Fri 11 Feb 2011
A Review by Ray O’Leary: ALAN AMOS – Borderline Murder.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[2] Comments
ALAN AMOS – Borderline Murder. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1947. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, March 1948.
Not too long ago I was surprised to still able to pick this up for 53 cents at the Salvation Army store on Myrtle Avenue near Jamaica. The dust-jacket symbol is the Dagger — for Chase and Adventure.
Larry Winter, embittered by a two-year stretch for a robbery he didn’t do, gets off the Bus in Laredo, Texas on Christmas Eve.
A private eye buddy of his has been keeping track of the man whose perjured testimony sent Winter up, and it seems the suspect, one Brantz Hallem, aka Burke Hall, is in Mexico about to smuggle some stolen jewelry stateside.
Almost immediately, things get complicated. Winter is forced to share a room with a talkative fellow-passenger from the Bus, and the two of them get glad-handed by one Larry Higby & Wife, who are organizing a party of Motel Guests to spend Christmas across the Border.
Then Winter hears from his PI buddy that Higby has been traveling in Mexico with Hallem/Hall and will probably be doing the smuggling.
Oh yes; also on the trip are two elderly spinsters, an over-the-hill Opera Star, a female ventriloquist with a life-sized male dummy, an elderly doctor waiting on a burro (I’m not making this up.) and a fellow who claims to be writing a history of Texas.
Sometime during the course of the evening, Winter gets knocked unconscious and the elderly Doctor turns unexpectedly dead. With his prison record, that makes Winter a pretty good suspect, and he realizes he now must find the real killer or face dire consequences.
Got kind of long-winded in my rundown. This one turned out to be a pretty good read, not great by any means, nor even very memorable, but a solid piece of entertainment.
My one quibble was with the character of Winter’s PI buddy, who, we are supposed to believe, has been tracking Hallem/Hall for two years and living on God-knows-what, then just sends Winter a letter and bows out, with no desire to be in on the kill or anything. Seems more convenient than realistic, if you ask me.
Bibliographic Bits: Alan Amos was the pseudonym of Kathleen Moore Knight, ca. 1890-1984, a prolific mystery and detective story writer from the mid-1930s on through the 1950s, mostly for the Doubleday Crime Club — and all but forgotten today.
She wrote four thrillers as Amos, and under her own name, more than 30 more novels, many of them cases solved by Elisha Macomber, a Penberthy Island selectman up around Martha’s Vineyard way.
One of these books, The Trouble at Turkey Hill, was reviewed earlier by me (Steve) here on this blog. Included is a list of all sixteen of Elisha’s appearances.
February 13th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Kathleen Moore Knight appears on a list compiled by Doug Greene labeled “The 10 Most Underrated Mystery Writers.” It appears in a mystery fan anthology called THE FINE ART OF MURDER edited by Ed Gorman, Martin Greenberg, Larry Segriff & Jon Breen.
The others listed were Clyde Clason, B.L. Farjeon (a Victorian writer!), Milward Kennedy, Rufus King, Paul McGuire, Rupert Penny, Jonathan Stagge, Darwin Teilhet and Clifford Witting. Almost all of the writers have recently received quite a bit of coverage on various mystery writing blogs including this one. Most recently, Witting’s Measure for Murder was the topic of several exchanges at the GA yahoo forum.
Only Farjeon and Stagge (same writing duo that created Patrick Quentin) and maybe Teilhet seem to have been overlooked. One of these days I’ll write something on Farjeon. I’ve always thought many of his books in the genre were ingenious and utterly original, not too mention “ripping yarns” and great reading.
I started seeking out most of these writers with dogged tenacity. But some of these writers’ books – especially Rupert Penny – are very difficult to find unless you resort to the internet bookselling sites. And I only do that if utterly desperate to read or own a book.
Thankfully, Rupert Penny’s books are now available from Ramble House in fairly affordable (if not very attractively designed or typeset) editions. And most of the better Clason titles can be purchased from Rue Morgue Press in their well done reprints.
As for Knight — I started buying her books (especially those in DJ) whenever I found them and continue to do so. This year I am planning an article on Elisha Macomber and some of Knight’s mysteries set in Mexico without a series character. Hope to get it out within a month or two.
John
February 13th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
I’ve found Knight’s work awfully uneven, the little I’ve read of it. The Macomber books, as I recall, I’ve enjoyed more than her standalones. But I find that’s true of a lot of writers’ mysteries, and I’d wager that a lot of people feel the same way.
Readers like continuing characters, authors not necessarily so much. Starting with Doyle, I suppose, but probably even before then.
In any case, John, that’s good news about that article you’re doing. I’m looking forward to it already!