I spent a goodly chunk of April on the road, driving to the east coast with many stops along the way, then taking Amtrak from New York to Salem, Massachusetts, where I visited Bob Briney’s grave and conferred with the attorney handling his estate.

   He drove me out to Bob’s house, which I hadn’t seen in almost 22 years, and together we went through some of his files. Among them were several manila folders containing letters to Bob from me, hundreds of them, dating as far back as the late Sixties.

   Recently I received a huge package in the mail which turned out to contain those letters, returned to me by the attorney. Since then I’ve spent several hours re-reading them. A strange and sort of spooky experience, almost like going back in time to the decades when I was young and, judging from all the projects I was involved in, bursting with energy.

   After a few years of corresponding with Bob I got into the habit of passing along to him some of the dreadful lines I had encountered in my reading. Care to sample a few? Here’s one from Harry Stephen Keeler’s The Monocled Monster:

   And another from the king of Malapropia, Michael Avallone:

   To commemorate the current celebrations in London I offer this exchange of dialogue from William Ard’s The Sins of Billy Serene:

   From John Ball of In the Heat of the Night fame:

   Finally a gem that would have bedecked my own novel Corrupt and Ensnare (1978) if I hadn’t caught it in time. Loren Mensing reflects that Incident A and Incident B “bore the earmarks of the same hand.” At the bottom of the letter in which I shared this gaffe with Bob I found in his handwriting: “And the handiwork of the same mind, no doubt.”

   More than forty years ago I copied for Bob the following paragraph, which is supposed to be the first-person narration of an educated woman. “Sweet, dear, impossible man. I wonder who he’s making love to now. I wish it were me. I have the education and breeding to appreciate a gentleman like he is.” Anyone want to guess who perpetrated it?

   I don’t usually go back to old columns of mine months later but a few weeks ago for some unfathomable reason I revisited one that was posted in January 2011. Part of it dealt with a radio director named Fred Essex, now in his nineties, who in a memoir talked about having directed an episode of The Adventures of Ellery Queen in which Ellery was played by Carleton Young, the guest armchair detective was comedian Fred Allen, and the murder “was committed in a radio studio that was supposedly rehearsing a crime program.“

   The problem, as I pointed out, is that there’s no known episode during Young’s tenure as EQ where Ellery solved a crime in a radio studio and no episode at any time where Fred Allen was the armchair sleuth.

   Among those who happened to read my column was Fred Essex himself, who insisted that his memory hadn’t played him false. In August of last year, Queen expert Kurt Sercu gave us the answer to this conundrum. What Essex remembered was not an EQ episode with Fred Allen as guest sleuth but an episode of The Fred Allen Show (June 6, 1943) which featured an EQ spoof skit with Carleton Young himself playing Ellery and Allen and a couple of his comedy characters as armchair detectives. Vielen Dank, Herr Sercu!

   When a writer trying to come across as an authority on the mean streets makes a mistake that his most sheltered readers catch, the egg on the guy’s face just won’t rub off.

   In putting together last month’s column I caught a classic howler of this sort in one of the earliest stories of Henry Kane. In “The Shoe Fits” (Esquire, ??? 1947; collected in Report for a Corpse, 1948) private richard Peter Chambers tells us about a gangster who had taken over a top spot “directing traffic from Old Mexico to California, hashish traffic, call it marijuana….”

   No, you did not dream you read that. Kane thinks hash and pot are the same substance! At least he did in 1947 when very few were drug-savvy.

   Among the treasures of my library are two signed mint copies of James Ellroy’s first novel, the paperback original Brown’s Requiem (Avon, 1981), which I first read back in the Eighties.

   Its protagonist and narrator is Fritz Brown, a lover of classical music (German Romantic composers exclusively) who after being kicked out of the LAPD became a repo man and occasional PI. The plot is a Chandleresque labyrinth — a beautiful cellist, a serial arsonist, golf caddies, corrupt cops, a welfare racket — but the style is closer to Bill Pronzini and, with its dysfunctional family and ceaseless journeys into the past, the mood is closer to Ross Macdonald.

   Anyone expecting the telegraphic non-sentences and epic bloodletting of the later Ellroy will be surprised to discover that Requiem is coherently written and minimally violent, although when it comes the violence is pretty gory.

   There are some laughably self-indulgent moments, as when Brown treats us to a farrago of irrelevant anecdotes about caddies (or, as they call themselves, loopers) and later — twice in five pages! — to a loony poem he’s composed in a dream.

   But it’s a powerful read, and offhand I can’t recall any other non-series PI novel that deserves to stand on the same shelf with Stanley Ellin’s 1958 classic The Eighth Circle. Which, thanks to the alphabetical proximity of their names, is just where it stands in my library!

SOPHIE LITTLEFIELD – A Bad Day for Sorry. St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books, hardcover, August 2009; trade paperback, May 2010.

Genre:   Unlicensed Investigator. Leading character:  Stella Hardesty; 1st in series. Setting:   Rural Missouri.

First Sentence:   Whuppin’ ass wasn’t so hard, Stella Hardesty thought as she took aim with the little Raven .22 she took off a cheating so-of-a-bitch in Kansas City last month.

   Stella Hardesty knows what it’s like to live with a physically abusive man. After taking care of her own husband, in a permanent way, she has made an off-the-books career out of convincing other women’s men to either change their ways or clear out.

   She has been very effective, in the past, but Roy Dean Shaw isn’t getting the point. Instead, he kidnaps his wife Chrissy’s baby, of whom he’s not even the father. Then, Stella learns that Roy Dean is connected to a crime gang. Still Stella, with Chrissy by her side, is determined to save the baby.

   The prologue left me fearing Littlefield’s book would be cute and folksy and the vernacular would become tiresome. Instead, it helps establish the sense of place and there is nothing cute about this book except the well placed humor applied with deft hand.

   Stella is a wonderful character. She is a survivor in the best sense of the word. Rather than become hardened by her experiences, her empathy for others makes her determined to do for them what they can’t do for themselves, even if her methods are not exactly — okay not at all — within the law.

   She does what the law does not; protects women. She is not your classic heroine; she’s over 50, seen hard life and known pain, both physical and emotional. But she’s tough and smart.

   Chrissy begins as her antithesis; young, cute, big-busted with blond curls. What was refreshing was that Littlefield did not write her as a stereotype. Chrissy provides to be someone not to be underestimated and exemplifies the adage of not getting between a mother and her young, and I hope we see more of her in future books.

   There is great dialogue here, as long as one doesn’t mind rough language. Anything else would have been unrealistic and completely out of character. The book is very well plotted, with a flow that keeps you engaged from first page to last and with an originality that catches you off guard.

   It’s a story that, were the characters men, you wouldn’t flinch. However, because they are women, you are, at times, both uncomfortable and cheering them on. There is great suspense and really well-done action.

   A Bad Day for Sorry surprised me and delighted me. It won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel and it was well deserved. It’s a pleasure to know there are more books in this series.

Rating:   Very Good Plus.

      The Stella Hardesty series —

1. A Bad Day for Sorry (2009)
2. A Bad Day for Pretty (2010)

3. A Bad Day for Scandal (2011)
4. A Bad Day for Mercy (2012)

“The Ghost Goes East.” CBS. An episode of The Hunter, 24 September 1952, Wednesday 9:30 – 10:00 pm. Cast: Barry Nelson, Nita Talbot, Iggi Wolfington, Tiger Andrews, Henry Lascoe, Hy Anzel, Helen Penwell. Written by Phil Reisman, Jr. Produced by Edward J. Montagne. Directed by Oscar Rudolph.

   The Hunter is another series with a wacky backstory. It is a history that features two networks, two stars, and two different court cases. But before we get to the history, let’s examine the episode.

   And let’s not bury the lead. This episode was awful. The Hunter was a Commie-bashing spy series. Nita Talbot was the single highlight of this episode, while the rest of the cast, including lead Barry Nelson, did a poor job with Phil Reisman’s terrible script that was burdened with weak dialog and a plot full of holes.

   â€œThe Ghost Goes East” opens in the middle of a stakeout by the FBI. Being outdoors, and in a 1950’s TV-Film show, there was no dialog, just the camera to show what was happening. Director Oscar Rudolph told the story well with some dramatically effective camera angles. We watched as the FBI closed in on the Commie spies only to have one of them escape.

   The setting changes to inside some airport, aka typical 50s cheap generic set. Rudolph was never able to overcome the limitations of the cheap interiors sets to come close to the drama of the opening. He also failed to play fair with the two, granted lame, visual clues.

   Our hero’s (Barry Nelson) contact, Jane (Helen Penwell) arrives at the airport. He is watching a mysterious man watch him. He whistles his code sign “Frere Jacques.” While Jane updates our hero, the man disappeared. She tells him the Red spy is still on the loose and has passed his information to a Commie courier named William. While they don’t know what William looks like, they somehow know what plane he will be on as he heads east to pass the information to the Commies in East Berlin.

   The thirty-minute episode lacked the time for any characterization of our unlikable hero. On “The Ghost Goes East” no name was revealed for our Hero until he checked his passport, one for Jack Hunter, and when asked Hunter claimed his job was “exterminator.”

   He boards the plane and meets his fellow passengers, aka suspects. They include the man who had been watching him and a traveling showbiz troupe headed overseas. The troupe is made up of people who barely know each other, but the man-hungry half of a sister act (Nita Talbot) and the troupe’s leader and comic (Iggi Wolfington) happily gossip and do the exposition.

   Of course there is a murder during the flight. The twist at the end might have worked in 1952, but not today. In the final scene, after Hunter has saved America, the group notices Hunter has disappeared. As the dumbfounded characters wonder out loud where Hunter went, we hear him whistling his signature tune “Frere Jacques.”

   This episode is very easy to find on DVD. It appears on Lost Detective Classics from the Vault (Alpha Home Entertainment).

   The series’ backstory began when sponsor R. J. Reynolds wanted a summer replacement series for their CBS series Man Against Crime, a PI series starring Ralph Bellamy. The William Esty Agency handled the creative side of Man Against Crime and had producer Edward J. Montagne and writer Phil Reisman, Jr. do the same for the summer replacement series, The Hunter.

   The series began July 3, 1952, Thursday at 9pm. But Lucky Strike was able to push R. J. Reynolds off that time slot. CBS moved The Hunter to Wednesday at 9:30pm, a time slot held by Embassy’s series The Web. Embassy tried to stop the move and sued CBS for damages. The court refused to stop CBS.

   The Hunter on CBS starred Barry Nelson and 13 episodes were filmed. It was filmed in New York at the financially troubled Pathescope Studios. Ratings were not bad with the show ranked 22nd nationally by American Research Bureau during the week of August 1-7 and seen in 3,480 homes and 50 cities.

   Nielsen, for the two weeks ending 7/26/52, had The Hunter ranked 7th in number of homes reached (3,746), and 6th in percent of TV Homes reached in program station areas. At that time there were 65 markets, 110 stations, and 18,317,528 estimated TV sets in use in the entire United States.

   CBS’s The Hunter was opposite NBC’s Kraft Television Theatre and ABC’s Wrestling from the Marigold in Chicago (a series that also aired Saturday on the DuMont network). At the end of the summer of 1952, CBS let the series go. But that was not the end of the series, and in the summer of 1954 The Hunter returned to the air.

   But before that, in the summer of 1953 R. J. Reynolds decided to film 13 more episodes of The Hunter. Barry Nelson was now starring on My Favorite Husband, so Keith Larsen took over the lead. These episodes were kept “under wraps” with hopes there might be a demand for them in the future.

   Then R. J. Reynolds sold the CBS episodes with Barry Nelson to NBC as a summer replacement series that aired Sunday at 10:30 starting July 11, 1954. NBC then bought the never-shown episodes with Keith Larsen and aired them in the fall starting October 3, 1954. The Keith Larsen episodes would run once and then NBC replaced The Hunter on January 2, 1955, with The Bob Cummings Show (aka Love That Bob).

   In July 1955, Official Films sold the syndication rights for the 26 episode series to sponsor Tafon Distributors, and The Hunter made its syndication debut in 1955. Tafon, a maker of a “miracle” diet tablet, claimed the series would soon be in 250 markets (of the current 285 in the entire country).

   It is doubtful The Hunter ever came close to that number of markets. The series rarely found itself in the top rated programs in any market, and with just 26 episodes to air the series faded away.

   Official Films sued Tafon in September 1957 claiming Tafon owed them $97,169.37. They also claimed that no payments had been made since November 1956, and $100,000 remained to be paid from the original sale price of $234,000.

         SOURCES: (the usual suspects)

Billboard:   Accessible at http://books.google.com

Broadcasting:   http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Individual_Issues_Guide.htm

TVTango.com

Editorial Comment:   “Rendezvous in Prague,” a second episode of The Hunter is currently available on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F67VJF74itw

    The opening four minutes of a third (no title provided):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doLXwU14_Tw

EDWARD RONNS – Say It with Murder. Graphic #76, paperback original; 1st printing, 1954. Berkley Diamond D2041, paperback, 1960. Reprinted as by Edward S. Aarons: Macfadden, paperback, 1968; Manor, paperback, 1973.

   In case anyone’s not quite sure, Ronns was the pen name, Aarons was his real name. His writing career, as far as mystery novels were concerned, began back in 1938, when he was 22 years old, with a hardcover novel entitled Death in a Lighthouse, published by Phoenix Press. He didn’t use his own name until 1948 and a book called Nightmare, also in hardcover, this time for McKay.

   His career really didn’t start rolling, though, until 1950, and the era of the paperback original. His first book for Gold Medal was again as Ronns and a book entitled Million Dollar Murder. He was especially prolific in the early 1950s, with five books in 1950, two in 1951, three in 1952, four in 1953, and two in 1954, including Say It for Murder. His first Sam Durell novel, Assignment to Disaster, the long-running spy series for which he is best known, came out in 1955.

   I have sometimes wondered if the four books he wrote for Graphic Books between 1953 and 1955 were rejects from Gold Medal, or if he had so many books in him at the time that he had to spread them out over more than one publisher.

   Personally, I don’t believe that Say It for Murder is as good as the books he was writing for Gold Medal at the time, so I have a feeling that Graphic was only a backup market for him. It does have something of a noirish feeling to it, a la Day Keene, Gil Brewer and Charles Williams, with the protagonist, pianist Bill Carmody, getting into one jam after another, either with the police on one side and the guys he’s forced to hang around with on the other.

   But Carmody is essentially a nice guy who only made one mistake, and not a guy who continually tries to cut sharp corners as he makes his way through life, and we have the sense he’s going to work his way out of his troubles – and get the girl – with the only question being how.

   I don’t know. I was going to tell you more about the plot, which begins with Carmody joining up with two other former Korean prisoners of war in getting even with the guy they think turned traitor on them, and the mysterious death of the man’s wealthy wife, but maybe this is all you need to know.

   There’s nothing deep to the story, but there’s certainly something going on in it all the time, and sometimes that’s all you need just before heading off to bed at night.

SISTER CAROL ANNE O’MARIE – A Novena for Murder. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1984. Dell, paperback, 1986. St. Martin’s, paperback, 2005.

   Sister Mary Helen is a sprightly 75, reluctantly retired from the parochial schools to “do research” at Mount St. Francis College for Women. When the head of the history department, Professor Villanueva, is found with his head bashed in, Sister Mary Helen plunges into detection with all of her enthusiastic nature.

   She brings along with her her old friend, Sister Eileen, the college librarian, and a new friend, Sister Anne, the college chaplain. Professor Villanueva was known for his kindly sponsorship of young Portuguese immigrants, several of whom work for the college. However, several others have recently disappeared.

   The professional police detectives, Inspectors Kate Murphy, a Mt. St. Francis alumna, and Dennis Callahan, who takes a paternal interest in Kate’s love life, strongly suspect one of the Portuguese men after they learn that the professor’s kindness was more apparent than real.

   Though they’re at first annoyed by Mary Helen’s intervention, they wind up liking and respecting her. She is a lively addition to the ever-growing group of clerical detectives. The book is laced with humor, the people are interesting, and the San Francisco locale is well depicted.

   Plot is a bit thin on the ground, and the book’s brevity precludes any real depth of character. Maybe Sister O’Marie will go deeper next time. This enjoyable first effort deserves a follow-up.

Bio-Bibliographic Notes:   There was indeed a follow-up, ten of them, in fact. There might have even been more, but Sister Carol Anne O’Marie died in 2009 at the age of 75. Besides writing mysteries, she also helped run run a shelter for homeless women in Oakland, CA. A tribute to her at the time of her death by Janet Rudolph may be found on the latter’s blog here.

       The Sister Mary Helen series —

1. A Novena For Murder (1984)
2. Advent of Dying (1986)

3. The Missing Madona (1989)
4. Murder in Ordinary Time (1991)
5. Murder Makes a Pilgrimage (1993)

6. Death Goes on Retreat (1995)
7. Death of an Angel (1996)
8. Death Takes Up a Collection (1998)
9. Requiem at the Refuge (2000)

10. The Corporal Works of Murder (2002)
11. Murder at the Monk’s Table (2006)

BOLERO. Paramount Pictures, 1934. George Raft, Carole Lombard, Sally Rand, Frances Drake, William Frawley, Ray Milland. Screenplay: Horace Jackson, based on a story by Carey Wilson & Kubec Glasmon. Director: Wesley Ruggles (and Mitchell Leisen, uncredited).

   Cornell Woolrich once claimed the plot of this film was stolen from an unpublished manuscript of his. Could be, but I doubt it.

   There are a couple of very Woolrichian concepts here (the hero makes a point of maintaining chaste relations with his dancing partners, and — WARNING!!! — at the Climax, he does his big Production Number and collapses dead on the floor… though this idea, which Woolrich used more than once, owes more to “Le Sacre du Printemps” than anything else) but by and large its pretty much the standard rags-to-riches thing beloved of 30s movie-makers, if not -goers.

   Watching it, you can see why, graceful as he was, George Raft never became a big Dancing Star; Raft’s forte as an actor was always Playing it Cool and Impassive, and though this works quite well in the fatalistic Last Ballet, the strained smile on his face is a definite handicap in the earlier “light-hearted” routines.