Fri 19 Apr 2013
A Review by Francis M. Nevins, Jr.: JON L. BREEN – Listen for the Click.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
JON L. BREEN – Listen for the Click. Walker & Co., hardcover, 1983. No paperback edition.
There is a kind of detective novel set in a world of quiet gentility, a magical place without pain or grief or terror, a place where corpses don’t bleed and the emotions of the living are always under iron control. During the lulls in the plot a Nice Young Man and Nice Young Woman get together, and in the final chapter, preferably at a ritual gathering of the suspects, the Brilliant Detective effortlessly exposes the murderer.
The current generic name for a book of this sort is the English Cozy, because there’s a myth that it’s always been the exclusive property of British writers. In fact, however, a number of well-known Americans too have specialized in it, and Earl Derr Biggers’ half dozen Charlie Chan novels (1925-1932) are models of the form.
Jon L. Breen, an award-winning mystery reviewer, short-story writer, and Biggers devotee, has set his first detective novel on this turf . Amid an unobtrusive but knowingly sketched background of Southern California’s racing community, a jockey who had given many people potential murder motives is shot out of the saddle of a bronze horse statue on the lawn of a wealthy racing enthusiast’s widow.
The nephew of this dotty and whodunit-fixated old lady is racetrack announcer Jerry Brogan, whom Breen casts in the dual role of Nice Young Man and Clever Amateur Sleuth: if he wasn’t sleeping with his Chicana girlfriend without benefit of a marriage license, he might have stepped straight out of a Biggers novel of the 1920s.
Meanwhile, a suave con man and a shady private eye with literary ambitions launch a scheme to make Jerry’s aunt believe that they’re the Holmes and Watson of the west coast. In due course, after the underdog horse wins the big race, a Gathering of Suspects is arranged in the purest Charlie Chan movie tradition — “The murderer is in this room,” one of the small army of detective figures in the book intones solemnly — and all the clues are put in order.
Breen combines quiet charm, gentle digs at several types of crime fiction, and a puzzle complete with such original touches as an over-obvious Big Secret that mutates into a huge joke and a clue hidden in the book’s title. It’s no Secretariat, but lovers of the soft-spoken whodunit will have a fine canter around the track with this thoroughbred.
Vol. 7, No. 3, May-June 1983.
The Jerry Brogan series —
Listen for the Click (n.) Walker, 1983.
Triple Crown (n.) Walker, 1986.
Loose Lips (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Hot Air (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Jerry Brogan and the Kilkenny Cats (ss) Murder Most Irish, ed. Ed Gorman, Larry Segriff & Martin H. Greenberg, Barnes & Noble 1996.
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:59 pm
Thanks for running this, Steve, and thanks to Mike for writing the review, which pretty accurately described the series, though the subsequent three books don’t have the parody element of the first one, which was published in Britain as VICAR’S ROSES. The best novel in the series was probably TRIPLE CROWN. There are two other Jerry Brogan short stories, both of which involve his mystery-loving Aunt Olivia, “Tea and ‘Biscuit” (from CAT CRIMES 1991 and reprinted in several later anthologies), and “The Defense Calls Jerry Brogan” (EQMM, August 1993). The latter story will be included in THE THREAT OF NOSTALGIA AND OTHER STORIES, my forthcoming collection from Ramble House. End of plug.
April 22nd, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Thanks for listing the additional stories in the Brogan body of work, Jon. I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you to see how many others there might have been. For the most part, Al Hubin does not list short fiction in CRIME FICTION IV, not unless it appears in a collection of an author’s stories, not anthologies.
And now I have a stupid head confession to make. Back in the 70s and 80s, I had a self-imposed aversion to novels and stories that took place in the world of horse racing. That means I missed a lot of good Dick Francis stories at the time, but all of your Brogan novels too. I like running old reviews like this. It’s what caught my eye with this one, They remind of how much good reading I shut myself away from. Let me repeat. What a stupid head!