Wed 20 May 2009
A Review by Dan Stumpf: MIKE ROSCOE – One Tear for My Grave.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews[10] Comments
MIKE ROSCOE – One Tear for My Grave. Crown, hardcover, 1955. Paperback reprints: Signet #1358, November 1956, cover: Robert Maguire; G2432, 1964.
Call me a jaded old cynic, but when I saw the name “Mike Roscoe” on the cover of One Tear for My Grave, I somehow doubted that was the appellation his parents bestowed upon him at birth.
In fact, a little digging in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers and on the ?net revealed this was a joint pen name for two writers, both allegedly Private Detectives, who spun a half-dozen books in the mid-50s around the exploits of PI Johnny April.
And they did rather a nice job, ladling out tough, bright, Chandler-esque prose, with a generous hand, lively and entertaining, with vivid action:
It helped.
The punch only doubled me up half-way. I rolled to one side and sneaked a short right in. He was too quick. The damn punch just grazed him…
Extravagant description:
And the improbably-cantilevered women of a young man’s dreams:
Prose like this can carry a book a long way, and for most of its brief length, Tear is a highly satisfying read, with a new twist wrinkling the end of each chapter, and a fresh corpse approximately twice a page.
But then there’s the ending, and here I must carp: It’s just plain-damn sloppy. If a crime writer centers his book around Who-killed-so-and-so, that becomes a sort of important issue in the narrative. So when the cops tell our hero that all the major suspects have alibis, we readers should either take that as a given, or get to see the PI break down whatever alibis must needs get broken.
Not here. I can say without revealing anything important that although the killer is given a clean bill early on, s/he turns out to be the killer with nary a word of explanation.
It just ain’t fair.
Fortunately, this unsatisfactory ending comes fairly late in the book, and doesn’t spoil what is for the most part, a lot of good fun. I’ll be looking for more “Mike Roscoe” and I recommend this one to anyone who likes a bright, fast-moving hard-boiled mystery.
Bibliographic data: [expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]
ROSCOE, MIKE. Pseudonym of John Roscoe & Michael Ruso. SC: PI Johnny April, in all.
Death Is a Round Black Ball. Crown, hc, 1952. Signet 966, pb, Oct 1952.
Riddle Me This. Crown, hc, 1952. Signet 1060, pb, Sept 1953.
Slice of Hell. Crown, hc, 1954. Signet 1216, pb, July 1955.
One Tear for My Grave. Crown, hc, 1955. Signet 1358, pb, Nov 1956.
The Midnight Eye. Ace Double D273, pbo, 1958.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
In Private Eyes 101 Knights 1922-1984 Robert A. Baker and Michael T. Nietzel described Johnny April as the p.i. in “five razor sharp, lean novels … written in the authentic Black Mask style.” They also quote Anthony Boucher as calling April, “the only authentic private eye I know.”
The Kansas City setting made April a little different than the usual New York, LA, and Chicago eyes of the period. I recall them as overall superior to the general run of eyes of the era. Not in the top echelon perhaps, but much above the run of the mill. It’s been a long time since I read one, but I suspect they would hold up today.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I’m not so sure about the Black Mask style, but “razor sharp and lean” sure fits my memory of the books.
Thanks to a review of ONE TEAR FOR MY GRAVE in 1001 MIDNIGHTS by Max Allan Collins, where I found them, here are the first four sentences. As it happens, these are also the first four paragraphs:
There are two times when a man will lie very still.
When he has finished making love to a woman.
When he is finished with life.
The man on the floor lay still with death.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I recently read my first Mike Roscoe, “Riddle Me This,” which was rather disappointing. The prose was anything but “razor sharp and lean” – to me there was way too much dialogue, bland characters, insufficient motivation, B-grade Spillane-isms, and an ending that just sort of fizzled out. I have “One Tear For My Grave” sitting on my shelf, but after reading this review I’m tempted to give Roscoe another go.
Here’s the link to my review:
http://pulpserenade.blogspot.com/2009/05/riddle-me-this-by-mike-roscoe-signet.html
May 20th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Hi Cullen
Thanks for the link. I just read your review, and it sounds as though you’ve got Roscoe pegged as being in the Spillane camp, all right. I have to agree, certainly more so than the Black Mask comparison.
But I don’t think anybody can review a Mike Roscoe book without doing long quotes, and I see you’re no exception:
I came up off the floor in a hard, quick lunge, my hand flat and stiff and aimed for his belly. Just as the fingertips made contact, I rolled forward using my shoulder and arm muscles for extra push.
His belly was soft and yielding. My hand sunk in. I stood up and stepped back, quick, in case it wasn’t enough.
But it was.
His face went dead white and he sank slowly, moaning to himself.
When he hit the floor, he vomited.
“You sonuvabitch. You shouldn’t stand so close to your words.”
He vomited again as I walked out.
As for your other sources of displeasure, especially the ending that just sort of fizzled out, that’s Dan’s complaint too.
But as for the prose and quoting it in a review? Nobody can resist.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:15 am
From what I recall of the Roscoe books the “authentic Black Mask style” probably refers to Carroll John Daly rather than Hammett or Chandler. They were in the Spillane mode, and if you will notice the paperback publisher was Signet which was Spillane’s home. The covers certainly seem aimed at the Spillane market.
Still, it’s hard to compare anyone to Spillane and then mention weak endings.
May 21st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
David
Yes, Carroll John Daly could easily be the writer the earlier source had in mind, but while they may have done so for Spillane, I don’t think many reviewers ever bothered quoting long passages from Carroll John Daly.
By the way, that’s quite a difference between the two covers, isn’t it? I don’t think you could even guess from the second one that it’s a private eye story.
In order to read the blurb on the front cover of the second one — you should always read the fine print — I went back to a larger image of it. What it does is quote a certain Anthony Boucher from the New York Times as saying:
“Roscoe’s tough telling keeps getting better … [he is] the only genuine private eye I know.”
Being of a somewhat suspicious mind, I wonder what the rest of the review said. Sometimes context is important!
Chris
My reaction exactly. Of course a rozzer and a roscoe are hardly the same thing at all…
— Steve
May 21st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
As soon as I can get to it, I’ll post Max Allan Collins’ entire 1001 MIDNIGHTS review of ONE TEAR FOR MY GRAVE. I’ve been afflicted with an aching back the last couple of days, so I’ve had to keep active (i.e., not sitting at the computer), but I’m a strong believer in more than one viewpoint on a book or an author, when I can do it.
So I will.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
They do usually quote Daly, just not to compliment him. The Roscoe books are pretty good p.i. stuff with some good writing, though the plotting could use a little work (which is true of a lot of hardboiled fiction of the era they worked in). My overall impression of them is pleasant but not memorable.
As for reviews, yes, those stray elipsis can make a lot of difference. If that’s Boucher’s NY Times review of Roscoe you can probably bring it up and read the whole thing from the paper’s archives. Boucher eventually even came around to appreciate Spillane, so it’s entirely possible he wrote an overall positive review of the Roscoe book.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Just read a review of Roscoe by James Reasoner at http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2009/02/forgotten-books-slice-of-hell-mike.html who mentions the Carroll John Daly connection, and seems to agree the Roscoe books have some worthwhile qualities despite their flaws. He also mentions how dumb April is, which reminds me of Robert E. Howard who said one reason Conan was no smarter than depicted was because it is always easier to write about dumb characters than smart ones. Quite a few hardboiled writers seem to have taken that to heart over the years.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:40 pm
You ought to have seen the broad grin that showed up on my face when I read that last line, David.
As a matter of fact, it’s still there.
— Steve