REX STOUT – The Broken Vase. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1941. Paperback reprints include: Dell #115, ca.1946; Pyramid R-1149, “A Green Door Mystery,” 1965; Bantam Crimeline, 1995.

   At a friend’s behest, Tecumseh Fox contributed $2,000 to the purchase of a Stradivarius violin for “the next Sarasate.” Attending the premier performance of the violinist at Carnegie Hall, Fox finds it mildly enjoyable, but the music lovers are aghast at the performance. So, too, is the violinist, who, in front of witnesses, kills himself during the intermission.

   The violin is stolen and then returned. Fox is asked to investigate the circumstances by the violinist’s rich patron and later is hired to find out who committed a murder.

   On the cover of the [Pyramid] paperback the publisher says, “As great as Nero Wolfe.” Well, publishers will have their little drolleries. Nonetheless, while a Fox is not a Wolfe, this is a good, fair-play novel that should make the reader want to find the earlier Fox novels to find out more about this detective.

      The Tecumseh Fox series —

Double for Death. Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.
Bad for Business. Farrar & Rinehart, 1940.
The Broken Vase. Farrar & Rinehart, 1941.

SHARON FIFFER – Dead Guy’s Stuff. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 2002; paperback, 2003.

   Jane Wheel is an antiques “picker” (similar to a book scout who finds books for dealers, Jane has a gift for spotting treasures among other people’s trash, which she then sells to e dealer who’s “sponsoring” her). Jane is not only a scout for other people, she’s also a collector of Bakelite. (Even after reading the book, I was a bit unclear about this product, but wife volunteered the information that she remembered it as plastics used in the manufacture of dinnerware. She then made a quick web search courtesy of Google and found that its use dates back to at least the 1930s and includes the manufacture of appliances and jewelry, among other products.)

   This unfortunately reminded me of shows I go to where glassware predominates with books and magazine relegated to also-ran status. Still, the obsession in itself is still recognizable to any collector and who am I to look down on any knowledgeable collector, whatever the field?

   Anyhow, Jane has found a collection of tavern memorabilia, which resonates with her tavern-owning parents who are renovating their bar and grill in Kankakee, Illinois.

   To my mind, the whole subject is somewhat cluttered, and the novel is, too, with gangsters and long-buried family secrets in the mix. In addition, her marriage is shaky and and she and her husband are only maintaining a relationship for their teen-age son.

      The Jane Wheel series —

1. Killer Stuff (2001)

2. Dead Guy’s Stuff (2002)
3. The Wrong Stuff (2003)
4. Buried Stuff (2004)

5. Hollywood Stuff (2006)
6. Scary Stuff (2009)
7. Backstage Stuff (2011)

8. Lucky Stuff (2012)

JOHN MALCOLM – Sheep, Goats and Soap. Tim Simpson #8. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1992. First published in the UK by Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1991.

   I’m a Tim Simpson fan, and it has been a continuing source of irritation to me that the American paperbacks are so far behind in the series — four books now, with this one. Simpson is an ex-rugby player who works for a London merchant bank as one of the Trustees of their Art Fund, and is resident expert`of same. He is married (finally) to Sue, who has alternated between being his lover and the bane of his existence in the earlier books in the series. She is an art historian for the Tate.

   Tim receives a letter from an old rugby acquaintance, hinting at art treasures to be acquired, and making reference to sheep, goats, and soap. These are, it develops, terms used in connection with the pre-Raphaelite group of artists. You’ll have to read the book to understand the exact relevance of the terms, assuming that you don’t already know.

   Tim and Sue hie themselves off to Hastings in search of the acquaintance, and arrive just after his cottage has been blown off a cliff. He himself is missing but there are two corpses discovered in the ruins. They encounter an old nemesis, Inspector Foster, who is less than pleased by their appearance. The plot eventually involves Simpson’s old Scotland Yard rugby chum, Nobby Roberts, and (much to Sue’s displeasure) an old one-afternoon stand of Tim’s.

   The Simpson books appeal to me on several levels. Oddly, one is the painless but quite interesting historical lore about whatever the focus of the current book happens to be. Odd because though I’m reasonably interested in the history of painting, I have almost no interest at all in sculpture and antique furniture; both of which have been the subject of earlier books.

   Malcolm is a founding member of the Antique Collector’s Club, and his love of the subject is evident. Most importantly, though, I like his way of telling a story. He keeps the action moving along while at the same time developing his characters and throwing in the odd bit of art history. And finally, of course, I like Tim Simpson as a leading man.

   It all adds up to a very good series, and a very good current offering. I recommend them all.

      The Tim Simpson series —

1. A Back Room in Somers Town (1984)

2. The Godwin Sideboard (1984)
3. The Gwen John Sculpture (1985)
4. Whistler in the Dark (1986)
5. Gothic Pursuit (1987)

6. Mortal Ruin (1988)
7. The Wrong Impression (1990)
8. Sheep, Goats and Soap (1991)
9. A Deceptive Appearance (1992)

10. The Burning Ground (1993)
11. Hung over (1994)

12. Into the Vortex (1996)
13. Simpson’s Homer (2001)
14. Circles and Squares (2003)
15. Rogues’ Gallery (2005)

MICHAEL BRETT – Kill Him Quickly, It’s Raining. Pocket; paperback original; 1st printing, December 1966.

   First of all, what a great title for a private eye novel. This is the first recorded case for Manhattan based PI Pete McGrath, and most of his book titles are as good as this one, if not better. I’ll add a list of all ten at the end of this review, as usual.

   While Kill Him Quickly is the first of the McGrath books, Michael Brett was the author of two earlier books, both paperback originals from Ace, in which the leading character was someone called Sam Dakkers. The titles were The Guilty Bystander and Scream Street, both from 1959. If anyone recognizes either title and can tell me anything about Sam Dakkers, I’d be happy to know more about him.

   When I picked this one up to be read at bedtime, I had no idea that it was McGrath’s debut to the world. It was easy to assume that he’d had other adventures, it was just that I hadn’t read them yet. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. McGrath tells his own story, and with such confidence that you assume he’s been around for a while, that he hadn’t just hatched out of nowhere, which in effect he had.

   I didn’t get much of a picture of who he is, though, or even what he looks like. Just another tough PI with a bit of an attitude. Just how tough, that comes later, when he finds himself needing answers from someone, and he’s in a bit of a hurry as to how he gets it.

   The case, as it so happens, is twofold. He’s hired first by a woman recently widowed whose home has been entered and probably robbed, and she can tell that someone is following her. It turns out that her now deceased husband had some friends with whom he was involved in an unsavory venture together, and one of the friends is decidedly unfriendly.

   While still working on this case, McGrath is hired by a second client, a spy, he says, trying to come in from the cold, and he needs a bodyguard. It turns out that the spy is pretty good with a gun himself, and McGrath finds himself with a dead body on his hands and in a jam with the police

   This one’s a good one, with only a couple of caveats. There are a few too many people involved; after a while it becomes difficult to keep them all straight, and not all of them manage to survive. I also thought the ending was wrapped up too quickly, as if the book was beginning to run out of pages. Otherwise this debut venture for Pete McGrath makes me want to read more. I think I have all of them listed below, and it’s time to dig them out and have at them.

       The Pete McGrath series —

Kill Him Quickly, It’s Raining (1966)
An Ear For Murder (1967)
The Flight of the Stiff (1967)

Turn Blue, You Murderers (1967)

We, the Killers (1967)

Dead Upstairs in the Tub (1967)

Slit My Throat Gently (1968)

Lie a Little, Die a Little (1968)
Another Day, Another Stiff (1968)
Death of a Hippie (1968)

JOYCE PORTER – Sour Cream With Everything. Jonathan Cape, UK, hardcover, 1966; Panther, UK, paperback, 1968. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hardcover, 1966.

   Unfortunately for Edmund (Eddie) Brown, named by his mother after Edmundo Ros, who Mrs Brown thought was Irish, he speaks fluent Russian, albeit of the prerevolutionary variety, and closely resembles a Russian that the British Board of Trade (and one wonders whether Tim Heald’s Simon Bognor is aware of this aspect of the Board of Trade) wants to smuggle out of the Soviet Union for 26 days. It is Eddie’s role, whether he likes it or not, and he emphatically doesn’t, being more than a bit of a coward, to replace the Russian during that time.

   Eddie is more than a bit of a failure, too, which he blames on the lack of an old school tie, and none too bright, except when it comes to survival — his own. After a period of training at a fake lunatic asylum, Eddie is sent into the Soviet Union in a pink Bentley in the company of an especially unpleasant virago.

   When Eddie thinks he has successfully completed his part of the mission, he finds that he has been known to be a British agent all along. His seeming willingness to commit murder saves him from arrest, however, since the real KGB agent wants Eddie to murder the agent’s wife.

   Joyce Porter has created two of the funniest characters in the mystery field in Chief Inspector Wilfrid Dover and the Hon. Constance Morrison-Burke. Eddie Brown, reluctant and inept spy, at least in this novel, is not in their class. But if you haven’t read Porter’s books featuring Dover and the Hon. Con, you may find how Eddie mucks things up quite amusing.

      The Eddie Brown series —

1. Sour Cream with Everything (1966)
2. The Chinks in the Curtain (1967)

3. Neither a Candle Nor a Pitchfork (1969)
4. Only with a Bargepole (1971)

ELAINE FLINN – Dealing in Murder. Avon, paperback original, 2003.

   After her cheating husband involved her successful (and very upscale) antiques store in a criminal scam, Elaine Flinn’s protagonist fled to Carmel, California. Cleared of complicity but with her reputation still tarnished, Porter has set up amodest business in a shop in Carmel that a long-time friend has made available to her and adopted the name “Molly Doyle.”

   She quickly demonstrates a a penchant for being present at murder scenes and has not only to work to keep her young business afloat but solve crimes for which she’s clearly a prime suspect. As an added inducement to another category of readers among whom I count myself, there’s an art connection involving a cache of rolled-up canvases in a style Flinn characterizes as “early California.”

   These are more appealing to Molly than some of the stock she’s peddling in reduced circumstances but they also turn out to make her situation more dangerous and put her in direct conflict with the relentless killer.

   She’s a high-end snob but compensates for this with a sharp intelligence and impressive body of knowledge about the antiques business that makes her very likable and interesting. This is a first novel by a long-time San Francisco antiques dealer. I would recommend it to any reader of mysteries with the slightest interest in collecting.

      The Molly Doyle series —

1. Dealing in Murder (2003).   Nominated for an Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry and Anthony.
2. Tagged for Murder (2004).   Barry Award: Best Paperback Original. (2005).

3. Deadly Collection (2005).
4. Deadly Vintage (2007).

Editorial Note: Sad to say, Elaine Flinn died of pneumonia and cancer in September 2008.

WILLIAM HEFFERNAN – A Time Gone By. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2003. Akashic Books; trade paperback; April 2005.

   As a journalist, investigative reporter and editor, along with many other honors, William Heffernan was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize. As a crime fiction writer, it’s not clear how many times he was nominated for the MWA’s Edgar, but he won it once, for Tarnished Blue (1995) as the Best Paperback Original.

   He’s also not an author I’ve read before. Looking through the list of 16 books he’s written, it’s not difficult to see why. Most of his books are either gangster (Mafia) fiction or hard-edged police procedurals (his Paul Devlin series), neither of which category have I very actively been adding to my collection.

   In recent years Heffernan has decided to expand his range, making use of his extensive journalistic background. Alternating with books in his Devlin series have come Cityside (1999) a look into the more unsavory aspects of big city tabloidism; and Beulah Hill (2001), which takies place in 1933 Vermont, with a murder of a white boy by a suspected black causing a severe setback to racial relations in the area.

   A Time Gone By is Heffernan’s most recent book, and it’s very much of a tour de force. Switching the time frame of a murder mystery back and forth between 1945 and 1975, and making it seem the easiest thing in the world, never clashing gears once, is a challenge I suspect not many authors would be up to.

   When a crooked judge is murdered in his home in 1945, Jake Dowling was only a rookie cop, and not even with a more experienced partner could they continue fighting forever when they quickly enough discover that the political fix is in. Thirty years later, Jake — who for the most part tells his own story — finally has the clout and — after the death of his wife — the will to see if the case can be closed at last.

   There is a definite noir-ish feel to the scenes that take place in 1945, and of course, there is a woman involved. Even though Jake is married at the time, with a child on the way, he falls deeply in lust (if not love) with the judge’s new widow, a former hatcheck girl who has made good.

   In 1975, Jake knows that the wrong man went to the electric chair. Even though the man had clearly committed other murders, Jake knows that he died for one he didn’t do, but who did? Thus develops a tantalizing interplay between past and present, an enigmatic puzzle that roots itself into the mind of the reader as well, and refuses to become dislodged.

   While the transitions always take place smoothly, meshing into place almost perfectly, I believe the naive Jake of 1945, led around by the young widow by something other than his brain, is better developed than the Jake of 1975. As a chief of detectives for the NYPD, he still seems too callow for the job. How, one wonders, was he able to make all of the advancements he did to come out on top like this? It’s a subtle thing, and maybe it was only me.

   As for the mystery itself, it’s a winner, with – as the veteran mystery reader will suspect all the way through – well, you couldn’t have a detective story written as well as this without having a twist or two along the way, and/or a substantial surprise or three before it’s done, could you?

   I won’t say more. This is my kind of book. If you’re fond of 1940s noir with a slight but appreciable touch of sexual infidelity, you’ll have to read this one for yourself.

       BIBLIOGRAPHY

* = Paul Devlin series. Devlin is a detective with the New York City police department. Some descriptions of the books make it seem as though he reports directly to the mayor.

Broderick. Crown Publishers, hc. 1980. No paperback edition.
Caging the Raven. Wyndham Publications, hc. 1981. No paperback edition.
The Corsican. Simon & Schuster, hc. 1983. Signet, paperback, 1987.

Acts of Contrition. New American Library, hardcover, 1986. Onyx, paperback, August 1987.
Ritual. New American Library, hc, 1989. Signet, paperback, 1993.

* Blood Rose. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1991. Signet, paperback, December 1993.
Corsican Honor. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1992. Signet, paperback, March 1993.
* Scarred. Signet, paperback, December 1993
* Tarnished Blue. Onyx, paperback, April 1995. Winner of 1996 Edgar award for Best Paperback Original Novel.
* Winter’s Gold. Onyx, pb, Jan 1997.
The Dinosaur Club. William Morrow, hardcover, 1997. Pocket Books, paperback, December 1998.
Cityside. William Morrow, hardcover, 1999. Akashic Books, softcoverm September 2003.
* Red Angel. William Morrow, hardcover, 2000. Avon, paperback, December 2001.
Beulah Hill. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2001. Akashic Books, softcover, April 2003.
* Unholy Order. William Morrow, hardcover, 2002. Avon, paperback, December 2002.
A Time Gone By. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 2003. Akashic Books, softcover, Apr 2005.
The Dead Detective. Akashic, hardcover, 2010.

TALMAGE POWELL – With a Madman Behind Me. Permabook M-4233, paperback original, 1961.

   Whenever I see a nice-looking paperback original mystery under 50 cents I pick it up whether I know anything about the author or not, and Talmage Powell’s With a Madman Behind Me turned out to be a readable blend of the preposterous and the pretentious. No classic, maybe, but I didn’t throw it across the room, either.

   It opens with PI Ed Rivers looking out his window one hot Tampa night to see a woman in an apartment across the way waving for help. He gets to her place just in time to:

    a) See her killed

    b) Learn the identity of her killer

    c) Get a clue that will bust open a devious plot to flood America with (gasp!) pornography

    d) Get knocked out, tied up and dumped in Tampa Bay.

   That’s the Preposterous part. The Pretentious comes right on the heels of this, when everyone starts talking like freshman sociology students: as when a Homicide cop describes a dead hooker:

   And a few pages later Ed Rivers confronts a witness and describes her:

   It turns out even the bad guys talk this way, as a Porn kingpin tells Ed:

   Now I ain’t narrow-thinking, but a man gets tired of that kind of talk all the time. And there’s plenty more of it here. It’s as if author Talmage Powell read a Travis McGee book and never got over it.

   On the plus side, however, Powell handles the action scenes well enough, moves the predictable plot along swiftly, and does not — as some authors do — deplore the art of pornography, then proceed to fill his book with sex. There’s even a sort-of pay-off for all the over-analyzing, as the book wraps up with a thoughtful twist on an old plot.

   It’s not enough to save Madman from utter forgetabilty, but it does provide a readable time-waster for those who miss the old days of paperback crime.

      The Ed Rivers series —

The Killer Is Mine (1959)

The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer (1960)

With a Madman Behind Me (1961)
Start Screaming Murder (1962)
Corpus Delectable (1964)

MARGARET MARON – Bootlegger’s Daughter. Deborah Knott #1, Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1992; paperback, June 1993.

   Margaret Maron is the author of seven novels featuring Sigrid Harald, as well as one non-series mystery. I understand that we’ve seen the last of Harald for a while, and that Maron will concentrate on Deborah Knott.

   Fine with me; I liked the Harald stories well enough to read and acquire them, but I think Bootlegger’s Daughter clearly represents a move up in the craft.

   Deborah Knott is a 34 year old attorney who has entered the Democratic Primary for the position of District Judge. Her father is (was?) the best known bootlegger in that part of North Carolina, and they are currently somewhat estranged due to his opposition to her political ambitions.

   Just prior to election day, an old (unrequited) love comes to her for help The story of course deals with her journey into the past in search of answers, but it is much more than just a mystery to be solved. It is the story of a woman trying to enter a man’s world in the old south, and indeed an evocative depiction of the people and culture of a piece of that part of our country.

   I know North Carolina only slightly, but know the rural south well, and found the milieu to be finely and accurately drawn. Deborah herself is an appealing character, a strong and determined woman who I believe will find favor with most readers. I look forward to meeting her again. A very good book, recommended highly.

   A final note: on the back of the dust jacket are no less than seven favorable and well deserved advance comments by fellow mystery writers, and I was struck by the fact that they were all by female authors. Hmmm. One isn’t quite sure what to infer. Do Maron/Mysterious Press consider this primarily a “woman’s” book? Surely not, though that’s the most obvious implication. I would think it almost has to be a marketing decision of some kind. Oh, well.

      The Deborah Knott Series —

Bootlegger’s Daughter, 1992
Southern Discomfort, 1993

Shooting at Loons, 1994
Up Jumps the Devil, 1996

Killer Market, 1997
Home Fires, 1998
Storm Track, 2000
Uncommon Clay, 2001
Slow Dollar, 2002
High Country Fall, 2004
Rituals of the Season, 2005
Winter’s Child, 2006

Hard Row, 2007
Death’s Half-Acre, 2008
Sand Sharks, 2009

Christmas Mourning, 2010
Three-Day Town, 2011 (cross-over with Sigrid Harald)
The Buzzard Table, 2012

Designated Daughters, 2014
Long Upon the Land, 2015

Note: Sigrid Harald made two additional appearances after the Deborak Knott series began: Fugitive Colors (1995) and the crossover novel noted above. Bootlegger’s Daughter won the 1992 Agatha and the Anthony, Edgar and Macavity awards for “Best Novel” the following year.

JAMES DARK – Hong Kong Incident. Signet D2935, paperback original; 1st US printing, August 1966. First published in Australia as Assignment: Hong Kong by Horwitz Publications Inc., Australia, paperback, 1966.

   There were in all 16 recorded adventures of undercover spy Mark Hood, of which this is one of the earliest. The author of all but one of the Hood books, ostensibly James Dark, was J. E. Macdonell, who according to his Wikipedia page, “wrote over 200 novels, in at least 7 different series under several versions of his own name and several pseudonyms.” In Australia, where Horwitz was based, the Mark Hood books were published under Macdonnell’s own name.

   The gimmick for Mark Hood was that he worked undercover as an international playboy, as as such, according to the Spy Guys and Gals website, he was an expert in “Auto racing at Le Mans, karate competitions in Tokyo, sail fishing in the Bahamas, and, most famously of all, one of the greatest living cricket players in England.”

   This was the first one I’ve read, and in Hong Kong Incident, of the skills above, he shows off only auto racing (in Chapter One), plus karate or some other Asiatic fighting ability. I’ll have to take the other website’s word for it about any of the other talents.

   The reason he’s in Hong Kong is to be there where a Chinese dissident crosses the border and get him safely to Geneva. The first he does; the mission goes wrong when it comes to the second. Otherwise, of course, there wouldn’t be a story, which when it finally gets around to it, is about keeping a Chinese submarine from blowing up part of the American fleet. Before that the story takes place in a rice paddy, an ancient Chinese cemetery and a couple of exotic bars, with ladies in them to match.

   Dark is OK with short action scenes and quick descriptions of local countrysides. He’s not so good in placing the action in a grander scale: Dark seems to know Macao, Hong Kong, and Kowloon in particular, with China looming somewhere across the border, but to me, the setting was all one big jumble. His characters? One-dimensional at best.

   On the other hand, Dark’s other books, many written under Macdonnell’s real name, are naval adventures, and here he really seems to know what he’s talking about. The last third of this book would be grand stuff, I think, for fans of naval fiction, naval personnel, naval armament and the like. I don’t happen to be one, but I got by. Overall, I’m glad this one was only 128 pages long. I don’t imagine I’ll read another.

      The Mark Hood series —

Spy from the Grave, 1964. [No US edition; written by R. Wilkes-Hunter]
The Bamboo Bomb, 1965.

Come Die with Me. 1965.
Hong Kong Incident. 1966.
Assignment Tokyo. 1966.
Spy from the Deep. 1966, No US edition.

The Throne of Satan. 1967.
Operation Scuba. 1967.
Operation Jackal. 1967. No US edition.
Spying Blind. 1968.
The Sword of Genghis Khan. 1967.

The Invisibles. 1969.

Operation Ice Cap. 1969.
Operation Octopus. 1968
The Reluctant Assassin. 1970. No US edition.
Sea Scrape. 1971.

   Except where there was no US edition, all were published by Signet as paperback originals in this country. Dates are those of the US editions. (In some cases the US edition came before the Australian one.) Books published the same year are listed alphabetically, so this list may not be completely correct chronologically.