Shooting Script and Other Mysteries

by William Link

Connoisseurs of fictional murder and intrigue will rejoice in Shooting Script and Other Mysteries by William Link and Richard Levinson. Spanning the years 1954 to 1966, this collection shows the young writers exploring terrain that would later make them world famous as co-creators of a certain raincoat-clad LAPD detective and a mystery novelist from Cabot Cove, Maine. These compelling stories range from a small town in Colorado to a military base in Germany; from the hot, flat roads of Nevada to the steel-and-glass canyons of New York City. Never before collected in one volume, they share a common suspense of the most delicious variety. Shooting Script is edited by Edgar Award-winning playwright Joseph Goodrich and features a foreword by Tom Straw, author of the New York Times best-selling Richard Castle novels.

194 pages, Paperback

Published November 19, 2021

About the author

William Link (b. 1933) is an author, screenwriter, and producer. In the early 1960s, he and Richard Levinson created the character Lieutenant Columbo, a Los Angeles police detective known for wearing a shabby raincoat, smoking cheap cigars, and snaring murderers by playing dumb. The character first appeared in an episode of the Chevy Mystery Show, and was then featured in Prescription: Murder, a successful mystery play that was turned into a television movie in 1968. Although originally played by other actors, the part was made famous on television by Peter Falk, whose comic timing brought life to the idiosyncratic homicide detective. Beginning in 1968, Falk played the part off and on until Columbo Likes the Nightlife (2003).

Besides his work in television, Link has written plays, novels, and films, including the movie The Hunter (1980)—the last screen appearance of Steve McQueen. Link’s latest work is The Columbo Collection (2010), a volume of short stories starring the iconic cop.

Reviews

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, although a collection of shorter works penned by the creators of the legendary Columbo, doesn't contain stories of detection. Instead, they are very good crime stories, dealing with outright unpleasant or (at best) middling characters digging themselves into holes of various dimensions. Except the whimsical 'The Joan Club', none of the seventeen stories contained the wit and humour that we associate with the shabbily dressed unassuming Lieutenant. But the level of the book was raised single-handedly by the lovingly erudite introductory pieces by Tom Straw and Joseph Goodrich.
A good one.