FREDERICK NEBEL “Winter Kill.” Kennedy of the Free Press & Captain Steve MacBride #32. Novelette. First published in Black Mask, November 1935. Reprinted in The Hardboiled Dicks, edited by Ron Goulart. (Sherbourne Press, 1965). Collected in Winter Kill: The Complete Cases of MacBride & Kennedy, Volume 4: 1935-36 (Altus Press, 2014).

   Russ Parcell is a cad, no way to get around that. A rich father’s son who drinks a lot, gambles a lot, and although married, runs around with cheap floozies a lot. He owes one gambling boss over $8500, which in 1935 would have been considered a lot of money, and the gambling boss is anxious to collect. It doesn’t make sense, then, for him to have killed Parcell, does it? The latter was found in the street,hid body frozen to death and covered with snow.

   It is Kennedy of Free Press who figures out it was murder. Someone had poured water on him and sent him wandering out in the cold in a drunken stupor. It is also Kennedy who does most of the investigative work on the case, although Captain Steve MacBride is there for police backup whenever he’s needed.

   It is also Kennedy who shows any personality in this particular story. He’s short and thin, and at times he can be almost invisible in a room, almost a shadow on the wall so that others also in the room can easily forget he’s there. He also drinks a lot, but whether he’s ever actually drunk is not easy to tell. He often learns a lot by pretending he’s had few too many.

   MacBride, on the other hand, could just as well be another generic cop. Luckily for Kennedy, he doesn’t mind putting up with the latter’s various foibles.

   The case, unfortunately, while long and involved, is not a particularly gripping one, and most of Kennedy’s legwork is done off screen, or with the motives for what he does do not revealed to the reader. The Kennedy-MacBride series was both a long one and very popular with the readers at the time. This particular story may not show them at their best.

Note: I first wrote a review of this story in 1967, and I posted it on this blog a few weeks ago. Follow the link and you can read it here.

JOHN K. BUTLER “The Saint in Silver.” Steve Midnight #4. Novelette. First published in Dime Detective Magazine, January 1941. Reprinted in The Hardboiled Dicks (Sherbourne Press, 1965). Collected in The Complete Cases of Steve Midnight, Volume 1 (Steeger Books, 2016).

   I’ve said it many times, and a couple of times in print as well, that of all the stories in The Hardboiled Dicks, Ron Goulart’s  highly seminal pulp detective anthology from 1965, “The Saint in Silver” was the one that I remembered most.

   Well, “ha” on me. Now, over 50 years later, last night I finally read it for a second time, and guess what? It was like reading it for the first time.

   Nothing I thought I knew about the story was true. I even had the object in the title wrong. I remembered it as a statue. What the saint in silver really is, I won’t tell you (although there’s no reason why I shouldn’t), but nothing could be further from the truth.

   Maybe the only thing I remembered correctly is that Steve Midnight (Steve Middleton Knight) is a taxi cab driver, and he usually has an overnight shift. He’s not a PI, but there were nine stories in the early 40s in which he was the leading character, all for Dime Detective. I assume that he was generally his own client, but I could be wrong about that.

   In “The Saint in Silver,” for example, he’s out a fare of $18 if he doesn’t find the blonde and the drunken guy who smashed up their own car while in the midst of a treasure hunt. After hiring him to continue their hunt, they disappear on him when the next clue takes them to a cemetery in the rain, with Midnight ending up clocked over the head in a tomb.

   Butler was a very good writer, nothing fancy, but the first half of the story simply flows and catches the reader along with it. The second half, the tracking down of the cab’s occupants, devolves into a case that involves both a narcotics ring and a rich pseudo-evangelist, is not as compelling, but it’s still a very good yarn. (Maybe at 48 pages, it’s just a little long for its own good.)

   And yes, by the way, one of the Steve Midnight stories is titled “Death and Taxis,” in the January 1942 issue of Dime Detective.

Note: I first wrote a review of this story in 1967, and I posted it on this blog a few weeks ago. Follow the link and you can read it here.

NORBERT DAVIS “Don’t Give Your Right Name.” PI Max Latin #2. Novelette. First published in Dime Detective Magazine, December 1941. Reprinted in The Hardboiled Dicks, edited by Ron Goulart (Sherbourne Press, hardcover, 1965; Pocket, paperback, 1967) and collected in The Complete Cases of Max Latin (Steeger ,Books, 2013).

   I can see why Ron Goulart picked as the lead story in his The Hardboiled Dicks. Norbert Davis had a wicked sense of humor to go with a master’s touch in telling the rough, tough, hardboiled kind of tale that both Dime Detective and Black Mask specialized in.

   “Don’t Give Your Right Name,” for example, begins with a chaotic scene at Gutierrez’s restaurant, a place that’s always hopping in spite of everything Gutierrez can do to keep customers away because they eat too fast instead of savoring their food.

   This includes paying an autograph collector to go in and annoy all of the famous people gathered there. But things turn serious when the fellow turns up dead in the alley in back, and to save his own skin, Max Latin is forced to take on the case. Latin is a not-so-honest PI who, when he calls his lawyer, the latter is all but out the door and heading to the police lockup where he assumes Latin is, and is calling from.

   The story is enormously complicated, with more than a smidgen of sexual innuendo to go with it. There lots of strings to the plot, but even with the pace as fast as it is, Davis manages to keep everything under control to the end. On his part, Latin manages to keep himself out of jail, but on their part, not everyone else survives the night. It’s a risky business, showing up in one the stories he’s in.

Note: I first wrote a review of this story in 1967, and I posted it on this blog a week or so ago. Follow the link and you can read it here.

MICHAEL COLLINS “Dan Fortune and the Hollywood Caper.” PI Dan Fortune.  Short story. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1983. Collected in Crime, Punishment and Resurrection (Donald I. Fine, 1992) as “The Woman Who Ruined John Ireland.” Reprinted in Silver Screams: Murder Goes Hollywood, edited by Cynthia Manson & Adam Stern (Longmeadow, paperback, 1994).

   Dan Fortune is hired by a young woman, a file clerk for a company in midtown Manhattan, who lives a life on the borderline between real life and movieland fantasy. She looks like Gloria Grahame, and there are times when she thinks she is. She is having an affair with the manager of a small used bookstore whom at times she believes he is John Ireland. When she is shot at, she comes to Dan, convinced that her lover’s wife, Grace Kelly, is the one responsible.

   Before he has solved the case, she even has Dan doing it. Here below is a list of the movie stars who play a part in the investigation, even briefly. I hope I haven’t missed any. It would make one hell of of a movie, wouldn’t it?

CAMFORD SHEAVELY “The Tie That Blinds.” Novelette. Clyde Collier #1. First published in Detective Story Magazine, June 1947. Never reprinted.

   I may be stretching it a bit to call Clyde Collier a private eye, but then again trouble shooters for the movie studios in the 1930s and 40s are generally allowed to be thought of to be in the category – think of W. . Ballard’s “Bill Lennox” stories as a prime example – so even if maybe Collier is in reality only a glorified PR man, he’s still a PI in my book, especially when murder is involved.

   Even though it’s the lead story in the issue it’s in, it’s still a minor tale. What I think I’ll do is tell you the basics and let you see if you can’t figure out the plot on your own. Dead is one of Hollywood’s top ranked directors. What’s unusual is the way he’s dressed: in a blue coat and tan shirt, with a tie decorated with purple and maroon flowers. Later on Collier spots one of the crew playing cards, only to lose because he confuses a spade for a heart in what would otherwise be a straight flush.

   Sorry, but no more hints. Not that I think you are likely to need any.

   The rest of the story is padding, but that’s ameliorated by the fact that Sheavely seems to have been someone who knew his way around a movie studio. I’d never heard of the author before either, but he had about a dozen stories published in the detective pulps in the 40s, including one in Black Mask (July 1946). You may know him better as John Reese, who wrote quite a few western novels under his own name, beginning in the 50s, including ten in his Jefferson Hewitt series.

   I’ve not read any of the latter, but I’ve always meant to. I believe, but am not sure, that Hewitt was a detective in the Paladin sense, who traveled the early West taking various jobs for hire. If anyone can say more, that’s what the comments are for.

HENRY KANE “The Memory Guy.” PI Peter Chambers. First published in Come Seven, Come Death, edited by Henry Morrison (Pocket, paperback original, 1965). Reprinted in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine (US), March 1966.

   In “The Memory Guy” Peter Chambers is hired to do one thing – find who’s been leaving an aspiring Broadway actress phone calls threatening her father’s life – and ends up doing another. To wit:  saving her from being accused of killing him. It seems that he was doing his best to keep her from her desired choice of career, including the rather drastic measure of persuading her to marry his law clerk, a man with a photographic memory.

   Hence the title.

   If you were to read the blurb for this particular story on the back cover, it gives the entire plot away, so don’t. As a pure detective story, it’s too short to linger in your memory for very long afterward, but it’s very well constructed.

   What I found disappointing, is that there’s nothing of Peter Chambers himself in the story. The Personality he’s developed in earlier stories doesn’t exist in this one. The PI the girl hires could have been anyone. In fact, he needn’t even be a detective, just someone she knows who’s a little more observant than a stranger off the street.

HAROLD Q. MASUR “The Corpse Maker.” Short story. Scott Jordan. First published in Come Seven, Come Death, edited by Henry Morrison (Pocket, paperback original, 1965). Never collected or reprinted (unless advised otherwise).

   Attorney Scott Jordan’s client, a notorious fence, is guilty as charged, but when the D.A. offers to make a deal, he turns him down. It seems that the police forced their way into the man’s apartment and searched it without a warrant. So why then does the man not show up for his trial? Has he skipped bail just when he’s about to go free?

   Totally baffled, Jordan tracks him down and finds him at home almost beaten to death. He names his assailant and an (almost) dying message, which of course gives Jordan a lot to go on. And he needs it, as the case is (almost) as complicated as a full-length novel, complete with another killing and (of course) a beautiful girl.

   All to the good, but the story is badly marred by heavy coincidence – two, in fact, occurring on the very same page. Nor in the length of the tale (22 pages) is there time for any real detection. Jordan’s explanation fits all the facts, but how he managed to put them all together is not gone into. And in spite of the fact that I’ve enjoyed all of the Scott Jordan novels I’ve read, that was a long time ago, and I was disappointed with this one. In “The Corpse Maker,” he’s as straight and narrow as white bread, with not a ounce of grittiness to him.

   I’ll have to go back and read some of his early books again.

RICHARD S. PRATHER “The Guilty Party.” Short story. PI Shell Scott. First published in Come Seven, Come Death, edited by Henry Morrison (Pocket, paperback original, 1965). Collected in The Shell Scott Sampler (Pocket, paperback original, 1969).

   Shell doesn’t have anything close to a major crime to solve in this one, and a full page of its full thirteen is taken up in describing his newest client, from the top of her head to her toes. She’s quite an eyeful, and Shell doesn’t know whether to ogle, leer, or just outright stare:

   
   It also turns out that she is quite wealthy, in the multi-million dollar range,

   So why has she come to hire Shell Scott? It turns out that a small metal device fell out from under her bed when got up that morning. Shell quickly deduces that it was a listening device of some kind. A bedbug, if you will. Who could have put it there? The only person who’s been in Lydia’s apartment recently is her fiancé.

   If nothing else, Shell knows a cad when he sees him, or in this case, learns about him.

   Once in Lydia’s apartment, he puts on a show for her, bouncing up and down on her bed, yelling YOWZA! (I’m paraphrasing), while she’s yelling back, STOP! and WHAT ARE YOU DOING? And he replies, DARLING!!

   It’s one way to flush out a cad when you need to in a hurry.

   Obviously this is a very minor effort, but it’s also exactly what devout readers of Shell Scott’s wackier adventures had come to expect, and it’s also exactly what they got.

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Theft of the Brazen Letters.” Short story. Nick Velvet #4. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 1968 (their 300th issue). First collected in The Spy and the Thief (Davis, digest-sized paperback; 1st printing, December 1971).

   The reason I like Hoch’s Nick Velvet series so much is that there’s always a twofold mystery to be solved in them. Nick’s fee is $20,000 per each commissioned theft he agrees to take on, and each time it is always for some insignificant object that no one would ever think worth stealing. Mystery number one: How does he mange to steal that very insignificant object? Mystery number two: Nick is also a very inquisitive guy, and of course he’s always also interested as to why he was asked to steal the item he does.

   For example, from the introduction to this story in EQMM, previous thefts he’s taken as assignments include stealing a tiger from a zoo, water from a swimming pool and a toy mouse from the prop room of a movie studio. In “The Theft of the Brazen Letters,” he asked to steal three of seven neon letters from the outside of a commercial building. The seven letters are SATOMEX. I think you can deduce on your own which three letters Nick’s client wants stolen, but I don’t think you’ll have any more idea than I did as to why.

   As is usual for Ed Hoch’s stories, this is purely a puzzle tale. Nothing more nor anything less, and that’s super fine for me. There’s even a bonus in this one, as Nick has the local cops to contend with, and as a surprise to me, he’s one up on them as well. The zinger at the end is simple, but a zinger nonetheless.

THEODORE STURGEON. “Agnes, Accent and Access.” Short story. First published in Galaxy SF, October 1973. Reprinted in The Best from Galaxy, Volume II, edited anonymously by Ejler Jakobsson. Collected in Case and the Dreamer, Volume XIII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon (North Atlantic Books, 2010).

   This is the second of three short stories in this issue of Galaxy that I’ve been reading, ignoring the two long serial installments by James White and Arthur C. Clarke that take up a full two-thirds of the magazine. As far as ISFDb knows, the story has appeared in only two other places, which seems strange to me, as it’s a good one.

   When a company who stock in trade is the information retrieval business, it seems strange that they have to hire an outside consultant when problems arrive internally: requests from departments of the firm are being replied to with very incorrect responses. His way of investigating: to sit outside the president’s office ostensibly waiting for an appointment but in reality watching the very efficient secretary, named Agnes, working at her desk throughout the day.

   This story was written in 1973, long before Siri and Alexa came along, but if science fiction could ever have been said to predict the future, and the describe the problems that come along with it, this is a story that fits the bill to perfection. Adding even more to the enjoyment of the tale is the fact that Theodore Sturgeon was a flows along.

   Examples. This one line sentence, a mere throwaway in fact, sums up a fact that you might not of thought of yourself, but once read, you say, “Of course.”

   Or how about this longer passage, describing only the office itself where the consultant is waiting and observing: