GLORIA DANK – Friends to the End. Bantam, paperback original; 1st printing, October 1989.
This is the first of four murder mystery investigations tackled by the unlikely team of Snooky Randolph, a young 20-something member of the idle rich, and his curmudgeonly brother-in-law, Bernard Woodruff, world renown writer of children’s books. The latter and his wife (and Snooky’s older sister) live in the rich lower left corner of Connecticut, of course, while Snooky stops by and stays (and stays) every once in a while.
Dead at a dinner party for a small group of friends is the wife of a man that no one in particular likes. Poison, insecticide, in something she drank. What the poison meant for her? Or for her husband, as he claims loudly to the police?
Snooky’s connection is that he is in love, he thinks, with the stepdaughter of the dead woman, while Bernard finds that even though he dislikes mankind — and hates children — and greatly to his amazement, that armchair detective work is much to his liking.
This is a humorous novel, with lots of witty commentary on life in suburban Connecticut and the people in it. From page 123, referring yo Mr. Hal, the gardener: “Finding his employer’s dead body was clearly the most exciting thing that had happened in Harold Shrimpton’s life since the Super Bowl.”
It is also a decent detective novel, even given that once the number of bodies starts to pile up, the number of possible suspects goes down in equal number. I enjoyed this one.
The Snooky Randolph & Bernard Woodruff mystery series —
Friends Till the End. Bantam, 1989.
Going Out in Style. Bantam, 1990.
As the Sparks Fly Upward. Doubleday, 1992.
The Misfortunes of Others. Doubleday, 1993.
JAN BURKE – Goodnight, Irene. Irene Kelly #1. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1993. Avon, paperback, 1994. Pocket, paperback, 2002.
I didn’t expect to like this. First, there was the blurb, “In the best-selling tradition of Grafton & Paretsky.” Sure. You bet. Second, it featured a new amateur sleuth by a new writer, both female, and my luck’s been poor with that combination. But I was wrong.
Irene Kelly is a Southern Califomia ex-reporter. Her mentor and close friend is killed by a bomb, and the murder would seem to be linked to an old slaying with which he had been obsessed, his current investigation of a local money-laundering scheme, or both. Irene quickly becomes the next target of the killer, even before she begins to probe into things. The situation is complicated by a rekindling flame with a local policeman whom she had briefly be involved in the past.
I loved the first line: “He loved to watch fat women dance.” Burke is an good writer, accomplished far beyond her first-book status. Kelly is both likable and believable as a person, as are most of the other players. The plot was pretty standard, and I was neither surprised by the outcome nor found it too convincing but these are faults not limited to inexperienced authors. There were plot elements that usually tum me off (the romance with the cop in particular), but Burke’s writing and my liking for the heroine mostly overcame them.
This is one of the better debut novels in a while, and I look forward to more and better from Burke.
— Reprinted from Fireman, Fireman, Save My Books #5, January 1993.
NOTES:Goodnight, Irene was nominated for an Anthony award for Best First Novel. Bones was awarded an Edgar by the MWA for Best Novel. Irene has only a secondary role in Flight, which is told from the point of view of her husband, homicide detective Frank Harriman.
ONLY THE VALIANT. Warner Brothers, 1951. Gregory Peck, Barbara Payton, Ward Bond, Gig Young, Lon Chaney, Neville Brand, Jeff Corey, Warner Anderson. Based on the novel by Charles Marquis Warren. Director: Gordon Douglas.
For a movie that, truth be told, isn’t structurally all that sound, Only the Valiant remains overall quite entertaining. Adapted from the eponymous 1943 novel by Charles Marquis Warren, the movie, while far better than many other Westerns released in the same era, suffers from the same ailment that afflicts far too many Westerns based on novels: namely, it tries to do too much.
Rather than condense the backstories and numerous subplots, the film keeps them in, but in such an abbreviated manner that they all become muddled, leaving the viewer to wonder exactly what is motivating different characters.
Gregory Peck, who apparently later considered Only the Valiant to have been his least favorite film project, portrays Captain Richard Lance, a hard-nosed U.S. Army Cavalry officer posted in the New Mexico Territory. And with New Mexico comes Apache warriors ready to fight the newly arrived White settlers. After Capt. Lance and his men capture Apache leader, Tucsos (Michael Ansara) at an Army fort decimated by Apache violence, a debate erupts as to what to do with the captive. Lance, known for being by the book, rejects the suggestion that they should kill Tucsos outright.
This decision sets in motion a series of events that leads Capt. Lance and a handpicked crew of misfits from within the ranks back to the destroyed Army fort. There, the men will make a final stand both against the Apaches and themselves. In the course of their suicide mission, some men will all but crack under the pressure. Others will lash out against the hated Capt. Lance. Sergeant Ben Murdock (Neville Brand), for instance, loathes Lance for denying him a promotion.
On the other hand, Trooper Kebussyan (Lon Chaney), a soldier of Arab descent, loathes Lance for reasons never satisfactorily explained. The same could be said for Trooper Rutledge (Warner Anderson) and Trooper Saxton (Terry Kilburn), both whom seem to want to kill Capt. Lance. But the backstories why are so condensed that it leaves the viewer a bit puzzled as to what Lance has done to earn so much enmity.
Muddying the waters even more is the fact that Only the Valiant does not do a particularly good job in introducing other important characters to the audience. Case in point is Captain Eversham (Hugh Sanders), father of Lance’s love interest, Cathy Eversham (Barbara Payton). One again suspects that the movie leaves out important details found in the book, a work that I admittedly have not had the chance to read.
Despite these flaws, however, Only the Valiant ends up being a perfectly watchable movie. Ironically, a lot of this stems from the fact that one often doesn’t have a clear idea of what direction the plot is going to go. Is it going to be a film about a doomed romantic relationship on an Army outpost, a movie about men bonding in the heat of battle, or something completely different?
In retrospect, I actually enjoyed watching the movie as the story unfolded more than I find myself appreciating it as a final product. Make of that what you will.
JOHN DICKSON CARR – Till Death Do Us Part. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1944. H. Hamilton, UK, hardcover, 1944. US paperback reprints include: Bantam #793, 1950; Bantam Books #1683, November 1957; International Polygonics Ltd., April 1985.
If this isn’t John Dickson Carr at his wicked best, playing the game of cat and mouse in what was to him grandest game in the world, fooling the unwary reader at every turn — and even the wary ones, I’m willing to wager — it comes awfully close to it.
There’s always a romance in his novels, often between a young man who is in head over heels in love with a young woman, one Lesley Grant in this case, and she in him — or so it seems. Dick Markham’s world is shaken upside down when he’s told that his betrothed may be the murderer of three earlier husbands, each found dead, killed by injections of prussic acid, in rooms that are so hermetically sealed that not even the famed Doctor Gideon Fell has been able to say how it could have been murder.
Almost every character in this superbly atmospheric novel comes under suspicion in some form or another at some time or another, and as always interruptions always occur just as a vital question is asked. Almost every chapter ends as the tables are turned on what we thought we know before. Keep an eye on everything that happens, and I mean everything. The clues are all there. I’ll bet you’ll never spot them.
The solution to the locked room itself? Well, it’s complicated, but I’m sure it will work, and naturally knowing how the magician did it can often be a letdown. Please don’t let it. This a brilliant piece of work.
THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16th. Paramount Pictures, 1941. Robert Preston, Ellen Drew, Nils Asther, Clarence Kolb, Willard Robertson, Cecil Kellaway. Screenplay by Delmer Daves, Robert Pirosh and Eve Green, based on the play by Ayn Rand. Directed by William Clemens.
Luckily for everyone involved, the people who made this film saw it was impossible to make a film out of Ayn Rand’s famous gimmick trial play where the audience became the jury and determined the outcome by their verdict. So, stripped of the play’s gimmick and of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy of selfishness, what was left was a fairly decent mystery to wrap a bright comedy mystery around.
Stir up a good fast-paced script by a team of top talent like soon-to-be director Delmer Daves, Robert Pirosh, and Eve Green, with capable direction by William Clemens and attractive leads in Robert Preston and Ellen Drew, plus a good cast including Nils Asther and Cecil Kellaway, and the result was a bright little B film that played much better than many A efforts, almost as refreshing as the orange Daquiri that plays a role in the film’s finale.
Drew is Kit Lane, private secretary to Bjorn Faulkner (Nis Asther), who has his board of directors hot on his neck because of a $20 million dollar corporate shortfall. She’s worried about her boss, even flying back from her vacation, and that night, the January 16th of the title (prompting the famous “Where were you on the night of January 16th?†gag of a thousand stale jokes), she rushes to Faulkner’s penthouse only to see him thrown from his balcony to his death by a shadowy figure, having had his head bashed in first by a metal trophy of Atlas Shrugged beneath the globe (explaining where that book title came from).
Steve Van Ruyle is the newest member of the board, the nephew, fresh out of the Navy, of a late member who isn’t happy the $3 million he just inherited is part of the $20 million missing from the company funds. He convinces the chairman of the board, Tilton (Clarence Kolb), to let him bail Lane out when she is arrested by Inspector Donegan (Willard Robertson) as a suspect in Faulkner’s death expecting she will lead him to the money.
Of course the two fall in love, complicating things that get even worse when Kit is charged and put on trial. (Justice moved fast in those days, apparently.) Steve hopes to spring her so he can find the money and because he is attracted to her, and does. With a diary Faulkner left behind in code and the murder weapon, studded with jewels that represent new locations the company has interests, they stumble onto the mysterious Anton Haraba, whose name is an anagram of South American locations they hope will lead to the $20 million and the killer.
Eluding the police with the help and hindrance of a very drunk Cecil Kellaway, in a nice bit, the two charter a plane to Havana to find Haraba, and find more trouble than they expected with police and a killer after them.
Preston and Drew keep the proceedings moving at a nice pace with bits and pieces from the play thrown in the trial scenes and the plot largely skimmed from the play (some characters, including the one played on Broadway by Walter Pidgeon, are written out completely). Quite a bit is left out, but frankly it doesn’t really matter, because I have read and seen the play and this film is much more entertaining and much less heavy-handed and melodramatic, and having audiences vote for the ending of the film was the kind of thing better suited to William Castle hucksterism than a good B comedy mystery.
The play was done at least three times on television here and in England, live a few times, and if you want to see it, your best bet would be if you can find an Kinescope of one of them, the last in 1960 for ITV Theater. Unless you just want to see a famous play or you are a Randian completist, though, I suggest this is by far the most entertaining version of the play possible, an old fashioned swift-paced comedy mystery, nicely acted and timed.
BRETT HALLIDAY – Michael Shayne’s Long Chance. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1944. Reprinted in paperback many times, including Dell #325, mapback edition. 1949; Dell #866, 1956; Dell D416, 1961, McGinnis cover. (All three shown.)
When the death of Mike Shayne’s wife Phyllis has him packing up shop in Miami, and ready to call it quits with his career as a private detective, his old buddy, reporter Tim Rourke, with a nose for news and an eye for a friend in trouble, starts him back on the right track with a job that takes him back to the old stomping grounds he was once run out of, New Orleans.
And there, besides a nice girl or two to help chase away the blues, he finds himself hip-deep in a case of murder, complicated by police corruption and the dope-peddling racket in a city where life can be loose and easy and more.
Shayne leads more with his head than he should, but he survives a long night of beatings, doped drinks and a rigged picture frame to pull off a decent bit of surprise trickery to nab the killer. The early Shayne novels were not far removed from the the glory pages of Black Mask magazine, and this tale, no exception, goes down as smoothly as a bottle of Monet cognac.
Rating: B
— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 2, No. 4, July 1978 (slightly revised).
SILENT RUNNING. Universal Pictures, 1972. Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint. Drones: Mark Persons, Steven Brown, Cheryl Sparks, Larry Whisenhunt. Screenplay: Deric Washburn, Mike Cimino and Steve Bochco. Director: Douglas Trumbull.
Silent Running is both a simplistic and spectacular view of a semi-utopian future in which the Earth is a “paradise†with a uniform temperature and only manufactured food to eat; there are no trees or animals left on the planet, only the ones temporary stored on gigantic spaceships left in orbit around Jupiter Saturn, manned only by a minimal number of bored and uncaring crew members.
Except for Freeman Lowell, played by Bruce Dern, for a large part of the film the only character on the screen at any one time. Often wearing a robe and in semi-Messianic fashion, Lowell may be the only person alive who really cares about nature. When the order comes down from above to not only jettison but blow up the entire project, he rebels and takes it upon himself to save his own personal forest biosphere .
Other than two surviving droids for companionship, Lowell is the only person on the screen for most of the movie. When systems begin to fail, he manages to jury rig partial fixes, but no more. It is here that the movie seems to drift a bit, with no destination for the film in sight. But wait! The ending is one well worth waiting for.
This is definitely a movie with a message and striking visual effects, but basically a simple one that may have been premature in 1972. I suspect that the greatest success this movie may have had has been on SF films taking place in space that have followed.
M. R. D. MEEK – Touch and Go. Lennox Kemp #10. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hardcover, 1993. Worldwide Mystery, US, paperback, 1994. First published in the UK: Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1992.
I gave a previous Kemp adventure a very lukewarm review not too long ago, and now I wonder if maybe I wasn’t just in a bad mood. This one is quite good.
Kemp is an English solicitor, once disbarred and working as a private agent, now reinstated and successful. His past comes back to complicate his present when his ex-wife, for whom he had committed the acts that led to his disgrace, dies in America and mentions him in her wills.
Yes, wills, because there seems to be two of them, though the original of the second has vanished, along with the jewels Kemp had been willed in the first. The kicker is that the second leaves a quite considerable everything to Kemp, at the expense of some very unsavory types from Las Vegas.
It all gets quite complicated, and dangerous as well when it appears that the second may hold up. On top of everything else the only secretary Kemp has ever had is pregnant, and he must replace her.
I found this an engaging story from beginning to end. For reasons I can’t put the proverbial finger on, Kemp was a much more appealing character to me than he has been in the past, and I found the other characters well done also.
Meek’s prose was low key and understated as usual, and fitted the story well. It is not, by the way, a murder mystery in any sense, but don’t let that put you off. All told, a very enjoyable book, marred only by an ending in which I couldn’t quite believe.
— Reprinted from Fireman, Fireman, Save My Books #5, January 1993.
The Lennox Kemp series —
1. With Flowers That Fell (1983)
2. The Sitting Ducks (1984)
3. Hang the Consequences (1984)
4. The Split Second (1985)
5. In Remembrance of Rose (1986)
6. Worm of Doubt (1987)
7. A Mouthful of Sand (1988)
8. A Loose Connection (1989)
9. This Blessed Plot (1990)
10. Touch and Go (1992)
11. Postscript to Murder (1996)
12. A House to Die for (1999)
13. If You Go Down to the Woods (2001)
14. The Vanishing Point (2002)
15. Kemp’s Last Case (2004)
This American rock singer-songwriter has made no name for herself in this country, but her music has been well received in both Europe and Canada. “Sittin’ in the Dark” is a song from her 1979 self-titled debut LP:
