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.

PAUL DOIRON – Dead by Dawn. Game Warden Mike Bowditch #12. Minotaur Books, hardcover, June 2021. Setting: Contemporary Maine.

First Sentence: The hill is steep here, and there is no guardrail above the river.

   Some love books and take great care of them: don’t write in them, or bend down corners. Hardcovers are put in mylar archival covers as soon as they arrive, and  the spines are not broken. But not this one. With a print, rather than an e-copy of this book, one would be tempted to rip out the pages out with abandon so they could be reordered in chronological order.

   You see, the author decided to write the story alternating between the present, and the very recent past; truly a gap of an hour, perhaps. The story is jumping back and forth like the ball in the championship ping-pong tournament and tends to drive one crazy.

   One assumes at some point, the past will with meetup with the present, but one may not wait that long before becoming screamingly frustrated. Not only does the style make the story nearly impossible to read, but it also removes most of the suspense which would have been otherwise palpable. Perhaps if one had a paper copy, they’d skip to the end just to see how it comes out. Frankly, however, no reader should feel the need to do that.

   For pity’s sake, what happened to the idea of starting the story at the beginning and carrying it straight through to the end; no prologue, no flashing back and forth, no portents: just tell the bleeding story!

   One could nearly conclude that many books written in 2020 were subject to the pandemic rendering too many authors incapable of editing, not rambling, including far more extraneous information than remotely needed, muddling the plot, including every character they can imagine, and falling prey to using devices that drive some readers mad with frustration. Sadly, this is one of those.

   Dead by Dawn is heartbreaking. Paul Doiron’s other books with his great characters, information about Maine and being a game warden there, are wonderful to read. Others will love this book and it well may win awards. However, others may find it gimmicky and annoying, and hope his next book returns to telling a cracking story in a straight timeline fashion.

Rating: Not Recommended.

      Note: Part one of this three-part review can be found here.

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

   Newspaperman Kennedy of the Free Press gets beaten up quite a bit but manages to capture a murderer whose victim is found frozen to death on the streets. Complicated story, with lots of characters to keep straight. Not really as satisfying [as the first two stories in this anthology]. (2)
   

RAOUL WHITFIELD “China Man.” Jo Gar #18. Published under the name Ramon Decolta in Black Mask, March 1932. Collected in West of Guam: The Complete Cases of Jo Gar (Altus Press, 2013).

   The servant of a Philippines importer is suspected of killing him, but Jo Gar has difficulty in obtaining proof. The flavor of the Orient comes through clearly. (3)

ANNIKA “Captain Ahab’s Wife.” Alibi, UK, 17 August 17 2021 (series 1, episode 1). Nicola Walker as DI Annika Strandhed, Jamie Sives as DS Michael McAndrews, Katie Leung as DC Blair Ferguson, Ukweli Roach as DS Tyrone Clarke, Kate Dickie as DCI Diane Oban, Silvie Furneaux as Morgan, Annika’s teenage daughter. Based on the BBC Radio 4 drama Annika Strandhed, created by Nick Walker, who also developed it for TV and wrote this episode. Currently streaming on PBS.

   This episode begins with Annika beginning a new position as the lead detective for a new Marine Homicide Unit in Glasgow, and as usual, she as a single mother, has her teenage daughter in tow and starting at a new school.

   If the word “truculent” didn’t exist, it would have to be created just for the daughter. Or maybe “sullen,” but who can blame her? Dragged off to a new city with no friends, just like so many shows just like this one.

   What makes this one different is the “breaking of the fourth wall” aspect, as every so often Annika turns to the camera and starts telling the audience what she’s thinking at the time. This is while action is still going on, not by having her step off to the side to do so. Many of the reviewers on IMDb hate this.

   I admit being taken by surprise the first time it happened, but I think it’s, well, almost charming and (in my opinion) certainly well done.

   On Annika’s very first day not only does she have to get used to her new leadership role, but she and her team have a murder to solve: the death of a excursion boat captain who has  been fatally stabbed by a harpoon. The case is a bit of a challenge, but she’s up to the task, in spite of the several clichés involved in the basic setup. That’s probably her bigger job, as time goes on. Thus far there has been only the one season, consisting of six episodes.

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN – Stress. Detroit #5, hardcover, Mysterious Press, 1996; paperback, 1997.

   Estleman is one of those writers who writes well enough that I generally enjoy whatever he cares to write, but I was damned glad to hear that he’s going to get back to Amos Walker. I liked the first book in the Detroit series, Whiskey River, pretty well, but it’s seemed to me that each succeeding volume has been anywhere from a little to a lot weaker than the one before it.

   Detroit is crumbling by 1972, and has richly earned the title of Murder Capital of America. As a black militant and his minions plot to kidnap the daughter of one of Detroit’s richest white families, a young black policeman finds himself caught between the demands of his conscience and his job — -and between armed Black Power and a police department that may be even more violent,

   Surely Estleman had something better to do with his time than this. Surely. I’ve said in the past that he was a born storyteller and couldn’t write anything I wouldn’t like, but he has now. I didn’t hate it, mind you, but it sure didn’t hold my interest.

   None of the characters came to life, and the newsreel technique he’s employed for the Detroit series,  just didn’t get it done this time. I don’t know what else to say  about it, other than it was just a blah job to me, and that’s something I never  thought I’d say about one of his.

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.

 LIONEL DAVIDSON – The Rose of Tibet. Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1962. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1962. Reprinted many times (and still in print).

   Like Mark McShane, Lionel Davidson is one of those talented writers who possess a knack for seldom if ever repeating themselves from book to book. His first novel, The Night of Wenceslas (1960), is a tale of espionage set in Czechoslovakia (which won a CWA Golden Dagger, the first of three garnered by Davidson); The Menorah Men (1966) is a thriller with political overtones that takes place in Jerusalem; Murder Games (1978) is a whodunit laid in London’s bohemian art world; and The Rose of Tibet is a magnificent “quest” novel of suspense and high adventure reminiscent of the work of H. Rider Haggard.

   Set in 1950-51, The Rose of Tibet covers the perilous seventeen-month odyssey of Charles Houston. It begins in England, where Houston learns that his brother and other members of a group sent to northern India to film mountain climbing have mysteriously disappeared. At the request of the film company, he travels to India to search for information about his brother, alive or dead.

   In Calcutta, where his quest is apparently at an end, he hears talk of a Tibetan monastery that might hold the key — but the Chinese Communists have only recently seized control of Tibet, and no foreigners are being allowed into the country. Houston is not to be thwarted; he travels to Kalimpong and soon hires a Sherpa guide named Ringling, who leads him through Sikkim and Nepal, across the mighty Himalayas, and into the fabled Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

   Danger after danger plagues them en route and after they arrive at the temple of the Monkey God. But Houston survives “to enjoy the love of a goddess and to live through adventures so bizarre that almost no other man-perhaps no other man at all-has equaled them.”

   This is superb entertainment, utterly mesmerizing from first page to last. It is difficult to imagine any novelist more vividly evoking the awesome splendor of the Himalayas or the exotic people and landscapes of Tibet. High adventure as only the British can write it, and not to be missed.

     ———
   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.

THE FULL TREATMENT.   Hammer Films/Columbia Pictures, UK, 1960. Also released as Stop Me Before I Kill. Claude Dauphin, Diane Cilento, Ronald Lewis, Francoise Rosnay. Screenplay by Ronald Scott Thorn based on his novel, with Val Guest, who also directed.

   On their honeymoon Alan (Ronald Lewis) and Denise Colby (Diane Cilento) are involved in a terrible car wreck. Alan, a race car driver, is terribly injured and takes a long time to recover, and even when he comes out of the hospital he is still weak and suffering from nerves, tension, paranoia, and the psychological after effects of the traumatic event.

   He also fears he may be dangerous after he briefly tightens his hands around her neck during a passionate moment.

   On the Riviera to rest up they meet Dr. David Prade (Claude Dauphin … “He’s too elegant to be an aristocrat. Most aristocrats look like peasants.”) who takes an interest in them both despite Alan’s distrust and aggressive behavior (“…you’re refreshingly rude.”).

   Told by Denise about the accident, Prade reveals he is a psychiatrist, and that he fears Alan may suffer from repressed emotions that could make him dangerous to her and himself, but he overplays his hand and Alan and Denise decide to go back to London and try to start over.

   But things are no better in London, and Denise becomes increasingly concerned as she and Alan argue and he becomes more violent. When she learns Prade has followed them to London in his concern for Alan, she finally persuades Alan to see him in his Harley Street offices.

   Under intense therapy, he slowly begins to convince Alan to trust him and reveals the trauma that is causing all the problems. Alan is cured and sent home to Denise before they fly out the next day for the start of the racing season.

   But when Prade visits the next morning Denise is gone and there are signs of a violent struggle and bloody second hand medical instruments like the ones Alan described under hypnosis as the kind he would use if he was disposing of Denise’s body having killed her.

   Prade persuades Alan to let him institutionalize him before going to the police, but on the way to the asylum they are in a wreck, Prade is knocked unconscious and Alan flees.

   Hiding out on the Riviera Alan watches the London papers expecting to read about Denise’s body being found, and that he is wanted by the police, but then sitting at an outdoor bistro he sees a woman that looks suspiciously like Denise and watches as she climbs on a yacht, owned by Prade…

   The Full Treatment based on a novel by fine British suspense novelist and humorist Ronald Scott Thorn (Second Opinion, Twin Serpents, Upstairs Downstairs — the Michael Craig movie, not the Masterpiece series) was directed and co-written by director Val Guest (Penny Princess, The Runaway Bus, The Quatermass Experience, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Where the Spies Are) for Hammer Studios.

   Though this isn’t the only suspense film made by Hammer in this period, it is closer to the Hitchcockian model than films like Maniac, Sudden Fear, and The Snorkel that all had more shocker and borderline horror elements. It’s very much a psychological suspense film and not a shocker.

   The cast is excellent: Lewis’s well controlled and believably dangerous protagonist; Cilento’s sexy (there is a brief but distant nude scene) and concerned French wife; and Dauphin’s enigmatic Prade, by turns a bit creepy and yet believably solicitous and professional, all hit their marks perfectly. The suspense is genuine and the black and white photography gorgeous and the script intelligent.

   Admittedly the movie runs a little long, and perhaps some of the early scenes before they reach London could be tightened or even eliminated, but overall it’s an effective suspense film that ties what seems like loose ends up in the final moments. What holes there are in the plot are no worse than the ones in most Hitchcock films as far as that goes.

   I don’t want to oversell this, and I am a fan of Thorn, a suspense novelist in the tradition of Winston Graham, but it is a solid entertaining and attractive suspense film done on a decent budget and well handled all around.

ANNA MARY WELLS – Murderer’s Choice. Grace Pomeroy #2. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1943. Dell #126, mapback edition. Perennial Library, paperback, 1981.

   As so few of the female detectives in mystery fiction from the 1950s and before were private eyes, it really is worth seeking out and reading about those who were. In her first book, though, Grace Pomeroy was a private nurse, and I am not clear whether in her third and final adventure she returned to her original profession or not. Nonetheless, in Murderer’s Choice she is a full-fledged private eye, whether she had any training or not. (It does not appear that she had.)

   This first case is a doozy, though. Working for the Keene Detective Agency, her client has a strange story to tell. He is one of two cousins who hated each other, from childhood on. Frank Osgood, still alive, was the weaker one, tormented by the other their whole life through. Before his death Charles Osgood, a mystery writer, told the other he was going to commit suicide but plant enough clues so that Frank would be blamed.

   But when Charles dies, his death is attributed to natural causes, he left no money behind, and there is no trace of the insurance policy he promised Frank he was going to take out on himself. Frank is waiting for the other shoe to fall, and in desperation he tells Grace the entire story.

   A story which well may be unique in the annals of detective fiction. With a beginning as intriguing as this, what follows could be a complete letdown, as far as the story is concerned, but Anna Mary Wells is fairly well up to the challenge, bringing in several other characters who are interested in knowing what happened to Charles’ money: Frank’s mother; his fiancée (and she has been for eight years); a Broadway floozy who claims she was secretly married to Charles; a housekeeper promised money in Charles’ will;and another mystery writer who claims that Charles stole many of his ideas.

   Grace gets it wrong at least once, which is probably par for the course for an amateur, but she prevails in the end. Priding herself as never having told a lie, moreover, the last line of the book is quite apt: “For a first lie,”she said judiciously, “that wasn’t bad.”

   This one isn’t a classic, but it comes close to it many ways. The hardcover is not easy to find (I found not one for sale with a jacket), but either paperback edition, one as recent as 1981, can be picked up fairly easily.

         The Grace Pomeroy series:

A Talent for Murder. Knopf 1942 [with Dr. Hillis Owen]
Murderer’s Choice. Knopf 1943
Sin of Angels. Simon & Schuster, 1948 [with Dr. Hillis Owen]

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.