Shep Stone
Created by Jeff Jacks
A
former cop and currently unlicensed New York private eye working
the Greenwich Village area, SHEP STONE, only made two appearances,
both in Fawcett Gold Medal paperback originals. According to Bob
Randisi, these two hard-to-find novels are full of "great
P.I. stuff with a wonderful New York atmosphere." In fact,
in the May/June 1989 edition of Mystery Scene he remarks
that Murder on the Wild Side is #1 on his own personal
top ten list of P.I. novels.
So the big question then is, "Who the hell is Jeff Jacks?"
Rumours abound as to the identity of the mysterious author, including Randisi's speculation in Pronzini and Muller's 1001 Midnights (1986) that Jacks was actually Lawrence Block.
But so far, nobody's stepped up to claim credit.
Another puzzler is Black Eye, the lame and rather clumsy 1974 adaptation which for some reason recast Stone as a blaxploitation action hero (played by former jock Fred Williamson), and scrapped the sharply-etched New York setting for Venice, California. Say "Huh?"
Still, if you're into cheesy action flicks, it's not bad, no better or worse than most of the rest of Williamson's ouevre. And there's the added bonus of Bret Morrison, old time radio's The Shadow, playing a porno movie-maker.
NOVELS
FILMS
