Michael A. Kahn

Reading and Writing: A Fun Conversation with David Alan Binder

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Michael Kahn

As my publisher and I prepare for the release this fall of The Dead Hand, the next novel in the Rachel Gold series, I had the pleasure to “sit down” (in the electronic media sense of that term) for a fun conversation about writing with David Alan Binder, the writer, musician, and prolific blogger who has interviewed…

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From Hard-Boiled Mysteries to Film Noir to the World

Posted on June 16, 2016June 20, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Earlier this month, the St Louis Jewish Film Festival asked me to introduce the screening of Fire Birds, an Israeli murder mystery set in Tel Aviv (with English subtitles). To prepare my introductory remarks, I watched the film. Somewhere toward the middle of the movie, I had my epiphany. “Thank you, Mr. Hammett,” I said….

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Fire Birds: An Israeli Murder Mystery Film (June 7, 2016)

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Murder mystery writer introduces murder mystery film to murder mystery fans at this year’s St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. The writer is me. The film is Fire Birds. And if you’re a fan of the noire mystery movie–a rich tradition that dates back to such classics as The Maltese Falcon and The Third Man while forever reinventing…

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Baseball Walk-Up Songs for Mystery Detectives

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Time for my annual baseball post. Last year I wrote one on the Top 10 Baseball Walk-Up Songs in Literature. For the uninitiated, a walk-up song is that hard rock, hip hop, or country tune that blares over the speakers throughout the stadium as the ballplayer walks from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box. True…

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In Praise of the Lowly Weed

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Michael Kahn

If, like me, you have a lawn out your front door, then taking a Word Association Test using “dandelion” will likely trigger an array of negative terms, including perhaps Weed B Gon and other chemical warfare products offered by Scotts, Ortho, and Monsanto. Thus imagine my surprise at the nearly childlike wonder I experienced earlier this…

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Dylan, Hemingway, and a Peek Behind the Curtain

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Bob Dylan made headlines this month when a group of Oklahoma institutions announced their acquisition of an extensive archive of Dylan’s private work. According to the Bob Dylan Archive website at the University of Tulsa, the trove includes 6,000 items of “never-before-seen handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence; films, videos, photographs and artwork; memorabilia; personal documents; unrecorded…

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Jellyfish and Herrings and Bombs, Oh My!

Posted on March 1, 2016March 2, 2016 by Michael Kahn

I have a chronic condition that many of you share. What is it? A nagging curiosity about the origins of certain words and expressions. The most recent flare-up occurred last week on a family vacation along the Riviera Maya south of Cancun, Mexico. As I walked with my grandson Oliver down to the beach, we passed…

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Some X-Rated Thoughts

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Michael Kahn

As an intellectual property lawyer by day, I can confirm that my area of law is, to quote Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, “the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.” Not a month goes by without the arrival of yet another quirky case. Copyright law? Hard to top JCW…

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“You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”

Posted on January 16, 2016January 16, 2016 by Michael Kahn

Fiction versus reality. I have written occasionally, and contemplated more often, the profound wisdom behind the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The laws governing the real world are, in fundamental ways, different than the laws governing the world of fiction. Coincidence is a fact of life–right out there in the open, obvious…

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Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction . . . Usually

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Michael Kahn

We who toil in the field of fiction soon learn that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Specifically, the laws of fiction prohibit the incredible coincidences that occur all the time in the real world. The key word here is “incredible.” Yes, there actually were twin girls, separated at birth, who found one another decades later…

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