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FX Andersen
Fred Andersen’s books delve into mystery, suspense, history, and
humor with dynamic action, one-of-a-kind characters, literary
style, and twists, turns, bumps and bruises that feel just right.
About The Author
FX Andersen
Fred Andersen has written five books. The Classic Hollywood murder mysteries “Pamela Carr” and “Lily Torrence” take place in a world where beauty, talent, and ambition can be tools—or weapons. The contemporary thriller “Line in the Sand” pits a Phoenix school teacher against a Mexican drug gang, traveling from tropical jungles to the Golden Gate Bridge. The “comics mystery” “The Dead Cartoonist” is a delight for lovers of every kind of graphic storytelling—from the darkest novels to the dumbest comic strips. While all those books explore the world of mystery and suspense, “In the Company of Strangers” tells varied tales of youthful discovery, working-class romance, and drifters and dreamers searching for a home—or a new adventure!
Here's Another One (Read the whole story in Company of Strangers)
Here’s another one: “Hoyt: The Musical.”
Act one
SCENE: A new suburban home development in the San Ramon Valley, east of Oakland, California; January, 1977.
TIME: Early afternoon.
SCENE: A new suburban home development in the San Ramon Valley, east of Oakland, California; January, 1977.
ARCH and STEBO, in Stebo’s white Chevy pickup, cruise slowly down the street which runs through the middle of the construction area. They pass a bare wooden floor into which two young men—they look like high school boys—are driving nails quickly and methodically in three or four strokes of a big framing hammer: set, drive, pound the eight penny nail (2.5 in./64 mm) through the plywood into the underlying frame of two-by-ten joists.The next house has a few walls up: yellow-white fir two-by-four (actually 1½ x 3½ inch) studs standing straight and plumb, held in place at top and bottom by more two-by’s, but these are called plates. Four or five guys are bent over, nailing more walls together on the floor, then standing them up and dragging them into place. On the other side of the street a Mexican-looking man in a straw cowboy hat sits on the driver’s seat of a forklift, smoking a cigarette, looking up at the raised arms of the lift which hold a half-dozen roof trusses ten feet off the ground, near a set of framed walls. The trusses are also made of two by fours, fastened together with galvanized steel straps, formed into a long, low triangle with what looks like a “W” inside:
Two carpenters balancing on top of opposite walls each grab one end of the truss off the forklift arms and walk it down to where two other guys are waiting to nail it into place. One mis-step and they could fall a long way, but they do this over and over with seeming ease.
Along the street dozens of other men can be seen busily working. They cover a wide range of ages, ethnicities, races, and styles. There are no women except VICKI, the snack truck driver who has just pulled up sounding her clarion and is now lifting the shiny aluminum doors of the “roach coach” to reveal shelves of sandwiches, burritos, and sweets, and both cold drinks in iced tubs and coffee in a heated tank.
From his seat in the truck Arch looks out on the busy, colorful scene, thinking of it as perhaps the opening number of a musical, with the carpenters pounding their hammers in rhythm, while those laborers in the ditch swing their shovels in creative twirls and flips, and the whine of electric saws rise in melodic phrases . . .
The pounding of the hammers solidifies into a steady rock beat, and sharp, clear chords of an electric guitar and bass are heard as two plumbers open the doors of their truck and climb out, already singing a slightly revised version of “Takin’ Care of Business:”
We been takin’ care of business, every day!
Takin’ care of business, every way.
Takin’ care of business, every time!
Takin’ care of biz, time and half for overtime.
[“Takin’ Care of Business,” (Randy Bachman, recorded by Bachman-Turner Overdrive) https://open.spotify.com/track/0lzNXoZINVBLHWNIxKxWOo]
The beat continues as Vicki dances alongside her truck, and the music segues into a slower, jazz-pop style. With smoothly syncopated motions, she pours a cup from the coffee tank and hands it to one of the workers. He hands her a quarter and she slides it into the four-barrel change maker on her belt with a sassy flair. As more men file past with their snacks and money she begins to sing that Sheena Easton song:
My baby takes the morning train (a worker gives her a funny look),
My baby drives his truck to work,
I give him coffee that I perk,
Then he goes on to quitting time,
Just building houses oh so fine.
Now the carpenters on the roof take over the vocals as the music returns to the first song:
If you can saw and you can nail
And show up daily without fail
Work your ass off every day And show up daily without fail
And live ’til Friday to get paid
Well, you are takin’ care of business—
Vicki interrupts again:
And then he drives it home again
To find me waiting for him
The music stops and all the singers move to a big Broadway finish a cappella:
. . .. and w-e-e-e, a-r-r-r-r-e
Workin for a livin’
And takin’ what they’re givin’
Cuz we’re . . .
Workin’ . . .for . . . a . . . l-i-i-i-iv-v-v-in!
[ “Working for a Living” (Huey Lewis, Chris Hayes, recorded by Huey Lewis and the News) https://open.spotify.com/track/3gkH5q7qT0Ex08kua0KgrN]
The workmen disperse, heading back to their jobs. One of these is HOYT, a handsome young man with long hair who has been standing near the snack truck admiring Vicki’s song. Now he crosses in front of the snack truck and past an orange El Camino. The man leaning on the fender of the car—or is it a truck?—is LONNIE, who is the foreman on the job. He is talking to two men who look in no wise different from him except that they wear tool belts and he does not. As Hoyt walks by, he says something, and the other men chuckle merrily.
ARCH
As Stebo approached the snack truck he slowed to a stop. A young man wearing a CAT hat and carpenter’s nail bags was walking the same direction, and Arch flicked his passenger-side arm out the window at him. “Hey—foreman around?”
The guy pointed at the orange El Camino. “Lonnie.”
Stebo shut off the truck and the two of them got out and headed across the street. Stebo took the lead because he had actual experience as a carpenter. Arch definitely did not. He had only been working with his brother for a few weeks after moving up from Santa Ana. He was just beginning to get comfortable with hammer and level, tape and saw, “joist” and “truss.”
The two other guys had walked off and the foreman was just reaching for the Camino’s door handle when Stebo approached. “Hi there, you Lonnie? You in charge? Need any help?”
“If it’s the right kind.” Lonnie rubbed a sideburn with his cigarette hand, untroubled by the smoke that drifted across his face. “Journeymen?”
“Local 1149. We been doing mostly siding, for E.L. Jones, down in Union City. That’s wrapping up now. You want my card?”
“We’ll do all that later.” Lonnie turned and reached into the open bed of the El Camino, pulling out a fifty-foot coil of heavy extension cord, which he tossed on the ground. He dropped a worm-drive Skilsaw on top of the cord. “Siding. Start there.” He pointed at a house which was framed and roofed. Scanning the street, he pointed at another house farther down. “That one, with the red Jeep in front? Same model. Do it exactly like that. T-111, one-by-three trim, pot shelf near the entry.” He turned back. “All the siding and shit is piled right in front there.”
“When do we start?” Stebo asked.
“Got any plans for the rest of the afternoon?” Lonnie chuckled, getting into his car.
More mystery, suspense and drama from Fred Andersen:
A young man is going to shoot off his toe to avoid the draft. A guy robbed a casino in California but is now hitchhiking? Seven Snow Whites living in a flat in Boston. Two guys searching for buried treasure in a French Quarter garden in the middle of the night. A construction site that turns into a Broadway musical. A waitress mistakes gimlets for giblets and her boss overturns the assholes’ table.
If the world of these stories seems familiar, it is because you are living in it. Well, most of it—hitchhiking, hiding your marijuana, and parachute pants are now impossibly quaint—but most of this is part of the reality of your life. It’s just that it was newer then.
Lily Torrence
Classic Hollywood Murder Mystery #1
Lily Torrence
Paperback – December 10, 2016
Classic Hollywood Murder Mystery #1
(201 pp. perfectbound: $11.49)
Lyman Wilbur might write about a hard-boiled sleuth, but he is about as far from that in real life as a guy can get. When he’s offered a job at Colosseum Studios, helping to put his latest crime novel onto the silver screen, he falls deeper and deeper into a world where lies, blackmail, and murder are part of real life. And maybe he should know better than to ask too many questions, especially when powerful people are willing to commit murder and extortion to protect their secrets, but a young girl has been killed—and it just seems to Lyman that he’s the only one willing to find out the real story.
"If you enjoy jumping into this bygone era then this should be on your reading list. The author does a stand up job of placing you into the time, the atmosphere and the story"
Jennie Reads
"I read this book in a single sitting, enjoying how the book flowed from one scene to the next and the way secrets and lies wove in and out of the story."
Amazon Reader
Pamela Carr
Classic Hollywood Murder Mystery #2
Pamela Carr
Paperback – February 29, 2020
Classic Hollywood Murder Mystery #2
(234 pp. trade paperback: $11.49)
Pamela Carr is a sordid tale that shares a couple of characters with and briefly refers to my previous Hollywood murder mystery, Lily Torrence. It is set at the end of World War II in Germany, New York and Hollywood. Though there are a couple of deaths, a sleuth, some tough cops and lying suspects, this is not so much a murder mystery as a catalogue of deadly sins, particularly lust, ambition, and arrogance, all of which are most especially seen in the pattern of abuse and denial that we now call #metoo, and that in 1948 they called business as usual.
"Pamela Carr is really the story of two women: Priscilla Preston (who has her name changed to Pamela Carr by the studio) and Anna, a German refugee (whose last name no one can pronounce). Their stories are taken from real Hollywood scandals, and reveal the sleaze behind the success and glamour. The characters are relatable and memorable, the storytelling is detailed, expressive, and descriptive, leaving readers curious to know what happens next."
Mamta Manhavan, Readers’ Favorite Reviews
A Line in the Sand
In this contemporary thriller a Mexican drug cartel takes
Line in the Sand
In this contemporary thriller a Mexican drug cartel takes on a sixth grade teacher from Phoenix and loses. Twice.
When the son of drug cartel boss is killed in Mexico in a shootout with a local businessman, his wife and children flee to the U.S. and the family is divided and goes into hiding. The ruthless cartel tracks the two boys and one day enters their elementary school intent on killing them, but school plant manager Frank Martin and teacher Brenda trap and inadvertently kills the would-be killers instead, creating a chain of events that leads the boys to flee once again; this time with U.S. citizens involved in something far beyond their experience.
"A fast-paced action story [with] extra dimensions of psychological depth . . . designed to keep thriller readers thinking beyond the story’s final passages."
Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review, Sept. 2018
"Tugs at your gut."
Amazon Reader
"The tension is introduced immediately and it grows steadily. Fred Andersen’s writing is strong, focused and balanced; the characters are likeable and the plot is driven by conflict. It is a gripping, suspenseful read!"
Readers’ Favorites Reviews, Sept. 16.
This video is for a previous version of the story called “Darkness, Darkness”- a short story published by Uncial Press that sets the tone and style for “A Line in the Sand”.
The Dead Cartoonist
A mystery in exotic locales, a romance, a family drama
The Dead Cartoonist
This is a graphic novel with no pictures. Readers are free to create the images described in the text in whatever style they like. There’s a mystery, lots of stuff about cartoons and comics history, romance, adventure, drama, and plenty of humor.l
Great comic strips sometimes come from earnest but neurotic philosophers (Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts) or seething monsters (Al Capp, L’il Abner). But the creators are seldom seen or talked about by their readers. Read the one or two or three panels of the cartoon, chuckle, don’t, move on to the next Skittle in your day.
“The Dead Cartoonist” is fabulously successful but emotionally disturbed comic strip creator Milton Morey. Or maybe it’s Nate Thurringer, whose quirky strip barely rates a blip in the comics world.
By a stroke of chance, Nate is present when Morey’s family finds out he has been kidnapped. Nate, accompanied by Morey’s Romanian lover, Crina Vraca, sets off on a rescue mission from the suburbs of America to the French Riviera, across Spain and finally to Hollywood.
"The Dead Cartoonist is at once a social commentary and a story of loyalty and intrigue that will delight a wide audience. It belongs on any fiction shelf, but ideally should appear alongside collections strong in comic strip history and culture."
Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Reviewr
" A definite escape read, in more ways than one, that kept this reader entertained. Cartoons are all about the humorous side of life, or looking at like with a slightly different angle, and this story definitely fits the bill."
Company Of Strangers
Drifters, dreamers and the long way Home
“A captivating collection of short stories . . . all share a common thread of exploring the human condition, social issues, and moral dilemmas . . . these tales are filled with adventure and drama . . . stories that delight and characters that readers will love.”
Christian Sia, Reader’s Favorite
“A wonderful short story collection that explores the lives of characters in the brilliant complications of their worlds. With sharp, progressive prose, Andersen effortlessly brings to life characters who are deeply flawed yet wholly relatable.”
Jamie Michele, The Weakly Harold
The Latest:
Rito was a High Number
Now out in Yellow Mama webzine: https://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/artofchrisfriend/id215.html
Also audio book:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Rito-Was-a-High-Number-Audiobook
A story of cowardice and treason that goes horribly . . . right.
For a little context, here’s a photo titled “Young People Watch Draft Lottery on TV, December 1, 1969.”
Honest Reviews
"The author does a stand-up job of placing you into the time, the atmosphere, and the story."
Jennie Reads
"Fred Andersen’s writing is strong, focused and balanced; the characters are likable and the plot is driven by conflict."
Readers’ Favorites Reviews