Stuart M. Kaminsky

Crime novelist Stuart M. Kaminsky died October 9, 2009. J. Kingston Pierce posted an appreciation of Kaminsky's work at The Rap Sheet.

From Pierce's 2002 interview with Kaminsky in January Magazine:

I read somewhere that you hadn't planned to write Bullet for a Star. Rather, you wrote it out of frustration after an official biography of Charlton Heston, on which you'd been working, was cancelled. Tell me more about the circumstances there.

I had proposed a biography of Heston to Henry Regnery, in Chicago. The editor at Regnery said he wasn't interested in an unofficial biography, but that he was quitting Regnery to become an agent. He wanted to know if I wanted to be his client. He became my agent and remained so for 25 years. In any case, he suggested I get in touch with Heston. I did so through his sister, who worked with me at Northwestern University, which Charlton Heston had attended. Heston agreed. My agent got a contract. I worked on the project with Heston for about a year. It was great. Then Heston informed me that he had decided to publish his journals in addition to the book he and I were working on. My agent and publisher said this violated our contract. I said it was Heston's life, that he was an honorable man, and if he wanted to publish his journals instead of the bio, it was all right with me. Heston graciously paid me for my time and effort, and I signed an agreement that I would never release any of the more than 100 hours of taped interviews I had done with him and others.

All of this brings me to the summer I expected to be working on the Heston book and found myself with nothing to do. My agent had told me to forget about fiction, but I wrote Bullet for a Star in two weeks and sent it to him. By the way, my original title for the book was Murder in Black and White. St. Martin's liked the book, asked me to make it longer, which I did, and they published it.

Read the complete interview.

See "First Thoughts on Kaminsky’s Last Day," by J. Kingston Pierce.

--Marshal Zeringue