Thu 24 Feb 2011
LAWRENCE GOLDMAN – Tiger by the Tail. David McKay, hardcover, 1946. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, 4-in-1 edition, October 1946. Also: Detective Book Magazine, Summer 1949.
The detective in this tale, following closely in the footsteps of private eye Max Thursday and police sergeant Joe Friday, is (you guessed it) named Johnny Saturday, top trouble-shooting investigator for a west coast insurance outfit.
According to Hubin, Saturday was also the leading character in Fall Guy for Murder (Dutton, 1943), a book which I have not seen [but which at long last, thanks to the Internet, I now have on its way to me].
The scene is Los Angeles, more specifically the Market, the hub of the city’s fresh produce business; the time is right after the war, just as the country is beginning to show signs of getting itself back on its feet again.
At first the crimes are minor ones, such as sabotage and the hijacking of commodities like grapefruit and lettuce, but what has Saturday worried is a $20,000 policy on a dead man.
The writing is strictly pulpbound, evoking a period and flavor unmatchable outside the brittle pages of an aging Dime Detective Magazine, say (which, incidentally, cost 15 cents in 1946).
The plot is complicated, and perhaps it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but in its way I found it wholly representative of an entire era of mystery fiction writing, one that’ll never return.
February 25th, 2011 at 12:00 am
I suppose it is part nostalgia, but I have much more patience with and affection for this type of pulpy generic private eye novel from the period of the pulps to the mid sixties than I suppose critical judgement should allow.
There’s something about the voice and the details when done half right that evokes a world and milieu that just appeals to me.
Of course I can still tell the wheat from the chaff, but even the chaff has a certain charm.
This one sounds to be in the middle ground, but for me that’s pretty solid terra firma in terms of escapist reading.
February 25th, 2011 at 12:50 am
This one’s a little less than average, from what I remember of it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a lot of fun to read, or wouldn’t be again.
You and I are on the same wave length with this one, David, and the era it came from.
I’ll have to find where I’ve stored it. Reading it again is exactly what I feel like doing.
February 25th, 2011 at 3:38 am
As far as I know, there aren’t any other series detectives named after days of the weeks, but how about months? Starting with Benjamin January, a free man of color in at least nine books by Barbara Hambly.
February 25th, 2011 at 6:39 am
Steve
There is always M. E. Chaber’s (Ken Crossen) Milo March and the Fickling’s Eric March.
Not a last name, but Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next.
Isn’t there a Johnny April? And the Girl From UNCLE — April Dancer.
There was Heskith Pearson’s November Joe.
There’s Honey West, Hugh North, and Mark East. Not to mention Mr and Mrs. North. To go in a different direction …
I suppose Augustus Mandrell is cheating.
February 25th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Public television had a delightful DRAGNET parody called MATHNET. It was designed to teach kids mathematics.
It starred Sgt. Monday. And later, Sgt. Tuesday.
These shows are great fun.