FRANK KANE – Ring-a-Ding-Ding. PI Johnny Lindell. Dell 7451, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1963. Cover art: Ron Lesser.

   Private eye Johnny Lindell, loosely cooperating with the police, helps them solve the murder of a hatcheck girl who threatened to expose a blackmail racket, Life in the underworld is taken for granted, and its nastiness is revealed without excessive finger pointing,

   But author Frank Kane’s prose is often cheap and uninspired. For example, the line: “The bodice of her gown seemed inadequate to contain the fullness of her breasts (page 10).

   Characters act at the whim of the author, who is omniscient in relating past histories and present thoughts, The credibility of the plot is stretched when, for another example, Liddell tells the police who his client is on page 114 and later groans when he learns that they know on page 153

   Easy surface reading

Rating: **

— May 1969 .