Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Crossover Cover: Toros & Torsos

Craig McDonald is the author of a series about author Hector Lassiter. In a previous post, I covered the Lassiter novel The Great Pretender, which had references to the Pink Rat bar, the Cobalt Club, and Moe "Shrevvy" Shrevnitz from the Shadow novels. Toros & Torsos takes place fro August 31, 1935-July 2, 1961, and has crossovers as well. Harriet Blair tells Hector she has read all of his novels and Holly Martins,’ and she just finished Martins’ Lone Rider of Santa Fe. The art pieces owned by Lassiter include a couple of pieces by Nick Hart and a Matisse he picked up from the estate of Bertram Stone. Hector has a friend from Paris named Libby who now has an art gallery in Cannes. At Chicote’s, Hector chats with an older woman named Roslyn, who lived for many years in Alaska and met Kafka and Houdini. Holly Martins is from the movie The Third Man, starring Orson Welles as Harry Lime and Joseph Cotten as Holly. Interestingly, Welles himself is a recurring character in the Hector Lassiter series. The Third Man must be a slightly fictionalized account of Holly Martins and Harry Lime’s real exploits in Vienna. Roslyn and her friend Cicely are the founders of the town of Cicely, Alaska on the television series Northern Exposure. Nick Hart, Bertram Stone, and Libby Valentin are from the movie The Moderns.

6 comments:

  1. Is this the first reference to Northern Exposure in the CU?

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    1. Stuart Shiffman's story "True Believers," which appeared in one of the Tales of the Shadowmen volumes, mentioned a character from Northern Exposure, Maurice Minnifield, who was established in the series as an ex-astronaut, going on a space mission with Major Anthony Nelson of I Dream of Jeannie fame.

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    2. Ah.

      My mind still boggles about I Dream of Jeannie being in.

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  2. Since Harry Lime is in does that bring in the movie Alligator which has Griffith in the sewer saying Harry Lime lives?

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  3. Do you mean Graffiti? I can't find a character named Griffith on IMBD.

    Harry Lime also appeared in a few stories Win recorded in Crossovers. Including one with a elderly Arsene Lupin and a young Modesty Blaise.

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  4. And in a previous post, I covered Kim Newman's story "The Snow Sculptures of Xanadu," which among other crossovers implied that Lime was Charles Foster Kane's illegitimate son.

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