Once a Crooked Man

November 9, 2015
Actor McCallum, of NCIS and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. fame, makes his fiction debut with a suspense novel that opens promisingly with echoes of the classic Hitchcock film North by Northwest. Harry Murphy, a struggling New York City actor, is desperate to find a bathroom after an audition. When he’s denied entry at a restaurant, he goes to a nearby alley to urinate, only to overhear some men planning the murder of a man in London named Villiers. Without knowing exactly what’s going on or who the conspirators are, Harry impulsively decides to travel there to warn Villiers, after first trying to phone him. The proceeds from a new voice-over gig make the trip possible. Arriving in London just in time to foil the hit, Harry soon becomes the quarry of both good and bad guys, but he’s never plausible as a man of action in a story line that tends to the formulaic. Toward the end, the puzzling behavior of Det. Sgt. Lizzie Carswell, who befriends a mobster, may trouble some readers. Agent: Erica Silverman, Trident Media Group.

To hear a terrific book brilliantly performed by the author is one of life's huge pleasures. Is McCallum up to it? He's only been working on stage and screen for what--six decades? Oh, surprise, he's fabulous. Really, listen to him do a simple thing like chuckle winningly. Go on, you try it. His velvety voice is a wonderful instrument, and he uses it to purr, to alarm, to make you laugh while he remains quietly deadpan as he follows his Candide-like actor-hero Harry Murphy through a baroque series of toils and dangers he got into because he was trying to save a stranger's life. Only an actor could have written this deliciously entertaining story, and no one could have performed it better. Standing O. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine