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imagesMichael Avallone was a prolific writer who wrote under a variety of names in all genres. He wrote quite a lot of tie-in novels in the sixties(both Man and Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, The Felony Squad, The Partridge Family, Beneath The Planet of The Apes). Perhaps his most famous creation was Private Eye Ed Noon with such titles as The Spitting Image, The Tall Dolores, and Dead Game in the early fifties.

He called his office The Mouse Auditorium and was your basic P.I. of that era: tough, hard boiled, quick with a gun or fist, loved the ladies, and was a baseball/film fan. In the early days, he was a Giants fan with frequent trips to the Polo Grounds. Toward the end of the series, with the Giants gone to San Francisco, he became a Mets aficionado.

In the sixties, he turned into a super spy on assignment to the President, which is where I first encountered him. The last few books, which I never saw, 00000462has him as an old man facing alien invasion(possibly). I much prefer the the three originals that I came across. The bulk of the books in the middle I never came across( as well as the ninety or so short stories). Those last ones sound a little wild(P.I.s and SF: not unheard of).

Wild plots. The Spitting Image(two sisters with completely different personalities and temperaments in a fight over an inheritance) The Tall Dolores( a circus woman and a large sum of money). Dead Game(A redhead named Kitty, a jealous husband, a murder during a game, and Mimi Tango and her kinks).

Avallone-SpittingAll are lots of fun and worth checking out.

update: June, 2012. The Avallone family has begun to release some of the author’s works to ebook. The first four Ed Noon books are out now. Plans call for all of them, as well as three unpublished Noons. His Satan series, which I;ve never read, is also on the aschedule, with two unpublished in that one. Currently some eighty plus of Avallone’s books are in the planning stages. Probably more to come.