In case you haven't noticed, the early sixties are it right now. AMC's Mad Men has the business and suburban world covered for that era, and it has made me come up with the perhaps unwise desire to buy a new wardrobe befitting a member of Sterling Cooper's secretary pool. It's like what was nearly fifty years ago's traditional is becoming today's cool.
But what was cool back then? That's easy: The Rat Pack. Those beatniks and bohemians? A little too weird to be cool for most people. But Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.? They were the kind of cools that the average man could aspire to being like. They reigned in Las Vegas, hung with dames like Angie Dickinson and Marilyn Monroe, smoked and drank without ever getting sloppy (well, at least not in the mythologized way we think of them).
And they're Mark Murphy's inspiration for Tiki Joe Mysteries. There's another review for it today, this one by Michael May at Blog@Newsarama: "The book is gripping and atmospheric. Though Joe figures out quickly who his bad guys are, there’s a lot of fast thinking, faster driving, punching, and shooting that goes into defeating them. And the thrills are only half of what makes the book so cool. Murphy also knows how to draw a tiki lounge you’d want to hang out in and the sheer style of his art makes you wistful for swankier times."
To give you a little idea of the mood and art, here's our book trailer for Tiki Joe Mysteries:
