Quick Facts
CancerBiography
Michael Zinn Lewin (born 1942, Springfield, Massachusetts) is an American writer of mystery fiction perhaps best known for his series about Albert Samson, a distinctly low-keyed, non-hardboiled private detective who plies his trade in Indianapolis, Indiana.Lewin himself grew up in Indianapolis, but after graduating from Harvard and living for a few years in New York City, has lived in England for the last 40 years. Much of his fiction continues to be set in Indianapolis, including a secondary series about Leroy Powder, a policeman who frequently appears in the Samson novels, generally in a semi-confrontational manner.
Another series, however, is set in Bath, England, where Lewin now lives. This features the Lunghis who run their detective agency as a family business. So far there are three novels and nine short stories about them.
Lewin has also written a number of stand-alone novels. Some have been set in Indianapolis and others elsewhere. His latest novel, Confessions of a Discontented Deity, is even set partly in Heaven. A satire, it breaks from Lewin's history of genre fiction.
Lewin is the son of Leonard C. Lewin, author of the 1967 bestselling satire The Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace.
Albert Samson
The Samson stories are told in the breezy first-person narrative form typical of private-eye novels. They are witty and somewhat off-beat, both for their plotting and their somewhat unusual setting, as well as for the sharply drawn relationships that Samson has with his mother, who owns a diner, and with his long-time but nameless girlfriend, whom he refers to only as "my woman". He eschews whiskey and chasing women in the manner characteristic of his fictional confrères, does not own a gun, makes modest, non-gourmet meals for himself from cans, and shoots hoops in the park as a recreation.Although the stories start off in modest, understated fashion about seemingly trivial domestic matters, they eventually escalate to scenes of startling violence.Of major importance in the stories is the locale itself, the city of Indianapolis and its surrounding countryside, and Samson is certainly one of the most important of the regional detectives in mystery fiction, as well as being one of the very first to appear in what is now a widespread genre.
As well as the novels there are currently five short stories featuring Albert Samson.
Indianapolis novels
Books that take place in Indiana
Albert Samson novels
- Ask the Right Question, Putnam, New York, 1971
- The Way We Die Now, Putnam, New York, 1973
- The Enemies Within, Knopf, New York, 1974
- The Silent Salesman, Knopf, New York, 1978
- Missing Woman, Knopf, New York, 1981
- Out of Season, Morrow, New York, 1984; British title: Out of Time, Oldcastle Books, 1984
- Called by a Panther, Mysterious Press, New York, 1991
- Eye Opener, Five Star, 2004
Leroy Powder novels
- Night Cover, Knopf, New York, 1976
- Hard Line, Morrow, New York, 1982 – 1988 Maltese Falcon Award, Japan
- Late Payments, Morrow, New York, 1986
Non-series
- Outside In, Knopf, New York, 1980
- And Baby Will Fall, Morrow, New York, 1988
- Underdog, Mysterious Press, New York, 1993
- Oh Joe, Five Star, 2008
Short story collection
- The Reluctant Detective (Crippen & Landru, 2001
Other novels
Lunghi Family novels
- Family Business, Foul Play, 1995
- Family Planning, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999
- Family Way, Five Star, 2011
Stand alone novels
- Cutting Loose, Holt, New York, 1999
- Confessions of a Discontented Deity 2013