HECK, Peter J(ewell)

PERSONAL: Born in Chestertown, MD; son of Preston Patterson (a lawyer) and Ermyn (a teacher; maiden name, Jewell) Heck; married Flora Metrick, 1966 (divorced, 1988); married Jane Jewell, December 29, 1989; children: (first marriage) Daniel P. Education: Harvard University, B.A. (magna cum laude); Johns Hopkins University, M.A.; Indiana University—Bloomington, doctoral study. Hobbies and other interests: Guitar, chess, travel.

ADDRESSES: Home and offıce—Chestertown, MD. Agent—c/o Author Mail, 345 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Ace Books, New York, NY, editor, 1990-92; freelance writer and editor; author and editor of science fiction and mystery marketing newsletters. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, instructor in English. Sam Ash Music, worked as sales manager; manager of an air freight company, Astoria, NY.

MEMBER: Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, U.S. Chess Federation.

AWARDS, HONORS: Silver Noose Award, New York chapter, Mystery Writers of America.

WRITINGS:

MYSTERY NOVELS

Death on the Mississippi, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1995.

A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

The Prince and the Prosecutor, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1997.

The Guilty Abroad, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 1999.

The Mysterious Strangler, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

Tom's Lawyer, Berkley Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

OTHER

(With Robert Asprin) A Phule and His Money (science fiction novel), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Robert Asprin) Phule Me Twice (science fiction novel), Ace Books (New York, NY), 2000.

(With wife, Jane Jewell) The Great War and the LostGeneration: A Musical/Historical Review (theater piece), produced by Kent County Arts Council, 2002.

(With Robert Asprin) No Phule Like an Old Phule (science fiction novel), Ace Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to magazines, including Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction, Kirkus Reviews, and Newsday. Past editor, Xignals (science fiction/fantasy newsletter) and a mystery newsletter, both for Waldenbooks.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A fourth "Phule's Company" novel, with Robert Asprin; research for a science fiction series involving a group of teenagers; research on time travel to the Mesozoic era.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist Peter J. Heck's lifelong interest in writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) led him to produce a successful series of mystery novels that feature the great American author as their protagonist. The titles all "play off" the titles of Twain books, such as Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Prince and the Pauper. The narrator of all the novels is William Wentworth Cabot, Clemens's traveling secretary, who serves as a Watson to Twain's Sherlock Holmes in the series.

In Death on the Mississippi, Clemens, about to set off on a lecture tour, is confronted by a self-proclaimed New York City police detective who says that a murdered man has been found with Clemens's address in his pocket. Clemens suspects that the detective is a fake and sets out to solve the mystery, largely because he wishes to conceal the fact that his lecture tour is a cover for a buried-treasure dig. Clemens and Cabot find the "detective" traveling to the Mississippi River on their train; so are a group of thugs from Clemens's past. Clemens and Cabot unravel the knots and stop the villains in what Library Journal contributor Rex E. Klett termed a "catchy adventure" and "a well-done historical." Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky called the novel "a thoroughly enjoyable period mystery. . . . A very pleasant debut that will have readers eagerly awaiting the next entry."

The second volume in the trilogy, A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court, finds Clemens on an 1894 lecture tour to New Orleans, where fellow humorist George Washington Cable involves him in attempting to clear African-American cook Leonard Galloway of the murder of a mayoral candidate. Suspects turn up among the dead man's relatives and associates; New Orleans characters such as trumpeter Buddy Bolden and voodoo priestess Eulalie Echo show up; and Clemens, although initially reluctant, eventually attacks the mystery with what a Kirkus reviewer admiringly termed "all the aplomb of Perry Mason." For the Kirkus Reviews critic, the novel's characters provide "exactly the sort of colorful cast that brings its satiric hero's famous talent for unmasking pretension into brilliant relief." Booklist contributor Jennifer Henderson warned amiably, "Try not to start this novel on an empty stomach. It will have you craving gumbo, finely seasoned pompano, and pecan pie as this Crescent City mystery simmers." A critic for Publishers Weekly called A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court "an entertaining sequel" and commended it for providing "an enjoyable tour of 1890s New Orleans." Added the reviewer, "Twain can take a bow for his performance here, with readers assured that Heck will give him a chance for an encore."

The encore came the following year in The Prince and the Prosecutor. The scene this time is a trans-Atlantic steamer on which Twain's and Cabot's fellow passengers include Rudyard Kipling and his wife, a German prince, and a boorish Philadelphia scion and his fiancee. The young Philadelphia snob disappears during a storm, and his father, a prosecutor, accuses the prince of murder. Kipling joins the Twain-Cabot team to solve this mystery, and both authors flash their wit and their anecdotal prowess. For a Publishers Weekly critic, this was apparently the most satisfying of Heck's three Clemens novels to date: "Mark Twain's abilities as a detective seem to have grown substantially in this third adventure. . . . Heck's Twain proves to be an entertaining replica of the original and a clever detective to boot."

Heck once told CA: "I wanted to be a writer at an early age, but (like most others, I think) had no idea how to become one. My parents encouraged me to read, and I did: Poe, Twain, science fiction, Hemingway, and the Beats—who gave me an image of the writer pouring out his soul onto paper, like a jazz musician inventing a solo. It wasn't until much later that I learned I couldn't work that way.

"I was an English major at Harvard, where I learned a great deal about how to read but very little about how to write anything but academic papers. Inertia took me to graduate school, where I taught the usual graduate assistant courses. I went on to teach at Temple University, until I realized I couldn't finish my dissertation on Keats and dropped out. To pay the bills, I ran an air freight office, then worked at a music store, selling sheet music and instruments. My only contact with literature was as a book reviewer.

"By 1983 I was dead-ended and dissatisfied. Waldenbooks was looking for a freelancer to edit Xignals, a newsletter for science fiction/fantasy readers, and I got the job. They later added a mystery newsletter, which I also did. Editing a regular newsletter (interviewing more than a hundred authors in the process) gave me the tools and discipline to become a professional writer. Doing Xignals also led to a job offer as an editor at Ace Books.

"The Ace job was the equivalent of a doctoral degree in the theory and practice of genre fiction. I learned a lot about how a novel is put together from working with Spider Robinson, Lynn S. Hightower, Robert Sawyer, Shariann Lewitt, Esther Friesner, and many others. Maybe even more usefully, I learned the publishing business from the inside—a perspective from which I think many other writers could benefit.

"In 1993, after leaving Ace, I wrote a proposal for a series of historical mysteries with Mark Twain as the detective. It sold almost immediately. That began what I hope will be a permanent career as a novelist, although I continue to do freelance editing and copywriting. I have sold several books in the 'Mark Twain Mystery' series and have recently agreed to continue the 'Phule's Company' series of science fiction novels begun by Robert L. Asprin. Like the Twain mysteries, these will be essentially light comedy with serious underpinnings.

"The freelance life is inherently unstable, but I remain optimistic that I've finally figured out a way to earn a living by my wits."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 1995, Wes Lukowsky, review of Death on the Mississippi, p. 688; November 15, 1996, Jennifer Henderson, review of A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court, p. 574.

Bookwatch, February, 1996, p. 9; February, 1997, p. 7.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1995, p. 1312; October 1, 1996, review of A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court, p. 1428.

Kliatt, January, 1997, p. 8.

Library Journal, November 1, 1995, p. 109, Rex E. Klett, review of Death on the Mississippi.

Publishers Weekly, October 9, 1995, p. 80; September 23, 1996, review of A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court, p. 59; October 20, 1997, review of The Prince and the Prosecutor, p. 58.

Science Fiction Chronicle, May, 1996, p. 58.