After 30 years, Sioux Falls man’s novels return to print

Lee Goldberg founded a publishing house to return to print the authors and books that had shaped him as a writer.

They were effective teachers. Goldberg is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author and television producer. He is a co-author with Janet Evanovich of the Fox & O’Hare novels. The Private Eye Writers of America nominated him for a Shamus Award for Best Novel for “Watch Me Die.” His TV writing and producing credits include “Diagnosis Murder,” “Baywatch,” “Hunter” and “Monk.”

There’s more. But this story isn’t about Goldberg. It’s about one of the out-of-print writers who influenced him as a young man.

This is who this story is about: Bill Reynolds. Reynolds, who grew up in Omaha and Sioux Falls, wrote a series of six books beginning in the mid-1980s about a private eye known only as Nebraska.

“I read them when they first came out way back when,” Goldberg said.

Brash Books, his publishing house founded with Joel Goldman, also an Edgar Award-winning author, came from a desire to bring back the books that shaped him as a writer. That meant returning Nebraska to print.

He first contacted Reynolds, who now serves as director of communications at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, about bringing Nebraska back to life in the mid-2010s. Goldberg remembers Reynolds as hesitant. Reynolds remembers being overwhelmed.

“After 30 years, somebody actually remembers them,” he said. “And they sought me out. Brash Books sought me out to see about republishing them.”

Brash Books, headquartered in California, has republished all six Nebraska novels as trade paperbacks, meaning in a larger format than those usually found on store racks. They also are available individually as e-books and in one large omnibus edition, Goldberg said.

The Nebraska series made such an impact on him because of the main character, the PI Nebraska, Goldberg said. Reynolds wrote him in a distinctive manner that it may have made people unsure how to slot the genre. Where did a non-hard-boiled private eye who never talked about gams and dames fit? Was there enough crime in the Omaha area to keep someone busy? Can solving murders mix with humor?

The answer is yes, Reynolds’ books fit into the format just fine, if not overly snug.

“He has such a unique voice,” Goldberg said of Reynolds. “He has humor, but he also has grit and violence. …The character has a sense of humor about himself. He’s a writer trying to do something else, a reluctant private eye.”

If he’s going to compare Nebraska to anyone, it would be one part Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and three parts John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, Reynolds said.

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“From the beginning, I wanted him to be sort of this average guy,” he said. “He’s not 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds of square-jawed raw muscle; he’s average. In fact, there’s instances in which he deliberately uses his averageness to kind of blend in. He’s self-aware, and sometimes he screws up. He blunders into things he shouldn’t blunder into.”

Nebraska has an estranged wife and an on-again, off-again relationship with a woman named Koosje Van der Beek. He is, Reynolds emphasizes again, average. Someone he could relate to. Except relationships. Reynolds and his wife, Peg, have been married for 40 years.

Born in Omaha, Reynolds moved to Sioux Falls as a 10-year-old after his father was transferred for work. He graduated from Washington High School. In junior high, Reynolds became obsessed Sherlock Holmes, checking out a book containing all the novels over and over again from the Edison Junior High School library. Finally, he said, his parents took pity on him one Christmas and gave Reynolds his own copy.

He returned to Omaha when he attended Creighton University. That’s when Reynolds first stumbled into the private-eye genre that had flourished for decades and was booming, introducing himself to writers like Parker and Raymond Chandler. Reynolds thought it would be fun to take a lighter approach with a private eye, moving him off the “mean streets” of metropolises like New York City and Los Angeles and into a community Reynolds himself knew well.

When he moved to St. Paul after graduation, he decided to work on a novel in earnest. What became “The Nebraska Quotient” was first published by St. Martin’s Press. His books eventually were republished in paperback editions in the United States, with some released in Britain, Germany, France and Australia. He also wrote short stories that appeared in anthologies or Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. A few stories featured Nebraska, but he also tried out a couple of other police detectives.

Then, life interrupted his writing. The family moved to Sioux Falls in late 1984 and raised their two children here. Reynolds even halted his reading of other writers’ mystery and detective novels, concentrating on nonfiction. Recently, though, he has returned to some old favorites like Leslie Charteris, who created Simon Templar, aka The Saint, later played by actor Roger Moore in a TV series.

He’s also slowly rereading the Travis McGee novels and was annoyed by a reprint that referred to MacDonald’s character as a “broken-down private eye.” McGee was an adventurer, Reynolds protested, who just accepted cases as favors to friends.

Reynolds turned to these authors after familiarizing himself with his own books and private eye. Brash Books allowed him to make minor changes in the earlier books, deleting references that sounded dated or sexist, and correcting typographical errors.

In a way, it was like reading a completely new author.

“I sort of dreaded the prospect,” Reynolds said of reading his own books. “Obviously, there are some  things I would do differently now. I said to my kid, I suppose this is bragging, but I actually sort of like these little sort of subplot mysteries. I couldn’t for the life of me remember how that ended, but 30 years ago I figured it out.”

Reynolds conceded he was not “terribly desperate” for Brash Books to republish his Nebraska series. He never called Goldberg asking “When? When? When?” Now, however, he relishes holding the reprints and feeling the books’ paper under his fingertips.

“Books have a feel,” Reynolds said. “Some books feel better; these books feel great. The most exciting part is they’re back, and hopefully a whole new bunch of readers discover these books.”

Could Nebraska make a seventh appearance? Goldberg would welcome it. Reynolds said he doesn’t have a new plot in mind. But he did spend time over the summer thinking about it.

Perhaps the plot will thicken.

To find the books

William J. Reynolds’ Nebraska series is available through its publisher’s website, Brash Books. They also can be found in paperback and e-book editions through Amazon. Zandbroz Variety in Sioux Falls has books in the series on order. Caution: There are two authors named William J. Reynolds. The Nebraska author did not write a book on Baptist hymns.