Sat 17 Jul 2010
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: RUFUS KING – The Steps to Murder.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
William F. Deeck
RUFUS KING – The Steps to Murder. Doubleday/Crime Club, hardcover, 1960. No paperback edition.
The first tale in this collection — more novelette than short story — gives the book its title. A rich amoral woman who manipulates people for her greater good, using as her excuse her presumed ugliness, has lost her to some extent blackmailing hold over her husband. Quite insupportable, so his death is necessary.
The rest of the stories are set in Halcyon, Fla., King’s fictional small town, “composed of the modestly retired, seasonal tourists, native crackers, horse-happy railbirds, amiable bookies, and glazed divorcees.”
O.K., not so small, perhaps.
An open-and-shut case of murder interests Monsignor Lavigny. Enlisting the aid of St. Jude, the good Father comes up with an alternative explanation that convinces Stuff Driscoll, in “The Patron Saint of the Impossible.”
In “Murder on Her Mind,” a jet-setter comes to a psychiatrist to make sure that her brother-in-law will be declared sane so he can remain at large and kill her sister. She is, so to speak, hoist by her own petard.
An embezzler commits suicide in “A Little Cloud. . . Like a Man’s Hand.” Or does he? Stuff Driscoll, without the Monsignor, solves this one.
Another ugly woman, rich now that her family has been wiped out in a boating accident, faces a definite death in the near future from natural causes and a possibly more immediate death from unnatural causes in “Rendezvous with Death.”
While everybody liked Jackson, Jackson didn’t like anybody. He also didn’t like the idea of being executed for murder, but murder was necessary to further his interests in “A Borderline Case,” borderline in more ways than one.
Six fine stories, a couple fair play, all with the special atmosphere of menace that King created so well.
Bibliographic Data: The title story was original to this book and “Murder on Her Mind” first appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. The other four came from Ellery Queen’s, not surprisingly.
Previously on this blog:
Museum Piece No. 13 (reviewed by Bill Deeck)
Rufus King’s Florida short stories (by Mike Grost)
Holiday Homicide (reviewed by Mike Grost)
Design in Evil (reviewed by Mike Grost)
Malice in Wonderland (a 1001 Midnights review by George Kelley & Bill Pronzini)
Murder by Latitude (a 1001 Midnights review by George Kelley)
Design in Evil (reviewed by Bill Deeck)
July 17th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
King is an old favorite of mine, whether Lt. Valcour, Stuff Driscoll, or the stand alone novels and stories — including the one that was the basis for Fritz Lang’s SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR. He had a real gift for atmosphere and choreographing the elements whether in a fair play detective story or suspense.
July 18th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Rufus King is my idea of the consummate professional mystery writer. His writing career extended from 1927 to 1964, nearly four decades, but I imagine he’s all but unknown now, nearly another four decades later.
King seems to have been a favorite of Bill Deeck, as you can see by the list I’ve just added to the lower end of the review. In fact, I hadn’t realized how many times his books have been reviewed on this blog until now — quite a few times!
July 18th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Consummate professional is an ideal description of King. He could and did do a little of everything, and most of it very well. Like Lawrence Blochman, David Alexander, Dolores Hitchens, and few others he’s one of those unjustly forgotten writers who deserves to be rediscovered.