Brett Halliday Stars in His Own Murder Mystery

She Woke to Darkness is entirely unlike any other Mike Shayne story. It is, in fact, a tongue-in-cheek parody of the whole Mike Shayne Private Eye franchise and of mystery writers in general. There's in fact Brett Halliday starring as the main character in a book written by Davis Dresser under the pseudonym Brett Halliday. So there's a conundrum. There's a mystery writers of America convention attended by Brett Halliday and name dropping of numerous mystery writers. There's also fictional chapters of a mystery Manuscript written by one of the writers at the convention which might hold the clue to who a murderer is. And there's Brett Halliday who was the last person seen escorting a female mystery writer to her hotel before her tragedy. There's also the classic scene out of pulp mysteries where someone wakes up out of an alcoholic blackout with a bloody corpse in their hotel room. This is an unconventional story told with a lot of inside jokes and self-parody. Would be very interesting to hear how this story came about and under what circumstances. ( )

She Woke to Darkness is entirely unlike any other Mike Shayne story. It is, in fact, a tongue-in-cheek parody of the whole Mike Shayne Private Eye franchise and of mystery writers in general. There's in fact Brett Halliday starring as the main character in a book written by Davis Dresser under the pseudonym Brett Halliday. So there's a conundrum. There's a mystery writers of America convention attended by Brett Halliday and name dropping of numerous mystery writers. There's also fictional chapters of a mystery Manuscript written by one of the writers at the convention which might hold the clue to who a murderer is. And there's Brett Halliday who was the last person seen escorting a female mystery writer to her hotel before her tragedy. There's also the classic scene out of pulp mysteries where someone wakes up out of an alcoholic blackout with a bloody corpse in their hotel room. This is an unconventional story told with a lot of inside jokes and self-parody. Would be very interesting to hear how this story came about and under what circumstances. ( )

Author writes the story as it happened to himself, after he met a woman at a Mystery Writers' dinner. She started writing a book about something that happened to her; she was present at a murder, but passed out drunk; wakes with no memory of it; several men provided alibi; so who was lying? Then she is killed; a Miami detective called in to help. Brett is kidnapped, manuscript is stolen; they need to go back to looking at the characters at the first murder. ( )