Alamo Barnes
Created by Hugh Lessig

ALAMO BARNES is another reporter for The Frisco Foil, a sensationalist tabloid. He's kind of a successor to Hugh Leesig's other series sleuth, fellow Foil newshawk Picasso Smith, who roamed the streets of San Fran in the 30s, 40s and 50s. The difference is that Alamo is very much a turn of the millenium kinda guy.

Like his esteemed colleague from that bygone era, Alamo ("My mother believed in lost causes and I followed in her footsteps") is appropriately cynical, always handy with a wisecrack, and usually on the prowl for a way to pump up his line count. His quest usually has him bumping into the usually colourfully-named characters, including a truck-driving man named Shirley, a homeless man called Harpoon Harold, and a dead real-estate developer called Harry "The Plague" Bubonic, whose remains gets mailed to the newsroom in a refrigerator box.

Author Hugh Lessig, besides being a contributor to this site, is a newspaper reporter himself, in the Richmond, Virginia area, who writes fiction in his spare time -- mostly to blow off steam. His stories honor the spirit of the hardboiled newspaperman, including his hero Kennedy of the Free Press, the hard-drinking reporter created by Frederick Nebel, but add Lessig's own quirky sense of humour. Great stories. Find 'em and read 'em. And check out his original Frisco Foil newshawk, Picasso Smith, or his son, Picasso Smith, Jr., while you're there.

SHORT STORIES

• "What About Mickey?" (1999, The Pulp Foil)
• "Special Delivery" (April/May 2000, Thrilling Detective Web Site)
• "False Fronts" (September 2000, Blue Murder)
• "Sudsy Dudsy" (2000, The Pulp Foil)
• "An Inside Story" (2000, The Pulp Foil)

RELATED LINKS

• The River City Blade (was The Pulp Foil)
  Home of The Frisco Foil, a newspaper that dedicated to "Truth and Mayhem and not always in that order." Here you'll find all of Alamo's adventures, as well as those of Picasso Smith and others. A well-done, affectionate tribute to the hardboiled newshawks of the pulps. A site definitely worth bookmarking.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.