Brooks on Books: The Distance by Eddie Muller

Some of you may know Eddie Muller as "the czar of noir," a man who tirelessly promotes noir cinema and fiction through his own writing, organizing film festivals, spearheading film restoration efforts, recording entertaining DVD commentaries, and all sorts of other stuff. It's no surprise to anyone who is familiar with his work that he's capable of great fiction of his own. As proof, look no further than "The Distance," billed as "a crime novel featuring Billy Nichols."

Notice Muller doesn't describe it as a noir novel, but there are several elements of this addictive novel that should please any lover of films noir: The San Francisco locale, a potentially dangerous woman, and some seedy characters with underworld ties.

And, oh, yeah, the crime aspect. Like, for example, the murder which drives the story. Muller gets the novel off to a great start by presenting a dead body in the opening chapter. He immediately establishes a tense situation for his lead character and narrator, newspaper boxing columnist Billy Nichols. After finding fighter Hack Escalante and his dead manager in an apartment room, Nichols makes a choice...and things escalate from there.

There are great characters, believable ones, like Escalante and his wife Claire, wily police detective Francis O'Connor, and Nichols himself. Known as "Mr. Boxing," his narration is clever and self-aware, but in a way that's appropriate for a character who is a writer, not in some kind of overall self-conscious level for the novel. He thinks, says, and does some questionable and downright objectionable things, but he remains a compelling person and a distinctive voice. There's real emotion here as Nichols becomes increasingly desperate to get himself out of his entanglements.

I love that Muller combines the worlds of postwar America ("The Distance" is set in 1948), boxing, and newspapers; and he includes colorful details of each. Personally, any one of those settings would make this a book of interest, but Muller seamlessly blends all of them into an exciting narrative. If any of these aspects interest you, or if you just want a gripping crime yarn, I highly recommend "The Distance."

One question I have: Why the heck is this not a movie? Someone with the guts and skill to do a period piece has a great piece of material waiting.