In the final pages of his 2010 novel “Deadline Man,” the writer Jon Talton’s main character — a business columnist at a Seattle daily newspaper — sits on a bench at 2 a.m. as the newspaper presses roll. He can feel the vibration on the sidewalk, as the immense machines “perform their nightly miracle” and stories wing their way onto waiting newsprint; it’s a moment of deep connection for him, illuminating why he does what he does.
You can’t read that scene and not think of Talton himself, a proudly self-described newspaperman and novelist, in love with the magic of print and the way that words could capture a city. A fourth-generation son of Phoenix, Arizona, who made Seattle his home in 2007, Talton spent his career telling stories. His long career was dual: in journalism, as a thoughtful, informed business reporter, columnist and editor, writing for The Seattle Times and numerous other publications; and in fiction, as the author of 14 detective novels.
Talton died on Jan. 28, of organ failure secondary to a longtime history of spinal-cord tumors. He was 69.
“He was a very kind human being,” said his wife of 25 years, Susan Talton, describing a man who loved train travel, music, history (particularly the history of Phoenix, about which he published a book in 2015), dry martinis and hosting dinner parties full of lively conversation. Talton grew up in a historic district of Phoenix, raised by his mother and grandmother in a home full of “music and books and love,” Susan said. In their downtown Seattle condo, she said, “We had that same kind of home here.”
Studying history and theater (with a music minor) at Arizona State University, Talton dreamed long ago of being a history professor. During postgraduate study in history at Miami University, his wife said, an adviser told him that he wrote too clearly to be published academically. A journalism career quickly followed, with publications including the Dayton Daily News (where his team was a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Cincinnati Enquirer, Rocky Mountain News, Charlotte Observer and — closest to his heart — The Arizona Republic, where he wrote columns for the business section from 2000 to 2007.
His work at the Republic — both loving and critical of his hometown, particularly on issues of development — was widely read and influential. The mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, posted on X on Jan. 30, “Jon Talton loved Phoenix — its history, its people & its promise. He challenged us to live up to that promise & was never timid in letting us know when he thought we got it wrong. We’re a better community because of his voice & his legacy will long endure.” In an outpouring of affection for Talton on the Vintage Phoenix Facebook group, one person wrote simply, “He, and the writing he has left behind, will be interwoven with the history of Arizona.”
Arriving in Seattle in 2007, Talton quickly immersed himself in the city. “He had a big capacity to adopt new communities and learn about them and value what was the best in them,” said Athia Hardt, a longtime friend and former journalist at The Arizona Republic. “He wasn’t the sort of person who went into a city and didn’t find out what made it tick — he always was a student of everywhere he went.”
Among the stories he helped cover in his years at The Seattle Times, as he listed in a “retirement” column in 2019, were the collapse of Washington Mutual, the Great Recession, the Boeing Dreamliner’s delays, the growth of Amazon and transformation of South Lake Union, the Northwest Seaport Alliance, losses of iconic retailers, Big Tech, and the impact of growth on our city. Talton’s retirement didn’t exactly take: Asked to return in 2020 to help cover the pandemic’s effect on the local economy, he eagerly resumed the job he loved, contributing regular columns until just before his death.
“He would talk to people on so many sides of an issue and then just kind of cut through all of that, in a really clear way,” said Seattle Times Executive Editor Michele Matassa Flores. “In writing about things like downtown recovering postpandemic, he was really incisive — he kind of reflected Seattle back to itself, in a way that made you stop and think.”
Talton “thought carefully and deeply about the economy and issues of people’s financial well-being, and he could ask those difficult questions to powerful people,” said Becky Bisbee, who was editor of the business section when Talton was hired. A Seattle Times reader, contacting the paper after Talton’s death, wrote of his appreciation of Talton’s coverage of downtown Seattle: “He helped me remain hopeful for our great city … and for that, I’m eternally grateful.”
In tandem with Talton’s journalism career was another identity: as a writer of crime fiction novels that offered rich portraits of the cities in which they were set. His work included nine Arizona-set mysteries featuring historian David Mapstone; his wife described the series, begun while Talton was living in Cincinnati, as “a love letter home to Phoenix.” Other published fiction included two 1930s noir novels featuring Phoenix private investigator Gene Hammons, two novels set in a Cincinnati hospital, and the stand-alone Seattle thriller “Deadline Man.”
“He was a very clever plotter,” said Barbara Peters, his longtime editor at Poisoned Pen Press, which published most of his books. “He was a person of great grit and determination, and I think that showed up in his plots.” Though she thought “Deadline Man” was “in many ways his very best work,” she greatly admired his Phoenix series. “He was able to embroider the geography and the culture and the history of Phoenix into his books in a way that no one else has done.”
In the months before his death, Susan Talton said, her husband was working on a new novel inspired by his experiences as a young EMT technician in the 1970s, to be called “Unknown Trouble.” As was his habit, he would read chapters of his work-in-progress aloud to Susan, on cozy Sunday nights at home over martinis. “I’m sorry he won’t get to finish it,” she said. “He was busy writing up to the end.”
Talton is survived by his wife, who said a memorial service will be held Feb. 24 at First United Methodist Church in his beloved hometown of Phoenix; a Seattle memorial gathering of friends will take place on a date to be determined. For Seattleites wishing to make a local charitable donation in his memory, Susan said her book-loving husband would have suggested the Seattle Public Library.
Talton, via his “Deadline Man” hero/alter ego, can have the last word here, marveling from that bench on a Seattle sidewalk in the darkness of very early morning. “I am here,” he writes, “outside the newspaper building, watching the presses thunder. For this moment, which is all I really have, it is enough.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
