Frank Swiver
Created by Harley Mazuk

"I could have parked a '49 Mercury in the hole in her story, but the four pictures of General Grant that she'd fanned out on my desk were authentic enough."
-- Frank seems in little dubious of his client's story,
in "The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler"

FRANK SWIVER is the sole investigator for the Old Vine Detective Agency in San Francisco, driving a 1938 Pontiac that's seen better days and working out of an office on Post Street in the early fifties.

He's pretty much your basic Hammett/Chandler gumshoe, right down to the wisecracks and occasionally laboured patter, and but even a few anachronistic rattles won't disturb the smooth and pleasant hum of familiarity.

Sure, you've read it all before, but it's still fun. And Mazuk tosses in just enough tweaks to the formula (no rotgut for Frank; he's a little bit of a wine snob, for example, and he's not entirely adverse to smoking a little weed) to suggest that Frank bears watching. Even better -- a full-length novel is allegedly on its way.

Harley Mazuk was born in Cleveland, Ohio and works in corporate communications. And according to Harley, "Frank is very much alive and working, with more stories to come, and a novel, White with Fish, Red with Murder, making the rounds...

SHORT STORIES

• "The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler" (January 2011, EQMM)
• "Iced" (to come, EQMM)