Twenty-one years after its first publication, Gas Head Willy, a detective story set in Owen Sound in the early 1920s written by local author Richard J. Thomas, will be available both on stage and on the internet.
Owen Sound Little Theatre veteran Bill Murphy has adapted the novel into a play which will premiere at The Roxy on September 22-23. Filled with boozers, brawlers and bootleggers, the stage production will take the form of a 1940s radio play, complete with non-automated sound effects and original piano scoring.
Gas Head Willy will also become the first e-book from The Ginger Press, which has published over 100 mostly local books in the last 30 years. "I have consistently resisted anything other than words-on-paper books," says publisher Maryann Thomas. "But Gas Head Willy has been out of print for so long as a stand-alone book that it made sense to try this new format for a new generation of readers."
Author Richard J. Thomas was recently awarded the Grey County Historical Society Heritage Certificate of Recognition for his work in promoting, preserving and sharing the stories and photographs of Grey County's history through several media. There are seven novels in his D.B. Murphy detectives series, beginning with Gas Head Willy, which chronicle life in Owen Sound when the effects of prohibition dominated this small Ontario town. The eighth, The Trail of the Griffin, is due out for Christmas this year.
Tickets for Gas Head Willy on stage are available from The Roxy. Downloads for the Gas Head Willy e-book are available at www.gasheadwilly.ca. Gas Head Willy is also part of the Horseshoe to Gumshoe omnibus, which includes the first three novels in the series, for those preferring words-on-paper books it is available at The Ginger Press).
