JOHN LESLIE – Night and Day. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1995. Pocket Books, paperback, 1996.

   This is the second of four mysteries featuring Gideon Lowry, a jazz pianist and private investigator based in Key West. His brother committed suicide at the end of the first book and Gideon’s girl friend (Casey) has moved to Miami.

   A visiting singer named Asia (with lips the color of plum) hires Gideon to locate her estranged husband, a writer obsessed with Hemingway. This is a not inappropriate obsession in Key West with the annual Hemingway Days celebration and the Hemingway house, which is open to the public as a museum. Gideon finds the missing husband, but he’s soon killed and Asia looks like a prime suspect.

   The novel (like the other three) is heavy with sultry heat and the perfume of whatever produces heavy scents In Key West. A nice series of grace notes on the 1990s private eye scene.

       The Gideon Lowry series —

Killing Me Softly (1995)

Night And Day (1995)
Love For Sale (1996)
Blue Moon (1998)

2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY. MGM, 1996. Danny Aiello, Greg Cruttwell, Jeff Daniels, Teri Hatcher, Glenne Headly, Peter Horton, Marsha Mason, Paul Mazursky, James Spader, Eric Stoltz, Charlize Theron, Keith Carradine, Louise Fletcher. Director: John Herzfeld.

   2 Days in the Valley is sort of Harry Stephen Keeler meets Pulp Fiction. The film starts with a protracted interrogation which turns into a Drug Killing, which turns into a frame-up which turns into….

   Meanwhile we pick up on unrelated plot threads about an aspiring detective, a weary vice cop, a suicidal -director trying to find a home for his dog, a high-powered agent and his brow-beaten secretary. And as the web-work plot tightens into a recognizable pattern, we’re suddenly in the midst of a wacky story propelled by colorful characters to a violent and highly satisfying conclusion.

MAGDALEN NABB – The Marshal and the Madwoman. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1988; Penguin, paperback, 1989. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1988.

   The [sixth] of Magdalen Nabb’s stories of Florence, Italy, and Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia is The Marshal and the Madwoman. Nabb writes very well, and offers here several powerfully poignant glimpses of life in that Italian city.

   Guarnaccia happens upon Clementina one evening as this woman of the title is engaged in a neighbor-hood shouting match. That night she dies, of murder not well disguised as suicide. The Marshal explores her life, but the traces are all but invisible. He learns about the people who lived near Clementina, and about the effects of a terrible flood some years earlier in Florence. He finds, at last, why a madwoman had to die.

   The Marshal is a fine creation, and Nabb paints him here with vibrant strokes.

NOTE: A complete criminous bibliography for Magdalen Nabb can be found here in an obituary page for her on this blog at the time of her death in 2007.

CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY. Warner Brothers, 1939. Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, Henry O’Neill, Dorothy Tree, James Stephenson, Joe Sawyer, Sig Ruman. Director: Anatole Litvak.

   Reviewing Confessions of a Nazi Spy, from the vantage point of 2014 is quite a different undertaking than writing about it in 1939 when it was first released. While it remains a well above average spy thriller, some of the film’s immediacy has been lost by the passage of time. That said, the Anatole Litvak-directed project remains a significant and quite well constructed film.

   The movie, based on the real life exposure of Nazi spies operating in the United States, depicts in semi-documentary style the emergence of a pro-Nazi spy ring in New York City. Interspersed among the dramatic sequences is actual newsreel footage.

   As the first major studio production to detail the growing Nazi threat to American national security, Confessions of a Nazi Spy was harsh in its condemnation of German-American groups that allied themselves with Hitler. Although it seems to deliberately avoid any explicit reference to Nazi anti-Semitism, the movie does repeatedly portray Nazism as maddening, barbaric, and contrary to the very fabric of Americanism. Nazi expansionism is made out to be very real danger to democracy.

   Edward G. Robinson, whose family was a target of Romanian anti-Semitism prior to their emigration to the United States, portrays FBI Agent Edward Renard. It is his mission to both expose the Nazi spy ring and turn them over to the Justice Department for prosecution. The message is clear. Unlike in Nazi Germany, the United States gives all men a fair trial.

   Apart from their Nazi handlers, the ring consists primarily of three German-Americans: a megalomaniac loser and U.S. Army deserter, Kurt Schneider (Francis Lederer), his dimwitted chum, Werner Renz (Joe Sawyer), and the fanatical Dr. Karl Kassel convincingly portrayed by Paul Lukas.

   The latter character is, in many ways, the most interesting. He’s a bespectacled, mild mannered, physician working in the Yorkville section of Manhattan who is also a fanatical Nazi sympathizer active in the German-American Bund. Rounding out the cast are George Sanders, who portrays a Nazi official, and his female partner who ends up having a quite important role in the FBI’s successful unraveling of the spy ring.

   Watching this film, I could not help but wonder. How many people today are even aware of Nazi espionage in the United States prior to Germany’s declaration of war upon the United States? Even further, how many people are aware of the rise and fall of those German-American societies that supported the Third Reich? There’s an especially captivating scene in which Dr. Kassel visits a pro-Nazi youth camp based somewhere in what is presumably supposed to be the northeastern United States.

   Despite its grave subject matter, the film does end on a semi-optimistic and patriotic note. Renard is sitting in a diner with the federal prosecutor. A paperboy comes in with the latest edition, the headline noting that the feds have taken down the spy ring. A diner worker and talk for a moment among themselves, glad that those Nazis have been found out. This is America, not Europe. We are different from those hatemongers, they say. We’re Americans.

EDITH HOWIE – Murder for Tea. Contained in the 3-in-1 omnibus volume Three Prize Winners. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1941. No editor stated. Foreword by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Also published by T. V. Boardman, UK, paperback, 1942.

   The other two books in this scarce volume are Old-Fashioned Murder by Marguerite McIntire, and Westbound Murder by C. S. Wallace. The only copy offered for sale on abebooks.com right now, for example, is being offered at a rather steep $75 price tag. When I spotted one on Amazon last month for $20, I snapped it right up.

   What the three books have in common, you might ask, is that they were all “losers” in the second year of the Mary Roberts Rinehart Mystery Contest. Well, it says “Honorable Mention” in the lower right corner of the book’s front cover, so it’s clear that none of the three were winners.

   So who did get the top prizes? Mary Roberts Rinehart’s foreword tells us that the contest was open only to first time authors. Getting the honor of having their novels published in stand-alone volumes were A. R. Hilliard with Justice Be Damned, and Carolyn Coffin with a book entitled Mare’s Nest. Hilliard (male) wrote only one more work of crime fiction, Outlaw Island (1942), and also so did Carolyn Coffin, that one being Dogwatch (1944).

   Of the runners-up, this was the only work of crime and detective fiction that either McIntire or Wallace (male) managed to get published. In some sense, that makes Howie the real winner, as she went on to write six additional detective novels. A list will be provided later.

   At the moment I don’t know how long this contest continued, but I can tell you who the winners were for 1940: Clarissa Fairchild Cushman (I Wanted to Murder), Ione Sandberg Shriber (Head Over Heels in Murder), Elizabeth Daly (Unexpected Night) and Frank Gruber (The French Key, reviewed here by Jeff Meyerson). I believe, but I am not sure, that all four books were published individually.

   A couple of those authors’ names I’m sure everyone will recognize.

   As for Murder for Tea, I enjoyed it, most of it, that is. I wonder why Howie didn’t make a series with the two leading characters in this one. Shawn Cosgraeve, a six foot black Irishman with a temper to boot, is a mystery writer. Telling the story is his wife of three years standing, Kit, who didn’t make it in New York as a musician niy did find a husband whom she can manage very well, most of the time.

   It takes all of those three years to convince Shawn to take a trip back to her home town of Nashiona, somewhere in the American midwest, not too far from Chicago. From here I’ll quote from page 172:

   Kit’s problem is that all of the suspects are friends of hers and their husbands and wives. She knows them from before, but she soon discovers that she doesn’t know them now very much at all — and one of them, the killer, not at all.

   On the overall scale of things, the story takes place in the upper middle class of a small town, which means of course that they think of themselves as the upper class. The prospects of an upcoming war are not mentioned at all.

   One huge drawback to the story is the Had I But Know aspect of Kit’s story, told some time well after all of the events in it had taken place. One wonders if that is what might have caught the judges’ eyes. The other drawback is that when the killer’s identity is revealed I discovered that it didn’t really much matter who it was. Picking a name from a hat may have produced the very same reaction.

   Nonetheless, it might have been instructive to see if Edith Howie could have thought of another situation to place her two leading characters in, to give them a chance of cracking another case. Even though it’s a detective story through and through, this one may have been a little too personal.

    Bibliography: EDITH HOWIE (1900-1979).

Murder for Tea. Farrar, 1941.
Murder for Christmas. Farrar, 1941.

Murder at Stone House. Farrar, 1942.
Murder’s So Permanent. Farrar, 1942.
Cry Murder. Mill, 1944.
The Band Played Murder. Mill, 1946.

No Face to Murder. Mill, 1946.

Note: For more about the author and a review of Murder for Christmas, check out what Curt Evans has to say over on his blog.

JOHN RHODE – The Davidson Case. Geoffrey Bles, UK, hardcover, 1929. Dodd Mead, US, 1929, as Murder at Bratton Grange. Reprinted several times in hardcover. Perennial Library, US, paperback, 19?? (See the note following Marv’s review.)

   Perennial Library has recently reprinted two of John Rhode’s Dr. Priestley mysteries, so there is hope that more of that maligned author’s work (Julian Symons called him “humdrum”) will be reprinted. The Davidson Case is one of his best, representative of Rhode’s earliest and best period, before tedium did often set in.

   This is a book of old fashioned dialogue, yet surprisingly includes a career woman having to choose between marriage and independence. Don’t expect that Rhode’s consciousness had been too raised back then, however. He has his not-too-bright Watson, Inspector Hanslett, say things like, “most women are fools where maps are concerned.”

   Dr. Priestley is even more sexist on the subject and at another point comments, “That insecurely tied string looks like woman’s work.” In the Lachman family it is Carol who does the best job of tying packages.

   Don’t read The Davidson Case for its attitudes but for its well developed, fast moving plot. Though I doubt you’ll have too much trouble guessing the murderer’s identity, there are still several surprises along the way, so you’ll never be really sure until the very end.

   You’ll also enjoy some of the cliches. Dr. Priestley knows the murderer, but does he tell Scotland Yard? Not a chance. Instead, he says (as have so many other detectives), “I have my suspicions as to the identity of the criminal. But I am not going to reveal my suspicions at this stage.”

   According to Rhode, Priestley’s one and only hobby is criminology, though he is “known only to the public as the propounder of the most revolutionary scientific theories.”

   We never learn these theories, but we do get to watch a great detective mind at work, albeit in a man with relatively little concern for “justice.” As Priestley says, “i regard these as problems which do not concern me except in the solution. Once they are solved, the fate of the criminal is a matter of complete indifference to me.”

   Fortunately, they do not bring about indifference in us; instead, there is considerable intellectual excitement in watching Priestley at work.

Editorial Comment:  I have spent a short amount of time scouring the Internet for a photo image of the Perennial reprint, or even another reference to the book, and so far I have come up empty-handed, under either title.

G. D. H. and MARGARET COLE – The Blatchington Tangle. Macmillan, hardcover, 1926. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1926.

   Shortly before encountering Lord Blatchington in the nude, Dick Prescott discovers a dead body in, will wonders never cease, the library. Something of an eccentric, Blatchington takes the corpse in stride. Prescott is a bit more concerned.

   More has been going on at Blatchington Towers than merely murder, and this causes Inspector Peascod some problems when he arrives on the scene. Nonetheless, Peascod does pick out a likely suspect, who proceeds to engage the aid of Henry Wilson, former superintendent at Scotland Yard and now a private detective.

   An amiable and at times amusing novel but not one that cries to be reprinted.

   
Books by the Coles previously reviewed on this blog:

      The Corpse in the Constable’s Garden (by me)
      Knife in the Dark (by Bill Pronzini)
      Knife in the Dark (by me)

ED McBAIN – The Gutter and the Grave. Hard Case Crime #15, paperback, December 2005. First published as I’m Cannon — for Hire, as by Curt Cannon (Gold Medal #814, 1958), with the leading character also named Curt Cannon.

   Ed McBain’s The Gutter and the Grave is a quick, entertaining read and quite good, if not overly complicated, murder mystery. It’s also a time capsule of sorts, an enchanting mirror looking backward to late 1950s Manhattan, an age when jazz was king, the Bowery was for bums, and there were down and out and hard drinking private eyes like the book’s protagonist, one washed out thirty-something, Matt Cordell.

   Cordell, as the narrator of the work, lets us know early on who he is and what he is. “I’m a drunk. I think we’d better get that straight from the beginning.” (Page 13.) Our “hero” spends his days hanging out around Cooper Union in lower Manhattan. Then one day, a friend—of sorts—from the old neighborhood uptown — way uptown — shows up and wants an investigative favor.

   Enter Johnny Bridges who wants Cordell to look into some fishy goings on in the tailor shop he runs with a guy named Dom Archese. Maybe Dom’s fishing from the cash register late at night.

   All fine and good, until the duo head uptown only to find Dom Archese dead. Worse still, at least for Bridges, are the initials “JB” scrawled in chalk. Bridges, to no one’s surprise, becomes the chief suspect and ends up in police custody. It’s now up to Cordell to figure out what’s going on and to exonerate his so-called friend, if possible.

   Along the way, Cordell meets up with Dom’s wife, Christine (who also ends up dead), Christine’s sister, who is an aspiring musician by the name of Laraine Marsh, a Manhattan cop named Miskler, and sundry other colorful characters including a rival PI and his sultry employee. All the while, Cordell is reminded of his ex-wife, Toni, his one true love who ended up in the arms of another man.

   Cordell’s world is not a happy one, but it’s an extraordinarily vivid one. At least that’s how Ed McBain paints it. And what a painting! Reading The Gutter and the Grave transports you to a specific time and a specific place. It’s sometime in the late 1950s and Manhattan’s a crowded, hot city in the summer. The murder and the lies all around Cordell only make it hotter. Recommended.

       The Matt Cordell/Curt Cannon short stories (as by Evan Hunter) —

“Die Hard” (January 1953, Manhunt)
“Dead Men Don’t Dream (March 1953, Manhunt)
“Now Die in It” (May 1953, Manhuntt)
“Good and Dead” (July 1953, Manhunt)
“The Death of Me” (September 1953, Manhunt)
“Deadlier Than the Male” (February 1954, Manhunt)
“Return” (July 1954, Manhunt)
“The Beatings” (October 1954, Manhunt)

   The first six of the above were collected in I Like ’em Tough, as by Curt Cannon (Gold Medal #743, 1958).

CURSE OF THE UNDEAD. Universal International, 1959. Starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate, Kathleen Crowley, Bruce Gordon. Written & directed by Edward Dein.

   What could have been a campy disaster emerges as an off-beat effort with some memorable moments. Not a complete success, but much better than you’d expect from a Vampire Western.

   Things start quickly, with writer/director Dein showing off a fine sense of pace as a young lady dies mysteriously with (you guessed it) bite-marks on her neck — an escaping demon suggested by a shade flapping violently in the bedroom window, in a neat bit of understatement.

   From here we move on to some typical Western range-war dramatics, but no range itself, as if the budget couldn’t be stretched to include any wide open spaces. Or maybe Dein just wanted to keep things creepy and claustrophobic in this town-bound gothic.

   Whatever the case, the stock characters hang around saloon and offices going through their usual paces, with the Big Rancher pushing on the smaller ones, the Sheriff standing tough in the middle, the hot-head edging towards a showdown, and pious Preacher Dan (Eric Fleming) trying to keep everyone above ground and unperforated while casting eyes on the local Rancher’s Daughter (Kathleen Crowley.)

   (PARENTHETICAL NOTE: A critic once pointed out that B westerns are rife with ranchers and ranchers’ daughters, but a positive dearth of ranch moms — either life on the prairie was hard on a woman, or else it was just too much bother and expense to hire another actress.)

   Things don’t have time to get dull before the mysterious stranger we’ve been expecting all along shows up in a memorable moment, rearing his horse in the moonlight in spooky slow motion. And it’s not long after that till he makes himself known to the locals as a sinister gun-for-hire in a scary shoot-out, which is one of those scenes I said you’d remember.

   The ghoulish gunman is played very ably by Michael Pate, an Aussie with a lean-and-thirsty look typed as a bad guy in Hollywood but capable of much broader range. In Curse he comes off as equal parts Cowboy and Creep: lean, graceful, and suggesting a certain complexity of character ably conveyed in a script that paints him more love-lorn than blood-thirsty but nonetheless deadly.

   Curse proceeds to ride a tricky trail between the conventions of the horror film and the clichés of the B-western. There’s a bit too much talk at times, but things finish off with a nifty round-up combining the best of both genres: When Preacher and Demon face each other on a dusty street, we pretty much know what’s going to happen — but how it happens, is immensely satisfying for fans of monsters and cowboys.