Part Two:

I grew up reading crime stories and watching crime movies. I don’t mean the kind of crime tales you can get now. I’m talking about the gritty crime of the thirties through the early fifties. My father introduced me to the genre and I was immediately hooked. Back then people didn’t give a lot of thought to what was appropriate for children. So, I was one of the last few lucky kids who got a taste of the dark world of gangsters taking out speakeasies with Tommy guns, good cops going bad over sexy women, and bad cops struggling to be good guys because of straight-laced ladies.

I grew up reading crime stories and watching crime movies. I don’t mean the kind of crime tales you can get now. I’m talking about the gritty crime of the thirties through the early fifties. My father introduced me to the…