Hal Glatzer

The term “Renaissance man” is bandied about – often referring to someone whose talents include simply being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. If anyone deserves the title, however, it’s Hal Glatzer. No one can accuse him of allowing one side of his brain to go dormant. He’s a scientist – having written non-fiction on some pretty technical topics.  He’s a musician – playing banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, autoharp, and dulcimer in the style of traditional mountain music and Bluegrass PLUS swing music. (You can listen to him play and sing on one of his websites: www.lastfullmeasure.com.) He’s a former journalist and fiction writer -- I was introduced to his Katy Green mysteries when his publisher sent me a copy of The Last Full Measure. What a great story! Katy Green is a professional musician, classically trained, with undergraduate and graduate degrees in music. But in the pre-World War II years during which the Katy Green mysteries are set – it’s not classical music she’s playing. In The Last Full Measure, which takes place in the days leading to the invasion of Pearl Harbor, Katy is playing saxophone and violin as part of a four-woman band aboard the S.S. Lurline, headed toward Hawaii. Visiting any of the author’s websites (listed below) with your computer’s audio turned on will get you in the mood for reading Hal Glatzer’s mysteries. (Note: It’s a tough call whether the Katy Green mysteries are cozy. Like the “golden age mysteries” they’re reminiscent of, they don’t contain a lot of sex, violence or profanity – but they’re a bit darker than most cozies.)

Books:

Katy Green Mysteries

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Author Profile:

Hal likes to say he was “born and raised on a small island about the size of Molokai.” That island however, was Manhattan. He first saw Hawaii in 1967, when he was twenty-one, having just graduated from Syracuse University, and accepted an offer from the Peace Corps to train in Hilo, on the Big Island, for assignment to Malaysia.

But the more he saw of Hawaii, the less he relished going any further overseas. And then, one night in November, Kilauea Volcano erupted at its summit. Hal peered into the enormous caldera of Halemaumau, and realized that he simply had to make this island his home.  He'd crossed the Atlantic, he'd descended into the Grand Canyon . . . but nothing in his life compared to bestriding this living volcano.

He returned to the Mainland, saved his earnings, and came back to live in Hilo in 1969. After a year of substitute-teaching at Hilo High School, he took a job covering the Big Island as Bureau Chief for the Honolulu Advertiser, the state's largest daily newspaper. It made a journalist of him. In 1971 he joined the staff of the local Hilo daily, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, and edited its colorful Sunday magazine section, “Orchid Isle.” He was also a regular contributor to The Hawaii Observer, Honolulu's sharp-edged, independent tabloid.  By 1975 he was doing television news: reporting and shooting 16mm news film for KITV, the ABC affiliate in Honolulu.

Intrigued by the (then-new) potential of videotape, he accepted a job offer in - and moved to - Honolulu in 1976, to direct local cable-TV news production (and to be the Hawaii correspondent for People magazine). He also entered the University of Hawaii, to earn a master's degree in Communication, and worked as publications editor in the university's Social Science Research Institute. But upon receiving his MA in 1979, he went back into journalism full-time, as editor of The Printout - one of the very first “computer” magazines in America.

That experience, added to what Hal had learned about new communication technologies, confirmed his belief that an information revolution was imminent, and was a worthy journalistic subject.  But - sadly - to pursue such a “beat,” he had to go where the action was: back to the Mainland.  He moved to Seattle, and later to San Francisco, writing for and/or editing nearly every new “computer” publication that started up in the 1980s.

In 1992 he married Kathy Frankovic, the director of surveys (i.e., the public-opinion pollster) for CBS News, and moved to New York, where she was based. But since 1997, they have divided their time between New York and San Francisco, from which she can telecommute.

In the 1970s, Hal was a bluegrass musician, and an organizer of the Islands' nascent folk- and bluegrass music scenes. Thirty years later, having become accomplished in the Swing and Jazz styles of the 1920s, '30s and '40s, he has broadened his musical circles, too.

Hal and Kathy bought five acres of land on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island, near Akaka Falls.  So on their “vacations,” they also whack weeds and clear brush, in preparation for building a new and permanent home, so they can live year-round in the islands they love.

Profile from www.lastfullmeasure.com. Used with permission. Photo courtesy of the author.

Author websites: