ELAINE VIETS – Murder Between the Covers. Signet, paperback original, 2003.

   Touted by one Tim Dorsey (blurb writer and author of The Stingray Shuffle) as Janet Evanovich Meets The Fugitive, this second in the “dead end job mysteries” finds Helen Hawthorne on the run from a very messy divorce in St. Louis and working at a bookstore, Page Turners, in Fort Lauderdale.

   The bookstore is run by a mean, book illiterate black sheep of a once successful family operation that he’s running into the ground. When he’s predictably murdered and a friend of Helen’s is charged with the murder, Helen, with the help of her eccentric landlady, sets out to find the real killer.

   Viets worked for a year at a Barnes & Noble and the behind-the-scenes bookstore business details seem authentic. The book is funny and the warm Florida setting was irresistible to me in the prospect of a cold Pittsburgh winter. It’s not as drop-dead funny as the early Evanovich books, but the blurb shouldn’t deter anyone looking for an entertaining bibliomystery.

The Dead-End Job series —

1. Shop Till You Drop (2003)

2. Murder Between the Covers (2003)
3. Dying to Call You (2004)
4. Just Murdered (2005)
5. Murder Unleashed (2006)

6. Murder with Reservations (2007)
7. Clubbed to Death (2008)
8. Killer Cuts (2009)
9. Half-Price Homicide (2010)

10. Pumped for Murder (2011)
11. Final Sail (2012)
12. Board Stiff (2013)
13. Catnapped! (2014)

14. Checked Out (2015)
15. The Art of Murder (2016)

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

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

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

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

      The Tecumseh Fox series —

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Jane Wheel series —

1. Killer Stuff (2001)

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

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

8. Lucky Stuff (2012)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Tim Simpson series —

1. A Back Room in Somers Town (1984)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       The Pete McGrath series —

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

Turn Blue, You Murderers (1967)

We, the Killers (1967)

Dead Upstairs in the Tub (1967)

Slit My Throat Gently (1968)

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Eddie Brown series —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Molly Doyle series —

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

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

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

   You can be well versed in the saga of Simon Templar, the Saint, Leslie Charteris’s creation, have read all the books and short stories by Charteris and others, seen all the movies and television episodes, have followed his adventures on radio, in the long running comic strip written by Charteris and drawn by Mike Roy, and later John Spanger and Doug Wildey, and his own comic book featuring newspaper reprints and original material by Charteris, and still not know the story of the Saint and the Five Kings. That is because the Five Kings never appeared between the covers of an actual book, but only in the Saint stories appearing in the British pulp magazine The Thriller, commencing with issue number 13 dated May 4, 1929.

   The Five Kings make their auspicious debut with this line:

   If that sounds familiar, it is because when is saw print in hard covers from Hodder and Stroughton a year later in 1930 as Enter the Saint, a key change had been made. The title of the story had been changed from “The Five Kings” to “The Man Who Was Clever” and the “organization known as the Five Kings,” now read “the organization led by the man known as the Saint.”

   You would not know what the Saint was to mean to The Thriller and its success in this early issue. There is no stick figure with a halo on the cover or inside the magazine, and while the Saint is identified as the Saint in the story no mention of him as an individual is made anywhere in the promotion, nor is that rectified for the rest of the year despite the appearance of the rest of the stories that comprise Enter the Saint and the two Saint novels that follow, The Last Hero, aka The Saint Closes the Case, and The Avenging Saint. The closest the Saint gets to headlining is in a story entitled “The Return of the Joker,” as the Saint is the fifth king, or Joker.

   Earlier that year two J. G. Reeder stories comprising Edgar Wallace’s Red Aces had appeared, and at that point it was Edgar Wallace that was the backbone of The Thriller, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see that Charteris’s Five Kings is very much a variation of Wallace’s Four Just Men, with each man hidden by a King in the deck of cards and the Saint behind the Joker.

   Patricia Holm is even along as the Queen to these five kings and Claude Eustace Teal and even the Saint’s man ’Orace, and in every other way the Saint is the Saint, you just wouldn’t know it based on the copy on the cover or inside the covers. Even the previews don’t mention the Saint, only the Five Kings.

   I’ve found few changes between the story as they appear in The Thriller and the stories in book form, save for that emphasis on the Five Kings by the magazine and by Charteris, and it is clear the selling point, though never stated, is “here is another series along the lines of the Four Just Men.”

   Of course the stories are nothing like Wallace’s Four Just men stories, and other than the Five Kings themselves the Saint is closer to Charteris’s other model, Bulldog Drummond, than Edgar Wallace in most matters. However much Wallace influenced Charteris’s subject matter, he is much closer to Raffles, Arsene Lupin, Sexton Blake, Oppenheim’s Peter Ruff, Drummond, Dornford Yates, John Buchan, and Anthony Hope than even Wallace’s Edwardian gentleman adventurers like the Brigand.

   Early on the Saint even encounters a mad scientist with a gas that dissolves a live goat that more than resembles the fate of Robin Bishop’s small dog in Sapper’s The Final Count, but even then the Five Kings are still getting better press than the Saint however much he dominates the story.

   Knowing how long it takes for reader reaction to be gauged by a magazine in terms of sales and letters, it is possible that it isn’t until Enter the Saint, the first collection of stories after the Saint’s debut in Meet — the Tiger that Simon Templar and his little stick figure avatar began to appear on the cover and in the interior of The Thriller.

   Since none of the stories in the magazine appear in book form under the same title and have those minor variations, and the Saint himself is not mentioned in any of the advertising in 1929, it would be entirely possible to miss him, especially since two other Charteris’s heroes appear in the magazine the same year only to fade into obscurity, while receiving equal weight in terms of promotion by the magazine. however.

   I’m trying to think of another series where a character so successful took that long to be recognized, but other than the 19th century French newspaper serial character Rocambole by Ponson du Terrail, and Nick Carter who started as the boy detective companion to Old Seth Carter, I’m coming up blank.

   Certainly other characters changed notably as their series went on. Good examples of this are Allingham’s Albert Campion and Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey. But as clear as it is reading the stories that they are about the Saint and always meant to be about the Saint and no one else, but reading the copy surrounding them you would be hard put to guess that.

   Still, you have to wonder what would have happened if that first book after Meet — the Tiger had been titled Enter the Five Kings? Would a saintly career have been cut short?

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

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

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

    a) See her killed

    b) Learn the identity of her killer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Ed Rivers series —

The Killer Is Mine (1959)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      The Deborah Knott Series —

Bootlegger’s Daughter, 1992
Southern Discomfort, 1993

Shooting at Loons, 1994
Up Jumps the Devil, 1996

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

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

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

Designated Daughters, 2014
Long Upon the Land, 2015

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