of Ben Drake, are the brains behind Uglytown, a small uppity press well worth checking out. And lately, Jim and Tom have also been collaborating on several comic stories, including a great riff on a Hammett story featuring (Get this!!!) Star Wars characters! You can check it out in Star Wars Tales #6 (December 2000, Dark Horse).

And even better news is that a Ben Drake story, "A Punch in the Gut and a Bag Full of Oranges" will be serialized and featured in three subsequent issues of the free Dark Horse newsletter, "Dark Horse Extra." For a sneak peek, head on over to http://www.UglyTown.com/comics. (That's where the nifty illustration, drawn by Paul Lee, came from).

And fans of the Always Reddy Detective City will be pleased to know that a short story, featuring Ben's fellow op and rival, Henry Goiler, appeared in the February/March 2001 issue of Blue Murder.

NOVELS

• By the Balls (1998).. Buy this book

COLLECTIONS

• Five Shots and a Funeral: The Short Fiction of Dashiell Loveless (1999). Buy this book

SHORT STORIES

• "The Silent Ventriloquist" (1999, Five Shots and a Funeral; also December 1999, Blue Murder)
• "Death Plays a Foul Game" (1999, Five Shots and a Funeral)
• "A Cold-Blooded Kidnapping" (1999, Five Shots and a Funeral)
• "Midnight Train to Nowhere" (1999, Five Shots and a Funeral)
• "Raspberry Jack" (1999, Five Shots and a Funeral)

COMICS

• DARK HORSE EXTRA
  (2001, Dark Horse Comics)
  Issues 32-34
  Written by Tom Fassbender and Jim Pascoe
  Art by Paul Lee.

• "A Punch in the Gut and a Bag Full of Oranges, Part 1" (February 7, 2001, Dark Horse Extra)
• "A Punch in the Gut and a Bag Full of Oranges, Part 2" (March 7, 2001, Dark Horse Extra)
• "A Punch in the Gut and a Bag Full of Oranges, Part 3" (April 4, 2001, Dark Horse Extra)

RELATED LINKS

• Uglytown
  I think all hardboiled fans owe themselves a visit to Uglytown.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.