Old Lyme novelist David Handler discusses his latest Hoagy and Lulo mystery Wednesday for Day book club

Jun. 20—Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag, the star of a dozen titles in a series of novels by Old Lyme author David Handler, is not a science fiction character. He's an amateur sleuth who solves murders with the help of his preternaturally gifted basset hound Lulu.

Handler, on the other hand, is a time traveler of such efficiency that he'd make Jack Finney or H.G. Welles proud.

What happens is, as the books are firmly set in the early 1990s, Handler transports himself almost three decades into the past each time he writes a new Hoagy and Lulu adventure. And that's fine with Handler.

"My brain is like a compost pile of American pop culture going back all the way back to childhood," says Handler, 68. "TV, movies, rock music, celebrities ... I love that stuff. Part of the big fun for me is that so many of the references take me back to a time that doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess it is. When the first Hoagy novel was published ('The Man Who Died Laughing,' 1988), my current editor hadn't been born yet."

On Wednesday, Handler is the virtual guest on the latest of our "Read of The Day" book club events held in partnership with Bank Square Books in Mystic. He's celebrating "The Man Who Wasn't All There," the 12th Hoagy/Lulu novel. In the story, Hoagy, a one-time literary superstar feverishly working on a new novel after several years of writer's block and work ghostwriting celebrity memoirs, travels from New York City to Lyme for a bit of autumnal R&R. He and Lulu are staying at the cottage owned by film star Merrilee Nash, Hoag's ex-wife — with whom he's cautiously rekindling the relationship.

It should be an idyllic, foliage-filled respite until a highly disturbed local man shows up with threats. Turns out the individual, Austin Talmadge, has been in and out of institutions his whole life and has assaulted or troubled numerous area residents. But he's always been handled by doctors and law enforcement with delicate discretion because he's the second-richest person in Connecticut. The only one wealthier is his older brother Michael — who is terrified of him.

There is no shortage of suspects, then, when Austin is found at the bottom of a gully with his throat slashed. In fact, the only two not under scrutiny are Lulu and Hoagy, who have been kidnapped and are trapped in a cave. Thanks to Lulu's inherent acumen at digging, the two escape and become integral in the investigation — which is peppered by Hoagy's cackle-out-loud observations and wisecracks and Lulu's mackerel-breathed exhalations, snorts and nudges that prove unerring in sleuthing guidance.

A premature (literary) burial

One of the most unlikely things about "The Man Who Wasn't All There" is that it exists at all. Until a few years ago, Handler had abandoned the Edgar Award-winning series despite its popularity. He felt the rapidly changing world of technology and social media rendered the idea of someone who ghostwrites celebrity autobiographies anachronistic.

"Celebrity ghostwriting was actually a big deal before the internet," Handler says earlier this week from his home in Old Lyme. "I remember when I was working on the first book in 1986, Rock Hudson came on television looking haggard and gaunt and disclosed he had AIDS. And the world was shocked; he was a huge film star. Of course, all of Hollywood knew he was gay but not in the rest of the world. There were industry gatekeepers back then. In the sports world, people knew Mickey Mantle had drinking problems and was a womanizer, but there was a sort of gentlemen's agreement in those situations where the celebrities had images crafted for them, and those images were upheld.

"That can't happen now. That stuff hits social media in 24 hours, and so the idea of Hoagy still crafting these memoirs wouldn't happen. There are no more celebrity secrets. And I moved on because there was no place left for Hoagy to go."

Handler was fine. He authored 10 books in the Berger/Mitry series — set in a fictional version of Old Lyme — and two more in the Benji Gold series. He missed Hoagy and Lulu but played the hand he'd been dealt, or thought he'd been dealt.

Then, a few years ago, when his agent Dominick Abel was having lunch with Random House executive editor Dan Mallory in New York. Mallory mentioned Abel repped the author of his favorite mystery series — Handler and his Hoagy and Lulu books — and wondered why he's stopped writing them. Abel explained the ongoing timeline of the books would conflict with real-world developments in technology.

Ressurecting the franchise

Mallory had a thought: why didn't Handler simply freeze Lulu and Hoagy in the early '90s, and the series could continue ad infinitum as period books?

"I was embarrassed that had never occurred to me," Handler laughs. But not so embarrassed he didn't get to work. After 20 years, Hoagy and Lulu returned in 2017 with "The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes," and now "The Man Who Almost Wasn't There" is the fifth book since the comeback.

He says one of his favorite tools and discoveries since he resurrected Hoagy and Lulu is a website that has the first page of each issue of the tabloid National Enquirer going back decades. "I can flip through those and be instantly transported back to the past and be reminded of all sorts of great things. And it's really entertaining to see what movies topped the box office or what records topped the charts."

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'

One last aspect of time as it pertains to Handler and his Hoagland books: The writer sounds simultaneously wistful, amused and accepting when he ponders temporal realities.

"I consider myself at this point extremely lucky," he says. "Nobody in publishing wants a white male writer over the age of 60 — and I get it. I'm still getting published because of a loyal fanbase for Hoagy and Lulu. It's not a huge fanbase, but it's loyal.

"There's always a generational shift, and it's absolutely the way of the world. I'm definitely woke. We're discovering new writers and voices that haven't had a chance to be heard before, and they deserve to be heard — writers of color and different sexuality and cultures — and we're seeing it reflected in what's getting published and what people are reading."

Handler thinks a moment and laughs. "When I first wrote Hoagy, he was young and hip and smoked pot and listened to rock, and it was a big deal and a new thing in the mystery world. That was not happening for the people reading or writing mysteries. I remember being 35 and going for the first time to Bouchercon (the world's biggest gathering of mystery writers), and it seemed like all the authors besides me were 30 years older. And I thought, 'Why don't you go away? It's our time.'

"And, of course, now I'm the old-school guy, and what I consider mystery fiction is crossed with thrillers or vampires and zombies. To me, those aren't murder mysteries. I mean, there are even elves solving crimes."

Handler does say he hears from new fans who are younger readers and suspects it's partly because there will always be an exotic aura about the past. "It's been fun to illuminate an era for younger readers who are curious about a period that, in some ways, to me, doesn't seem that long ago. But so much HAS changed. In a lot of ways, Hoagy is my alter ego. He's taller and funnier than I am, and he's locked in a pretty great time. I enjoy visiting him."