JUDSON PHILIPS – The Laughter Trap. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1964. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club [3-in-1 edition], December 1964. Paperback reprint: Pinnacle P154N, January 1973.

   Although his work as Hugh Pentecost is better known, Judson Philips has published some excellent novels of suspense and detection under his own name, and created one notable series character — Peter Styles, a national columnist for Newsview magazine who specializes in human-interest stories.

   The Laughter Trap is the first of many novels featuring Styles and dramatizes the tragic events that irrevocably altered the shape of his life and career.

   While on their way home from the Darlbrook Lodge in the Green Mountains of Vermont, Styles and his elderly father, Herbert, a successful but alcoholic advertising executive, are forced off the road by two thrill killers. Herbert Styles dies in the fiery wreck; Peter is thrown free, but sustains a serious injury that forces doctors to amputate his right leg halfway between the ankle and the knee.

   He recovers with the help of a former lover, Liz Connors, whose husband is a doctor specializing in prosthetic devices. His new artificial leg allows him to move around with only the slightest limp, and once he has recovered, he devotes his life to an ongoing search for the men who cost him his father and his leg. His only clue is the “hideous high giggling laugh” he heard before the crash.

   All of this is told in flashback and through conversations with others as Styles returns a year later to Darlbrook Lodge. He has wired for private accommodations, but ends up sharing a room with the lodge’s publicity man, Jim Tranter, through whose eyes we view the rest of the story.

   Styles’s first evening at the lodge is without unusual incident — until he awakens Tranter in the middle of the night, claiming he has again heard the hideous laughter. In the morning, a much more disturbing event is revealed: Two young women staying in one of the cabins — Jane Pritchard and Martha Towers have been brutally stabbed to death. Jane Pritchard’s father appears on the scene, accompanied by his other daughter, Laura, and offers a reward for the apprehension of the slayer.

   Styles interests himself in the investigation, believing the killings and the laughter he heard have a connection. By the time he solves the grisly double homicide, the usually peaceful atmosphere of the mountain lodge has been disrupted by yet another killing, an attempted murder, a melee in the bar, and dangerous undercurrents of hatred and suspicion. But while Styles finds satisfaction in the resolution of the case, he finds only frustration in his search for the driver of the car who took his father’s life.

   Styles continues his quest in such other novels as The Twisted People (1965), Nightmare at Dawn (1970), Walk a Crooked Mile (1975), and Why Murder (1979).

   Of the other series characters created by Philips under his own name, the most interesting are Carole Trevor of the Old Town Detective Agency and her ex-husband, wealthy man-about-town Maxwell Blythe, who appear in two early mysteries: The Death Syndicate (1938) and Death Delivers a Postcard (1939).

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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.

W. R. PHILBRICK – Slow Dancer. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1984.

   Mystery fiction has seen more women detectives hang out their shingles in the last five years than in its entire history. Naturally, most of these characters are written by women, fueled by a personal understanding of the modem woman’s changing role. W. R. Philbrick is one of the few men who can write a modem female detective and make us believe her.

   Connie Kale has no one to rely upon but herself. Her dad’s still alive, but a massive stroke has taken his speech and his mobility. A golf pro for thirty years, he can only remind Connie that she’s not the Women’s Golf Champion of the World, a title for which he prepared her since childhood.

   Her first year on the circuit cracked her nerve — something about being a very small fish in a very big pond — and she’s returned to her small New England hometown to start a new career as a private investigator.

   Her clients value her knowledge of the community and her graceful sense of discretion. She cleans up the messes in their lives with no one the wiser — no small talent in a small town.

   In Slow Dancer, though, it looks like she might not pull it off. Mandy O’Hare has gotten herself killed in a sleazy motel room after one of those dives into decadence only the rich can afford. Mandy’s daddy and grampa have always bought her out of trouble before, but this time all they can manage is to keep the sordid details hushed up. Daddy, you see, is running for governor, about to realize grampa’s greatest and last ambition for him. This is grampa’s last gasp, and Mandy’s death, allegedly at the hands of a local male stripper, is not going to stop him.

   This family of aristocrats is being eaten away from within, and grampa wants to know who is rotten and who is not. Connie’s father was the old man’s golf pro, and Connie is practically a member of the family herself. (She and Mandy used to play on the estate together when baby girls.) Old man O’Hare figures if anybody can find out what’s going on and keep her mouth shut about it, Connie can.

   Connie, however, has her doubts. Mandy was a brat, and the family is already tainted by suicide, infidelity, and insanity. Besides, murder is hard to cover up anyway, no matter who you are.

   It’s a Pandora’s box, and by the time Connie lets all the contents out, this great and powerful family is exposed for the cesspool it is, and Connie barely escapes with her life.

   Philbrick writes exceptionally well; his prose sparkles. And he writes Connie well, although women readers might wish to see more of her softer edges than Philbrick shows.

   Philbrick’s other novels are [non-mystery] Shooting Star (1982) and Shadow Kills (1985). The latter will be of particular interest to mystery buffs, as its hero is a mystery writer who is confined to a wheelchair.

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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.

MIKHAIL CHERNYONOK – Losing Bet. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Dial Press, hardcover, 1984. Russian title: Stavka Na Proigrysh, 1979.

   To many American readers, Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park was a curiosity — a murder mystery set in Moscow. But since World War II, the mystery has been a popular form in the Soviet Union, and novels by writers such as Vil Vladiminovich Lipatov, the brother team of Arkady and Georgy Alexandrovich Vainer, and Julian Semyonovich Semyonov are widely read.

   Most of these mysteries would not appeal to Western readers; they are long-winded and parochial. But Mikhail Chernyonok’s Losing Bet was an excellent choice for translation.

   A young woman has fallen — or been pushed — from the balcony of an apartment in Novosibirsk, a city of a million inhabitants in remote western Siberia. Detective Anton Birukov is in charge of the case. The woman, Sanya, is the ex-wife of the apartment’s tenant, Yuri Demensky, but he claims he has not seen her for years.

   In the apartment are found the fingerprints of a well-known professional criminal, Vasya Sipeniatin, but his specialty has always been cunning, not violence. Other suspects include Ovchinnikov, a self-styled ladies’ man who borrowed Demensky’s apartment for romantic liaisons; Zarvantsev, a talented artist who has “gone commercial”; and Stepnadze, a railroad conductor with a lucrative career on the side, illegal speculation in hard-to-find books.

   All had known Sanya, but who had killed her, and what was she doing at Demensky’s? As Birukov and his aides methodically track down clues from the bars and theaters of Novosibirsk to the resorts of the Black Sea, they begin to see a conspiracy of bribery and corruption that has led to one murder and will lead to more.

   Much of the appeal of Losing Bet lies in its incisive but affectionate portrait of working-class Russians at work, play, and love. The police work is without frills. Aside from the interesting structural differences between Soviet and Western police forces, Birukov’s crime-solving techniques would seem familiar, and sound, to American readers of police procedurals.

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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.

GEORGE C. CHESBRO – Shadow of a Broken Man.   Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1977. Paperback reprints: Signet, 1978; Dell, 1987.

   This is the first Chesbro novel featuring Dr. Robert Fredrickson, a professor of criminology who doubles as a private detective, is a dwarf, and is known to his friends as Mongo. A onetime top circus performer, Mongo possesses some very useful skills for tight situations, among them tumbling and gymnastic ability and a black belt in karate.

   While preparing to leave for vacation in Acapulco, Mongo is approached by Mike Foster, who married the widow of famous architect Victor Rafferty. Foster’s wife, Elizabeth, happened to see a photograph of a new museum in an architectural magazine, and is convinced that the design is the work of her husband.

   But Victor died five years ago, and the museum’s design is listed as the work of a man named Richard Patern. Victor Rafferty died from a fall into an open smelting furnace, so there was essentially no body to be recovered, and Elizabeth is haunted by the conviction that Rafferty is still alive. Mike Foster’s marriage is suffering; he wants Mongo to clear up this matter so he and Elizabeth can get on with their lives.

   Mongo assumes there won’t be too much complication here, so he postpones his vacation and accepts the case. His first move is to consult professor of design Franklin Manning, resident architectural genius, who flatly tells Mongo that the museum is Rafferty’s design, without question.

   And suddenly Mongo is involved in something much more complex and dangerous than he imagined. Russian and French agents are part of the package, as are U.N. Secretary Rolfe Thaag and more than one victim of Communist brutality.

   The writing here is literate and fast-paced, the plot is intricate, the concept is bizarre yet entirely plausible. This is a well-spiced recipe that results in haute cuisine.

   Chesbro is also the author of City of Whispering Stone (1978), An Affair of Sorcerers (1979), and The Beasts of Valhalla (1985), which likewise feature Mongo.

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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.

GEORGE C. CHESBRO, R. I. P.   On a sad note to go with this review, news of George Chesbro’s passing is making the rounds of the mystery fiction blogs today. The best reportage, as usual, is on The Rap Sheet, including some of Jeff Pierce’s personal remembrances of the author.  — Steve

WILLIAM G. TAPPLY – The Dutch Blue Error. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1984. Paperback reprint: Ballantine, 1985.

   The Dutch Blue Error is the second book in the Brady Coyne series. Coyne, a lawyer to Boston Brahmins, finds detective work is often what his clients want. Since Coyne is divorced, has an apartment overlooking Boston Harbor and loves to fish and play golf, he likes the money he gets from his clients and usually obliges them.

   In his second book, we meet Xerxes (“Zerk”) Garret, a young black law graduate who substitutes for Coyne’s pregnant secretary while studying for the bar exams. Oliver Hazard Perry Weston summons Coyne to help him quietly buy a duplicate of the Dutch Blue Error, a stamp owned by Weston and thought to be one of a kind.

   Weston takes great pride in his stamp collection, especially since being confined to his house in a wheelchair. Tormented by the thought that his stamp might not be unique (Weston is not an attractive person, treating his adoring son badly), he asks Coyne to act as “his legs” and locate the stamp, validate it, and then negotiate payment.

   Coyne reluctantly agrees, and these chores lead him to some unusual characters as he keeps appointments in the Combat Zone, Harvard Square and the Peabody Museum, where he and Zerk have a body on their hands.

   The police quickly settle on Zerk as the likely murderer, and suddenly Coyne has an increased desire to straighten out the question of the Dutch Blue Error and clear Zerk. The book is well plotted and the ending is both unpredictable and realistic.

   Death at Charity’s Point, the first in the Coyne series and winner of the 1984 Scribner’s Crime Novel Award, features Coyne’s investigation of the apparent suicide of a wealthy client’s son at a liberal boarding school. While this is an intriguing case, Coyne’s politics and sensitivities are vague. In The Dutch Blue Error, he is more clearly defined and likable.

   Brady Coyne also makes a cameo appearance in The Penny Ferry by Rick Boyer.

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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.

GERALD PETIEVICH – Money Men and One-Shot Deal.

Harcourt Brace, hardcover, 1981. Money Men: published separately in paperback by Pinnacle, 1982; Signet, 1991. One-Shot Deal published separately in paperback by Pinnacle, 1983; Signet, 1991. Film (based on Money Men): Warner Bros., 1993, as Boiling Point.

   These two short novels are printed in one volume and are Petievich’s first published fiction. He is a former member of the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, and later was a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service assigned to counterfeit investigations. He knows intimately the subject he’s chosen for fiction, and that’s what makes these novels work so well.

   Both novels feature Treasury agent Charles Carr. In Money Men he is after the man who shot to death another agent in a motel room that Carr had bugged. Not only do Carr and his partner, Jack Kelly, suffer the agony of listening to their fellow agent being murdered while they are too far away to help, they also must bear the brunt of the responsibility for the tragic operation.

   Carr is going to be transferred, most likely to a desk job, but he talks his superior into giving him a few weeks before the move and he uses that time to stalk the agent’s killer.

   Carr and Kelly work against the clock as they slowly close in on a con man named Red Diamond and his young cohort Ronnie Boyce. The setting is Los Angeles, the action fast, the plot tight, all written in a style that smacks hard of realism.

   Washington, D.C., as well as Los Angeles is the setting for One-Shot Deal. This novel is the more ambitious of the two, and probably the best.

   Here Carr is set on the trail of someone who has engineered the theft of government security paper from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the special kind of paper used to print money.

   The someone is a fascinating villain named Larry Phillips, an ex-con who is a skilled hypnotist and runs with beautiful blond prostitute Melba, a woman who is literally under his spell. The story is intricately plotted and builds in suspense to a satisfying conclusion.

   Both novels are written in a direct, uncompromising style that establishes a tough authenticity. The dialogue is hard-edged and street-wise, and the knowing attention to detail lends a stark reality that only an insider can bring to this kind of fiction. Money Men and One-Shot Deal are both lean, mean, and entertaining.

   Other Petievich novels are To Live and Die in Beverly Hills (1983), To Live and Die in L.A. (1984), and The Quality of the Informant (1985).

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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.

HERMAN PETERSEN – Old Bones.

Duell, Sloan & Pearce, hardcover, 1943. Paperback reprint: Dell 127, 1947 [mapback edition].

   Herman Petersen was a prolific contributor to the aviation, adventure, and detective pulps of the Twenties and Thirties; one of his stories appears in the famous “Ku Klux Klan Number” of Black Mask (June 1, 1923). Between 1940 and 1943, he published four crime novels advertised by the publisher of three of them, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, as “quietly sinister mysteries with a rural background.”

   All four are set in an unnamed county in an unspecified part of the country (presumably upstate New York, Petersen’s home base). Three feature a team of more or less amateur sleuths: old Doc Miller, the county coroner; Paul Burns, the D.A.; and the narrator, Ben Wayne, a gentleman farmer. Miller does most of the sleuthing, Burns most of the worrying, and Wayne most of the leg work.

   Old Bones, the last and nominally best of the Doc Miller books, begins with the discovery — by Wayne’s wife, Marian — of a jumble of old bones wedged into the bottom of a standpipe at an abandoned gristmill.

   Before the authorities can remove them, someone else gets there first and tries unsuccessfully to hide them. Doc Miller’s eventual examination and investigation reveal that the bones are those of Nathaniel Wight, a black-sheep member of the district’s leading family; that he died of a crushed skull; and that he has evidently been dead for five years — ever since the night he was banished by old Aunt She, eldest and most imperious of the Wights, who believed he had seduced his cousin Amelia.

   It soon becomes apparent that someone in the Wight family, or someone close to it — perhaps more than one person — is willing to go to any lengths to keep the truth about Nate’s death from surfacing along with his bones.

   Much of the action takes place at or near the mill, and in the swamp that separates it from the Waynes’ farm, known as Dark House. In one harrowing episode, Wayne nearly drowns inside the standpipe; in another he is attacked in the mill loft and superficially stabbed.

   A second murder, the actions of a transient who has been bothering women in the area, a nightmarish stormy-night chase through the swamp on the trail of a kidnapped girl, and a tense and fiery conclusion are some of the other highlights.

   Old Bones drips atmosphere and understated menace. Its mystery is well constructed, with some legitimate detection on Doc Miller’s part; there is a nice sense of realism in the characters; and the touches of folksy humor are adroitly handled.

   The novel does have its flaws: We are told almost nothing about the backgrounds and private lives of the protagonists, people we want to know better; the solution to the mystery comes a little too easily and quickly; and more could have been done with the final confrontation. But the pluses here far outweigh the minuses. This and Petersen’s other servings of fictional Americana are well worth tracking down.

   Doc Miller, Paul Bums, and the Waynes are also featured in Murder in the Making (1940) and Murder R.F.D. (1942). The D.A ‘s Daughter (1943) also has a rural setting and emphasizes comedy along with murder and mischief.

   Petersen’s only other mystery novel, “The House in the Wilderness,” was published serially in 1957 and did not see book publication.

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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.

THOMAS PERRY – Metzger’s Dog.

Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1983. Paperback reprint: Charter, 1984. Trade paperback: Random House, 2003.

   This is a joyous romp of a thriller featuring the funniest band of brigands since Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder gang. While pulling a routine caper — a small matter involving a million dollars’ worth of cocaine — the gang inadvertently comes into possession of a Toyota-size dog and a worthless-looking manuscript.

   Immelmann, Kepler, Chinese Gordon, and Margaret the moll keep the surly canine only because Gordon’s cat, Dr. Henry Metzger, takes a fancy to it. The manuscript is more promising — it’s about psychological warfare, and they figure the CIA will pay plenty to get it back.

   A deal is struck, but the public servants of this great nation prove untrustworthy. Double-crossed, the tiny gang of four decides to teach the mighty CIA a lesson it’ll never forget. And then the real fun begins.

   Besides having one of the smartest mouths in the West, Chinese Gordon can think of dazzling plans on a moment’s notice. His revenge plot is a dandy; even the CIA’s ruthless Ben Porterfield, (“a man who had eaten armadillo. That said it all.”) can’t keep up with him. In fact, he can seemingly be outsmarted by only one being on earth — his own cat, Dr. Henry Metzger.

   A dynamite read-the plot is ingenious, the dialogue terrific, and the comedy wild and wacky.

   Perry’s previous book, The Butcher’s Boy, is totally different from this one — a tense thriller about an assassin and the government worker who must apprehend him; it won the MWA Edgar for Best First Novel of 1982. His latest title is Big Fish (1985).

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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.

ELIZABETH PETERS – Crocodile on the Sandbank. Dodd, Mead & Co., hardcover, 1975. Paperback reprint: Fawcett Crest, 1976. Many other reprint editions, both hardcover and soft.

   Crocodile on the Sandbank is a wonderfully amusing romp in Egypt in the 1880s with all the trimmings — dahabeeyahs (houseboats), royal tombs, and mummies, both dead and walking. Into the world of archaeology blunders a self-proclaimed “middle-aged spinster” (age thirty-two) who has used her newly inherited fortune to leave England and her avaricious relatives.

   Sensing herself to be plain, Miss Amelia Peabody has decided against marriage, saying, “Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet any man as sensible as myself.” But then she meets Radcliff Emerson, a voluble and single-minded sociologist. A Tracy-Hepburn relationship immediately develops.

   Where she meets Radcliff is at an archaeological dig he and his brother share on the Nile. Amelia and her companion, a young woman she befriended in Rome, have stopped there for a brief visit, but the short stay they envisioned is lengthened by a series of threatening events, endangering the artifacts and finally the lives of the four protagonists.

   The story is told from Amelia’s viewpoint. She is exceptionally well educated, full of endurance, and never, never forgoes her principles. Peters’s skill is in keeping the friction inherent in this situation amusing, yet making the characters just realistic enough to be credible and immensely likable. And though the reader realizes the outcome of the plot before Amelia does, it doesn’t matter, it is the interchange between the characters that is the delight of the book.

   In further adventures, presented in the form of Amelia’s memoirs — The Curse of the Pharaohs (1981) and The Mummy Case (1985) — she marries Emerson and returns to the Nile with an expanded cast of characters, including her precocious son, Ramses, and an Egyptian cat, Bastet.

   Peters (whose real name is Barbara Mertz, and who also writes as Barbara Michaels) has written such other entertaining novels as The Jackal’s Head (1968), Borrower of the Night (1973), The Copenhagen Connection (1982), and Die for Love (1984).

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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.

TONY HILLERMAN – Listening Woman. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1978. Paperback reprint: Avon, April 1979. Many other reprint editions, both hardcover and soft.

   Joe Leaphorn is assigned to a double homicide that has occurred on a remote plateau of the Navajo reservation. Hosteen Tso, an old man, had complained of illness and gone to Margaret Cigaret, known as Listening Woman, for a pollen-blessing ceremony. During a brief period when Listening Woman left him alone, both Hosteen Tso and her niece and assistant, Anna Atcitty, were bludgeoned to death.

   The old man, Listening Woman reports to Leaphorn, knew something about some sand paintings that had been desecrated, but refused to discuss it, saying cryptically that he had made a promise to someone long ago. Following this rather slender lead, Leaphorn travels across the barren mesas to that part of the Indian nation where the Navajo wolves and witches are said to dwell.

   As in Hillerman’s other novels, ancient tribal beliefs come into sharp conflict with the modern world – a conflict that is reflected in Leaphorn himself. And when he finally reaches the solution to the crimes, he sees how legend can be manipulated to suit the designs of evil men.

   Hillerman has put his knowledge of Navajo custom and mysticism to good use in this novel. His stark depiction of the New Mexico landscape is particularly fine, conveying a haunting sense of how insignificant one man is against the vastness of nature, and making this a compelling and often chilling book.

   Joe Leaphorn also appears in The Blessing Way (1970), Hillerman’s first novel. A nonseries novel, The Fly on the Wall (1971), is a political story set in the capital of an unnamed midwestern state. In addition, Hillerman has produced a juvenile novel and various works of nonfiction, including the hilarious The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other Affairs of Indian Country (1970).

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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.