James Crumley, 68, whose poetic and violent tales of crime in the American West made him a patron saint of the post-Vietnam private-eye novel, died Tuesday of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases in Missoula, Mont. Crumley published 11 books, the best-known of which was "The Last Good Kiss" (1978), whose opening line has been widely called the best in crime fiction: "When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonora, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." That line, he said, took him eight years to write. But it, and the book, proved influential to a generation of crime novelists. His books, starting with "One to Count Cadence" (1969) were compelling studies of the gratuitous violence in men, and he had "a faultless ear for filthy speech," reviewer David Dempsey said in the New York Times.

Don Ultang, 91, a Pulitzer prize-winning photographer for the Des Moines Register known for his images of a racially charged assault of a black football player during a game in 1951, died Thursday. Ultang was probably best known for his photos of a white Oklahoma A&M University player striking a black Drake quarterback in the face after the ball had been handed off. Ultang and his colleague John Robinson shared the Pulitzer in 1952 for the photos, which were published in Life magazine.

Paul Flynn, a former president of USA Today and publisher of two Florida newspapers, died Thursday in Fort Myers, Fla., a day after his 73rd birthday. He was a member of the start-up team for USA Today and was named executive vice president in 1983. He became the paper's president the next year. He was president and publisher of the News-Press in Fort Myers from 1977 to 1983, and served as publisher of the Pensacola News Journal from 1984 to 1987.

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