JOHN GODEY – The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Putnam’s, hardcover, 1973. Dell, paperback, 1974. Berkley, softcover, 2009. Penguin, softcover, 2012. Films: (1) United Artists, 1974. (2) ABC, made-for-TV, 1998. (3) Columbia Pictures/MGM, 2009.

   Grand-scale-caper novels, in which millions of dollars and the lives of scores of hostages are at stake, were the vogue in the 1970s. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is among the best of these, and for two reasons became modest best seller and a reasonably good film with Robert Shaw, Walter Matthau, and Martin Balsam.

   The first reason is that the caper involves the hijacking of a New York City subway car (Pelham 123) full of passengers and the holding of it for a ransom of $ 1 million cash — an audacious sort of crime that has an appeal for people who have never even ridden the New York subways.

   The second reason is in the form of a neat logistical puzzle: On the surface (or rather, under the surface), it would seem impossible for the gang to escape with the loot, being themselves trapped underground with every tunnel exit watched by heavily armed men. So how are they planning to do it?

   The head of the gang is a ruthless lunatic named Ryder who is not above knocking off a hostage or two to make sure the city of New York complies with his demands. Or killing anybody else who might be foolish enough to get in his way. The other three gang members arc a pair of toughs named Steever and Joe Welcome and an embittered ex motorman, Wally Longman, whose technical knowledge of subway operations is at the core of the entire plan.

   The numerous additional characters (the novel is told in constantly shifting multiple viewpoints) include the various hostages, city policemen, subway workers, Transit Authority cops, members of the media and the Federal Reserve Bank, and the mayor himself.

   Godey maintains a high level of suspense throughout, and deftly interweaves plenty of detailed information on the inner workings of the subway system. (Train buffs will find it fascinating; even casually interested readers will be impressed.) His characters arc well delineated, the writing smooth and effective. And the escape plan devised for Ryder and his gang is both simple and extremely clever, utilizing a certain “foolproof” piece of equipment.

   John Godey (Mort Freedgood) began his career writing Crime Club whodunits in the late Forties and early Fifties, among them such titles as The Blue Hour (1948) and This Year’s Death (1953). In the late sixties he produced a pair of early-Westlake comedy/mystery pastiches, A Thrill a Minute with Jack Albany (1967) and Never Put Off Till Tomorrow What You Can Kill Today (1970).

   After the success of Pelham, he devoted himself to the production of other large-scale suspense novels; among these are The Talisman (1976), The Snake (1981), and Fatal Beauty (1984), the last named about a political-extremist kidnapping in Italy with far-reaching implications.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

STUART PALMER – The Penguin Pool Murder. Hildegarde Withers #1. Brentano’s, hardcover, 1931. Bantam, paperback, March 1986. Intl Polygonics Ltd, paperback, 1990, Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2007. Penzler Books, trade paperback, 2023. Film: RKO Radio Pictures, 1932 (Edna May Oliver, James Gleason).

   Miss Hildegarde Withers’s first meets Inspector Piper in this case, and she helps him solve a murder that takes place in the New York Aquarium, not long after the stock market crash of 1929. They also seem to rush off to be married at the end, but do they?

   Definitely an oldie, but also definitely a goodie. One does wonder, however, how Miss Withers is so readily allowed to tag along with Piper, in so many violations of proper police procedure. In that sense, this is pure fantasy, from another era altogether.

THE TEXAN. “Law of the Gun.” CBS, 29 September 1958 (Episode 1, Season 1). Rory Calhoun, Neville Brand, John Larch, Karl Swenson, Helen Wallace. Story and co-screenwriter: Frank Gruber. Director: Jerry Thorpe. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

   The “Texan” of the title of this Western TV series, which lasted for two seasons on CBS, was a fellow by the name of Bill Longley, played by Rory Calhoun. Even though this is first episode of the first season, they didn’t really go out of their way to explain what this fast gun hero does and why he does it. There is just a general impression that over the course of a season he goes from one small town in Texas to the next, sometimes for a reason, perhaps more often not.

   In the case of “Law of the Gun,” he has a reason. A friend of his, Les Torbit, a small rancher in the area, is in jail, accused of shooting and killing a young teen-aged girl. While the incident was accidental, bad things always seem to happen during range wars, no matter who’s in the right. And he will hang for it, and sooner rather than later if the girl’s brother has anything to say about it.

   And egging the local townsfolk on is what he’s doing when The Texan shows up. The sheriff is an honest man, but he’s only one man, and he isn’t a guy that can hold back an entire mob of roiled up men.

   It’s only a thirty minute show, including time for the sponsor, so the summary above is about all that can said about this episode, but it’s a good one, and Rory Calhoun is off to a flying start from his first day — not only a fast man with a gun, but a fellow with some common sense as well.

   What I also noticed in the production, though, is that there are several stretches of time where there is not only no dialogue but no background music either. Small things, to think about, but they’re noticeable, if and when you do.

MACAO. RKO Radio Pictures, 1952. Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame. Director: Josef von Sternberg.

   The lives of three travelers from Hong King to Macao are intertwined in a tale of Oriental intrigue. One of them (which one?) is a New York City policeman whose quarry is s casino owner who refuses to travel beyond Macao’s three-mile limit.

   You would think that Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum would make quite a screen combination, but such is not the case. Mitchum holds up his half, but while Jane Russell obviously had what it takes to become a movie star, her acting is curiously flat and unappealing.

   
DORTHY GILMAN – Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1984. Fawcett, paperback, 1986.

   What happens when you cross a sweet little old lady sleuth who has a “penchant for odd hats and growing geraniums” with a Bondian-style amazon spy? You get one of the most popular female mystery characters of the last twenty years, Mrs. Emily Pollifax.

   Dorothy Gilman had already made a name for herself as a children’s author (under her married surname of Butters) when she produced her first adult novel. and Mrs. Pollifax adventure, in 1966.

   Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station is the sixth novel to feature the grandmotherly CIA agent, and it is a good example of the series. There is the exotic locale, this time the Silk Route in the People’s Republic of China. There is a dangerous mission to perform, this time the smuggling of a man from a labor reform camp and out of the country.

   There is an evil, and unknown, enemy agent set to destroy the mission — and possibly our heroine. And there is, of course, the amazing Mrs. Pollifax, that gentle soul who can prove, when necessary, that her brown belt in karate is a deadly weapon.

   Having researched her novel in China, Gilman provides some marvelous impressions of that mysterious land. This descriptive prose lends a level of realism to the comic book quality of the spy story.

   Readers know when they pick up a Mrs. Pollifax story that evil will fail, good will prevail, and Mrs. P. will happily return to her geraniums. Gilman’s gentle spy stories (with a minimum of violence) will appeal more to fans of Miss Marple than to Smiley fans.

   In The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966), the heroine is kidnapped in Mexico and ends up in an Albanian prison. This story was filmed in 1970 as Mrs. Pollifax, Spy, starring Rosalind Russell. Other titles in this entertaining series include The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970), The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (1971), and A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (l973).

   Besides Mrs. Pollifax, Gilman has created several other intriguing women: Sister John of A Nun in the Closet (1975), the psychic Madame Karitska of The Clairvoyant Countess (1975), and the troubled yet courageous Amelia Jones in the author’s most realistic mystery, The Tightrope Walker (1979). All of whom are well worth meeting.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

ROBERT DUNDEE – Pandora’s Box. PI Johnny Lamb. Signet S1980, paperback original. 1st printing, January 1962.

   PI Johnny Lamb’s client, a former call girl, has a box containing something valuable, and something also very dangerous, both to her and to anyone in her vicinity. (This is Lamb’s only recorded case.)

   This is one roller coaster of a ride. The action never stops, and if you don’t ask questions, most of it even makes sense. There is even a semi-surprise or two at the end, one of which I am convinced I saw coming.

MICHAEL GILBERT – Game Without Rules. Calder & Behrens. Hodder and Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1968. Harper & Row, US, hardcover, 1967. Carroll & Graf, US, paperback, 1988.

   “The Road to Damascus,” the first of the eleven stories in this collection. begins: “Everyone in Lamperdown knew that Mr. Behrens, who lived with his aunt at the Old Rectory and kept bees, and Mr. Calder, who lived in a cottage on the hilltop outside the viJlage and was the owner of a deerhound called Rasselas, were the closest of close friends.

   They knew, too, that there was something out of the ordinary about both of them. Both had a habit of “disappearing.” What the villagers don’t know is that Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens are professional counterintelligence agents attached to the External Branch of the Joint Services Standing Intelligence Committee — a pair of very quiet and very deadly spies working at a job in which, as Mr. Calder has said, “there is neither right nor wrong. Only expediency.”

   No one is better at expedient action than Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. In “The Road to Damascus,” they utilize the twin discoveries of a World War IT hidey-hole containing the skeleton of a murdered man and the fact that a former army colonel has been selling secrets to the Russians to fashion a trap that at once explains the mystery and eliminates the spy. In “The Headmaster,” it is guile and keen observation that allows them to unmask and dispose of a senior Russian agent.

   Most of these cleverly plotted stories are set in England; “Heilige Nacht,” however, takes place in Germany, and “Cross-Over” the most exciting of the entries-features a lengthy trek through both Germany and France.

   Gilbert’s style is wry, restrained, penetrating, and ironic. Reading one of these stories is like sipping a very dry martini, and the cumulative effect of two or three is also much the same — you begin to feel highly stimulated. However, there is a good deal of casual killing here, much of it done very coolly and professionally by Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens (Rasselas, too, on occasion).

   The atmosphere is amoral, to say the least. (In “On Slay Down,” for instance, a soldier who thinks he has accidentally killed a woman — who, in truth, was a turncoat shot down by Mr. Calder, buries the body to cover up the killing, and is rewarded by recruitment into the External Branch because he is just the sort of quick-witted fellow they want.)

   The result of this is also cumulative and also like guzzling dry martinis: two or three may stimulate you, but eleven in a row tend to leave you rather ossified. There is a hangover effect, too. You don’t mind having hoisted (buried) a few with Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens, but you’re not so sure you’d like to go spy-killing with them on a regular basis.

   Those of you who have stronger constitutions will want to consult the second collection featuring these two dignified liquidators, Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens (1982).

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

WE’RE RICH AGAIN. RKO Radio Pictures, 1934. Edna May Oliver, Billie Burke, Marian Nixon, Reginald Denny, Joan Marsh, Buster Crabbe. Director: William A. Seiter.

   On the eve of her cousin’s wedding to a millionaire, a young girl from Texas shows up and completely disrupts the proceedings. She acts naive, but she easily has her own way – nor does she fail to see the process sever at her ‘rich’ relatives’ door.

   Marian Nixon is billed third, but as the unsophisticated country cousin, she is easily the star of this Depression-era comedy. At the time it was released, it must have been a riot. Watching it now, over fifty years later, I still found plenty to smile at.

JOAN HESS – Strangled Prose. Claire Malloy #1. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1986. Ballantine, paperback: 1st printing thus, February 1987.

   A reception for an author of romantic novels at Claire Malloy’s bookstore is destroyed when it is discovered that several characters in the lady’s latest epic have very close counterparts in real life. At the end of the gathering, the lady is dead. Lt. Rosen helps investigate.

   The book is a lot of fun, perhaps too much so. The witty repartee us all but endless. Everyone is a master of it, and it (eventually) is overwhelming, In spite of the barbs, Claire and Rosen are attracted to each other, Big surprise.

THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER. Paramount Pictures, 1938. Released to TV stations in 1950 as Mark of the Avenger. Douglass Dumbrille, Sidney Toler, Russell Hayden, Monte Blue. Based on characters created by Zane Grey. Produced by Harry Sherman. Directed by Lesley Selander.

   The Mysterious Rider is yet another of those dumb-title movies that no one ever heard of and that someone seems to be writing about all the time. It has a mildly interesting mystery angle to it, and there’s a fascinating story behind its making, but if you’re looking for hard-core Mystery and have little patience with B-westerns, you might as well skip the rest of this and move on. I won’t mind a bit.

   Still here? Okay, the story centers around one of the hoariest cliches of the Western, the Good Bad Guy, in this case, a notorious Road Agent who, years before, fled his ranch and family and turned to crime after killing his partner under rather dubious circumstances.

   As the story picks up, he is returning Ulysses-like, to the old homestead . where he is no longer recognized, only to find his family usurped and his daughter besieged by unworthy suitors.

   How he takes a job as a menial on the land he once owned and manages to restore his legacy to his kinfolk, sort out a few ornery cattle rustlers and related owlhoots, and manage to stay out of the local pokey constitutes the basis of this sincere if meager narrative.

   By the time they made this, Producer and Director Sherman and Selander were already old hands a the Minimalist Western. Sherman in particular had launched the incredibly durable Hopalong Cassidy series and was in the middle of a string of oaters starring George Bancroft, who ten years earlier had starred in Von Sternberg’s Underworld and the next year could be found high on the credits of John Ford’s Stagecoach.

   As I say, Bancroft was all set to star in this Mysterious Rider thing; Sherman had hired a writer with a good eraser to re-fit an old script, he’d cast the film, lined up the stuntmen, rented Gower Gulch for a few days and auditioned the horses when Bancroft struck for more money.

   Well, Harry Sherman had a soft spot for has-beens (as witness his resurrection of William Boyd) but e must have decided he’d be damned if he was going to raise George Bancroft’s salary, because he told George to go ahead and walk which left him (Sherman) in the unenviable position of having to find — and damquickly — an actor who looked like George Bancroft’s stuntman.

   The actor he settled on was Douglas Dumbrille, the stuffed-shirt foil for comedians from the Marx Brothers to the Bowery Boys, red herring in no less than three of the Charlie Chan films, and oily villain of countless low-budget sagebrush sagas.

   Movie fans with good memories ay recall him putting bamboo shoots under Gary Cooper’s fingernails in Lives of a Bengal Lancer.

   It proved to be inspired casting. Dumbrille has enough villainy in his demeanor to suggest a career of misdemeanor. Watching him, one gets the feeling that this guy might actually once have been a Road gent. And his type-cast stuffiness translates here to an oddly moving shabby dignity as he tends the kennels or wanders like a taciturn King Lear across his erstwhile kingdom.

   To be sure, the script is nowhere near intelligent enough to support all this, most of the acting could be charitably described as Pedestrian (particularly Sydney “Charlie Chan” Toler as a Comical Side-kick) and the Mysterious Rider himself visibly drops about twenty pounds whenever he pulls on his mask and the stunt-man takes over, but director Lesley Selander had talent enough to capitalize on Dumbrille’s surprisingly off-beat charm and inject his own easy-going economical grace into the proceedings.

   The result is distinctly one-of-a-kind and definitely worth a look.

NOTE: For more, much more from the pen (?) of Dan Stumpf, check out his own blog, filled with great fun and merriment at https://danielboydauthor.com/blog