I read Richard O'Brien's THE ONE AFTER SNELLING a few months ago when it was being edited and remember remarking to Richard that it had some Chandlerisms -- "Los Angeles, the city with the personality of a paper cup" -- but it was only when I re-read the book this week that I realized that practically every paragraph holds a Chandleresque gem. The hero-detective, Jack Pack, is not as snide as some of the Chandler imitators that have cropped up in the past sixty years but he does have an attitude. Everybody he encounters in the book gets the Pack treatment, and I pretty much had a permanent smile on my lips as I zipped through its 160 pages.

First to receive the clever jibes is Pack's secretary, Myrna, and I look forward to another book where we find out in detail why Jack should have fired her years ago. Next in line are the various bombshell babes that New York seems to be infested with. Which hurricane is Jack going to be devastated by is just one of the delicious mysteries that the book provides -- and I'm not even talking about the murder of a philanderer with the family from hell.

The solution to the case -- and there's more than one -- is not as important as the action as Jack stumbles from one clue to the next, each one more dangerous and alluring than the next. And O'Brien has a quip for them all. It was as if Richard Prather's Shell Scott had quit the Hollywood scene and driven his powder blue Caddy to the Big Apple and taken a chomp out of it.

There's also a Hitchcockian element to the story and it's obvious the author storyboarded his plot as well as the master film-maker did his movies. All the strings tie up nicely in the end and everyone who deserves to be hanged by them gets it, usually with a hilarious turn of phrase.

Chandler, Prather, Hitchcock. That's a combo that promises a lot of fun and suspense and backed up by O'Brien's artful drumming, I think we have a top forty hit on our hands.

Six stars.

"The One After Snelling" is the work of a master story teller. Richard O'Brien's riveting book is filled with suspense and intricate plots with surprising twists involving a rich array of characters. I found it hard to put down and have read it three times, each with new revelations.

Mr. Jack Pack
C/o Mr. Richard O’Brien

Dearest Jack,
I enjoyed reading the account of your exploits written by Mr. Richard O’Brien in The One After Snelling.

I am a now a big fan of yours! You sound like a very cool guy who holds women in the highest esteem, especially women of great beauty. I am sure you are also quite a fit and cavalier fellow after reading about you night with Jessica!

I do not have your way with words but I will try to give you my take on your escapades.

I particularly enjoyed your tongue in cheek descriptions of varied situations that you found yourself involved in while solving that brainteaser of a case.
(“The entrance hall was so huge, I half-expected to see a flag on the ceiling, planted by the fist plasterer who’d reached it.”) There are so many unique quips in you accounts that I really had to read and re-read every other sentence as not to miss a one. I even thought the type-O was a quip I just didn’t get!

Some of the descriptions of the characters you have had to deal with like Mr. Jewel sound absolutely gross and horrifying. I was constantly amazed by your courage and stamina while having to battle wits with brutes like Jewels and Twinkletoes, and predatory beasts like Hanna with her raven-like malevolence and her ferret like brother Lanier.

I give you credit for your courage, wit and perseverance. I was sure that Jessica Burden would have to end up as just a sensuous memory for you. So glad that she came up smelling like a rose! I wish you two the best.

Oh, and sorry about your associate. But not sorry that poor Sandy escaped prison. As a woman I just can’t abide by men that terrorize and brutalize the (weaker sex?)

Loved the book, please let me know when the one after The One After Snelling is available to read.

And, please be careful and let us know IF YOU ARE ALRIGHT?


FONDEST REGARDS FROM YOUR FAN,
Sue Kaufman (PS, The LIE isn’t quite that dreary)