Hot Time in Old Town

Mathew Swain #1

by Mike McQuay

Good overall (creasing to lower corner of front cover, bookstore stamps) First edition - Paperback original - first printing. The first book in a series featuring Matthew Swain "a 21st century hard-boiled private eye in a city where ghettos are war zones, the rich hide behind 6 inches of armor plate and the cops work for the highest bidder." 216 pp plus an excerpt from the second book in the series.

Genres: Science Fiction, Pulp, Mystery

214 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1981

About the author

Michael Dennis McQuay was an American science fiction writer. He wrote for several different series. His work in that field includes Mathew Swain, Ramon and Morgan, The Executioner, and SuperBolan. The Book of Justice series he wrote as Jack Arnett. He also wrote the second of the Isaac Asimov's Robot City novels. His non-series novel Memories was nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award for 1987.

McQuay taught creative writing at the University of Central Oklahoma for more than ten years, and died of a heart attack at the age of 45 in 1995.

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just realized I never wrote a review for this early 80s sf series, and that needs to be corrected, as it's a blast to read, especially if you're a fan of noir and cyberpunk -- well, proto-cyberpunk (no one with knives for fingernails jacking into the net here). This one follows private eye Mathew Swain in a future Texas city -- don't think the actual city is ever named -- as he tries to figure out who murdered one of his clients. All he knows is the guy is from a rich family. Who would want to cut him in half with some sort of laser?

Swain is constantly butting heads with the local, corrupt police as he falls deeper and deeper into the crazy conspiracy-laden rabbit hole that this case is turning out to be. No one can be trusted, not even his friends. There are enough seedy low-lifes, double-crossings, twists, femmes fatales, etc. to satisfy most devotees of hardboiled detective fiction. The series is even dedicated to Raymond Chandler. The flying cars, mutants, and the violent, dystopian cityscape itself -- where "meat machines" fly down any time they sense another dead body that needs to be removed from the streets -- should do the same for science fiction fans...soft science fiction, at least. There's not much actual science here. Just lots of action and adventure. And smartass humor in Swain's first-person narration as well.

Highly recommended, as is the entire series. It only gets crazier as it goes along. Each one is a different case for Swain, so you don't necessarily have to read them in order if you happen to come across a random entry, though there are callbacks and recurring characters throughout.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a big fan of McQuay since the 80s and have also read this series several times over the years. McQuay dedicates this series to Raymond Chandler, stating that 'he understood' and yeah, this is killer noir, but set in a future dystopian America. Mathew Swain, as hardboiled as they come, lives in some city in Texas circa 2080, where a nuclear meltdown happened about 100 years ago, leaving 'Old Town' a smoking crater. He takes jobs to keep him in cigs and booze, but also tries to do right for his clients, a seemingly hopeless task in the world he lives.

McQuay builds a grim future, where the rich live in windowless fortresses or seriously guarded high rises, guarded by 'Fancy Dans', e.g., rent-a-thugs. The police, privatized, only work a case if the client can pay. Mathew, a P.I., has his digs in the part of town between wealth and dire poverty, but it is slowly giving way to decay. Decrepitness oozes off the pages in McQuay's vivid depictions:

There wasn't any wind at all, so the smog cover was overbearing, and the air smelled like the waiting room of the free clinic... The streets belonged to the night people now, the nocturnal creatures who hunted the asphalt pathways in primordial splendor-- stalking, prowling, waiting in the shadows for the weaker links in the survival chain.

I will not go into the mystery to avoid spoilers, but it starts when a client of his, who always payed in cash no less, gets offed in his penthouse apartment. The cops do not care-- no money from a dead man-- but the guy's father still does and hires Mathew to find the culprit. As you can imagine, once Mathew starts turning over rocks, he finds all kinds of ugly.

While the mystery noir rocked, what really makes this series concerns McQuay's vivid prose and world building. Such an ugly world, with the politicians owned by the highest bidder, the cops only working for paying customers, and the poor live like animals. Not to mention the nuclear waste zone at the heart of the city, which once was a tourist attraction until people around it started mutating. Now, the mutants are kept there by deadly force with monthly care packages dropped down as a token means of welfare. McQuay must have had a ball with this one; I certainly did reading it. 5 glowing stars! If you love noir and pulp science fiction, this series is really a must.

[Snakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book! Never heard of the author. Cover looks corny as hell. Out of print. Not available on Kindle, etc. Terribly stupid title. Appears to be a cheesy 80s science fiction pulp novel heading for the remainder bin. And maybe it did. Got ahold of an old but pristine copy and burned through it. Fantastic noir mystery. Fantastic characterization. Fantastically funny. Fantastic science fiction (love the fact that the book wasn’t filled with dates already past or devices that were dated from the time the story was written). Just a fantastic read. Loved it. Already ran down the other three books in this series and some of McQuay’s other stuff.

[Jennifer Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely fun book! It's hard-boiled detective fiction mixed with SF. Mike McQuay has a way with words and there's a lot of great prose here, paragraphs you'll want to read again just for the sheer pleasure of it.... but the writing doesn't get in the way of the storytelling.

This book is long out of print, as are the other Mathew Swain titles, but hopefully I will be able to track the rest of them down.

[Zachary Krug · Rating 4 out of 5]

post-apocalyptic dystopian noir --all my favorites

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, by design, basically Raymond Chandler in a dystopian future. With Chandler himself, as with his successful imitators such as Megan Abbott, there’s a joy in the writing. Possibly owing to the dystopian setting, McQuay has much less of this joy. Parts of Hot Time in Old Town are quite enjoyable, and it’s plotted pretty well. Other sections, however, are simply sad and dreary, with literally hundreds of people getting killed and society pointedly ignoring it. I’ve begun to consider dystopianism as an irremediably flawed premise; it seems inherently unsustainable, but that doesn’t stop writers from going back to the same stagnant well again and again.

[Doug Lintott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first cyberpunk book I ever read before cyberpunk was even classified as a genre.
I lent this book to about 10 different people when it came out. Some were hardcore sci-fi readers some not. Every one of them asked me for book two. I still wish I knew who has my book 4....

A great pulp sci-fi read.

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best science fiction P.I. novels I have ever read. The prose is witty and sharp. Mcquay is science fiction’s Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane rolled into one. If you like cigarette smoking, philosophical, wise cracking gumshoes, look no further than Mathew Swain.

[Beauregard Shagnasty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great pulp sci fi from Mike McQuay. Why haven't these Mathew Swain books been snapped up for the movies?

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tuesday was garbage day. Swain is a private eye in a city which had holoprojections of luxury items in a store front showing these things so they couldn't be stolen. Transportation of Heli-bus that floated above the ground. Swain did insurance follow ups to keep him in booze (just like Warren Murphy's Digger). Swain's old client is headless. Body cut up, no blood, no mess. A fucking mystery. Efficient murders are calculated murders. Dress of the day is a lot of knee high boots. Huge cover ups, evil controlling CEO, mutants, and Swain drinking loads of alcohol.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather entertaining crime novel featuring a hard-boiled private eye caught up in a case that expands exponentially. The sci-fi location and its combination of sleaze and tech delivers enough unique features to be more than just a generic setting, and there’s plenty of snappy dialogue and internal contemplation to balance the brutal action; McQuay understands the genre’s tropes and uses them well here, incorporating the right type of attitude and style to meet expectations. It’s certainly not the best book I’ve read from this author, but the short length and the pacing of the plot make it an enjoyable experience.