ME DECADE DETECTIVES: PRIVATE DICKS AND DISCO BALLS EDITED BY MICHAEL BRACKEN

The fictional private eye both on the page and screen matured and went into many different directions in the nineteen-seventies. They gave different takes on masculinity like Spenser and Rockford. Many looked into the malaise of the decade with the likes of Matt Scudder. He got redefined by the Harry O, Sharon McCone, and Shaft. Even Philip Marlowe wasn't the same after Robert Altman got a hold of him. It's a surprise no one used the decade for a crime fiction anthology before. Luckily, it recently went into the right hands with Michael Bracken. He's done two books with sixties PIs, Groovy Gumshoes and More Groovy Gumshoes, now he moves into the Me Decade with Private Dicks and Disco Balls.

The first two stories deal with the first steps of acceptance of different sexuality that came into the decade. Bev Vincent's heroine search for a missing teenage girl, uncovering high school bullying. Neil S. Plakcy's gay private eye gets hired to find "The Missing Delegate", a young man who looks for love in the wrong place during the Democratic Convention in Miami.

Two writers weave the Billie Jean King- Bobby Riggs match into their stories. Laura Oles, a favorite author of mine, has a newly minted female private eye fighting for respect as she takes on a domestic surveillance that leads to much more in "Agency". She has fun in using Chandleresque style with the period with lines like, "Money was tighter than David Bowie's pants." In N.M. Cedeno's "A Woman's Place", a traditional tarnished knight sleuth meets more than his match in a female competitor. The author brings out an engaging differing wit from both their voices.

We get the tour of notorious city venues. Ann Aptner's "Neon Women", New York detective Gussie Diamond seeks justice for her murdered junkie informant in Time Square. Not only does Aptner deliver the seedy glory of the place, but also the tone of darker detective stories of the time. I half expected Gussie to run into Lawrence Block's Scudder. Stephen D. Rogers gives a tour of Boston's Combat Zone in an "An Eye For An Eye" where the search for a runaway takes place.

"Stayin' Alive By Alan Orloff plays tribute to the detective TV of the decade. Jerry Hanford, a private detective who consults for a Rockford Files style show, teams up with its actor to crack a case. Orliff captures what we love about those shows while satirizing Hollywood.

A rising talent I've been following, William Dylan Powell, uses the martial arts craze for his tale, "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting". His hapless investigator gets pulled into a war between two fighting schools. Powell shows off his skills for humor and action.

Two of the collections biggest names use music from the era. Gary Phillips uses seventies soul to fuse P.I. with high pulp in "The Dark Light Gizmo". Bill Fitzhugh looks at the waning days of disco in "last Dance". It's a perfect last story for the anthology with some foreshadowing of the eighties.

Other stories delve into the decade's events and entertainment. Mark Thielman's detective gets pulled into a cold war chess game. Andrew Walsh Huggins protagonist has to trade gumshoes for snow boots as he struggles to operate in the Buffalo Blizzard. James Hearn's eye becomes enthralled with Star Wars gives him "An Evening At The Opera House". Many of the characters struggle with their identity much like te country did as the period shifted its politics and culture from the sixties to the eighties. Private Dicks and Disco Balls will put you in a Me Decade mood without having to put on The Bee Gees or a leisure suit.