Thu 25 Dec 2014
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review: W. T. BALLARD – Say Yes to Murder.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[6] Comments
by James L. Traylor
W. T. BALLARD – Say Yes to Murder. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1942. Penguin #566, paperback, 1945. Also reprinted as The Demise of a Louse, as by John Shepherd, Belmont, paperback, 1962.
W. T. Ballard was one of Joe Shaw’s second wave of Black Mask boys. His first Black Mask story, “A Little Different,” appeared in September 1933. It featured Bill Lennox, troubleshooter for the fictitious General Consolidated Studios. (Ballard himself had worked for First National Studios in the early 1930s.)
Lennox was one of the most popular series characters in Black Mask, and appeared in twenty-seven stories between 1933 and 1942. He’s not a PI exactly, but he has that same hard-boiled ethos; his exploits have an appealing under-stated sense of immediacy.
After writing short stories for about ten years, Ballard published Say Yes to Murder, the first of four Bill Lennox novels, and set the standard for the Hollywood murder mystery. Ballard’s gift for this type of story is his careful depiction of scene and his emphasis on character in a subgenre that usually does not rely on such realism.
Ballard invented a cast of characters that later became almost cliches of the movie industry. Sol Spurck, the crusty head of General Consolidated Studios; Nancy Hobbs, Lennox’s long-suffering girlfriend; and cops named Spellman and Stobert who are not quite as condescending toward Lennox as the typical cops of the hard-boiled detective novel.
In Say Yes to Murder, Lennox investigates the murder of Leon Heyworth, a drunken actor whom Lennox finds stabbed and lying under the bed of actress Jean Jeffries, granddaughter of Lennox’s old friend Mary Morris. Faithful to Spurck and the studio, Lennox, with the help of Jake Hertz, a studio minion, and an empty piano box, moves the body from Jean’s apartment, attempting to keep Mary Morris’s name out of the papers.
Along with a superior sense of timing and scene, Ballard’s novel shows great intricacy in plotting. Here the vital clue to the solution of the mystery is identity. An the characters are in show business, with consequent multiple personas. Lennox’s primary task is wading through the maze of personalities. Ballard presents the murder as a problem of separating illusion from reality, a method quite effective in focusing Hollywood’s artificiality.
Noted critic James Sandoe praised Lennox because “he doesn’t have to flex his biceps to prove that he’s strong.” Say Yes to Murder is a consistently rewarding hard-boiled novel.
The other three Bill Lennox novels are also excellent Murder Can’t Stop (1946), Dealing Out Death (1948), and the paperback original Lights, Camera, Murder (1960, as by John Shepherd). Ballard was a close friend of fellow pulp writer Norbert Davis and coauthored one novel with him, Murder Picks the Jury (1947), under the joint pseudonym Harrison Hunt.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
NOTE: Previously reviewed on this blog are:
Murder Can’t Stop.
Lights, Camera, Murder.
Hollywood Troubleshooter (a collection of Bill Lennox short stories)
December 25th, 2014 at 7:48 pm
Ballard is a favorite, his one off paper original MURDER IN LAS VEGAS is one of the best and least known pi novels of his day, and the Lennox stories and novels are pure gold (they are all available as free e-books as well).
He did a mainstream novel about television that has that same feel of being behind the scenes that the Lennox stories had. It was based on his work on the DICK TRACY series and features a pilot for a TRACY like detective coming to television from the comic strips.
He collaborated with Robert Leslie Bellem often too, another writer with a feel for the Hollywood scene who went into television. Among other things they were John Grange of the JIM ANTHONY SUPER DETECTIVE pulps.
Early on Lennox was studio troubleshooter then an associate producer, but by the time of the novels he’s a full blown producer. It’s noticeable too that as the studio’s changed with the times so does Lennox. No doubt if he had continued the series Ballard would have had him off to Europe with that great migration.
Of course as well as Bellem and Davis, W. Todhunter Ballard was a cousin of Rex Todhunter Stout.
December 27th, 2014 at 10:40 am
Ballard also deserves credit for writing the first of what became known as the Adult Western genre, LASSITER, as by Jack Slade. Of course, the AWs are just more explicit versions of the old Spicy Westerns from the pulps, and I wonder if Ballard drew some inspiration for his Lassiter novels from his old writing partner Robert Leslie Bellem’s stories for SPICY WESTERN. I really like the Bill Lennox stories from BLACK MASK. Haven’t read any of the novels, but I ought to. Actually, everything I’ve ever read by Ballard was good.
December 27th, 2014 at 2:10 pm
If I ever knew that Ballard wrote the first Lassiter book, and I probably did, I’d forgotten it. Thanks for the reminder. Lynn Munroe has done a good job in uncovering the names behind “Jack Slade,” the stanard byline for the series. He says in part:
“…Their W.T. BALLARD COLLECTION is a huge gathering of books and manuscripts over several decades, and it includes Ballard’s manuscripts for the first four Lassiter books: #1 LASSITER (which Ballard initially titled RAFFERTY as by Parker Bonner), #2 BANDIDO (which Ballard called LASSITER AND THE WILD BUNCH), #3 THE MAN FROM YUMA (manuscript title LASSITER AND THE RIVER PIRATES) and #4 THE MAN FROM CHEYENNE (LASSITER AND THE WILD WOMEN).
“All four are written in Ballard’s distinctive old-school straight-as-an-arrow storytelling style, but there is also the physical proof: all four manuscripts are there at the library, you can go look at them any time. It’s a matter of public record; the finding aid for this collection is available online. All four manuscripts have been verified and match the printed books. There is no way a different author could have written THE MAN FROM YUMA. This fact made me take a much closer look at the rest of the Germano list….”
For more (a lot more), here’s the link:
http://lynn-munroe-books.com/list63/Lassiter-Slade.htm
All of this discussion about Ballard is making me want to dig through my boxes of old paperbacks and find some of his to read. He’s totally forgotten now, except for you and I, whoever is reading this, and he doesn’t deserve to be.
December 27th, 2014 at 4:55 pm
I have Lynn’s Jack Slade page bookmarked. It’s a wonderful job of research.
David mentions Ballard’s novel MURDER IN LAS VEGAS. I read one called MURDER LAS VEGAS STYLE, which is probably the same book, and recall liking it. A Belmont original, then later a Modern Promotions instant remainder edition. Definitely little known.
Ballard also did a two-book Western series for Fawcett under the pseudonym Clint Reno that’s supposed to be pretty good, but I haven’t read them yet.
December 27th, 2014 at 9:24 pm
James
It’s the same book, I remembered the title a bit wrong, but it’s an outstanding pi novel that would have likely gotten critical attention if it had not been a Belmont title with a bad cover.
I don’t think I’m overselling it, I certainly recall being impressed at the time before I knew much about Ballard, and I enjoyed it rereading it since.
I’m glad it at least got a second chance even if a slight one.
December 27th, 2014 at 10:00 pm
Quite appropriately, Bill Crider’s review of MURDER LAS VEGAS STYLE, also from 1001 MIDNIGHTS, can be found here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=30913