Lewin, Michael Z. 1942–

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Lewin, Michael Z. 1942–

(Michael Zinn Lewin)

PERSONAL: Born July 21, 1942, in Springfield, MA; son of Leonard C. (a writer) and Iris (a social worker; maiden name, Zinn) Lewin; children: Elizabeth, Roger. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1964; attended Cambridge University, 1964–65.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bath, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Five Star, 295 Kennedy Memorial Dr., Waterville, ME 04901. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Central High School, Bridgeport, CT, physics teacher, 1966–68; George Washington High School, New York, NY, science teacher, 1968–69.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Crime Writers Association, The Detection Club.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations, 1972, for best first novel Ask the Right Question, 1984, for best short story "The Reluctant Detective," and 2002, for best short story "If the Glove Fits"; International Crime Writers Conference Award, Stockholm, Sweden, 1981, for "Wrong Number"; Falcon Award (Japan), 1987, for Hard Line; inducted into North Central High School Hall of Fame, 1991; Marlowe Award, 1992, for Called by a Panther; Mystery Masters Award, Magna Cum Murder Annual Convention, 1994.

WRITINGS:

MYSTERY NOVELS

Ask the Right Question, Putnam (New York, NY), 1971.

The Way We Die Now, Putnam (New York, NY), 1973.

The Enemies Within, Knopf (New York, NY), 1974.

Night Cover, Knopf (New York, NY), 1976.

The Silent Salesman, Knopf (New York, NY), 1978.

Outside In, Knopf (New York, NY), 1980.

Missing Woman, Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

Hard Line, Morrow (New York, NY), 1982.

Out of Season, Out of Time, Morrow (New York, NY), 1984, published as Out of Time, Macmillan (London, England), 1984.

Late Payments, Morrow (New York, NY), 1986.

And Baby Will Fall, Morrow (New York, NY), 1988, published as Child Proof, Macmillan (London, England), 1988.

Called by a Panther, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1991.

Underdog, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Family Business, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Family Planning, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Eye Opener, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2004.

RADIO PLAYS

The Way We Die Now (adapted from Lewin's novel), British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), 1974.

The Loss Factor (adapted from Lewin's short story), BBC, 1974.

The Enemies Within (adapted from Lewin's novel), BBC, 1976.

Arrest Is as Good as a Change, BBC, 1982.

A Place of Safety, BBC, 1985.

Missing Woman, BBC, 1987.

Rainey Shines (adapted from Lewin's story), BBC, 1987.

The Interests of the Child, BBC, 1987.

Ask the Right Question (adapted from Lewin's novel), BBC, 1989.

Wrong Number, 1989.

The Eyes Have It, 1989.

Cross, Rems Of, 1993.

Keystone (based on the novel by Peter Lovesey), BBC, 1993.

Rough Cider (based on the novel by Peter Lovesey), BBC, 1994.

The Silent Salesman (adapted from Lewin's novel), BBC, 1994.

Who Killed Gnutley Almond?, BBC, 1995.

Jingle, BBC, 1999.

Has also had short stories on BBC Radio, including "The Frome Basketball Champion" and "Cigarettes."

OTHER

How to Beat College Tests: A Practical Guide to Ease the Burden of Useless Courses, Dial (New York, NY), 1969.

The Next Man (screenplay novelization), Warner Books (New York, NY), 1976.

The Magnificent Seven (play), produced in Frome, Somerset, England, 1987.

Deadlock (play), produced in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, 1990.

(Editor, with Liza Cody, and contributor) 1st Culprit: An Annual of Crime Stories, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor, with Liza Cody, and contributor) 2nd Culprit: An Annual of Crime Stories, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Telling Tails (short stories), PawPaw Press (Frome, England), 1994.

(Editor, with Liza Cody and Peter Lovesey) 3rd Culprit: An Annual of Crime Stories, Chatto & Windus (London, England), 1994.

Rover's Tales: A Canine Crusader and His Travels in Dog World, illustrated by Karen Wallis, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Cutting Loose (historical novel; for young adults), Holt (New York, NY), 1999.

The Reluctant Detective and Other Stories, Crippen and Landru Publishers (Norfolk, VA), 2001.

Contributor to books, including Murder Ink, edited by Dilys Wynn, Workman (New York, NY), 1977; Inward Journey—Ross Macdonald, edited by Ralph Sipper, Cordelia Productions (Santa Barbara, CA), 1984; The Eyes Have It, edited by Robert J. Randisi, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1984; Winters Crimes, edited by Hilary Hale, Macmillan (London, England), 1988; New Crimes, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Robinson (London, England), 1989; New Crimes 2, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Robinson (London, England), 1990; Crime Waves 1, edited by H.R.F. Keating, Gollancz (London, England), 1991; Great Detectives, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Xanadu (London, England), 1991; Midwinters Crimes, edited by Hilary Hale, Scribner, 1993; Royal Crimes, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Martin H. Greenberg, Signet, 1994; Crime Yellow, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Gollancz (London, England), 1994; No Alibi, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Ringpull, 1995; Raymond Chandler Jahrbuch 1, edited by William Adamson, Andreas-Haller-Verlag (Passau, Germany), 1996; Blue Lightning, edited by John Harvey, Slow Dancer (London, England), 1999; Diagnosis Dead, edited by Jonathan Kellerman and Martin H. Greenberg, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1999; The Best British Mysteries of 2006, and The Mammoth Book of Comic Crime. Author of foreword, Edwin of the Iron Shoes, by Marcia Muller, Chivers (Bath, England), 1993. Contributor of articles and stories to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Giallo, Sport, Penthouse, Armchair Detective, Ellery Queen, Hayakawa Mystery Magazine, and other periodicals. Compiler, with Liza Cody and Peter Lovesey, of Take-Outs, a compact disc recording based on their "Wanted for Murder" tours.

ADAPTATIONS: Several books have been adapted for broadcast in Japan, including Missing Woman, c. late 1980s, and And Baby Will Fall, 2001. Rover's Tales was adapted as an audiobook, narrated by Lewin, Blackstone Audio Books (Ashland, OR), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael Z. Lewin's detective character Albert Samson plies his trade in the author's childhood home of Indianapolis. Samson's cases are in the hardboiled tradition of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett but are mitigated by a comic sense. "Lewin's world vision is fundamentally comic," Larry E. Grimes commented in the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers. Critics have found Samson to be a unique creation in the detective genre, a detective who is drawn in the tough, cynical tradition of the hardboiled school but tempered with enough warmth and hope to be realistic. "Samson," Newgate Callendar explained in the New York Times Book Review, "is the Galahad type, rather a mess in his personal life, but motivated by basic honesty and integrity. In that respect, he is in the classic tradition of the American detective."

Samson solves his cases with a dogged determination that makes up for his limited financial resources and lack of high-profile connections. Many of Samson's cases involve finding missing persons. For instance, in Ask the Right Question, he is hired by a sixteen-year-old girl to find her real father. "Halfway through [the story, Samson] has the mystery solved to everyone's satisfaction—except his own," remarked Haskel Frankel in the Saturday Review. "It's then that the case really opens up." Missing Woman finds Samson out to locate a woman gone missing in a small Indiana town, where the local playboy has just turned up dead. "The dialogue is authentic, the settings attractive, and the mystery real," Robin Winks noted in the New Republic.

After a thirteen-year break, Lewin returned to his Samson character with Eye Opener. As the story begins, Samson has just gotten his investigator's license back after it was taken from him by his police officer friend Jerry Miller. Samson becomes involved in several cases that include working for a law firm to help clear an accused rapist, helping a church for free with a vandalism case, and agreeing to look for his daughter Sam's missing mother. Combining everything from family problems to corrupt cops and a deranged killer, Eye Opener will take readers on "an emotional roller coaster," according to Wes Lukowski in Booklist. Harriet Klausner, reviewing the mystery novel on her Web site, concluded: "Readers will appreciate this amusing private investigator tale starring a fabulous fallen sleuth getting a second chance."

Lewin has also written about the Lunghi Family Detective Agency in a series of humorous mysteries involving the family's efforts to unravel murderous goings-on in Bath, England. In Family Planning, for example, the family investigates a murder during the Christmas season and must prove that a wealthy client did not murder his uncle years before. A Publishers Weekly critic commented that, "as in real life, work and personal interests interact and clash, with results both surprising and predictable."

Aimed at a young adult audience, Cutting Loose is the story of a girl at the end of the nineteenth century: Jackie's father is a baseball player and she has disguised herself as a man so she can also play. When her friend Claudette is stabbed to death, Jackie must track down the killer. In his Booklist review, Michael Cart praised the book's "haunting atmosphere, stylish use of nineteenth-century speech, and offbeat plot." A reviewer for Horn Book found that "the characters are rich and the dialogue is pungent."

Lewin once told CA: "I am gradually broadening the kinds of writing I do so that it keeps being hard and so I keep learning."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1976, review of Night Cover, p. 1168; July 1, 1980, review of Outside In, p. 1593; September 1, 1981, review of Missing Woman, p. 29; September 1, 1984, review of Out of Season, p. 26; June 1, 1988, review of And Baby Will Fall, p. 1643; June 15, 1991, review of Called by a Panther, p. 1936; October 1, 1993, Wes Lukowsky, review of Underdog, p. 258; September 15, 1999, Michael Cart, review of Cutting Loose, p. 249; December 15, 2004, Wes Lukowsky, review of Eye Opener, p. 711.

Christian Science Monitor, January 6, 1982, James Kaufmann, review of Missing Woman, p. 17; November 2, 1984, James Kaufmann, review of The Way We Die Now, p. B10.

Horn Book, September, 1999, review of Cutting Loose, p. 613.

Library Journal, December 15, 1970, review of How to Beat College Tests: A Practical Guide to Ease the Burden of Useless Courses, p. 4388; November 15, 1971, review of Ask the Right Question, p. 96; February 1, 1973, review of The Way We Die Now, p. 439; August, 1974, review of The Enemies Within, p. 1991; April 1, 1976, review of Night Cover, p. 927; March 1, 1978, review of The Silent Salesman, p. 590; July, 1980, Henri C. Veit, review of Outside In, p. 1545; July, 1981, review of Missing Woman, p. 1447; September 1, 1984, review of Out of Season, p. 1689; April 1, 1986, review of Late Payments, p. 164; June 1, 1991, Rex E. Klett, review of Called by a Panther, p. 200; October 1, 1993, Rex E. Klett, review of Underdog, p. 130; October 1, 1999, Rex E. Klett, review of Family Planning, p. 138.

New Republic, March 4, 1978, review of The Silent Salesman, p. 40; August 30, 1980, Robin Winks, review of Outside In, p. 38; October 7, 1981, Robin Winks, review of Missing Woman, p. 40.

New Yorker, August 30, 1976, review of Night Cover, p. 92.

New York Times Book Review, November 21, 1971, review of Ask the Right Question, p. 36; March 25, 1973, review of The Way We Die Now, p. 49; November 3, 1974, review of The Enemies Within, p. 71; March 14, 1976, review of Night Cover, p. 28; July 20, 1980, Evan Hunter, review of Outside In, p. 12; November 15, 1981, Newgate Callendar, review of Missing Woman, p. 34; June 12, 1983, review of Hard Line, p. 22; December 2, 1984, Newgate Callendar, review of Out of Season, p. 62; August 31, 1986, Newgate Callendar, review of Late Payments, p. 14; August 7, 1988, Marilyn Stasio, review of And Baby Will Fall, p. 20; July 21, 1991, Marilyn Stasio, review of Called by a Panther, p. 25.

Playboy, December, 1982, Dick Lochte, review of Missing Woman, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, February 5, 1973, review of The Way We Die Now, p. 84; August 5, 1974, review of The Enemies Within, p. 52; January 19, 1976, review of Night Cover, p. 100; January 2, 1978, review of The Silent Salesman, p. 61; May 9, 1980, review of Outside In, p. 53; June 19, 1981, review of Missing Woman, p. 94; September 17, 1982, review of Hard Line, p. 100; July 6, 1984, Sybil Steinberg, review of Out of Season, p. 55; June 19, 1987, review of Late Payments, p. 120; May 13, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review of And Baby Will Fall, p. 266; May 11, 1992, review of Called by a Panther, p. 69; September 20, 1993, review of Underdog, p. 65; January 26, 1998, review of Rover's Tales: A Fourlegged Good Samaritan and His Travels in Dog World, p. 70; September 20, 1999, review of Family Planning, p. 77.

Saturday Review, November 27, 1971, Haskel Frankel, review of Ask the Right Question, p. 54.

Times Literary Supplement, May 26, 1972, review of Ask the Right Question, p. 612; July 2, 1982, review of Missing Woman, p. 725; January 11, 1985, review of Out of Time, p. 42; May 8, 1992, review of Called by a Panther, p. 20.

Washington Post Book World, November 25, 1984, Tony Hillerman, review of Out of Season, p. 8; January 20, 1985, review of The Enemies Within, p. 13.