He’ll always have Cleveland

Wondering what Les Roberts, creator of the Milan Jacovich PI series, is up to? Writing his memoirs, for one, as the West Life Newspaper finds out:

Down these mean streets a man must go. Mean streets, with names like Bagley. Cranage. Mapleway. Railroad Street. And the dread Fitch County Maintenance Yard.

Yes, Olmsted Falls. A tough, seamy town. Just waiting for a hardboiled private investigator from the big city to sort things out. The Northrop Bookstore, at 8080 Columbia Road, is just the sort of joint he’d stake out, looking for the “mystery” section.

It’s at the Northrop that Cleveland Heights author Les Roberts, renown for his Cleveland-based Slovenian PI Milan Jacovich, will be visiting on June 17 – which happens to be a key date in Milan Jacovich history, as last year it was officially declared “Milan Jacovich Day” up at Cleveland City Hall. Roberts said his being out and about on June 17, 2006, is just a coincidence. “While it would be lovely if they set aside one day every year, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

The memoir describes how Roberts abandoned LA after 30 years for Ohio, got started writing crime fiction, and offers fun anecdotes here and there. It sounds like a must-read to me.