EDWARD ACHESON – The Grammarian’s Funeral. Macrae Smith, US, hardcover, 1935. Hutchinson, UK, hc, 1935.

   Choosing a book by its title is much like buying a pig in a poke. The contents are always a surprise — sometimes pleasant, sometimes disappointing, sometimes uncertain.

   The Grammarian’s Funeral turned out to be nothing like I imagined it would be. It is the story of Crane Adams, meek, mild, downtrodden, and abused by the principal of his school, his wife, his students, and almost anyone else he comes into contact with.

   Adams’s cousin, Chatterton Manley, to whom Adams owes a significant sum which he is paying back, apparently sporadically, disappears. Everybody but Adams is aware that Manley’s wife is in love with him. Manley’s suitcase is found in Adams’s garage. All that the police are lacking is a corpse.

   The arrest of Adams by the police as “a material witness,” though they are sure he has done away with Manley, changes him from, if I may put it this way, a Casper Milquetoast to something like Mr. Hyde, although not quite as bright as the latter. Because of Adams’s efforts — if blundering about does not describe it better — the corpse is found and the real murderer is unmasked.

    Adams’s alteration was unconvincing, as was the story that mumps in an adult male can cause impotence. But I was anticipating — why, I cannot say — a lighter, more frivolous novel from the title, and thus my judgment is probably suspect.

       Bibliographic data [taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

ACHESON, EDWARD (Campion). 1902-1966.
      Red Herring. Morrow, 1932; UK title: Murder by Suggestion, Hutchinson, 1933.
      The Grammarian’s Funeral. Macrae-Smith, 1935; Hutchinson, UK, 1935.
      Murder to Hounds. Harcourt, 1939; Harrap, UK, 1939.

JOHN LUTZ – Tropical Heat.

Henry Holt & Co., hardcover, 1986; paperback reprint: Avon, 1987.

   The setting is central Florida and the private detective is Fred Carver, a fortyish balding ex-cop whose police career abruptly ended when he was kneecapped by a Latino street punk.

   A new protagonist and a new scene, but the world caught on the pages of Tropical Heat is unmistakably the world of John Lutz, the St. Louis area’s foremost suspense novelist, and the superficially tough and cynical Carver clearly belongs in the post-Ross Macdonald fraternity (or is the word siblinghood?) of concerned and compassionate PIs, right alongside Lutz’s earlier detective character, the timid and soft-hearted Alo Nudger.

   Vegetating in the beachfront bungalow he bought with his disability pay, Carver is visited by upscale real-estate salesperson Edwina Talbot and in effect challenged to stop pitying himself and do something with the rest of his life.

   The particular something she wants him to do is to find her lover, Willis Davis, who in the middle of a solitary continental breakfast on her terrace either walked out on her for no reason, or jumped off a cliff into the ocean, or was pushed off.

   The search leads Carver to a condominium time-sharing scam, a drug deal (in Florida, what else?), an assortment of close calls, and an emotional entanglement with his lovely and much-abused client which neither he nor she is well equipped to handle.

   The plot of Tropical Heat is the bare-bones variety, but the meat on those bones is prime Florida noir. Lutz does a blazingly vivid job not only with the sun-soaked atmosphere and the wild action scenes (including Carver’s underwater duel with a Marielito knife killer and an airboat chase through the midnight Everglades) but also with the anguished relationship of a man and a woman each struggling against a personal darkness.

   This novel makes great summer reading — provided the reading is done in an air-conditioned room to counteract Lutz’s descriptions of the oppressive Florida heat.

FRED CARVER. Private eye series character created by John Lutz. For a complete profile of Fred Carver, check out his page on the Thrilling Detective website. The following complete list of recorded cases is expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

      Tropical Heat. Holt 1986; Avon 1987.
      Scorcher. Holt 1987; Avon 1988.

      Kiss. Holt 1988; Avon 1990.
      Flame. Holt 1990; Avon 1991.
      Blood Fire. Holt 1991; Avon 1992.
      Hot. Holt 1992; Avon 1993.

      Spark. Holt 1993; no ppbk edition.
      Torch. Holt 1994; no ppbk edition.
      Burn. Holt 1995; no ppbk edition.

      Lightning. Holt 1996; no ppbk edition.

Short stories —

       “Someone Else” (Justice for Hire, 1990)
       “Night Crawlers” ( EQMM, April 1997)

JOHN GREENWOOD —
        ● Mosley by Moonlight. Quartet, UK, hardcover, 1984. Walker, US, hc, 1985; Bantam, US, pb, April 1986.
        ● Mists Over Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1986; Walker, US, 1986; Bantam, US, pb, September 1987.

   The best work on mysteries in the British village is the chapter by Mary Jean De Marr in Comic Crime (1987), edited by Earl Bargainnler and published by Bowling Green’s Popular Press.

   Although Ms. De Marr covered some recent examples, I suspect that she hadn’t caught up with John Greenwood’s series of six books about Inspector John Mosley, whose territory covers the small towns on the very flexible border between the counties of York and Lancaster.

   British-village mysteries, contrasted with the generally unsophisticated examples of rural-American detective stories, are told in a sophisticated style and permit the reader to have fun at the expense of the local characters.

   Greenwood, the pseudonym of the late John Buxton Hilton, was excellent on atmosphere, if a bit weak on plotting. Prime examples are the second and fourth books in the series, Mosley by Moonlight, in which a British television crew invades the town of Hadley Dale when extraterrestrial sightings are reported, and Mists over Mosley, about a coven of witches and municipal corruption.

   Mosley is an unusually enigmatic sleuth, one who likes to “keep himself to himself” as the British say. He has a knack of disappearing but then turning up under strange circumstances, properly surprising Greenwood readers.

INSP. JACK MOSLEY.    Series character created by John Greenwood, pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, 1921-1986.    [Data expanded from that found in Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

       Murder, Mr. Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1983. Walker, US, 1983; Bantam, US, pb, Feb 1986.

       Mosley by Moonlight. Quartet, UK, 1984. Walker, US, 1985; also Bantam, US, pb, April 1986.
       Mosley Went to Mow. Quartet, UK,1985. Walker, US, hc, as The Missing Mr. Mosley, 1985; also Bantam, pb, Dec 1986.

       Mists Over Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1986. Walker, US, 1986; Bantam, US, pb, Sept 1987.
       The Mind of Mr. Mosley. Quartet, UK, 1987. Walker, US, 1987; Bantam, US, pb, July 1988.
       What, Me, Mr. Mosley? Quartet, UK, 1987. Walker, US, 1988; Bantam, US, pb, 1989.

MICHAEL ALLEN – Spence and the Holiday Murders. Walker, hardcover, first U.S. publication 1978. UK title: Spence in Petal Park: Constable, hc, 1977. Paperback reprint: Dell, February 1981; Scene of the Crime #14.

   The season is Christmas, the victim is a swinging young bachelor with an unsuspected habit of snapping photos through the windows of the girls’ school across the way, and so the immediate conclusion is that someone was being blackmailed.

   As everyone has come to expect of the British police procedural, Detective, Superintendent Spence’s investigation is carried out so diligently and smoothly that it could as well serve as a primer for the novice mystery reader.

   Bibliographic data. [Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

ALLEN, MICHAEL (Derek) 1939- . Pseudonym: Michael Bradford. SC: Supt. Ben Spence, in all below:
       Spence in Petal Park. Constable 1977.
       Spence and the Holiday Murders. Walker 1978. Reprint of Spence in Petal Park.
       Spence at the Blue Bazaar. Constable 1979.

       Spence at Marlby Manor. Walker 1982.

BRADFORD, MICHAEL. Pseudonym of Michael Allen.
        Counter-Coup. Muller, hc, 1980; Critics Choice, pb, 1986. “Rebels overthrow the South African government and President Kasaboru is on the run with Philip Morgan, formerly of the Metropolitan Police.”

LAURA CHILDS – Frill Kill.

Berkley, paperback reprint; 1st printing, October 2008. Hardcover edition: October 2007.

   Laura Childs is a one-woman fiction factory. She’s now producing books in three different series, and since 2001, there have been 17 books in those three series, already published or on their way.

   I’ll list all of the books at the end of this review. Frill Kill is the fifth one (of seven) in her series “Scrapbooking” mysteries, and from that you can guess, I’m sure, what all of her books are: craft- or food-oriented cozies.

   Not that the murder that occurs early on isn’t rather ferocious and gruesome, so much so that werewolvery is suspected, the death being that of a beautiful model shortly before Hallowe’en in downtown (post-Katrina) New Orleans. Strange hair is found at the scene, with the death itself caused by what appears to have been teeth marks.

   Finding the body – or more precisely being there at the same time the crime is committed – is Carmela Bertrand, owner of Memory Mine, a small shop specializing in scrapbook making materials – which is a far more extensive line of paper products et cetera than you might suspect.

   Aiding and abetting Carmela in her investigation of the crime is not Lt. Babcock, though she does think him rather hunky, but her friend Ava Grieux, who owns the Juju Voodoo shop just across the way. Not helping very much is Carmela’s soon-to-be ex-husband Shamus, whose stuffy family (including himself) is easily shocked by all of the escapades Carmela and Ava get into.

   As you might have guessed, descriptions of food (the setting being New Orleans) and the stock at Memory Mine take up a good portion of the book. There is no detection per se – whatever investigating that Carmela and the beautiful Ava do has little bearing on solving the mystery, which is one of those that simply seem to solve themselves, eventually.

   No matter. Laura Childs has a flair for fiction that reads smoothly, quickly and enjoyably, with a sure, deft hand on the light-hearted side. This one’s already added substantially, I’m sure, to the ranks of fans that follow her from book to book.

           SERIES —

      Tea Shop Mysteries

1. Death by Darjeeling (2001)

2. Gunpowder Green (2002)
3. Shades of Earl Grey (2003)
4. English Breakfast Murder (2003)
5. The Jasmine Moon Murder (2004)
6. Chamomile Mourning (2005)
7. Blood Orange Brewing (2006)
8. Dragonwell Dead (2007)
9. The Silver Needle Murder (2008)
10. Oolong Dead (2009)

      Scrapbooking Mysteries

1. Keepsake Crimes (2003)

2. Photo Finished (2004)
3. Bound for Murder (2004)
4. Motif for Murder (2006)
5. Frill Kill (2007)
6. Death Swatch (2008)
7. Tragic Magic (2009)

      Cackleberry Club Mysteries

1. Eggs in Purgatory (2008)

2. Eggs Benedict Arnold (2009)

ROBERT TERRALL – Sand Dollars.

St. Martin’s Press; hardcover; 1st printing, 1978. Paperback reprint: Dell, 1979.

   There’s a lot of money floating around this world that most of us never get the slightest glimpse of. Tax shelters for the rich being in high demand, a great deal of this money accumulates in out-of-the-way places like regulation-free Grand Cayman Island. When the mild-mannered accountant who first discovered this Caribbean financial paradise turns down the Mafia as a silent partner in his operations, he’s forced to turn to bank robbery in retaliation and as a means for sheer survival.

   What results is a lusty tale of greed and marital infidelity, spiced with numerous feats of sexual superheroism. Unfortunately none of the hapless, amoral creatures involved arouse much sympathy when things don’t work out quite as planned, and the story crumbles into what’s left of sand castles when the tide comes in, as it inevitably does.

[UPDATE] 05-27-09. This is a scarce book. Only 12 copies come for sale on ABE, for example, but unless you’re fussy about condition, you aren’t likely to have to pay very much for it, either.

   When I wrote the review, I may or may not have known that Robert Terrall was much more famous under several of his pen names: Robert Kyle, John Gonzales, and Brett Halliday (ghost-writing for Davis Dresser).

   The list of mystery fiction that was published under his own name is small, and at least one is be a reprint of another title as by someone else. Expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, here’s his entry there, excluding his work under other aliases:

TERRALL, ROBERT. 1914-2009.

      They Deal in Death. Simon & Schuster, hc, 1943.

      Madam Is Dead. Duell, Sloane & Pearce, hc, 1947.
      A Killer Is Loose Among Us. Duell, Sloane & Pearce, hc, 1948.

      Shroud for a City. Australia: Original Novels, pb, 1956. [US title?]
      Sand Dollars. St. Martin’s, hc, 1978.
      Kill Now, Pay Later. Hard Case Crime, pb, 2007. Previously published as by Robert Kyle (Dell, pbo, 1960).

   Robert Terrall was 94 years old when died on March 27th earlier this year. An excellent overview of his career can be found here on The Rap Sheet blog, along with an interview editor J. Kingston Pierce did with Ben Terrall, the author’s son and a free-lancer writer himself.

   If you missed it before, please don’t hesitate in jumping over and reading it now. If you’re a fan of vintage Gold Medal style literature, you’ll be glad you did.

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:

   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.

    H. J. S. Anderton is hardly an author who is or ever was a household name, but Steve Holland recently posted the results of his research into his life on his Bear Alley blog.

    A British writer, Anderton was responsible for nine crime thrillers that came out in the 1930s. The titles are included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, all published in cheap paperback form, but what Steve has come up with for the first time is his full name, the year he was born, when he died, and most amazingly, some information about his family.

    Anderton’s books are impossibly difficult to find, so I can’t show you a picture of one of his covers. Only a single copy of one of his books is offered for sale on ABE, a reprint copy of his first book, The League of the Yellow Skull.

    Steve mentions this book in the following paragraph, which I’m quoting in full:

    I think he’s referring to Yellow Claws, The Golden Idol, and Shadow of Chu Kong. All nine of Anderton’s books are now on my wish list, but I think I’m going to have to wish awfully hard.

      Bibliography   [taken from Crime Fiction IV] —

ANDERTON, H. J. S.
    The League of the Yellow Skull (n.) Mellifont 1932
    The Quest of the Crimson Idol (n.) Mellifont 1932
    “The Panther” (n.) Mellifont 1933
    The League of Death (n.) Mellifont 1934
    Yellow Claws (n.) Mellifont 1934
    The Golden Idol (n.) Mellifont 1936
    The Dope King (n.) Mellifont 1937
    The King of Crime (n.) Archer Croft 1940
    Shadow of Chu Kong (n.) Popular Fiction 1940

MATT WITTEN – Breakfast at Madeline’s.

Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1999.

   I don’t what the following data signifies, probably nothing, since a book’s sales ranking on Amazon can fluctuate wildly. There are so many books listed there, all in competition with each other, and except for the top 100 or so, all so closely packed together, they should called tied. One sale and the ranking can go up by a million, just like that.

   In any case, as a writer of mystery novels, all of Matt Witten’s books are out of print, but as of tonight (01 May 2009) two of them are doing awfully well. (Relatively speaking, of course. Also note that rankings go down as far as the seven millions.) The fellow doing the sleuthing in all four is a struggling screenwriter living in Sarasota Springs NY named Jacob Burns:

         The Jacob Burns mysteries –

      Breakfast at Madeline’s. Signet, pbo, May 1999. Amazon.com Sales Rank: #172,411
      Grand Delusion. Signet, pbo, Jan 2000. Sales Rank: #1,700,960

      Strange Bedfellows. Signet, pbo, Nov 2000. Sales Rank: #172,444
      The Killing Bee. Signet, pbo, Nov 2001. Sales Rank: #1,601,905

   I’ve read only this first one, Breakfast at Madeline’s, so I don’t know what the future holds for Jacob Burns, but I’d better take back the “struggling” part of the description above. He’s struck oil, figuratively speaking, Hollywood style, having just earned a million dollars for doing the screen adaption for an “epic” called Gas, about “deadly fumes seeping out of the earth’s core after an earthquake and threatening to destroy the entire population of San Francisco.”

   One thing I do know, is that there are four books in the series, and there isn’t likely to be any more, not right away anyway. Matt Witten is not a big name on the tip of the general public’s collective tongue, but right now he’s certainly a big man in high-rise Hollywood circles, and that’s what counts. Writing mystery paperback originals is not anything he’s going to need to do for a long time to come:

   Credits on IMDB since 2002: Producer or supervising producer for CSI: Miami, JAG, House M.D., Supernatural, Women’s Murder Club and Medium.

   If you see what I mean. Witten is probably still a nice guy, though, since Jacob Burns, his leading character certainly is, and guys who aren’t so nice would find it, I suspect, awfully hard to create characters who really are. Nice, that is. And still living in Sarasota Springs NY.

   Burns is also happily married, and even though he comes awfully close to straying in this book, he says no and walks away, just before the point of no return. Burns also has two lovable little boys named (well, nicknamed) Gretzy and Babe Ruth, with whom he has a lot of fun, and likewise the same.

   Dead is an old man who hung out at Madeline’s Espresso Bar, a loner who spent most of his time scribbling on paper but known to all of the usual habitues, artsy types all, most of them members of the Sarasota Council Arts Councils and whom seem to get all of the available grant money, but Donald Penn (the dead man), no.

   Just before he died, Penn gave Burns the key to a safety deposit box, and inside? That’s the story, and all of the aforementioned artsy types want to know, too.

   Told in a friendly but wise-ass sort of way, there are probably too many F-words used for this to properly be called a cozy, but it is anyway. At least there’s no graphic violence, as long as you don’t count all of Jacob Burns’ very narrow escapes. There’s only a small amount of actual detection involved, but (come to think of it) there’s enough to form the basis of a pretty good TV series out of Burns’ adventures.

   I wonder if Matt Witten knows anyone who might be interested.

DAVID ANTHONY – The Organization. Coward McCann, hardcover, 1970. Paperback reprint: Pocket, 1972.

    David Anthony’s Stud Game (reviewed by Steve Lewis in the previous post) was nominated for an Edgar as best paperback mystery of 1978. The Organization is an earlier episode in the life of the same main character, professional gambler and part-time private eye Stanley Bass.

   And it’s quite an episode. While reading it I was reminded very much of the 1950s paperbacks of Charles Williams, the ones in which a man becomes involved with a woman who in one way or another gets him into a situation from which there seems to be no escape.

   I don’t make this comparison to Williams lightly, because I really admire his work. The ending, while perhaps not as ironic as those achieved by Williams, still leaves Bass with very little.

   The story? A beautiful woman wants to kill Bass’s tennis friend, Jack Prince, a man with mob connections. Bass meets her and tries to dissuade her. He does so by coming up with a way to get Prince’s own bosses to do him in.

   But things go awry and Bass finds himself hunted by both the police and the organization for a number of things which he didn’t do. But who did do them? The answer isn’t as easy as it first seems, and Bass has the devil of a time getting out of the mess he’s gotten into. How he does so makes a fine hardboiled tale.

      Bibliographic data. [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

ANTHONY, DAVID. Pseudonym of William Dale Smith, 1929-1986.

    The Midnight Lady and the Mourning Man. Bobbs-Merrill, hc, 1969; Warner, pb, 1973. [Morgan Butler] Film: Universal, 1974, as The Midnight Man.

    The Organization. Coward McCann, hc, 1970; Pocket, pb, 1972. [Stanley Bass]
    Blood on a Harvest Moon. Coward McCann, hc, 1972; no pb edition. [Morgan Butler]
    Stud Game. Pocket Books, pbo, 1978 [Stanley Bass]
    The Long Hard Cure. Collins, UK, hc, 1979 [Morgan Butler]