THE GRID. “Hour One/Hour Two.” TNT, US, 19 July 2004 as the first two episodes of a six-part mini-series. First shown on BBC Two, UK, 2004. Dylan McDermott, Julianna Margulies, Bernard Hill, Jemma Redgrave, James Remar, Piter Marek, Silas Carson, Olek Krupa, Barna Moricz, Emil Marwa, Robert Forster, Tom Skerritt. Director: Mikael Salomon.

   A failed poison Sarin attack in London post 9/11 leads to the creation of a international counter-terrorism team in the US led by Maren Jackson (Julianna Margulies) of the National Security Council. Others are members of the FBI (Dylan McDermott) and the CIA (Piter Marek). Characters on the British end of things are played by Bernard Hill (MI5) and Jemma Redgrave (MI6).

   In spite of the stated spirit of cooperation between the various agency involved, not-so-hidden rivalries between agencies break out almost immediately, not to mention the squabbles between MI5 and MI6 in the UK, the latter which also resents the US team’s “know it all” involvement, which by the end of episode two has proven quite wrong.

   They must have spent a lot of money putting this mini-series together. It shows, but the dazzling switches from scene to scene and country to country is just that, dazzling, and there are a lot of characters to keep straight at the same time. By the end of Hour Two, I think I was doing well, but I had better keep watching, or I am afraid all I have put together so far will be lost.

   But I say this with an ulterior motive: as a bit of persuasion to make sure I do so. The story, while very dramatically done, does not seem to break any ground that hasn’t been plowed over many times before, and I am not talking about the threat of Islamic terrorism in specifics, but anti-espionage efforts in general.

   The inclusion of intimate details in terms of personal backgrounds and animosities as well as inter-agency squabbling falls into the same category. It’s nice on the eyes so far, but while I’m sure I will continue, there’s no sense of urgency about it either, which is too bad on many levels, including the amount of time and energy that was put into this.

BEVERLEY NICHOLS —

          No Man’s Street. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1954. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1954, as The Moonflower.

          Death to Slow Music. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1956. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1956.

   Sir Edward Carstairs, music critic unloved by all, is found dead in his study. Since he was generally despised, why does Sonia Rubenstein, prima donna who had given scores of “farewell” concerts, hire Horatio Green, retired private detective, to discover Carstairs’s murderer?

   Or is she primarily interested in the missing recording of a new symphony? Why does Carstairs’ sister despise him? What hold did Carstairs have on the world famous conductor, Dr. Ernst Kalkbrenner?

   Assisting Superintendent George Waller, Green, who would rather be tending his garden, uses his nose, which is a keen instrument, his intelligence, and the fact that he is in Lyons when he thinks he is in Paris, to discover the murder.

   An interesting case, but Green did not particularly appeal.

   In The Moonflower Mystery (published in England as The Moonflower, and reviewed here ), Nichols’s second mystery, the reason for my dissatisfaction with his first became evident: Horatio Green was merely a cardboard character with idiosyncracies. In the second novel — with a horticultural plot — he becomes flesh, as it were.

   With the third novel, Death to Slow Music, Green continues as a real person. At Seabourne with his 19-year-old niece, he becomes involved with the murder of a woman on the Ghost Train at the amusement pier. She was to meet Julian Doyle, accompanist and orchestrator for the famous Nigel Fleet. Fleet and his entourage are in Seabourne performing in the cabaret “Personal Appearances” and rehearsing for Fleet’s operetta, “Serenade.”

   Doyle is needed for the show, so Fleet prevails upon Green to investigate and make sure Doyle isn’t arrested, which Green docs with the aid of a blind and deceased composer. Nichols gets better and better, and there are three more in the series.

NOTE:   Bill’s review of Murder by Request, the fifth in the series, was posted here earlier on this blog. Following that review is some biographical information about the author and a complete listing of his Horatio Green series.

THE REMARKABLE ANDREW. Paramount Pictures, 1942. Brian Donlevy, William Holden, Ellen Drew, Montagu Love, Gilbert Emery, Brandon Hurst, George Watts, Rod Cameron. Story & screenplay: Dalton Trumbo. Director: Stuart Heisler.

   A mildly amusing and engaging comedy-fantasy about several of this country’s forefathers (among them George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and more) coming to life from the past to assist a mild-mannered town accountant (William Holden) in his time of need. First and foremost among them is Andrew Jackson (Brian Donlevy), however, returning a favor — Andrew Long’s great, great grandfather at one time saved Jackson’s life.

   It seems that Andrew Long has discovered some discrepancies in the town’s books, and when he won’t go along with hushing it up, the political elite of the city decide to frame him for embezzlement. Convinced by these illustrious guests from the past that an honest democracy is worth fighting for, Andrew Long gives a courtroom speech almost worthy of a Gary Cooper (Mr. Deeds) or Jimmy Stewart (Mr. Smith), but somehow it never caught on. No one’s heard of this movie today.

   What is even more interesting is to see William Holden as an actor when he was only 24. Even though he had been picked to star in Golden Boy three years earlier, his acting skills as displayed in Andrew seem rather limited — just suitable enough to play a mild-mannered boy-next-door sort of guy who’s been engaged to a girl for five years waiting for a raise of $2.50 per week before they can get married. There’s nothing in this film to suggest in the slightest that he’d grow up to be an Oscar contender every time the nominations came around.

   And oh, yes, one more thing. You may have noticed Rod Cameron’s name in the credits. I’d forgotten he was in the movie while I was watching it, and didn’t even recognize him, not all dressed up as Jesse James the way he was, complete with a wide bandito mustache. I don’t really know why Jesse James was in this movie, but he was.

MICHAEL ALLEGRETTO – Blood Relative. Jacob Lomax #4. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1992. No paperback edition.

   I had read a couple of the earlier Lomax books and hadn’t been tremendously impressed, but on the other hand liked them well enough to try another. I’m a little more impressed after reading the fourth.

   Jake Lomax is a Denver PI, an ex-cop whose wife was murdered five years ago; this destroyed his career as a policeman, and remains the central fact in his life. He is just back from an extended vacation in Mexico, and wondering what he’s doing with his life. He is hired by a lawyer for a man accused of murdering his wife, and who seems to be considered guilty by everyone even his children, and Lomax.

   Lomax is to find some helpful witnesses, and see if he can track down a possible lover of the murdered woman. As the stones are turned over the worms crawl out, and Lomax prods them to see which way they move. They move, as always, towards secrets and other crimes.

   This is a well-done standard private eye novel; if the concept of genre has any meaning this is probably the kind of book it applies to. Lomax walks the mean streets like he’s supposed to, and does the things a man’s gotta do when and where he’s gotta do ’em.

   Allegretto writes well if not exceptionally, and the plot is tight and more than normally realistic. I wouldn’t put him in the top rank of PI writers yet, but based on Blood Relative, I believe he’s moved up a notch. I look forward to the next one. Recommended.

The Jacob Lomax series —

1. Death on the Rocks (1987)

2. Blood Stone (1988)

3. The Dead of Winter (1989)
4. Blood Relative (1992)
5. Grave Doubt (1995)

SAN QUENTIN. Warner Brothers, 1937. Pat O’Brien , Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Barton MacLane, Joseph Sawyer, Veda Ann Borg. Director: Lloyd Bacon.

   For fans of Warner Brothers’ crime films and Depression-era realism, San Quentin is a well-paced crime melodrama with enough solid characterization to keep viewers fully engaged with the story for the duration. Indeed, watching the film, a short programmer filmed on location at the California prison, is like hanging out with old friends. Not only is Humphrey Bogart front and center, you’ve also got many of the studio’s finest by your side: Pat O’Brien, Ann Sheridan, Barton MacLane, and Joe Sawyer.

   Bogart portrays Red Kennedy, a low-level crook at odds with the world. It seems the only good thing he’s got going on in his life is his devoted sister, May (Sheridan), a singer in a San Francisco nightclub. Soon after the film begins, Kennedy is nabbed by the law and ends up in San Quentin. Little does Kennedy know that his sister and the prison’s new chief guard, Captain Stephen Jameson (O’Brien) are beginning a romantic relationship. When he does find out – from the mouth of thuggish fellow inmate, Sailor Boy Hansen (Sawyer) – he’s enraged and is more prepared to do something about it.

   Although San Quentin is by no means a classic or comparable to Bogart’s better known movies, it nevertheless succeeds as a film due to its script and fine coterie of actors. As was the case in many Warner movies from the era, San Quentin is a crime film with a conscience. Kennedy isn’t really such a bad guy so much as a victim of time and circumstance. Even so, the lesson is plain enough for all to see. As much as we might sympathize with Red Kennedy, ultimately his decisions to pursue a life of crime will usher in his tragic downfall in a world that’s ultimately indifferent to his fate.

GEORGE HARMON COXE – The Camera Clue. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1937. Dell #27, mapback edition, no date [1943?]. Dell #453, mapback edition, 2nd printing, no date [1950].

   Another useful feature of these old Dell mapbacks, besides the obvious one, of course, is the listing of the cast of characters, right before the title page. The map didn’t help much with the mystery this time, but it is interesting to note that of the twenty characters listed, at least nine of them are on the scene outside the murdered man’s office when Kent Murdock stops to take a candid shot of a sandwich advertising man on stilts.

   Most of them don’t want their picture taken, either. Murdock’s office soon begins to resemble Grand Central Station, with worried people continually running in and out, desperately trying to keep him from publishing theirs in the newspaper. Murdock’s assistant, Gowan, even gets his skull crushed in, by someone even more desperate than the others.

   This was George Harmon Coxe’s third novel — Kent Murdock is still definitely married, and whatever became of Joyce Murdock anyway? Formerly a writer for Black Mask and the other detective pulps of the twenties and thirties, Coxe was never known as a great wordsmith, and his massive total of camera-oriented plots soon became rather repetitious.

   He was a pretty good master of misdirection, however, and here’s a fine example of how he played the game of “fool the reader” so well. The big climax misfires just slightly, but even so I have to admit, I was caught off-balance by its outcome, exactly as I was supposed to be. In one sense I wasn’t even close, and I am chagrined to say I should have been.

   And no, the sandwich man didn’t do it.

Rating:   C plus.

CONFLICT. Warner Brothers, made in 1943, but not released till ’45. Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, Rose Hobart. Screenplay by Arthur T. Horman and Dwight Taylor, from the story “The Pentacle” by Robert Siodmak and Alfred Neumann. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt.

   An off-beat misfire that has its moments, Conflict will disappoint some Bogart fans, because it reverses the stereotype: Bogie is the bad guy here and Sydney Greenstreet the amateur detective who trips him up. And when I say that, I’m not selling any state secrets: The capsule reviews of this film all say up front that Bogie kills wife Rose Hobart and makes a play for sister-in-law Alexis Smith. The slip-up that incriminates him is perfectly obvious to mystery fans the second he makes it, and director Curtis Bernhardt even throws in a reaction shot of Sydney Greenstreet — well — reacting to the clue.

   The real plot of Conflict hovers around Bogart’s growing suspicion that the wife he thoroughly killed is not actually dead –- or worse, that she may be dead, but making her presence felt anyway; her personal effects show up in odd places, notes in her handwriting land on his desk… The sense of Bogart’s growing dread in a world gone awry would become a staple of film noir, but since we know they’re on to him, and we’ve figured out this is Greenstreet’s strategy for making him tip his hand, it counts for very little here.

   On the other hand, I have to say that Conflict was done with the usual Warners’ care and polish. There are some striking visuals here, with the studio fog machine pumping full-blast, and some intelligent dialogue that coveys the weakness in our protagonist but retrains our sympathy.

   And there is one aspect of Conflict (whatthehell does that title mean, anyway?) that deserves discussion and it’s the kind of thing that is better discovered than described, so I’m giving the following WARNING! If you think you might see this movie sometime in the near future or remember these comments unduly, skip the next paragraph!

   At the ending, tormented by fear, Bogart betrays himself and finds it’s all been a (sigh) trick. We were expecting this all along, but it’s handled in a surprisingly insightful fashion. As Bogart prepares to face his worst fears and make the mistake that will cost him dearly, the camera angles upward to his face, lit from below, like a man at the edge of a precipice summoning up the courage to jump.

   And when he’s caught, what comes across most compellingly is his sense of relief. His capture is not so much comeuppance as catharsis, and there’s an unexpected look of relief on his face as they slap the cuffs on him and lead him upwards toward the light; the whole ending, in fact, is played with a surprising sense of redemption that seems to put the rest of the film in a whole new context — one of the unexpected and perhaps inadvertent pleasures that sometimes come out of Hollywood.

POUL ANDERSON – Mayday Orbit. Ace Double F-104, paperback original, 1961. Published back-to-back with No Man’s World, by Kenneth Bulmer. First appeared in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, December 1959, as “A Message in Secret.” Reprinted in several Poul Anderson collections.

   This is one of Poul Anderson’s long-running series of stories about Captain Sir Dominick Flandry, a field agent of the Naval Intelligence Corps of the Terrestrial Empire, or at least that’s his rank this time around. I’ve read quite a few of his adventures over the years, but without regard to chronology or trying to read a whole lot of them at once.

   Which can be done and very easily. Both Ace and Baen Books have published large collections of the Flandry stories as well as other of Anderson’s other series, including those about the Psychotechnic League. I’ve tried to keep up, but there are too many stories, including full-length novels, for one person to read them all and have time to read something else as well.

   Mayday Orbit turns out to be a puzzle story and well as a good old-fashioned space opera yarn. Flandry is working undercover on an isolated planet that’s in a buffer zone in space between the rival realms of Terra and Merseia. Each empire is always on the lookout for suitable outposts to place their ships and troops.

   His cover doesn’t last long, however, and he’s soon on the run with a female slave whom he helps escape the ruling power of the planet. Most of the book is spent following the couple’s path to safety, which at one point requires Flandry to set a huge plain of dry grassland on fire.

   Where the puzzle comes in, though, as far as Flandry is concerned, is how does he get word off-planet to the Terran forces to let them know what nefarious activities are going on? The cover pretty much gives it away, in a way, but Anderson does his best to prolong the solution for as long as possible.

   It’s an average story at best, only 126 pages long, but Anderson does keep things moving at a brisk pace. As a writer, he was much better at writing descriptive passages than he was at portraying characters with any kind of depth. At least in this one he doesn’t need to spend too much time having his characters explain to each other what each other should already know.

BLAKE AND MORTIMER: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Ellipse (France), 1997. 26 episodes, consisting of 13 two-part stories. Based on “Blake et Mortimer” created by E.P. Jacobs, with four original stories. Originally appeared in Tintin magazine in serial form.

    “Blake and Mortimer” is among the oldest and best loved comics in Europe, second only to Herge’s “Tintin” in longevity and popularity among adventure strips. Created by E. P. Jacobs, and drawn in the same simplified realistic style as the more famous “Tintin” (in Europe it is pronounced Tonton, and yes, Rin Tin Tin, discovered in WWI France, was originally Rin Ton Ton too) strip, it recounts the adventures of handsome blonde mustachioed Captain Francis Blake of British Intelligence and bearded red haired Scottish Professor Philip Mortimer (“By the arms of clan McGreggor!”), a pair of friends who find themselves battling scientific menaces somewhere between Professor Quatermass and James Bond while globe trotting from modern Egypt to the Middle Ages.

    Unlike Tintin, who debuted in the Thirties iu France, Blake and Mortimer appeared post-war in the bestselling Belgian magazine Tintin, named for Herge’s famous boy reporter. There they rivaled the magazine’s namesake in popular adventures, taking them around the world battling everything from mad scientists to aliens and from time travel to UFO’s.

    It was natural after the success of the animated adventures of Tintin, shown here on HBO, that Dargoud, Tintin’s publisher, would try to replicate the flagship titles success and so an animated series adapting the Blake and Mortimer albums was done with the same style and faithfulness as the Tintin series. If they aren’t quite up to the same quality it is only because Tintin is a work of genius that has managed to entertain children across the world for decades, and good as Jacobs work is, it is not quite in that class — few works of popular fiction are in terms of success or sales.

    Like “Tintin,” these were adapted in English, though as far as I know never shown in the American market, and until they showed up on YouTube unavailable to Region 1 DVD players. (I think one or two were available on VHS if you could find them.) Like “Tintin” they consist of half hour episodes, each album complete in two episodes. Though the books are known and loved around the world, they are still, a bit like “Tintin” itself despite the Spielberg film, not that well known in this country.

    Titles like “The Mystery of the Great Pyramid,” “The Secret of Easter Island,” “The Yellow Mark,” “The Infernal Machine,” and “The Atlantis Enigma” give a fair idea of the material, which tends to be better written and developed in terms of character and plot than the average animated fare thanks to Jacob’s well done albums. The adventures, like “Tintin” before them, are faithful to the look and period of the original, and just about as perfect a translation from printed page to screen as you could ask for.

    Of course it all depends on your tolerance for animated adventure fare, but these are a classy production handsomely adapted and faithful to the entertaining originals in all ways. There are a handful of European animated series around well worth a look, including “Corto Maltese,” based on Hugo Pratt’s work about a Conradian early 20th century adventurer, “Belphegor: the Phantom of the Louvre” (which was originally a novel and source for several movies and television series in France), Henri Verne’s “Bob Moraine” (originally the hero of a series of juvenile novels Moraine has appeared in comics and both live action and two animated series and films), Leo Malet’s private eye “Nestor Burma” (live action films and television series, graphic albums and animation based on the design of Jacques Tardi though whether the series ever aired, I’m not certain), the laconic satiric cowboy “Lucky Luke” (who also appeared in two live action films with Terence Hill, and more recently Oscar winning Jean Dujardin), and “Valerian and Laureline,” an intelligent space opera series based on yet another long running popular comic creation. Not all of them are available in English or subtitled, but “Blake and Mortimer” is well worth the effort.     (*)

    Anyone who enjoyed the HBO “Tintin” episodes should at least check this series out. The same imagination and love of the material that marked those adaptations has been shown here.

(*)    Episodes of all those series mentioned save “Nestor Burma” can be found on YouTube, some in French, but a few in English dubbed versions.

BRUCE HAMILTON – Hanging Judge. Harper & Brothers, hardcover, 1948. Hillman #15, paperback, 1949. First published in the UK as Let Him Have Judgment: The Cresset Press, hardcover, 1948. Also: Pocket B-29, UK, paperback, 1950. Stage play: “The Hanging Judge” (the only play ever written by actor Raymond Massey; produced and directed in the UK by film director Michael Powell). Radio play: “The Hanging Judge” on The Play of His Choice, UK, December 1953, starring Boris Karloff. TV adaptation: “The Hanging Judge,” a second season episode of Climax! (CBS, 12 January 1956; director: John Frankenheimer).

   One of the great pleasures of attending PulpFest is pawing through the cheap-o boxes and coming across something you never heard of that piques your interest; maybe it’s the cover or blurb or just the title, but you say, “Aww what the hell, why not?”

   Then when you get around to reading it, you discover something really fine ….

   Hanging Judge opens in England, sometime around 1936 with young Harry Gosling about to be hanged for a crime he didn’t commit. On the eve of his execution, Sir Francis Brittain, the judge whose damning summary to the jury ensured Gosling’s conviction, delivers a smug after-dinner speech to the effect that the British system of justice is perfectly infallible. And on the morning of Gosling’s execution, Brittain enjoys a good breakfast and goes back to the bench to spew out more self-righteous venom, a satisfied man

   But Harry has managed to smuggle a letter out of prison, and shortly thereafter a man calling himself Teal shows up in London looking for Judge Brittain — too late, it seems because Brittain has just left for a few weeks holiday in the quaint little sea coast village of Moxton.

   At this point Hanging Judge turns into a Cozy mystery, with a cast of colorful village folk and a redoubtable local constable. Teal shows up here, but instead of looking for Judge Brittain, he seems more interested in another visitor there named Willoughby. Willoughby has an unsavory reputation thereabouts, but he’s a frequent if irregular resident, apparently a man of some importance, and part of the local scene. So when Teal goes to visit him one evening and never returns, suspicions arise.

   Still in the Village Cozy mode, author Hamilton limns an engrossing tale of investigation and growing suspicion, as the local constabulary find their efforts blocked by class distinctions — a theme prominent in the works of Anne Perry — mainly Willoughby’s aristocratic equivalent of get-the-hell-off-my-lawn. Then Willoughby himself disappears, and it dawns on the townsfolk that no one knew anything about him — including where to find him when Teal’s body turns up in his well.

   Right about here Hanging Judge shifts gears and becomes something of a political thriller as the wanted man (who is not Willoughby!) and various interested parties use their considerable influence to see that he evades justice, first by a rigged inquest and then with an absorbing escape attempt.

   At which point we shift gears yet again, as the book becomes a tense courtroom drama, a sort of quickie equivalent of Anatomy of a Murder as arguments and rebuttals fly about the courtroom and the jury sways this was, then that, culminating in an ironic and highly satisfying conclusion.

   I have to say that shortly after I closed this book with a satisfied smile, it struck me that the whole thing hinged on a couple of coincidences that it seemed the author went a long way to fetch back. But he did such a fine job of papering over them that I barely noticed at the time, and even on reflection they didn’t dampen my enjoyment a bit.

Editorial Note:   There is a quote from Erle Stanley Gardner on the front cover of the Hillman paperback. In case it is too small to make out, he says: “This book is in my opinion a mystery masterpiece.”