Maxine O'Callaghan (1937–2024)
Author of Set-up
Series
Works by Maxine O'Callaghan
Wolf Winter 1 copy
Associated Works
A Taste of Murder: Diabolically Delicious Recipes from Contemporary Mystery Writers (1999) — Contributor — 48 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1937
- Date of death
- 2024
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- detective novelist
crime novelist
mystery writer
short story writer - Awards and honors
- The Eye (Lifetime Achievement Award, PWA 1999)
- Short biography
- From Brash Books: Maxine O’Callaghan was born in Tennessee and grew up in Missouri as a sharecropper’s child. She was the first in her large extended family to finish high school and left a few days after graduation with $10 and a bus ticket for Memphis. She went from there to Miami, where she joined the Marine Corp Reserve, and then to Chicago, where she went on active duty for a while and got her first taste of California during basic training at the Recruit Depot in San Diego. In 1972, she moved with her husband and two children to Orange County, California. As a stay-at-home mom, she began her writing career with short stories, including one for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine about a private detective named Delilah West, which predates both Marcia Muller and Sue Grafton’s entry into the female PI genre. She published 13 novels and a collection of short stories. She has been nominated for both the Anthony and Bram Stoker award. Her novels and short fiction featuring Delilah West were honored by the Private Eye Writers of America with their lifetime achievement award, The Eye, for her contribution to the field.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Tennessee, USA
- Places of residence
- Orange County, California, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Delilah West - a good name for a private eye, no? It brings to mind a cunning femme fatale and hints at a notion of the dangerous strength of women. So much implied in just a name! But Delilah West is not a pure stereotype. She is a self-motivated woman, 36 years old, previously married, trying not to think about a boyfriend she hasn't seen in quite a while and trying to ignore her bordering-on-lustful feelings toward a new man in her life. As the story starts she is on a stake-out and the show more target is a woman Delilah fingered as a thief during an undercover investigation. It is hot, she is sweating in her new van and has been sitting and waiting for far too long and has to pee. She mops sweat trickling down her face, she squirms and sighs and wonders how long she can hold out before going to look for a bathroom.
Later in the week, having wrapped up the undercover investigation, Delilah meets a friend for lunch and discovers that it isn't really the social occasion she had thought; it's a set-up for a meeting with a potential client, a raw-boned pioneer woman environmentalist, a veteran of protests and tear gas and arrests, and she has received a letter bomb. She just isn't sure about having Delilah handle her case, or even if there is a need for a PI.
Thus begins a thrilling and confusing story that starts with a very concrete, visceral vision of Delilah's discomfort with the heat, then being set up and tricked, and moves steadily toward theft, bombing, murder, and a number of possible perpetrators, all occurring before the backdrop of a natural environment that has been denuded and raped for commercial gain. Delilah's focus, however, is not on the environment, nor even the physical clues. Rather, she concentrates on the people involved, observing and listening - to how her suspects talk to a spouse, conduct business, keep secrets, etc. She interprets the motives behind these actions, makes inferences and homes in on the guilty party, all fueling a growing awareness of the mortal danger she and others face.
Delilah West is cast in a mold similar to the ones that shape Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton's character), Sharon McCone (Marcia Muller), V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky), and a slew of other female sleuths. The concrete details we learn of them are formed by their clothing (they all seem to prefer jeans or sweats), their hair, their cars (very functional), their friends and relationships, their favorite hang-outs, and their nostalgia for earlier, saner times. For each, instinct and intuition are unquestionably useful investigative tools, but each also keeps carefully detailed records, a gun, just in case, and wrestles with the onus of running a business and maintaining sufficient cash flow. These are realistic women who choose to work in dire situations, motivated both by the excitement and by a drive to help restore order to a chaotic world, to set things right. They are tough-minded and active professionals, preferring the field to the desk and focussed totally on their professions. Delilah and her cohorts are fun to read and inspiring!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less
Later in the week, having wrapped up the undercover investigation, Delilah meets a friend for lunch and discovers that it isn't really the social occasion she had thought; it's a set-up for a meeting with a potential client, a raw-boned pioneer woman environmentalist, a veteran of protests and tear gas and arrests, and she has received a letter bomb. She just isn't sure about having Delilah handle her case, or even if there is a need for a PI.
Thus begins a thrilling and confusing story that starts with a very concrete, visceral vision of Delilah's discomfort with the heat, then being set up and tricked, and moves steadily toward theft, bombing, murder, and a number of possible perpetrators, all occurring before the backdrop of a natural environment that has been denuded and raped for commercial gain. Delilah's focus, however, is not on the environment, nor even the physical clues. Rather, she concentrates on the people involved, observing and listening - to how her suspects talk to a spouse, conduct business, keep secrets, etc. She interprets the motives behind these actions, makes inferences and homes in on the guilty party, all fueling a growing awareness of the mortal danger she and others face.
Delilah West is cast in a mold similar to the ones that shape Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton's character), Sharon McCone (Marcia Muller), V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky), and a slew of other female sleuths. The concrete details we learn of them are formed by their clothing (they all seem to prefer jeans or sweats), their hair, their cars (very functional), their friends and relationships, their favorite hang-outs, and their nostalgia for earlier, saner times. For each, instinct and intuition are unquestionably useful investigative tools, but each also keeps carefully detailed records, a gun, just in case, and wrestles with the onus of running a business and maintaining sufficient cash flow. These are realistic women who choose to work in dire situations, motivated both by the excitement and by a drive to help restore order to a chaotic world, to set things right. They are tough-minded and active professionals, preferring the field to the desk and focussed totally on their professions. Delilah and her cohorts are fun to read and inspiring!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less
Delilah West is an old fashioned Private Investigator, she knocks on doors, she asks questions, she follows a trail, she gets kicked to the ground but she always gets back up. In this mystery (the third in the series) Delilah witnesses a hit and run accident. What seems cut and dried case turns out to have a few more twists and hazards for Delilah before she can say case closed.
Delilah is a take no prisoner kind of person and life has not been kind to her. Even though this the third book in show more the series you will be able to read it as a stand-alone as O’Callaghan provides the right amount of background at the right time.
The writing is snappy, engaging, the action is plenty and Delilah makes a great character. She is tough, is carrying quite a bit of personal baggage and is trying to rebuild her life after some serious setbacks.
The mystery is complicated but not in the way of being bogged down with depth forensics, DNA or doing any psychological analysis, Deliah West just shakes the tree and see what will drop. I have to say that is refreshing as sometimes she manages to get it wrong and her fallibility is a good thing. She is not a perfect PI with all answers, she makes mistakes, judges people wrong but has the tenacity to keep going. When she does get it right you do appreciate that she has got there through hard work and persistence.
When I started to read this I had a feeling I had met the character of Deliah West before and I had having read the first book back in the 90s. It is good to see this series being given another run as O’Callaghan was a trailblazer as was Delilah
Give the series a go, you will not be disappointed as this is a good old fashioned detective story where the following the clues gets you to a result.
You will find more of O'Callaghan's works at Brash Books http://mysterythrillerbooks.com/author/maxine-ocallaghan/ show less
Delilah is a take no prisoner kind of person and life has not been kind to her. Even though this the third book in show more the series you will be able to read it as a stand-alone as O’Callaghan provides the right amount of background at the right time.
The writing is snappy, engaging, the action is plenty and Delilah makes a great character. She is tough, is carrying quite a bit of personal baggage and is trying to rebuild her life after some serious setbacks.
The mystery is complicated but not in the way of being bogged down with depth forensics, DNA or doing any psychological analysis, Deliah West just shakes the tree and see what will drop. I have to say that is refreshing as sometimes she manages to get it wrong and her fallibility is a good thing. She is not a perfect PI with all answers, she makes mistakes, judges people wrong but has the tenacity to keep going. When she does get it right you do appreciate that she has got there through hard work and persistence.
When I started to read this I had a feeling I had met the character of Deliah West before and I had having read the first book back in the 90s. It is good to see this series being given another run as O’Callaghan was a trailblazer as was Delilah
Give the series a go, you will not be disappointed as this is a good old fashioned detective story where the following the clues gets you to a result.
You will find more of O'Callaghan's works at Brash Books http://mysterythrillerbooks.com/author/maxine-ocallaghan/ show less
Books began reissuing these books in digital format that I discovered this author and the Delilah West mysteries, which is one more reason why I love electronic books and e-readers.
In this fourth Delilah West mystery, we find our heroine doing much better, building a clientele and making a little money which has her living a more stable life. However, she is also quite aware that she has been receiving a little help from someone and that it's time to put a stop to it and stand on her own show more merits now.
But, life gets shaky in a hurry when Delilah falls victim to a set - up that eventually leads to murder. While the prime suspect certainly looks guilty, Delilah is positive she's innocent and sets out to find the real murderer.
I really like Delilah and if you are a fan of the Sue Grafton alphabet series, you will most likely find these books appealing. Told in first person, we are privy to all of Delilah's crime solving thoughts, her musings on her personal life, and are treated to her self deprecating humor, wit, and humanity. Despite the tough outer shell she presents, she's really a nice, caring person with human foibles and desires, and is someone I couldn't help but cheer for.
The story is pretty basic, and the plot is not really all that original, by today's standards, but there were some pretty tense and suspenseful moments along the way.
On a more personal note, Delilah's private life is still up in the air as far as romance is concerned and I'm hoping something will come from her relationship with Eric, who seems plenty contrite and is perhaps worthy of a chance.
One thing to keep in mind is the time frame these stories were written in. Although there was a brief cell phone reference, something that made me wonder if perhaps this was thrown in the digital version as an afterthought, in an attempt to modernize the story a little, because I'm thinking only a few people had cell phones in the early nineties. If that was indeed the case, it would have been better to have left that out, because it stuck out like a sore thumb. No internet, answering machines, and several other huge clues, make it obvious this book is not set in present day.
However, I thought the nostalgia was part of the story's charm, and rather liked the old school detective skills, which did not rely on computers and smart phones to do all the work.
This is a short read, well plotted and written, nice steady pacing, and a pretty solid mystery, despite it's ordinary storyline, and the action/suspense elements more than make up for anything lacking in that area. I enjoyed this whodunit and recommend it to anyone that likes reading mysteries. show less
In this fourth Delilah West mystery, we find our heroine doing much better, building a clientele and making a little money which has her living a more stable life. However, she is also quite aware that she has been receiving a little help from someone and that it's time to put a stop to it and stand on her own show more merits now.
But, life gets shaky in a hurry when Delilah falls victim to a set - up that eventually leads to murder. While the prime suspect certainly looks guilty, Delilah is positive she's innocent and sets out to find the real murderer.
I really like Delilah and if you are a fan of the Sue Grafton alphabet series, you will most likely find these books appealing. Told in first person, we are privy to all of Delilah's crime solving thoughts, her musings on her personal life, and are treated to her self deprecating humor, wit, and humanity. Despite the tough outer shell she presents, she's really a nice, caring person with human foibles and desires, and is someone I couldn't help but cheer for.
The story is pretty basic, and the plot is not really all that original, by today's standards, but there were some pretty tense and suspenseful moments along the way.
On a more personal note, Delilah's private life is still up in the air as far as romance is concerned and I'm hoping something will come from her relationship with Eric, who seems plenty contrite and is perhaps worthy of a chance.
One thing to keep in mind is the time frame these stories were written in. Although there was a brief cell phone reference, something that made me wonder if perhaps this was thrown in the digital version as an afterthought, in an attempt to modernize the story a little, because I'm thinking only a few people had cell phones in the early nineties. If that was indeed the case, it would have been better to have left that out, because it stuck out like a sore thumb. No internet, answering machines, and several other huge clues, make it obvious this book is not set in present day.
However, I thought the nostalgia was part of the story's charm, and rather liked the old school detective skills, which did not rely on computers and smart phones to do all the work.
This is a short read, well plotted and written, nice steady pacing, and a pretty solid mystery, despite it's ordinary storyline, and the action/suspense elements more than make up for anything lacking in that area. I enjoyed this whodunit and recommend it to anyone that likes reading mysteries. show less
"Hit and Run" is one of the older detective novels that Brash Books is reissuing in paper and ebook. It was originally published as "Hit and Run (Mean Streets)" in 1999. Either Ms O'Callaghan updated the book for this edition or her prose is timeless. I did not even notice the book's age until I checked before writing this review.
Delilah West is awfully stubborn and it gets her in trouble. She has been trying to keep the detective agency going since her husband's murder but it isn't easy and show more she finds herself taking assignments that she doesn't like and waitressing on the side. One night she witnesses a hit and run accident that killed an old man. A few days later she is offered a dream job working for a dreamy man. Is this a coincidence?
Generally the book is fine but I thought the writing was a little haphazard. I didn't exactly understand the wrap-up, but that didn't detract much from my enjoyment of the book.
I received an advance review copy of "Hit and Run: A Delilah West Thriller" by Maxine O'Callaghan (Brash Books) through NetGalley.com. It was originally published by St Martins Press. show less
Delilah West is awfully stubborn and it gets her in trouble. She has been trying to keep the detective agency going since her husband's murder but it isn't easy and show more she finds herself taking assignments that she doesn't like and waitressing on the side. One night she witnesses a hit and run accident that killed an old man. A few days later she is offered a dream job working for a dreamy man. Is this a coincidence?
Generally the book is fine but I thought the writing was a little haphazard. I didn't exactly understand the wrap-up, but that didn't detract much from my enjoyment of the book.
I received an advance review copy of "Hit and Run: A Delilah West Thriller" by Maxine O'Callaghan (Brash Books) through NetGalley.com. It was originally published by St Martins Press. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 24
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 260
- Popularity
- #88,385
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 9
- ISBNs
- 28