SHELLEY SINGER – Spit in the Ocean. Jake Samson #4. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1987. Worldwide, paperback, June 1989.

   Vandalism — let’s not get into whether you’d call it murder — at a sperm bank, then a fatal accident off the rocky spit into the ocean north of San Francisco suspiciously does look like murder. Luckily unlicensed PI Jake Samson is already on hand to investigate.

   Along with him is his partner, Rosie Vincente. It takes a while to determine their relationship more than that, but in a word: none. This mystery comes as close to the classic detective story as any I’ve read recently, spoiled only by a “gratuitous” sex scene.

        The Jake Samson series —

Samson’s Deal. St. Martin’s, 1983.
Free Draw. St. Martin’s, 1984.
Full House. St. Martin’s, 1986.]
Spit in the Ocean. St. Martin’s, 1987.
Suicide King. St. Martin’s, 1988.
Royal Flush. Perseverance, 1999.

RICHARD HOYT – 30 for a Harry. John Denson #2. M. Evans, hardcover, 1981. Penguin, paperback, 1984.

   Having worked for a newspaper at one time himself, private eye John Denson is a natural to be hired by the Seattle Star to help flush out a Harry, vernacular for a crooked reporter with a habit of shaking down local business establishments.

   Denison has a suspect from the start, but when the man is found murdered, the scope of his investigation is widened dramatically. The local vice industry is strongly interested in the case, and so are certain Japanese gentlemen with a finger in the area’s salmon business.

   Hoyt’s first book and Denson’s case immediately preceding this one was entitled Decoys, and overall, it’s probably the stronger of the two. The approach taken this time around is considerably more direct, for one thing, with fewer layers of misdirection being applied. Hoyt has a winning way in creating well-defined characters, however — in this case those especially of the type usually found hanging around a city room. I’m already looking forward to his next one.

        The John Denson series —

1. Decoys (1980)
2. Thirty for a Harry (1981)
3. The Siskiyou Two-Step (1983) aka Siskiyou (1984)
4. Fish Story (1985)
5. Whoo? (1991)
6. Bigfoot (1993)
7. Snake Eyes (1995)
8. The Weatherman’s Daughters (2003)
9. Pony Girls (2004)

DON WINSLOW – A Cool Breeze on the Underground. Neal Carey #1. St.Martin’s, hardcover. 1991; paperback, 1996. Nominated for an Edgar award for Best First Novel.

   Neal Carey is a young man employed by a firm called Friends of the Family, which exists to solve nagging little problems that might annoy friends, acquaintances, or business associates of an old New England bank. Carey is called away from his studies — the firm is financing his education — to hunt down the daughter of a politician who has run away from home, and has been sighted in London.

   He doesn’t care much for the assignment, or the timing that’s going to cause him to fail a course, but really doesn’t have much choice. And as if finding a runaway in a huge city weren’t chore enough, he’s given a deadline. Off he goes to the Smoke, where he finds that nothing is ever simple. But he already knew that.

   I can see why Winslow is getting a lot of attention. I don’t know whether the series will stand the test of time — or even if the second and third are as good as the first, for that matter — but I liked this considerably. A good bit of the book is devoted to flashbacks that tell us who Carey is, and how he got to where he is today, and these interludes are well integrated with the story proper.

   Winslow has what may be the most important ingredient in making it big in the field — an engaging “voice.” His characters are interesting and believable, his narration smooth. The plot was nothing special, but nothing especially offensive either. Underground is one of the better series debuts I’ve read, and it will be interesting to see if he can maintain the standard he’s set.

      The Neal Carey series —

A Cool Breeze on the Underground (1990)
The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror (1992)
Way Down on the High Lonely (1994)
A Long Walk Up the Waterslide (1995).
While Drowning in the Desert (1996).

MICHAEL INNES – Lord Mullion’s Secret. Charles Honeybath #3. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1982. Penguin, US, paperback, 1983. Published previously in the UK by Victor Gollancz, hardcover, 1981.

   There may be a few others, but Innes is one mystery writer who can get away with writing a full-length detective story that doesn’t have a single murder in it. Famed portrait painter Charles Honeybath returns for this latest of now three witty adventures. allowing Innes’s more famous detective character, Sir John Appleby, to continue enjoying his retirement a while longer.

   Asked by an old friend to paint his wife, Honeybath quickly discovers that Mullion Castle is filled to the brim with secrets. Small unaccountable things begin to happen as soon as he arrives, including some switched paintings, a clandestine romance between a gardener and the lord’s older daughter, and a dotty great-aunt’s sudden penchant for sleepwalking.

   Stately mansions may be becoming more and more difficult to maintain, but they do have their places in mystery fiction, don’t they?

      The Charles Honeybath series —

The Mysterious Commission. Gollancz 1974
Honeybath’s Haven. Gollancz 1977
Lord Mullion’s Secret. Gollancz 1981
Appleby and Honeybath. Gollancz 1983

EMMETT McDOWELL – Stamped for Death. Jonathan Knox #1 . Ace Double D-329, paperback original, 1958.

   I used to collect stamps. I’ve never been able to explain what the fascination is, but even though I sold my collection some time ago, for no good reason, the urge has never quite gone away. I never had any like the ones at the core of this story, though, a set of rare Hawaiian “missionary” stamps.

   Louisville auctioneer Jonathan Knox has an eye for rare collectibles, too. After a few stories for the pulps (*), this is his first book appearance. I’m sorry to say that it shows. Lots of incoherent action, in a naive sort of way, although the topless belly dancer does have her charms.

   The other half of this Ace Double is entitled Three for the Gallows, and consists pf three novelettes by Emmett McDowell, the first featuring Jonathan Knox as well. It’s reprinted from a 1953 appearance in Triple Detective Magazine (“All She Wants Is Money,” Summer 1953).

   The remaining two stories, neither of them with Knox) were first published in 1949 in King Features Syndicate’s Great Mystery Novelettes series, and that’s all I can tell you about that. Does anyone know anything more. (*) I also have not been able to identify another Knox story that appeared in the pulps, so the use of the plural in this regard in the original review may be in error.

        The Jonathan Knox series —

Stamped for Death. Ace 1958
Bloodline to Murder. Ace 1960
In at the Kill. Ace 1960
Portrait of a Victim. Avalon 1964 (no paperback edition)

M. D. LAKE – Amends for Murder. Peggy O’Neill #1. Avon, paperback original, November 1989.

   A frustrating book. There aren’t many detectives who are female campus cops, and the idea produces lots of good possibilities, most of which are only hinted at in this book. Peggy O’Neill is her name, and she’s the one who finds the body of a murdered professor of English.

   Determined to show the city police a thing or two, Peggy then uncovers some of the dead man’s more unseemly past. What bothered me was the way she knew things before she (and the reader) was told, and the way the killer was caught, by sheer accident.

   The Peggy O’Neill series —

1. Amends for Murder (1989)
2. Cold Comfort (1990)
3. Poisoned Ivy (1992)
4. A Gift for Murder (1992)
5. Murder by Mail (1993)
6. Once upon a Crime (1995)
7. Grave Choices (1995)
8. Flirting with Death (1996)
9. Midsummer Malice (1997)
10. Death Calls the Tune (1999)

FRANCIS DUNCAN – So Pretty a Problem. Mordecai Tremaine #5. John Long, UK, hardcover, 1950. Sourcebooks, US, trade paperback, 2018.

   It’s strange, but I have a feeling that Francis Duncan’s detective novels are selling now as well as they ever did, if not a whole lot better. Four of his six novels are back in print, and in the list of the titles at the end of this review, I’ve added the current Amazon sales ranking. They may not look spectacular, but believe me, they are — especially for detective fiction. Most of the books I have listed for sale on Amazon have rankings in the 3 to 8 millions. I don’t have any books there over 20 million.

   For an author no one had even heard of a year ago at this time, that’s quite an achievement.

   Duncan’s series character is a chap named Mordecai Tremaine, a retired tobacconist whose hobbies are reading romance novels and solving crimes. He’s done so well at the latter that’s he’s on a first name basis with several policemen at Scotland Yard, and they don’t mind in the least if he does some investigating for them on his own.

   The structure of So Pretty a Problem is an odd one, especially at first glance. Part I consists of the murder and the immediate investigation. This section is about 90 pages long, and it serves largely as a prologue to Part II, all of which takes place before the murder. This portion, over 160 pages long, consists entirely of Tremaine’s interactions with the murder victim and his wife and all of the other suspects-to-be. Ordinarily this section would come first, chronologically speaking, but 160 pages in a detective novel before the first murder occurs is an awfully long time to keep a reader’s interest at a high edge of anticipation.

   Part Three reverts to real time and Tremaine’s meticulously worked out explanation, including one of those “gathering the suspects together in one room” types of detective story expositions. Since this section is over 130 pages long, any complaints that current mysteries are longer than than they used to be will fall on deaf ears when you compare them to this one.

   Dead is an extremely successful high-society artist. He is found shot to death in his isolated home off the coast of England, connected to the mainland by means of only a single footbridge that an invalid lady is constantly watching. The only person found in the house except for the dead man is his wife, who tells two obviously false stories to the police, who believe neither one, but neither do they believe that she is the killer.

   I enjoyed this one. What impressed me the most about the story is how well Duncan made the explanation fit the facts so precisely, and yet before the explanation, there does not seem that there is one that’s possible. Knowing human character is a big asset for Mordecai Tremaine, and if this is an example of how he unravels a mystery as complicated as this, I’m going to go on and read all of his other cases in solving crimes.

       The Mordecai Tremaine series –

Murderer’s Bluff. Jenkins 1938
They’ll Never Find Out. Jenkins 1944
Murder Has a Motive. Long 1947 (*) #600,815
Murder for Christmas. Long 1949 (*) #119,807

So Pretty a Problem. Long 1950 (*) #192,556
In at the Death. Long 1952 (*) #88,764
Behold a Fair Woman. Long 1954 (*) #123,776

   Those marked with a (*) have been recently been reprinted in the US by Sourcebooks.

THOMAS POLSKY – Curtains for the Copper. “Scoop” Griddle #3. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1941. Handi-Books #5, paperback, 1942. Dell #29, mapback edition, no date stated [1944]; Dell #700, paperback, 1953.

   While Polsky wrote one additional non-series book in 1952, Curtains for the Copper is the last of three cases that ace newspaper reporter L. F. “Scoop” Griddle worked on shortly before World War II. The cop who dies is a rookie on the beat, shot and killed during a raid on a gambling house.

   There are lots of suspects on the scene, including a good-looking girl and a police chief with a IQ of 62. In fact it is only the sorry excuse for police work that makes the final scene possible. Nothing more than a good imitation of George Harmon Coxe, only the latter did it better.

       The L. F. “Scoop” Griddle series —

Curtains for the Editor. Dutton 1939
Curtains for the Judge. Dutton 1939
Curtains for the Copper. Dutton 1941

WILLIAM MURRAY – Now You See Her, Now You Don’t. Shifty Lou Anderson #8. Henry Holt, hardcover, 1994. No paperback edition.

   This is a series that doesn’t seem to get a huge amount of ink, but nevertheless has made to the eighth book and is still in both hard and soft covers. Murray is a New Yorker staff writer, and has written a number of other fiction and non-fiction books.

   It’s just another season at Hollywood Park and Del Mar for Shifty and his buddy Jay — or at least it starts out that way. Then he meets a girl, a very pretty and elusive girl. She’s involved in PR work for a movie star who owns a racehorse and has political aspirations, but she’s non-committal about just what she does, and she’s gone a lot, and she won’t give Shifty her phone number.

   The movie star is a right-winger involved with a group that has had several prominent members murdered in the past year, and the whole thing worries Shifty more than somewhat. Not as much as it worries him after someone shoots him, though.

   Murray is one of those writers whose books don’t seem to stick in my mind, and I’m pleasantly surprised each time I read a new one by how well he writes. His dialogue is crisp and witty, both on and off-track, and his characters are vividly drawn.

   Shifty is a likable first-person narrator, but I found the plot a bit fuzzy in this one. Some of it was deliberate, but still… It’s a different sort of ending.

The Shifty Lou Anderson series —

1. Tip on a Dead Crab (1984)
2. The Hard Knocker’s Luck (1985)
3. When the Fat Man Sings (1987)
4. The King of the Nightcap (1989)
5. Getaway Blues (1990)
6. I’m Getting Killed Right Here (1991)
7. We’re Off to See the Killer (1993)
8. Now You See Her, Now You Don’t (1994)
9. A Fine Italian Hand (1996)

Bibliographic Update:   Barry spoke a little too soon there in his first paragraph. This may have been the first book in the series that didn’t have both a hard and soft cover release. In general, that’s a sign that interest in a series is starting to tail off, and sure enough, there was only the one more.

   For those not familiar with the leading character, most sources describe him as a “part-time magician and lifelong horseracing addict.”

SAM McCARVER – The Case of Compartment 7. John Darnell #2. Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, February 2000.

   When the book begins, the year is 1914, and the drums of war are beginning to echo their way across the European continent. It seems hardly the time to take a train ride from Paris to Bucharest on the famed Orient Express, much less a honeymoon trip, but paranormal investigator John Darnell is mixing business with pleasure. He’s been hired to investigate why compartment number seven is being haunted by a female ghost who keeps appearing in it while dressed in bloody clothing.

   As it turns out, ,however, his primary task is shoved off to the side once several deaths and near deaths start occurring. Europe is a hotbed of intrigue, and thefts, aborted bomb attempts, and various secret plots of all kinds find the train a perfect setting to take place.

   This is one of those works of historical fiction in which purely fictional characters are mixed in with others who are real (or were), most notably Mata Hari, traveling under her name at birth, and a nurse named Agatha Miller, a year before she married a certain Mr. Christie. The conceit of course being that she is taking notes for a career, she hopes, in writing mystery fiction.

   With all of the plotting going on in such closed confines, the overall story has a continual tension to it, there’s no denying it. It’s all the more disappointing then, that the ending fails to rise to the occasion as greatly as it does, in comparison to everything that’s gone before.

   Mysteries that take place on trains are always a lot of fun, though, as long as the Orient Express remains in motion, making its way across the European landscape, so is this one.

       The John Darnell series —

1. The Case of Cabin 13 (1999)
2. The Case of Compartment 7 (2000)
3. The Case of the 2nd Seance (2000)
4. The Case of the Ripper’s Revenge (2001)
5. The Case of the Uninvited Guest (2002)
6. To Die, or Not to Die (2003)