Tue 18 Jan 2011
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CHARLES L. LEONARD – Deadline for Destruction.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[3] Comments
William F. Deeck
CHARLES L. LEONARD – Deadline for Destruction. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1942. Reprint paperback: Thriller Novel Classic #24, no date [1944].
Despite the misgivings of military intelligence, private detective Paul Kilgerrin is removed from a hospital where he is recovering from a gunshot wound and blackmailed into tracking down an espionage and sabotage ring unconnected with any foreign power. Government agents keep getting killed in their efforts to penetrate the ring, and Kilgerrin’s life is apparently of no value to anyone but him.
Kilgerrin has no problem with flouting the law and obstructing justice or killing when he feels called upon to do it. He also does not suffer fools or anyone else gladly. Still, he gets the job done despite many obstacles and being shot and tortured.
While it might be a bit much to pity criminal masterminds, feeling a trifle sorry for them is a temptation. Plot they ever so cunningly, they always seem to come a cropper through the incompetence or stupidity of their minions.
The CM’s scheme to use Kilgerrin would have been a foolproof one if a fool hadn’t tested it. Additionally, the CM should have remembered that revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but then the US might have lost World War II and Kilgerrin.
A thriller far superior to Heberden’s Desmond Shannon novels.
Bibliographic Notes: Between 1942 and 1951 eleven Kilgerrin adventures were published, all written by M. V. Heberden under this Charles L. Leonard byline.
The “Desmond Shannon” books referred to by Bill appeared under her own name, but using only her initials, disguising the fact that her full name was M(ary) V(iolet), the latter nomenclature presumably deemed unsuitable for buyers of tough PI fiction. There were 17 of these, appearing as they did between 1939 and 1953.
My review of Sinister Shelter, a later Kilgerrin novel (1949), appears here on this blog, along with a list of all eleven of his adventures. Preceding that is a post containing (believe it or not) a glamour shot of the author from Vogue Magazine.
January 19th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Went back and read all those previous posts. I was surprised there was no mention of these female mystery writers with male pseudonyms: John Stephen Strange, David Frome & Leslie Ford, Freeman Dana (a one-time use by Phoebe Atwood Taylor), and Dell Shannon. Those last two probably more androgynous than male.
In mainstream fiction: Isak Dinesan
And in sci-fi/fantasy: James Tiptree, Jr. and Andre Norton.
John
January 19th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Probably no one besides you and I, John, has ever heard of John Stephen Strange, but “he” definitely fits the category, and David Frome for sure. Leslie could be female but Freeman definitely sounds male to me. I don’t know what to make of Dell as a first name, but since I knew she was female all along, I guess it sounds female.
If we were to jump to SF and fantasy, I know there’d be a lot more examples, including C. L. Moore, who used initials so the young mostly male readership in the earliest days of the genre wouldn’t know they were reading something written by the opposite sex.
It’s not the same thing, but Ursula K. LeGuin, when first published in Playboy, was given a U. K. LeGuin byline, or so I’ve been told.
June 18th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
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