Guest Post: Writing “A Hard Night in Hamburg” by Tom Milani

Please welcome Tom Milani to the blog today with a guest post on writing a short story for the Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties anthology. Edited by Michael Bracken, the anthology is currently scheduled to come out in April 2022.  

 

Writing “A Hard Night in Hamburg” by Tom Milani

 

Somewhere on social media I saw a question: If you could go back in time to see any band perform, which band would it be? I thought about it and decided I’d want to see the Beatles in Hamburg. Before Beatlemania and the screaming crowds, before the band was in its final form. The time when the Beatles were becoming The Beatles.

Sometime later, Michael Bracken issued a call for Groovy Gumshoes, an anthology of stories that take place during the 1960s and feature a PI. He noted that prominent events of the 1960s could be featured (such as Woodstock), but added that they needed to be integral to the plot. I immediately knew the setting of my story: Hamburg, Germany, 1960.

For period details I consulted Mark Lewisohn’s invaluable Tune In, The Beatles: All These Years, Volume 1, and Tim Riley’s Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music—The Definitive Life. Lewisohn’s descriptions of Hamburg and its nightclub scene and period photos in both books informed the atmosphere of the story. Google Earth and Google Maps helped me understand the layout of the city.

The setup was simple. Richter, my protagonist, is hired by Major Waters to find the killer of Philip, his son. A sailor in the Navy, Philip was killed while on liberty in Hamburg. At that point, I didn’t know much about Richter. He was a loner and a combat veteran who was willing to work outside the law. But as I wrote, his character came into focus, and I began to see how the case could become personal for him. A writer friend of mine read a draft and felt that the ending wasn’t supported by events earlier in the story. That comment caused me to revise Richter’s view of Hamburg and his place in it. Doing so raised the stakes for him, which ultimately reshaped the ending.

Richter recognizes the Beatles’ future before they do. That recognition spurs him to finally examine his own life, to consider his future beyond the next job. I didn’t know any of this when I started writing, but with a little help from a friend, and by immersing myself in Richter’s world, the ending became clear.

I’m honored to be part of this collection, which will be published early next year, and am looking forward to reading each contributor’s take on the decade.

Tom Milani ©2021

Tom Milani's novel Blues for the Road was shortlisted in the St. Martin/Private Eye Writers of America contest. Tom is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. For 10 years, he edited The Masik, the online journal of Qajaq USA, and for the last 25 years, he has been a technical editor for a federally funded research and development center. Tom has a BA and an MA from George Mason University, where he studied writing under Richard Bausch and Steve Goodwin. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, glass artist Alison Sigethy. His website is https://www.tommilani.com/