Novelist Gore Vidal Has Died

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Gore Vidal has died from complications of pneumonia. He was 86.

Vidal's connection to crime fiction was a brief one, writing three mysteries in the early 1950s under the pseudonym Edgar Box featuring public relations manager Peter Cutler Sargeant II. Vintage Crime reissued all three last year in both trade paperback and ebook formats and we had the pleasure of reviewing one of them, Death in the Fifth Position, saying, "[T]he real treat here is how cleverly crafted the murder mystery plot is. Though relatively short at just over 200 pages, the interrelationships between the characters are deftly woven into the story. And when the police seem to be at a loss as to how to proceed following Miles Sutton's death, Sargeant steps in and puts the pieces together for them."

The Times article concludes with a most fitting quote from the author …

"Style," Vidal once said, "is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn." By that definition, he was an emperor of style, sophisticated and cantankerous in his prophesies of America's fate and refusal to let others define him.