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''Sometimes the life we lead externally is more responsibility than pleasure, but the life we live internally makes it bearable. It is, however, the life that we live secretly, in the deepest of our heart of hearts that is the most rewarding of all. There we can be anyone we want and experience the most audacious adventures imaginable because that is the form they take. Where else can you be the hero who is never defeated but only momentarily stymied by the ultimate villain? It is at that point that fiction becomes far more real than reality itself. That is how the author of this tale became Jack Cannon, ace reporter and full time undercover cop, and lived to tell the story. Welcome to my world.''
Jack Cannon, retired military, who started out to be a cop but got side-tracked into crime writing, before becoming the entertainment editor for Charleston Publications, writing about the nightlife in the older San Carlos section of San Francisco. He began as a straight reviewer of acts in the local watering-holes and the major theatrical shows passing through, now a self-described combination Damon Runyon/Herb Caen type who ''...writes about whatever I damn well please. Usually, I write about the people I meet on my beat.''
Inspired by noir greats like Hammet and Chandler, Charles Walker's tale is a dance between reality and fiction, where San Francisco's hidden tales come alive after dark.
*Editor's Note: All my life, Dad was always writing something, mostly for his own pleasure. He only ever actually Published one book, a volume of his Haiku Poetry, and he was already in his ninth decade when he did that. When he passed from cancer-related illness in 2021, at the ripe old age of 93, I wanted to share some of his work, and if anything should actually sell, donating a percentage of his book sales to continue supporting his favorite cancer-support charities.
Thank You
Robert Walker
April 2024
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About the Author Charles Walker grew up on some of the biggest construction projects of his times, because his family worked for Mr Kaiser’s famous ''Six Companies'' consortium. He started school while they built Boulder, now called Hoover, Dam, in the American Southwest, through Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams in the Northwest, before graduating in Portland, near the Oregon Shipyards, and joining the Army, serving a tour in Post-War Japan.
Dad had a lifelong interest in writing, whether the technical writing for his day job, or writing for his own pleasure, trying out different styles and subjects. He produced a few short articles throughout his professional life, but it was not until his early 80s that he published his first book, a volume of his own Haiku Poetry. He kept at it, sometimes printing a few volumes for the fun of it to give to friends and family. For him, it was the writing, even more than others reading, so he continued, completing several more stories across a variety of genres, including another volume of Haiku, a collection of short stories, and a few novels based upon incidents from his long life.
When he passed from cancer-related illness in 2021, at the ripe old age of 93, I wanted to honor him by re-printing some of the books that I liked, donating a percentage of any sales to continue supporting his favorite cancer-relief charities.
Thank You
Robert Walker
Newport, TN
