Sat 12 Jun 2010
A Review by Ray O’Leary: JUDSON PHILIPS – The Laughter Trap.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
JUDSON PHILIPS – The Laughter Trap. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1964. Paperback reprint: Pinnacle, 1973.
Peter Styles, a writer for Newsview magazine, is returning to the Darlbrook Lodge, a ski resort in Vermont. The last time he was there he was trying to reconnect with his alcoholic father but the attempt failed.
While driving his father back to New York City his car was forced from the mountain road by a black car with two passengers in hoods and dark glasses; the one in the passenger seat laughed maniacally as they passed by.
Peter’s car was forced down a steep hill and he was thrown clear but his father was trapped inside the burning car. His father was killed and Peter lost his right leg below the knee. Now he has come back, hoping to find the people responsible.
Due to overcrowding at the Lodge, Peter shares a room with Jim Tranter, a publicist for the Lodge who narrates most of the story. That night Peter meets a young woman named Jane Pritchard who actually gets him to dance for the first time since his accident.
She is sharing a cabin with her friend Martha Towers. In the middle of the night, Peter wakes Jim up when he hears the same maniacal laughter that he heard a year ago. A quick search around the grounds reveals nothing, but the next morning Jane and Martha are found stabbed to death.
Are the people who caused Peter’s accident the same ones who murdered the girls?
This was a pretty good effort. Decent characterization with several twists until a surprising least-likely suspect turns up at the end.
Previously reviewed on this blog —
A Murder Arranged (by Steve Lewis). A long discussion of Philips’ crime fiction follows in the comments.
June 12th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
A good entry to introduce the series. I preferred the John Jericho books but usually enjoyed the Styles books where he tried — often with some success — to introduce some relevance to what was happening in the headlines into the plots.
His experience with the pulps meant that Philips (Pentecost) knew how to keep a pot boiling and paid off in the suspense novel aspect of his later work. I always thought Styles artificial leg was a very pulpy note on Philips part, though he managed to handle it in a less than pulpy manner.
June 12th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Quoting from his short profile on https://mysteryfile.com/ZiffDavis/Fingerprint.html —
“Both under his own name, Judson (Pentecost) Philips and as his primary alter ego, Hugh Pentecost, this author of over 100 mystery novels and collections, not to mention countless short stories for the pulp and digest magazines, came up with as many series characters as some writers do books.”
Mike Grost has a long set of profiles of some of these characters here:
http://mikegrost.com/laterimp.htm#Pentecost
Of his later books, I tend to favor the John Jericho books over the ones with Styles myself. I never cared nearly as much for the Pierre Chambrun or Julian Quist mysteries he wrote as Hugh Pentecost, but in the 1970s and 80s they were extremely popular.
And yes indeed, he began his career in the pulps. From his introduction to THE BATTLES OF JERICHO (Crippen & Landru, 2008), S. T. Karnick says:
http://stkarnick.com/blog2/2008/12/post_204.html
“Pentecost served a valuable apprenticeship in the pulps in the 1930s. Strong story lines, colorful characters, lots of action, the ability to create suspense, and an essentially wholesome worldview were necessities for success in the pulps, and Pentecost assimilated those lessons well.”
June 13th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Never read the book, but I do love the paperback cover. Big sideburns, roll-neck sweater and a coat with a huge collar; what could be more 1973 than that?
June 13th, 2010 at 10:23 am
My thoughts exactly! I never had sideburns that long, but long enough at the time that someone could easily guess without a year or two when a particular photograph was taken.