MEG O’BRIEN – The Daphne Decisions. Jessica James #1. Bantam, paperback original; 1st printing, March 1990.

   Jessica James blames her mother for her name. Sometimes things like that happen. She’s a hard nosed reporter for a small but influential newspaper in the Rochester NY area in the spunky Kinsey Millhone vein – not a PI but the closest thing to it without quite being one. The closest she has to having a client is an elderly woman who had something important to tell her, but she put her off one day too late. Mary Burghof is dead.

   The opening scene is rather unique. Jess wakes up in a hospital covered with bandages, and a local influential judge is under the belief that she is his missing daughter-in-law, Daphne, who had disappeared. The story Jess had been working on has to do with learning more about a mysterious real estate company who she suspects has been forcing elderly people off their property and buying their land cheap. Mary Burghof is/was one of those people.

   I suggested that Jessica James is a heroine in the Kinsey Millhone fashion, but in truth she has a darker edge than Kinsey had, which includes a drinking problem. The case begins as detective story, but the surprise twist about 60 percent of the way through completely reveals who her adversary is, turning the tale into a thriller more than a mystery. Only until the end, that is, when she discovers that it was a detective puzzle all along.

   Not the most skillfully told one, but I’m always glad to read a book with a detective puzzle ending, even if I wasn’t expecting one.
   
      The Jessica James series —

1. The Daphne Decisions (1990)
2. Salmon in the Soup (1990)
3. Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow (1991)
4. Eagles Die Too (1992)
5. A Bright Flamingo Shroud (1996)

COLIN WATSON – Snobbery with Violence: Crime Stories and Their Audience. Eyre & Spottiswoode, UK, hardcover, 1971. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1972. Eyre Methuen, UK, hardcover, revised edition, 1979. Mysterious Press, US, softcover, 1988 Faber and Faber, UK, paperback, 2009.

   I could never quite understand why one of my favorite books about the crime genre incited such violence in some readers, who bore a grudge against Watson for his informed and informing book on mystery and thriller fiction between the Wars that seemed completely out of proportion to anything he actually wrote.

   Watson, after all, was the popular author of the Flaxborough/Inspector Purbright novels that revealed the darkly comical reality beneath the English village setting of Agatha Christie and others.

   Yes, he was opinionated. Even I disagree with him on some points and authors, but he is never less than succinct in his arguments, and there is no malice in them. He merely sets out to deal with the social history behind the genre in that important era and to explain its origins and nature, and does so brilliantly, with delightful cartoons from Punch, that reflect the subject of many chapters.

   If nothing else he coined a phrase to describe the village mystery so common to Agatha Christie that has stuck because it is so apt: Mayhem Parva.

   Julian Symons’ Mortal Consequences seemed much more controversial to me, Kingley Amis’s James Bond Dossier more eccentric. Just what nerve had Watson struck?

   The book opens with an epigram from Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On: “…that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good class tweed through twentieth-century literature.”

   Snobbery with violence hardly seems an unfair description of the genre from Agatha Christie to Bulldog Drummond, and indeed to James Bond who Watson defends from the charge of “sex, snobbery, and sadism” by simply pointing out Ian Fleming was no more blatant nor vicious on that count than anyone else.

   So what is it exactly about this well organized and argued book that upset so many. I confess on rereading I was trying pretty desperately to discover that when I ran across the following passage on Bulldog Drummond, Sapper, and the rise of Fascism in England.

   And there it was, the passage that set forth Watson’s “controversial” theme that inflamed what Amis once called “little old maids of both sexes”, the thing that enraged many of his critics. Watson had dared to suggest that popular fiction, far from the monster poisoning the minds of readers, was not actually the source of all societies ills, but merely reflected the prejudice and opinions of the average man, that people indeed got the entertainment they wanted and would accept in popular fiction, and were not swayed to prejudice by the blathering of a Bulldog Drummond or to snobbery by a Lord Peter Wimsey, nor to sexual obsession by James Bond, but that H. C. McNeile, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ian Fleming were merely highly successful at hitting on what the audience wanted and would accept at the time.

   An audience that, as he quotes Margaret Lane Edgar Wallace’s biographer, audiences wanted “excitement without anxiety, suspense without fear, violence without pain, and horror without disgust,” to which Watson added crime without sin and sentiment without sex.

   If there is a better description of the mystery novel and thriller in the between the Wars years, I don’t know what it is. He goes on to point out that the reader was an active participant in the game being played, not ignorant of reality enough to buy the sophistication of an Oppeheim drawing room or casino or a Christie great house where a murder will soon occur, but “able to disregard the voice of experience and reason in interest of his own entertainment.”

   In short the reader was not being plied with clever drugs, but willingly seeking the stuff out, rewarding a Sax Rohmer who confirmed his own fear of foreigners and foreign sorts, a Sapper or Sidney Horler catering to the average man’s self doubts with their “splendid” sportsman manly man heroes and slim topping women pitted against wealthy unsporting master criminals, slinky foreign women, inscrutable Easterners, and low East End types. The writers weren’t even prostituting themselves, they had merely stuck upon a gold vein of public prejudice and opinion.

   This was the era of the lending library and the newly literate middle and lower middle classes equally prejudiced against the very rich, the foreign, and the poor. The era in England when an entire generation of young vital men had died in the trenches in Europe and the world no longer made sense and people were desperate to make sense of it. The writers who succeeded, who prospered were not preaching, but merely reflecting, and the more accurately they reflected their audience the more successful they were, and when they could do so with minimal disturbance of the social order they were rewarded.

   Watson touches on the strangely clipped and emotionless language of the era, the blathering of a Drummond, Wimsey, or Campion, the topping girls, the sometimes silly language, even the bloodless violence.

   Again, the audience and not the writers determined the voice. The sheep were not led, but leading because to go against the prejudice of the flock was to risk a blow to the pocketbook. “Foreign was synonymous with criminal in nine novels out of ten, and the conclusion is inescapable that most people found that perfectly natural.”

   What Watson is saying that really hits home is that when we are condemning a popular writer like Rohmer, Horler, Sapper, or Edgar Wallace we are actually condemning grandpa and grandma or mom and dad, who read this because they believed this, not because they were being force fed prejudices they had not been schooled in well before they read thriller fiction.

   The same was true of Ian Fleming, of Mickey Spillane, of Stephen King, or Lee Child today. We get the popular literature, the movies, the music we support that reflects what we believe and what we value. Pretending we are led down the garden path by what we consume is like blaming the apple tree because some of the apples aren’t ripe yet.

   Watson also makes a good argument for the value of this kind of fiction which, as he points out, reflects the material life of its time in a way more serious literature does not down to the smallest detail of daily life in its need to be grounded in recognizable worlds familiar to the less than sophisticated reader. He also points out that during the heyday of the lending library readers had something like 180 to 210 books a week to choose from across all genres, but certainly in the mystery genre. Even figuring a reader reading one book a week the competition was fierce for the reading dollar. Readers, not writers dictated what was acceptable in their chosen reading with their money.

   I’ll leave with Watson at his most cogent. If you disagree with this conclusion, and I don’t discount any disagreement, please quote a single legally and psychologically proven case and not apocryphal accusations or criminals and their representatives seeking an out by unfounded claims of victimhood is all I ask.

     —
(*) Intellectual in England does not only connote the Left alone. There are equally those on the Right condemning the taste of the “common man” and the Middle Class.

POUL ANDERSON – The War of Two Worlds. Ace Double D-355, paperback, 1959. Novella. Published back to back with Threshold of Eternity, by John Brunner (reviewed here ). Cover by Ed Valigursky. Reprinted in The Worlds of Poul Anderson (Ace, paperback, 1974).

   Aliens forced from Sirius instigate the Earth-Mars war by taking the form of top leaders of both sides, so that after the defeat of Earth by Mars, the conquest of both planets will be easier. An ex-spaceman returns to Earth after the war and becomes the object of a countrywide hunt after he learns the truth. The aliens are exposed after they believe he and his Martian friend have been killed.

   A clever but obvious idea that ends much too easily. The best scenes are those of a conquered Earth under Martian rule. After the introduction of the aliens and their story, there is little left but the usual chase-and-hunt. Somehow should have been better.

Rating: ***

RAIDERS OF OLD CALIFORNIA. Albert C. Gannaway Productions/Republic, 1957. Jim Davis, Faron Young, Arlen Whelan, Marty Robbins, Lee Van Cleef, Louis Jean Heydt, and Douglas Fowley. Screenplay by Samuel Roeca and Tom Hubbard. Directed by Albert C. Gannaway.

   Let’s get one gripe out of the way first: This thing is set around the time of the Mexican-American War, but the uniforms, firearms and clothing date from almost a generation later. Don’t let it bother you. This is just a B-Western, and a pretty good one.

   Story-wise, the usual thing is afoot here: a cattle baron (Jim Davis) in old California (hence the title of the piece) is trying to grab all the land he can from surrounding farms, using a Spanish land grant he extorted from a Mexican General (Lawrence Dobkin) at the end of the war. Enter Judge Ward Young (Louis Jean Heydt) and his son Faron (Faron Young) who set about putting things to rights by … well, that would be giving away one plot twist too many.

   It may be worth mentioning that Faron Young played a character named Faron Young in Hidden Guns (reviewed here),  where Richard Arlen played Sheriff Ward Young. Or maybe it’s not worth mentioning, in which case forget I mentioned it.

   The dialogue is rudimentary, and some of the sets look more like cardboard boxes than adobe walls, but Raiders still has a lot going for it, starting with superior stunt work and a script that emphasizes action. The players go through their familiar paces with authority born of long practice (though neither Faron Young nor Marty Robbins sings a note) and Douglas Fowley is a real surprise as a grizzled ad hoc sheriff.

   Best of all, Raiders gives Lee Van Cleef the kind of part he was born for and lets him show off his type-cast malevolence with real flair. I’d venture to say he gets more screen time than any of the principals, and he eats it up with a spoon, whether quietly threatening his victims, or administering a beating with psychotic pleasure.

   Lee Van Cleef was one of the real pleasures of 1950s movies, and his euro-stardom in the 70s only proved that he was better at supporting a picture than starring in it. His presence in Raiders of Old California is a reminder of just how effective he could be.

LONGMIRE “Pilot.” A&E, 03 Jun 2012. Robert Taylor (Sheriff Walt Longmire), Katee Sackhoff (Victoria ‘Vic’ Moretti), Lou Diamond Phillips (Henry Standing Bear), Bailey Chase, Cassidy Freeman, Adam Bartley, Louanne Stephens. Screenplay by   Hunt Baldwin and John Coveny,  based on the characters created by Craig Johnson. Nominated for an Edgar by the Mystery Writers of America. Director: Christopher Chulack. Currently streaming on Netflix (all six seasons).

   It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally gotten around to this long running series, based on the even longer running series of books by Craig Johnson (seventeen so far, and counting). I’ve read only one of books, perhaps luckily so, as I had no preconceptions or hopes to be dashed, or vice versa.

   This, the pilot to the series, does a very good job of introducing the primary players and the ongoing plot line, both of this one and things to come. Walt Longmire is the long-time sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. A large chunk of the country is a Cheyenne reservation, an area over which Longmire has no jurisdiction. Sometime in the recent past his wife has died, and since then his staff of three deputies has been covering for him while he recovers from the loss. One of them, though, a fellow named Branch Connally, thinks Walt is over the hill and is running in the next election against him.

   The characters are well drawn, no surprise there, since they are (more or less) based on the books. You will have to tell me more about the “more or less.”  As I said above, the story is little more than ordinary, mostly because it has to take second place to identifying the characters, who they are and so on. It involves a man shot to death in the snow, a stranger with no obvious reason for being there. In fact his wife, back in Colorado, thinks he is somewhere else altogether. Some conflict with the tribal police eventually ensues, foreshadowing, I suspect, similar situations in further story lines.

   I don’t know the actor who plays Longmire, Robert Taylor, but he plays the part he’s asked to play perfectly. He’s craggy, terse if not out-and-out taciturn, rough, crude, and, as when telling the man’s widow the bad news, also quite eloquent. The series depends on him, obviously so, and a six-year run suggests he repeats the crackerjack job he does in the pilot all the way through.

   It is with much sadness that I pass along news of the death of Randy Cox, a long-time correspondent and friend. He died in a nursing home on September 14th, just over a week ago. We met many times at various conventions over the years, starting in the 1970s. These include Old Time Radio Conventions and Pulpcons. The list below of awards, publications (only partial) and other achievements demonstrate full well his many interests, all of which are aligned with mine.

   Before his hospitalization earlier this year, he was a frequent commenter on this blog, many of them (but hardly all!) pointing out various typos and other corrections, always to my dismay. His one actual post was entitled “A Discussion: THE FUTURE OF TV WATCHING, by Michael Shonk and Randy Cox.”  which appeared here on 14 March 2015.

   In person, Randy was a delight to talk to. Not only did we have many interests in common, but he’d also met and/or corresponded with many famous writers and had many stories to tell about them. In groups of other people, I heard some of these stories several times, but they were just as delightful and enjoyable each and every time. One thing’s for sure. I’m going to miss him.
   

● Long time librarian at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

● Editor of The Dime Novel Round-Up for over 20 years.

● Editor of Masters of Mystery and Detective Fiction (Scarecrow Press, 1989)

● Author of Man of Magic and Mystery (Scarecrow Press, 1989; a biblio-biography of Walter Gibson, the creator of The Shadow)

● Author of The Dime Novel Companion (Greenwood Press, 2000)

● Co-author (with David S. Siegel) of Flashgun Casey, Crime Photographer (Book Hunter Press, 2005)

● Recipient of the Munsey Award presented at PulpFest in 2014.
   

   Thanks to Jiro Kimura at The Gumshoe Site for much of the information above.

   
DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT – From the Grave. Rushmore McKenzie #17. Minotaur, hardcover, July 2020.

First Sentence: The young woman who identified herself as a psychic medium moved with almost absentminded confidence among the fifty people who had paid forty dollars each for a seat in the community center lecture hall with the hope that she might help them connect with a dead mother or father, uncle or aunt, a dead child — but no promises.

   From a friend who attended a psychic reading, former cop Rushmore McKenzie learns of a threat placed on his life by the spirit of Leland Hayes. McKenzie killed Hayes after Hayes escaped the scene of an armored car robbery leaving his son Ryan to take the fall. The money was never recovered. Now, more than 21 years later, a highly skeptical McKenzie becomes involved with two psychic mediums to find the money and, due to one of the mediums, to locate a missing woman.

   To add a bit of light to the dark, McKenzie’s partner, Nina owns a jazz club thought to be haunted. Nina’s concern about the influence her late mother had her present actions gives both history and insight into the character.

   Set in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Housewright creates a strong sense of place, even for something as basic as Nina’s condo. The interplay between the two characters is easy and natural— “I like your outfit.” “Really? Last night you couldn’t wait for me to take it off.” —and a particular conversation between them provides good background and an explanation of their relationship. McKenzie’s unpleasant neighbor provides a touch of normalcy. Mackenzie has an inner monologue that is used sparingly and effectively, often with a touch of humor. Housewright has also given him an excellent playlist.

   It is always fun when an author references other authors. Because of the psychic aspect, he also references a number of popular paranormal investigation shows, but it is McKenzie’s skepticism which keeps things grounded, until his skepticism is tested. Learning what goes on in the making of such shows is both interesting and demystifying without taking away from the possibility of actuality.

   The other characters are well presented, with a couple of inside jokes. It is hard to say much about some of them, except that Housewright’s approach to his characters is refreshing. There are several people out to find the missing money. And some are what one might expect.

   As the 17th book in the Rushmore McKenzie series, this book is somewhat lighter and less suspenseful than some. In this time of COVID-19 when many are having trouble concentrating, that’s not a bad thing. Even so, the story does not lack for twists and red herrings.

   From the Grave, at its foundation, is a solid mystery, well-constructed and enjoyable. One may, or may not, accept the paranormal aspect, but it does provide an extra layer of creativity. However, best of all, is the ending that makes one smile.

Rating: A minus.

  STEPHEN KING – Christine. Viking, hardcover, 1983, 526 pages, $16.95. Film: Columbia Pictures, 1983, directed by John Carpenter.

   A haunted car, right… Stephen King expects readers to believe in a 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury that’s haunted no less. Well, yes, he does — and they will. For that is the magic writing quality that makes his talent so special. Stephen King can make even the most ordinary and unlikely object an item of horror.

   In Christine, King attempts to invoke the terror.that permeated ’Salem’s Lot  and the chilling fright of The Shining. The time is 1978, in a suburban community outside of Pittsburgh, On their way home, Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham drive by a parked car — a 1958 Plymouth — with a ‘for sale’ sign in its window. Arnie falls firmly and unquestioningly in love with the car and determines to possess it at all costs, The present owner, Roland Le Bay, tells him the car’s name is Christine.

   With Arnie’s purchase of Christine, no one who knows him remains untouched by the evil force that sits behind the wheel. And Arnie is a loser (“Every high school has to have at least two; it’s like a national law,”) and is frequently tormented by the school bullies. Christine quickly begins to exert an unnatural hold on Arnie, Not only does Arnie exhibit an abnormal affection for his car, but Christine’s rusty old exterior and worn mechanical parts mysteriously begin improving.  Not that Arnie doesn’t spend many hours working on her, but his efforts don’t seem as methodical and orderly as her improvements indicate.

   As Christine nears mint condition, Arnie acquires a girl friend, Leigh Cabot, As their relationship grows, strange and gruesome deaths happen to four bullies who inflicted damage on Christine. The story’s progression charts Christine’s increasingly diabolical hold over Arnie, and her acts of revenge towards anyone who tries to come between her and Arnie.

   Although the horrific events do not fully terrify or render the reader aquiver with fright, there are some tense moments. The final duel between Christine and Dennis and Leigh showcases King’s writing skills superbly as he makes a potentially laughable and unbelievable scene ring with credibility and anxious moments.

   By the time the last page is turned, it’s nearly impossible not to think of the ’58 Plymouth as “she” — as Christine — and not just an old car.

   
THE IRON MISTRESS.  Warner Brothers, 1952. With Alan Ladd, Virginia Mayo, Joseph Calleia, Phyllis Kirk, Douglas Dick, Anthony Caruso, Nedrick Young, and Jay Novello. Screenplay by James R Webb, from the novel by Paul I Wellman. Directed by Gordon Douglas.

   A bit flabby, but it has its moments.

   The flabbiness is due mainly to lapses in James Webb’s script, which takes entirely too much time rolling out the action, cruising along the Upper Crust of New Orleans society, drawing rather labored parallels between the effete rich and backwoodsy Bowie, until one wonders if this is going to be a comedy of manners. Eventually though some action just can’t be avoided and here….

   Well here is Director Gordon Douglas, one of the most proficient action men in the game, with rip-snorters like TONY ROME, THE FIEND WHO WALKED THE WEST, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE, and RIO CONCHOS on his resumé, and he makes the most of every fist-swinging, gun-smoking, sword-sticking moment in the picture.

   Producer Henry Blanke (Whose credits include THE MALTESE FALCON and TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE) also took care to populate the cast with worthy opponents for Ladd’s Jim Bowie to come up against. Joseph Calliea, Jay Novello, Nedrick Young, and Anthony Caruso all comport themselves with creditable nastiness, and we get a fair share of excitement from scenes like:

   â— A Duel that turns into a massacre when the seconds start firing on the opposing principals;

   â— A knife fight with the Ladd and Anthony Carusos’ left arms strapped together;

   â— A woodland ambush that becomes a prolonged stalk-and-kill;

   â— And best of all, a duel in a darkened room with Bowe’s knife against Nedrick Young’s saber, choreographed by the great Fred Cavens.

   Nedrick young, by the way, is best remembered as the gunman in black who faces off against Sterling Hayden and a harpoon in TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN.

   Moments like this pack real excitement, and on the balance, IRON MISTRESS is well worth your time. But keep a finger on the fast-forward button.

   I remarked in a review for somebody or other not too long ago that I thought I was out of step with the field, and I feel that way more every day. With very few exceptions, the crime fiction that makes the best-seller lists and even the books that sell the best at mystery bookstores are of types I don’t care for at all, or at least nearly as much as I do others.

   The bestsellers are more often than not slick, superficial, and padded in my estimation, and the most popular ones seem to be the literary equivalent of slasher movies. And if you took lawyers, thrillers, serial killers, and cozies off the mystery bookstore shelves you wouldn’t have enough books left for a good yard sale, and two-thirds of those would be historicals — and while I like the category, they’re getting to be a glut on the market.

   Trash proliferates, while many of my favorite series sell just enough to keep being published, and often make it to paperback late or never; e. g., Bill Crider’s Dan Rhodes, John Riggs’ Garth Ryland, Jonathan Ross’s George Rogers, John Malcom’s Tim Simpson, Jill McGown’s Lloyd & Hill, Jon Cleary’s Scobie Malone, Michael Bowen’s Richard Michaelson, Eric Wright’s Charlie Salter, Les Roberts’ Milan Jacovich, John Brady’s Matt Minogue, Michael Collins’ Dan Fortune, Stuart Kaminsky’s Porfiry Rostnikov, David M. Pierce’s V Daniel, James Sallis’ Lew Griffin, and a bunch of et cetera‘s.

   It just seems like anything between big/bloody and cute/ frothy doesn’t have too much of a chance any more. Oh well, hell, at least I’m better off than [some of you]  — nobody even writes classic detective stories any more.