JACK FINNEY – The Body Snatchers. Dell First Edition #42, paperback original, 1955. First serialized in Collier’s, November 26 – December 24, 1954. Reprinted many times. Adapted into film four times: (1) as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956; Kevin McCarthy; directed by Don Siegel). (2) as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1974; Donald Sutherland; directed by PHilip Kaufman). (3) as Body Snatchers (1993; directed by Abel Ferrara). (4) as The Invasion (2007; Daniel Craig).

   The basis of a classic movie and many remakes, and a fine novel in its own right: vivid, suspenseful and full of implausibility about which the reader gives no damn.

   The story is too well-known to outline here, so I’ll just say Finney does a clever job of starting out small (patients of a small-town Doctor complain that there’s something funny about their friends and family) and building to the kind of edgy action and trickling suspense that made Sci-Fi fun in the old days. He also manages to make a 190-page book about Alien Invasion seem leisurely — but not slow-paced.

   But there’s a duality lurking around here, based on an off-hand bit mentioned in passing: Once the Pods have taken a human identity, they begin to lose interest in that person’s daily activities. (Naturally, being Pods, they’re more into spreading pod-dom or selling Amway or whatever.) So gutters need to be cleaned, the trash cans on Main Street don’t get emptied, storefront windows grow dusty, and the whole town takes on an air of seedy neglect.

   Well, in 1954, when Finney wrote the book, all this was actually happening: as the Suburb and the Strip Mall began to replace the Small Town, that little icon of Norman Rockwell America became every bit as seamy and run-down as Finney describes. And in a very real sense, The Body Snatchers sings a requiem for the cruel death of a cherished memory. There’s an oddly heart-rending chapter where the hero walks through his town, thinks of what it was and sees what it has become, that should strike home with anyone who grew up in pre-war America (or, like me, in the tawdry shadows of big empty department stores, dusty restaurants and faded movie palaces) and it adds a dimension of compelling nostalgia to an already fine thriller.

   The Body Snatchers deserves its rep as a taut thriller, but I shall treasure its melancholy edge long after the plot twists and chase scenes have passed from memory.

ALEXANDER SÖDERBERG – The Andalucian Friend. The Brinkmann Trilogy #1. Crown, US, hardcover, March 2013. Broadway Books, trade paperback, October 2013.

   Sophie Brinkermann is a nurse and widowed mother whose life is changed dramatically when she finds herself attracted to Spaniard Hector Guzman, recuperating in a hospital in Stockholm, Sweden from a hit and run accident.

   She likes his gentlemanly ways and how he welcomes her into his extended fam0ily, and she doesn’t notice he is being carefully watched by Gunilla Standberg, a policewoman dressed as a Sophia Sister. What Sophie doesn’t know is about to blow up in her face since suave Hector Guzman is the leader of a crime syndicate recovering from a bungled attempt on his life by a rival German gang.

   Meanwhile half a world away in Paraguay Jens Vall, a likable arms dealer who knew and loved Sophie when they were younger, is sailing home with his latest shipment with no idea what he is about to step into.

   This complex and violent crime tale is yet another in the growing field of Scandinavian Noir, which has been around a while, a natural reaction to the bleak winter landscapes of the region, but of course got a huge boost for American audiences and publishers when Steig Larrson’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy took off in print and then on screen.

Söderberg’s trilogy, of which this is the first, has been called the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo meets the Sopranos, but that’s entirely unfair to this twisty tale of crime, cops, betrayal, greed, corruption, and violence across multiple countries in which our heroine proves a human and all to believable victim and survivor.

   Allies shift and change position, good cops make mistakes, bad cops kill brutally to cover up their own crimes even when it means turning on their own. Some criminals are noble while most are dangerous sociopaths willing to sell anyone down the river for profit or survival. No ally can be trusted, which is why the simple decency of Sophie and Jens is one of the few bright spots in this brutal and violent novel.

   It is also a damn well written novel, told from multiple points of view, good evil and indifferent, with twists and shocking violence at every turn, violence that makes permanent changes in Sophie and her son’s life, and her growing strength and determination to survive and save her son.

   Several well drawn characters move through the books including Lars Vinge a sadistic cop whose life is falling apart; Tommy Jansson a police loner whose wife is dying of ALS and who cleans up potential public messes at the point of a very private silenced gun; Aron Geisler, Guzman’s right hand man; Ander’s Ask, who does illegal favors for the police; Ralph Hanke, the head of the German gang; and, Mikhail Asmarov, a Russian mobster cutting in on Hanke’s attempt to cut in on Guzman, plus assorted killers, cops, and drug cartels.

   I’ve read the second book in the series, The Other Son, and I can attest it continues Sophie’s growth into someone darker and more dangerous than she could ever have believed with the same skill and style of the first book. I am looking forward to the final book in the trilogy.

   That said, the books stand alone, and while I can’t imagine you could read The Andalucian Friend without wanting to know what happens next, it does stand on its own without the sequel. The Other Son is a bit more of a continued piece, but not without tying up most of its loose ends. The cliffhangers it leaves are more soap than survival.

   Like the best of this genre the unexpected happens, characters die you think will not, and no one is safe, not even Sophie and Jens, from the spiraling violence as multiple gangs make a play for the Guzman’s territory and death comes from every direction. Söderberg does a fine job of keeping Sophie believably at the crux of criminal and police misdeeds and interests.

   Don’t expect Larsson, but this is just as original and just as page turning as hissaga. I hope this one gets the same kind of treatment on the small screen Larsson’s tale earned, it is too big for the big screen to do the story justice.

KEVIN EGAN “The Movie Lover.” Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July-August 2018.

   Kevin Egan returns to the pages of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, contributing the eleventh story in his courthouse series, “The Movie Lover.” The July-August 2018 issue, on newsstands now, is devoted to film-themed fiction, so Egan makes his key character Nouri, sighted helper to the blind manager of the court’s lobby concession, an aspiring screenwriter.

   The most prominent feature of these tales is the iconic and historic courthouse building at 60 Centre Street, long famous even before being immortalized in the opening credits of the long-running television series Law & Order. Egan has used it as the location for all but one of his Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine stories to date.

   The series also features a recurring character, the enigmatic court officer Foxx. While the judges of the New York State Unified Court System balance the scales of justice, Foxx personally keeps them balanced in-house by anonymously operating in the building’s shadowy spaces and corners.

   Enlisting Foxx is Ray Dempsey, the crusty concessionaire of the on-site coffee shop serving the public through the New York State Commission for the Blind. Dempsey suspects someone in his employ is embezzling from the register of one of his stations. Foxx intimately knows the lay of the land, making his beat the circular court corridors that lead to the “dark, nameless door[s]” behind which lie secret rooms – or at least forgotten ones – that hold secrets only Foxx seems to know about.

   From a high vantage point above the fourth-floor pastry-and-coffee table Nouri tends, eagle-eyed Foxx spies “a quarter view sight line behind Nouri [and] watch[s] the money change hands, then retreat[s] around the back of the circle.” From here he can see “the way the cash is arranged in the till” and observe every transaction unnoticed…

   In no time, Nouri becomes the focus of Foxx’s investigation. Nouri’s background as a Middle-Eastern American, along with his housemates’, gives the story the opportunity to present the experience of regular immigrants in the early stages of assimilation, a normalized depiction not unlike that of the more established and even more ordinary Pakistani-American family in the 2016 HBO crime series The Night Of, scripted by crime author Richard Price (Clockers, Freedomland, five episodes of The Wire).

   Nouri is also the movie lover of the title, a would-be writer desperate – too desperate – to sell a Hollywood blockbuster script and hit it big. By day he works his job, learning dialogue by hearing everyday customer interactions that “no writing teacher or voice coach” could impart, artistically inspired by the courthouse every time he “walk[ed] up those front steps,” “carv[ing]out…quiet hours [to] write in his notebook” – “the hothouse for all his ideas.” (It bears noting that “The Movie Lover,” and all the stories of the courthouse series, are written by a man who works as a senior settlement coordinator in the same building – these lines could be Egan writing about himself.) By night Nouri types away on his “dilapidated laptop,” “hearing the dialog in his head and visualizing the camera angles with his mind’s eye” as he daydreams about his screenplays becoming “beautiful movie[s].”

   There, in those moments, and also on the terrazzo floor where he crouches in his downtime to scribble his inspirations, he lives inside his head creating, but he is also hopelessly over his head in trouble. The constant presence of production companies shooting big and small screen dramas that use the court interiors and exteriors as a backdrop, the production trailers and huge booms and cameras and film crews and PAs “wearing identical black tee shirts emblazoned with the name of the movie” only fuel what his realist roommate Asif regards as Nouri’s cockeyed delusions. There is a subtle contrast to be made here between the wide-eyed Nouri and his cynical blind boss Dempsey.

   Nouri’s innocent dreaming will leave readers dying to know the content of the “beautiful movie[s]” – ten screenplays in total – that he has recklessly sacrificed so much for, but alas the movie scripts remain a mystery, perhaps a casualty of the lean, clean short mystery story format. Perhaps these kinds of short fiction constraints are what led Egan to expand his Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine stories “Midnight” and “A Small Circle” into, respectively, the Centre Street courthouse novels Midnight and A Shattered Circle. The efficient crime narrative delivers the requisite resolution, action, and catharsis by the end, all in one fell swoop. But because Egan never overlooks the emotional notes, there is also bittersweet light and hope in the epilogue, qualities generally in short supply in the dark and jaded world of the crime genre.

   Besides being a solid and satisfying piece of crime fiction, “The Movie Lover” is a loving reminder of the glamorous Hollywood history surrounding the New York County Courthouse, storied in more than one sense of the word. Nouri wistfully reminds us of the many movies, some recent and others classic, that have filmed at the celebrated courthouse: “When I walk up those front steps, I see Charlie Sheen climbing to meet his fate at the end of Wall Street. When I wait for the elevator, I gaze up at the same WPA mural that loomed above Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau. When I get off the elevator, I pass the courtroom where John Payne proved Edmund Gwenn to be Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street.” Of course there are so many others – 12 Angry Men, The Godfather, and Carlito’s Way, to name a few – too many to list, in fact.

   In this way, “The Movie Lover” lets its readers appreciate anew the old building and its rich history which court staff, jurors, lawyers, litigants, and the general public take for granted, all through the “dreamy eyes” of Nouri, a starry-eyed romantic who, despite his many flaws, helps us to see it freshly as the thing of wonderment it is.

            FIN

   Other film-themed stories in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s July/August “Lights! Camera! Murder!” issue, include Robert S. Levinson’s “Nine Years Later” (set during the filming of a Hollywood gangster picture) and Rebecca Cantrell’s “Homework” (a jewelry heist caper involving acting).

            * * *

KEVIN EGAN’s latest novel, A Shattered Circle, earned an early Publishers Weekly review hailing it as “his best to date.” He has authored eight novels and numerous short stories, many published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, not to mention an upcoming one in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Visit him at www.kjeganfiction.com.

            * * *

GILBERT COLON has written for several print and online publications, including Filmfax, Cinema Retro, Crimespree, Crime Factory, and Strand Mystery Magazine. He is a contributor-at-large for both the St. Martin’s Press newsletter Tor.com and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents-heavy bare•bones e-zine. You may reach him at gcolon777@gmail.com.

ROSS THOMAS – Ah, Treachery! Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1994; paperback, November 1995.

   Ross Thomas is one of my desert island authors, and I think one of the finest crime writers of this century, I always look forward to a new book from him, even though I think the quality of his putput has fallen markedly in the last few years.

   Edd “Twodees” Partain was an Army Major once, but now he’s a clerk selling guns in Montana. His past catches up with him in the person of a Colonel who appears to tell him that a story is about to break that will dredge up things best forgotten, and he’s fired from his job.

   He gets in touch with an old friend in Washington DC, and through him is hired by a big0time fundraiser to find some stolen money. Then his past and present begin to circle each other warily, rattling a whole closetful of skeletons in the process.

   I don’t think that Ross Thomas can write a book I won’t like; at least he hasn’t yet. Running on autopilot he is still a better and more interesting writer than 90% of those plying the trade today. Unfortunately for those of us who cherish his classics — The Seersucker Whipsaw, The Fools in Town Are on Our Side, Chinaman’s Chance, etc. — autopilot seems all too close to the mark.

   There is still the smooth, patented convoluted plot, and the usual group of slightly off-center. usually amoral characters, but… The books are slimmer than they used to be, and what’s missing is the depth of characterization that was once the strongest part of his novels. The characters here are enjoyable, but I doubt that you’ll find them memorable, and in Thomas’s prime they always were.

   I enjoyed it, but I mourn for the Thomas of old. “Snif!”

This song appeared on this Chilean born jazz singer’s first album, Wind from the South (Verve, 2000).

THE SANDBAGGERS. ITV/Yorkshire Television. First Series: September 18, 1978 – October 30, 1978; second series: January 28, 1980 – March 3, 1980; third series: June 9, 1980 – July 28, 1980. Created by Ian Mackintosh. Cast: Roy Marsden as Neil Burnside, Ray Lonnen as Willie Caine, Bob Sherman as Jeff Ross, Alan MacNaughtan as Sir Geoffrey Wellingham, Jerome Willis as Matthew Peele. Executive Producer: David Cunliffe. Producer: Michael Ferguson (all episode but one) or Derek Bennett (one episode).

   Forgotten today, the British TV spy series THE SANDBAGGERS remains one of television’s greatest spy dramas. THE SANDBAGGERS featured a dark realism style. It was a cynical spy drama that existed during a time when it was difficult to know who the good guys were. THE SANDBAGGERS showed life in the real SIS (MI5) and gave a more truthful look at both sides during the Cold War then they taught us in school.

   The series was originally meant to be a temporary fill-in when another planned series for Yorkshire TV fell apart. THE SANDBAGGERS was to last only one series (series is the British term for season) of seven episodes. It would prove popular enough to last two more series and would have made a fourth if not for the mysterious disappearance of creator and probable spy Ian Mackintosh.

   In an outline attempting to sell the premise as a TV series Mackintosh described the series primary focus would be “with the triumphs and failures of SIS headquarters, the power-struggles within SIS itself and the uses and abuse of its power vis-à-vis Government policy.”

   It is impossible to think of THE SANDBAGGERS without Ian Mackintosh. Hamish Ian Mackintosh MBE (July 26, 1940 – last known alive July 7, 1979) served in the Royal Navy from 1958-1976 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. On his retirement from the Royal Navy he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

   Mackintosh tried writing while still in the Navy and his first of five thrillers A SLAYING IN SEPTEMBER was published in 1967. All five were failures with critics and readers and our own Mystery*File reviewer Steve, which you can read here.

   In 1973 Mackintosh co-created the admired BBC TV series WARSHIP (1973-1977). Ian would go on to create and write WILDE ALLIANCE (ITV 1978), THUNDERCLOUD (ITV 1979) and THE SANDBAGGERS, all three for Yorkshire Television. He also wrote tie-in novels for WARSHIP, WILDE ALLIANCE and THE SANDBAGGERS. One other tie-in novel for THE SANDBAGGERS was THE SANDBAGGER: THINK OF A NUMBER (1980) written by Donald Lancaster (YELLOWTHREAD STREET writer William Marshall). Ian also wrote some non-fiction books many featuring his interest in planes and military history.

   While Ian Mackintosh was the creative spirit behind the success of THE SANDBAGGERS others played equally important roles in the series success. David Cunliffe had worked in British television since the 1950s. He first met Mackintosh when both worked on the series WARSHIP and became friends. Cunliffe was the Controller of Drama at Yorkshire Television and worked with Ian on all three YTV series Mackintosh created and wrote. Yorkshire Television was the local Leeds and Yorkshire area ITV affiliate and produced television programs for ITV including such series as HARRY’S GAME, THE MAIN CHANCE and RAFFLES. Cunliffe was in charge of every aspect of THE SANDBAGGERS including final script approval.

   Derek Bennett was the director and producer for the first episode filmed (the third episodes aired) IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY but a disagreement between Bennett and Mackintosh forced Derek to leave. Michael Ferguson would replace Bennett. Cunliffe turned daily production decisions over to Ferguson who as producer and sometime director would remain for the entire run.

   Not surprisingly for British TV, at the time the series had a low budget and sometimes it showed. During series one Roy Marsden was the highest paid in the cast making around $1900 an episode.

   The soundtrack was a positive aspect of the series. It did not have one (with rare exceptions). Often such absence of music (not unusual for early British TV) can make scenes seem awkward or slow paced, but it worked to this realistic drama’s advantage. TV and film spies are known for great theme songs and THE SANDBAGGERS has one of the best, written by Roy Budd (GET CARTER).

   Roy Marsden (P.J. JAMES’ ADAM DALGLIESH CHRONICLES) was the perfect fit and first choice to play Neil Burnside — the ruthless, arrogant Director of Operations. Marsden modeled his portrayal of Burnside on his observations of Mackintosh. It was a good choice as Marsden gave Burnside a depth and allowed the audience to still root for and respect the at times unlikable character.

   Burnside had two advantages in running the SIS operations. His first was based on the very real special relationship the SIS had with the CIA. The CIA respected the opinions of the SIS and thus shared information with the small British agency that it shared with no other country or agency. This gave Burnside information others did not have.

   Head of London Station for the CIA was Jeff Ross. Ross and Burnside worked well together and respected each other but that did not stop both from using the other when it was in the best interest of their agency.

   The second advantage was more personal. Burnside was the ex-son-in-law and still a friend of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary Godfrey Wellingham who in the government chain of command was above both of Burnside’s bosses Director – General or “C,” and the Deputy Director of SIS. Wellingham had hopes Burnside and his daughter would reunite but also realized Neil had chosen his work over his marriage.

   The first “C” of the series was Sir James Greenley, whose lack of spy experience left him naive at times about the reality of the world of SIS. Burnside would grow to respect him. Greenley trusted Neal’s judgment and experience even if he was horrified by the immorality of their actions. Greenley would retire due to health problems and was replaced by John Tower Gibbs, a long time opponent of Burnside.

   The Deputy Director was Matthew Peele who served in intelligence during WWII, ambitious, clueless, and someone Burnside usually found easy to manipulate.

   The confident and determined Burnside often went over the heads of his SIS bosses to use his ex-father-in-law influence, and he had no problem lying to all of them if it suited his vision of what was right and how to handle the problem.

   The gratuitous sex, over the top violence, and absurdly complicated gadgets of James Bond was fiction in this world. This was a world where work in the field could be dull but was always dangerous. The turnover of Special Agents (field agents at SIS) was high during the series.

   Due to the SIS small budget Burnside had only one to three Special Agents at a time. It takes a special person to become a SIS Special Agent, these were the agents who were assigned the dirty jobs no one else wanted or could handle.

   Head of Special Section (Sandbagger One) was Willie Caine, a womanizing, working-class, ex-military with a strong moral code. Willie and Burnside respected each other but also had major disagreements over Burnside’s methods. Ray Lonnen (HARRY’S GAME, YELLOWTHREAD STREET) was able to make spy Willie Caine a sympathetic human living a life of loneliness but surviving because of his pride in his work.

   The series featured believable characters, realistic dialog and plots that were cynical with dramatic twists that can sometime still surprise forty years later. The focus was less on the Russians and more on the self-interest power plays among the British government and its allies.

    “Special Relationship” was the scheduled final episode for this fill-in TV series. It is arguably the best episode of the series and certainly the most important. The cast strongly objected to the story’s ending. However, the critics and public’s reaction lead Yorkshire TV to approve THE SANDBAGGERS for another series of six episodes. Shortly after that Yorkshire added seven more episodes and two weeks of location shooting at the luxurious Malta.

   Roy Marsden commented on the reaction to the episode, saying, “When “Special Relationship” was shown, the response all over the country was staggering. Every radio program was taking about what had happened.”

“Special Relationship” (October 30, 1978) Written by Ian Mackintosh. Directed by Michael Ferguson. Additional Cast: Diane Keen as Laura Dickens and Richard Vernon as Sir Greenley. *** Burnside and agent Laura Dickens have fallen in love. During an assignment in East Germany Laura is captured. Burnside searches for a possible prisoner in Allies hands to exchange for Laura. He finds one but there is a price.

   Due to a labor strike that forced Yorkshire and ITV off the air for two months and the disappearance of Mackintosh, it would be fourteen months after the first series aired that THE SANDBAGGERS returned to the air. It had been decided to split the thirteen episodes up into two series. The second series aired six episodes from January 28 to March 3, 1980. The final seven episode third series aired from June 9 to July 28, 1980.

   It was July 1979, six episodes for the second series had been filmed and Mackintosh had finished the scripts for all of the rest of the scheduled episodes but three. This is when the cast and crew headed off for two weeks of on location filming in Malta. David Cunliffe remained behind to run his other series for Yorkshire. Producer Michael Ferguson remained in London dealing with production work.

   Ian decided to take a break. Mackintosh loved to travel, as did his girl friend of over two years Susan Insole. Mackintosh’s family and friends were used to him disappearing for a while and then suddenly reappearing. For this trip they had invited an old friend of Mackintosh British Airways pilot Graham Barber.

   The trip would take them to the United States mainland and then to Hawaii and finally back to London by Alaska. They were flying over the Gulf of Alaska, an area of beautiful sights and an area of intense interest of both sides during the Cold War. The weather was clear and the waters calm when Graham Barber radioed an emergency call for help, “We are going down in the sea. I’m going to make for the very, very, small island just to the east of Shuyak Island.”

   The plane, a Rallye 235, and its three passengers were never found.

   A lack of proof of death and Mackintosh’s long habit of disappearing and returning without warning put everything on an awkward hold. Reportedly the American state department held meetings discussing the possibility Mackintosh had defected to the Russian. Even today Ian’s brother Lawrie does not believe Ian died in the plane crash.

   Series Two began with a less confident Neil Burnside who was more protective of his Special Agents. Below is the sixth and final episode of the second series and is a good sample of the characters and how Mackintosh’s SIS worked.

“Operation Kingmaker.” (March 3, 1980) Written by Ian Mackinston. Directed by Alan Grint. Additional Cast: Dennis Burgess as John Tower Gibbs and Elizabeth Bennett as Diana Lawler/ *** Burnside learns an enemy from his past John Gibbs may become the new “C.” Neil attempts to maneuver the system to install a boss he can control. His desperate choice is the ambitious idiot Matthew Peele, current Deputy Director.

   Eventually Cunliffe could no longer wait for Ian’s return and with three episodes left that needed to be written, Cunliffe hired two writers to write the needed episodes. Gidley Wheeler (WARSHIP) wrote two episodes, MY NAME IS ANNA WISEMAN and WHO NEEDS ENEMIES. Arden Winch (WINGS) did SOMETIMES WE PLAY DIRTY TOO. All three were passable adventures but were too heavy-handed and lacked the style of Mackintosh.

   Mackintosh had alreadyfinished the script for the last episode. Oddly enough for a man about to disappear, the episode ended in a cliffhanger. It is also one of Ian’s weakest scripts and suffers from believability issues.

“Opposite Number.” (July 28, 1980) Written by Ian Mackintosh. Directed by Peter Cregeen. Additional Cast: Michael Cashman as Mike Wallace and Sue Holderness as Marianne Straker *** Burnside has grown weary of the constant fighting within the system. As a long passionate opponent of the Salt talks (Strategic Arms Limitations) Neil decides destroying his career was a worthy price to pay if he can get the Russians to leave the talks.

   The cliffhanger was not a surprise since Mackintosh expected a fourth series. Lonnen had signed for a fourth series. It is believed that Ian’s plans for series four had Willie promoted to Director of Operations and Burnside would become “C.” But without Ian Mackintosh the decision was made to end THE SANDBAGGERS. Cunliffe, Ferguson and Marsden moved on to do the series AIRLINE.

   Some today wonder how popular THE SANDBAGGERS really was if so few who watched TV at the time remember it. Not having access to the ratings of 1978 or 1980 I suspect THE SANDBAGGERS critical acclaim had more to do with its success than number of people watching.

   THE SANDBAGGERS did appear on American television in the late 1980s and inspired some enthusiastic fan clubs. It currently can be seen on streaming service BritBox.

   On October 12, 2003 appearing in the New York Times was “TELEVISION; Spies Who Were Cool and Very Very Cold” by Terrence Rafferty. He wrote:

   Whatever happened to Ian Mackintosh, Susan Insole and Graham Barber will most likely remain a mystery, but it left us all with a story worthy of an episode of THE SANDBAGGERS.

SOURCES:

THE LIFE AND MYSTEROUS DEATH OF IAN MACKINTOSH: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE SANDBAGGERS AND TELEVISION’S TOP SPY by Robert G. Folsom (Potomac Books, 2012).

Wikipedia

JOHN O’GROAT JOURNAL AND CAITHNESS COURIER (3/1/13) “Did Spy Writers Disappearance Mirror His Fiction?” by Calum Macleod

NY TIMES (10/12/03) “Television Spies Who Were Cool and Very Very Cold” by Terrence Rafferty

HARRY STEPHEN KEELER – Sing Sing Nights. Dutton, hardcover, 1928. Wildside, paperback, 2017

SING SING NIGHTS. Monogram, 1934. Conway Tearle, Hardie Albright, Jameson Thomas, Henry Kolker, Lotus Long, and Boots Mallory. Screenplay by Charles Logue and Marion Orth, “suggested by” the novel by Harry Stephen Keeler. Directed by Lewis D. Collins.

   This is about as loopy as the average Keeler novel, but a bit more convoluted than most — most Keeler, that is. By normal standards… well, one can’t judge Keeler by normal standards and there you are.

   The framework of Sing Sing Nights hinges on the premise that three well-known authors of popular fiction each decided—independent of the others – to murder an absolute bounder.

   And that each of them decided to do it on the same night.

   By the same means.

   At the same time.

   In the same place.

   And that each of them hid there, unaware of the others’ presence till all three fired on him at the same exact instant. But not quite; there are only two bullets in the body. One of the killers is technically innocent of the crime.

   Faced with this patent absurdity, and with three convicted men sentenced to death (on the same day, natch) who each not only believes he is guilty, but also wants to be guilty, the Governor of the unnamed state goes it one further: He gets all three together and hands them a signed pardon with a blank where the name is to be filled out. The three of them are to determine who is innocent and put his name on the Pardon.

   Problem is, of course, they can’t for the life of them (literally!) figure out whudidn’tit, so they decide that each will tell a story, and free the author of the one their Jailer likes best.

   If you think there maybe were some wild coincidences in that framework, wait’ll you get to the stories themselves. Keeler had a completely unique gift for spinning the wildest improbabilities with total straight-faced conviction. You or I could not commit the howlers Keeler wrote. Our minds could not conceive of the enormous coincidences that invest his stories, and if they could, we couldn’t submit them for publication without dying of shame.

   But he not only managed, he did it with a clear-headed conviction and moral certitude that stagger the imagination. Reading his wild tales, one is reminded irresistibly of Galileo insisting that the Earth does too move around the Sun, or Gauguin painting the sky green: A genius convinced of the impossible finds some way to make it Truth.

   I don’t normally reveal too much about the mysteries I read, but I can’t help recounting the highlights of the first tale in Sing Sing Nights. Readers are given WARNING that PLOT AND SOLUTION ARE GIVEN BELOW!!

   Okay? Have all the kids left room? Well, the first tale hinges on the notion that the Hero attends a Costume Party in the same get-up as an International Criminal. And not only that, but also he has the same initials as the Thief. So when the Thief’s accomplice sends an urgent note to the party, the butler assumes it’s for him… all the more so as the accomplice happens to have the same initials as the hero’s friend!

   Said accomplice is found dead a few pages later, and a chapter or two beyond, hero determines that the accomplice’s murderer was none other than…..The Butler! Who delivered the message to him at the party, and in so doing, recognized handwriting of the long-lost brother who cheated him out of a fortune fifty years ago!

END OF WARNING!

   You gotta admire writing like that. Or if not the writing, at least the chutzpah that went into it.

   And that ain’t all. The whole book is full of stuff like that, right up to an ending that must be seen to be disbelieved. I loved it.

   As a footnote, Sing Sing Nights was filmed by Monogram in 1934. The film uses the same basic howler of a premise, but where the book delivered three tales of lunatic wonder, the movie settles for a few short vignettes showing what a cad the murdered man (Conway Tearle) was and how the others (Albright, Thomas & Kolker) acted quite rightly in gunning him down like the mongrel cur that he was. So there.

   To its credit, Sing Sing Nights is competently acted and producer Paul Malvern uses his limited resources quite well in evoking exotic lands and climes on a restricted budget – aided by Cameraman Archie Stout, who went on to work regularly for John Ford. But these fall short of redeeming the leaden direction and perfunctory screenplay. This one is a dog, and a rather slow one at that.

   I should also add that in 1935 Monogram used part of the second story in Sing, “Twelve Coins of Confucius” as the basis of The Mysterious Mr. Wong.

   But that is a story for another day.

   “Lady of the Ark” is a song from Kyle Craft’s debut album Dolls of the Highland (Sub Pop, 2016).

RON GOULART – The Tijuana Bible. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1989. No paperback edition.

   Picture this — a cartoonist working alone at night; a knock at the window; a dying man with a message; a sap on the head; a beautiful blonde hiding in the closet — then poof! — they both disappear. And then a map, the key to a treasure, well over $2,000,000 …

   … worth of old comic books. My mouth waters. (*) This is a funny book, of the laugh-out-loud variety. It’s no more than lightweight entertainment, I admit, but it’s expertly done. (And it can’t really be that easy to do, or it’d be done more often, and a lot of authors try.)

(*) Confession time. It was my secret ambition as a kid — and I’ve never told anyone this before — to own a copy of every comic book ever published. (My second ambition was to grow up to own a newsstand.) I couldn’t afford it at the time, and the way things are, I could afford it even less today. (I don’t own a newsstand either.)

ACCOMPLICE. PRC, 1946. Richard Arlen, Veda Ann Borg, Tom Dugan, Francis Ford, Herbert Rawlinson. Screenplay Irving Elman, Frank Gruber based on the latter’s novel Simon Lash, Private Detective. Directed by Walter Colmes.

   A complex plot, sharp dialogue, a smart story based on a classic hardboiled novel, and a well-staged shootout in the California desert at a castle turned dude ranch run by crooked Francis Ford are all on the plus side for this fast moving mystery film.

   So why isn’t it better?

   The directors penchant for flat two shots on cheap sets doesn’t help, but even that isn’t the real problem.

   The real problem is the cast.

   This kind of hard-boiled mystery depends on delivery, snappy tongue-in-cheek delivery by actors with on screen charisma and style.

   That is neither Richard Arlen or Veda Ann Borg, who deliver their lines with all the skill and depth of a high school adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace.

   Book-loving Simon Lash would rather try to prove Billy the Kid was a backshooter than take a case, especially a divorce case, but when he is broke and Joyce Marlow, nee Mrs. James Bonniwell shows up, the girl who left him at the altar ten years earlier when he was a promising lawyer, shows up on his doorstep, his partner Eddie (Tom Dugan) convinces him to see her.

   Simon suspects Joyce is looking for evidence for a divorce case against her banker hubby, but she convinces him her husband has lost his memory and gone missing. But when his search leads to a love nest the husband is keeping with another woman, Simon thinks he has been taken by Joyce again — until she receives a call while he is confronting her that her husband has been found with his head blown off in the desert.

   From then on things move at a pace until the finale when Simon is taken prisoner at the above mentioned desert castle and escapes to shoot it out with the bad guys while unfolding the complex and well planned plot.

   Sounds great, and on the written page the dialogue by Gruber from his novel has the punch and snap that is proper to the best private eye fare on the screen. The only problem is the delivery which could gives pancakes a run for which is flatter.

   There isn’t a moment of charm, a twinkle of eye, or a playful seductive moment in the film. It’s in the script, but Arlen and Borg deliver their lines (and no one else does any better, including the unfunny comic relief) like they were reading them off a prompter for the first time.

   You know you are in trouble when you find yourself longing for Tom Conway or Warner Baxter from the Falcon and Crime Doctor films.

   Had this been a Michael Shayne entry with Lloyd Nolan or a Falcon or even Charlie Chan film it would be a classic, but alas it is a film which stars Richard Arlen and Veda Ann Borg and the biggest collection of stiffs collecting a pay check in the history of film.

   Even a master like Frank Gruber can’t overcome amateur night at the Bijou.