SHELDON SIEGEL – The Dreamer. Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez #11. Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc., hardcover/softcover, March 2020. Setting: Contemporary San Francisco.

First Sentence: The Honorable Elizabeth McDaniel glanced at her watch, rested her chin in her palm, and spoke to me in a world-weary tone still bearing a trace of her native Alabama.

   Mercedes “Mercy” Tejada is a Dreamer who was brought to the United States as a baby. Now she’s accused of murdering her boss, celebrity chef and James Beard Award recipient, Carlos Cruz. Carlos was known for sexually harassing his female staff, particularly Mercy. Now, he is dead in an alley, Mercy kneeling over him, and her prints on the knife next to him. San Francisco Public Defenders Rosie and Mike are against the clock to prove Mercy innocent, and to keep her, and her family, from being deported.

   Siegel begins with an amusing vignette that pleases and establishes Mike Daley as a sharp, clever, and well-established lawyer. The way in which we meet the others in Mike’s life, especially his ex-wife and boss, Rosie Fernandez, is handled succinctly, but with clarity.

   A murder case is always the perfect base for a legal mystery. Add the element of a Dreamer with an undocumented mother, and the level of suspense immediately escalates. The decision of Rose to be the lead attorney, with Mike as second chair, makes one smile.

   Siegel excels at throwing back the cover on the legal system. He shows just how unjust justice can be, especially if one is a woman, a person of color, and undocumented. Siegel takes on the issue of undocumented workers. What is nice is that the story addresses the issue from a moral perspective, rather than a political one.

   Reading about a city one knows well always adds a personal touch. However, even when it is a city unknown to the reader, some things have become sadly universal in urban areas— “A homeless man asked me for change. A man in a Warriors jersey offered me a fentanyl. A woman in a halter top asked me if I was looking for a date.”

   There is an excellent twist and good questions raised during the investigation. One doesn’t normally think of the initial, information-gathering phase of a case as being suspenseful. Under Siegel’s deft hand, it is.

   It may be a classic trope, but it is always interesting to have a victim everyone wants to kill. But watching Rosie and Mike prepare a case with no other suspects, and no witnesses, based on a defense of SODDI (“some other dude did it”), and with the prosecution not meeting the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt makes things all the more engrossing.

   The Dreamer has a major plot twist and a very satisfying affirmation at the end. Siegel is an under-appreciated author who writes excellent legal procedurals.

Rating: Very Good.

ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION, November 1966. Overall rating: 2 stars.

MURRAY LEINSTER “Quarantine World.” Short novel [50 pages]. Calhoun of the Med Service. There is no possible reason for the length of this story, except payment by the word. Why can’t a reader to be expected to remember that plot as it has occurred without requiring a summary every two or three pages? Why must characters be shocked at the disclosure of political perfidy once on page 41 and identically again on page 42? (1½)

Comment: Collected in S.O.S. from Three Worlds (Ace, paperback, 1967), The Med Series (Ace, paperback, 1983), Quarantine World (Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1992), Med Ship (Baen, paperback, 2002). Leinster’s “Med Service” series was one of his most popular.

CHRISTOPHER ANVIL “Facts to Fit the Theory.” [Federation of Humanity.] A series of communications between commanders of Terran force trying to save colonists of Cyrene IV from invaders. Psychic powers of colonists make outside assistance unnecessary, but of course that can’t be included in reports to superiors. (2)

Comment: Collected in Interstellar Patrol II: The Federation of Humanity (Baen, hardcover, 2005; paperback, 2007). Baen has published several collections of Anvil’s work, real name Harry Christopher Crosby. A large percentage of the stories he wrote over the years fall into this same overall series.

STEWART ROBB “Letter from a Higher Circle.” Ingenious debunking of American history by a future historian. (4)

Comment: According to ISFDb, Robb’s only other work of speculative fiction was “The Doom of Germany According to the Prophecy of St. Odile,” a chapbook published in 1940.

RANDALL GARRETT “Two Many Magicians.” Serial, part 4 of 4. See separate report, to be posted soon.

LONE STAR. “Pilot.” Fox, 20 September 2010 (Season 1, Episode 1). James Wolk as Robert “Bob” Allen, a Texas con man married to Cat, the daughter of one of his marks in Houston, while simultaneously maintaining a relationship with Lindsay in Midland, Texas. He is in love with both women and begins to wish for a normal life; Adrianne Palicki as Cat Thatcher, Clint’s daughter; Eloise Mumford as Lindsay, Robert Allen’s unsuspecting girlfriend in Midland; David Keith as John Allen, Robert Allen’s father, who raised his son to be a con man; Jon Voight as Clint Thatcher, a Texas oil tycoon and father of Cat and her two brothers. Written by Kyle Killen. Director: Marc Webb. Currently available on YouTube here.

   Thanks again to Wikipedia for the scorecard of players and their roles, somewhat condensed. If you were one of people who watched this show back in 2010, you are one of a very few, relatively speaking. An estimated 4.06 million watched this first episode, and only 3.2 the following week. Six episodes were filmed but only two were actually aired.

   This sort of TV drama with just a tinge of crooked activity at heart isn’t my usual watching fare, but I enjoyed this. The players are all personable, especially James Wolk (Mad Men, Zoo), the leading man, and that always helps. You can easily believe him as a smooth-talking con man who can separate investors in Texas-based oil wells from their life savings as slick and easily as an eel in a fresh water pond. You can also easily believe him as a man with both a wife and a girl friend, neither of which knows anything about the other. And when offered a chance at a honest life, and he tells his father he’s going to take it, you can easily believe that too.

   I don’t know why this didn’t catch on. It was heavily promoted ahead of time, but obviously no one paid any attention. Perhaps the shows it was on opposite had something to do with that. I’d surely like to know where the story was going to go from here, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the chances I ever will are very, very slim, if not outright none.

MAN MADE MONSTER. Universal, 1940. Lon Chaney Jr, Lionel Atwill, Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson, Samuel S. Hinds, and Corky. Screenplay by Harry Essex, Sid Schwartz, Len Golos and George Waggner – who also directed. Currently available on YouTube here.

   The distillation of all earlier “Mad Scientist” movies and the template for those that followed.

   Lon Chaney Jr, in his first horror film, stars as “Dynamo” Dan, a circus performer whose act enabled him to survive a crash into an electric line pole that killed five others. Recruited by kindly old Electro-Biologist Hinds, he quickly falls into the clutches of Hind’s assistant, the redoubtable Lionel Atwill, who is convinced he can create a race of mindless, obedient Supermen—if only he can find the right subject.

   Bwaa-(as they say)-ha-haaah!

   No surprises here, but a bit of actual pathos as Lon becomes increasingly dependent on Atwill’s “treatments” and ends up a super-charged (and somewhat preposterous) zombie. He kills kindly old Hinds at Atwill’s bidding… and is sent to the Electric Chair, with rousing results.

   All this is much less awful than it sounds, thanks to a fast-moving script, Waggner’s brisk direction, and some moody lighting by Elwood “Woody” Bredell, who went on to define the look of film noir with classics like Phantom Lady, The Killers, and The Unsuspected.

   And credit must also be given to “Corky” an incredibly expressive little dog, who went on to Criss-Cross, The Danny Thomas Show, and Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost.

REED STEPHENS – The Man Who Killed His Brother. Mick Axbrewder #1. Ballantine, paperback original, 1980. Forge, hardcover, 2002; Tor, paperback, 2003, the latter as by Stephen R. Donaldson.

   Introducing a new private eye, Mick “Brew” Axbrewder, a non-licensed alcoholic who scrapes out a living doing legwork for Ginny Fistoulari, owner and operator of Fistoulari Investigations. The reasons for the title and for his unusual non-employed state of drunken stupor are one and the same – five years ago he accidentally shot and killed his brother, a cop named Rick.

   Since he tells his own story, there is a distinct note of whininess that permeates the opening introductions. His brother’s thirteen-year-old daughter has mysteriously disappeared, however, and when he discovers it and the action picks up, he seems for a while to feel less sorry for himself.

   Together, he and Ginny discover there has been an epidemic of missing young girls, although the police department has quietly kept a lid on the news. Axbrewder’s presence on the case promises to change all that, not to everyone’s delight.

   While in general the characters are shallow and predictable, the events that follow are tough and gritty. When Axbrewder is not engulfed in self-pity, he functions with rough-hewn directness and urgency. He’s not a great thinker, though. Maybe it’s the effect of being forced to sober up so quickly, but it takes a long while before he puts the clues he finds together.

   Will he be a new series character? He could be, but a sequel of any sort at all would have to be built on a new motivation. If not, there is no way possible it could have some of the impact built into this one. It is as if all of Stephens’ eggs were in but one basket.

      Rating: B

A LATER NOTE: I’ve since been informed that the author is also Stephen R. Donaldson, a new writer who has done a trilogy of well-regarded fantasy novels reprinted by this same publisher.

      The Brewster & Fistoulari series —

1. The Man Who Killed His Brother (1980)
2. The Man Who Risked His Partner (1984)
3. The Man Who Tried to Get Away (1990)
4. The Man Who Fought Alone (2001)

HARLAN COBEN – Darkest Fear. Myron Bolitar #7. Delacorte, hardcover, 2000. Dell, paperback, 2001.

   Myron Bolitar – one-time All-American basketball player who became a Sports Agent after his knee was wrecked during a game – is asked by an ex-girl friend, Emily, estranged wife of his arch rival Greg Downing (who went on to a long pro career) to help her critically ill son Jeremy. Myron’s career-ending injury was apparently (this is the first book I’ve read in the series, so I’m coming in mid-stream) arranged by Greg out of jealousy. Emily even went so far as to sleep with Myron the night before her wedding.

   Jeremy suffers from Fanconi anemia, a disease that will prove fatal unless he receives a bone marrow transplant. The National Registry of donors has found a match, but the possible donor has apparently disappeared. Emily wants Myron to find him. Myron is reluctant until Emily supplies the kicker: Jeremy is actually his son. When Myron begins his search, with the help of the various regular characters in the series, he soon discovers that the missing donor just might be the man suspected of being a notorious serial killer.

   This one was pretty good even if it read like Jerry Maguire, Private Eye. The characters were interesting, the search suspenseful and there were enough twists and turns to satisfy the most fastidious pretzel lover.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Summer 2020. Issue #54. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 36 pages (including covers). Cover image: Unusual Suspects.

   The latest issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION (OTD) continues to maintain the high quality it has always enjoyed. Editor Arthur Vidro’s choices of material are, as usual, excellent; the world of classic detective fiction, long neglected, gets a new lease on life with every number.

   Indeed, nothing says “classic detective fiction” like commentary from Edward D. Hoch, an expert on the subject as well as a shining example of how to write it. Vidro reproduces two introductions by Hoch to mystery story collections.

   Ed Hoch’s fiction output is the envy of many writers, almost always matching quantity with quality. In his review of Crippen & Landru’s latest themed collection of Hoch’s stories, Hoch’s Ladies, Michael Dirda says it well: “His fair-play stories emphasize a clean, uncluttered narrative line, just a handful of characters, and solutions that are logical and satisfying. Each one sparks joy.”

   Next we have a valuable history lesson by Dr. John Curran concerning the earliest periods of the genre, “‘landmark’ titles in the development of crime fiction between 1841 and the dawn, eighty years later, of the Golden Age,” especially as reflected in the publications of the Collins Crime Club.

   Following Dr. Curran is a collection of perceptive reviews by Charles Shibuk of some pretty obscure crime fiction titles; for instance, have you ever heard of Brian Flynn’s The Orange Axe (“highly readable, steadily engrossing, well-plotted, and very deceptively clued”) or James Ronald’s Murder in the Family (“an absolute pleasure to read from first page to last”)?

   Cornell Woolrich was definitely not ignored by Hollywood, as Francis M. Nevins shows us in his continuing series of articles about cinema adaptations. The year 1947 was a rich one for films derived from Woolrich’s works — Fall Guy, The Guilty, and Fear in the Night — but, as Nevins indicates, the quality of these movies is highly variable.

   William Brittain is a detective fiction author who has been undeservedly “forgotten” of late, but a reprinting of one his stories (“The Second Sign in the Melon Patch”, EQMM, January 1969) shows why he should be remembered: “She wondered if anyone in Brackton held anything but the highest opinion of her would-be murderer.”

   Charles Shibuk returns with concise reviews of (then) recently reprinted books by John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie, Anthony Dekker, Ngaio Marsh, Ellery Queen, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Josephine Tey.

   Dr. John Curran also returns. The world’s leading expert on Agatha Christie tips us off as to developments in Christieworld: a new short story collection, the closure of the long-running play The Mousetrap as well as the cancellation of the in-person Agatha Christie Festival and uncertainty about the release date for Kenneth Branagh’s version of Death on the Nile due to the beerbug, the publication of a new non-fiction book focusing on Hercule Poirot, and a radio play version of a previously unperformed non-criminous production by Dame Agatha dating from nearly a century ago.

   This is followed by a collection of smart reviews by Jon L. Breen (The Glass Highway by Loren D. Estleman), Amnon Kabatchnik (The Man in the Shadows by Carroll John Daily), Les Blatt (The Chinese Parrot by Earl Derr Biggers), Ruth Ordivar (The World’s Fair Murders by John Ashenhurst), Arthur Vidro (The Kettle Mill Mystery by Inez Oellrichs), and Thor Dirravu (The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich, a collection).

   Next we have Martin Edwards’s foreword to Joseph Goodrich’s collection of essays entitled Unusual Suspects (2020), which, Edwards is delighted to relate, “benefits from a quirky unpredictability and from being a mine of intriguing nuggets of information.”

   Rounding out this issue are the readers’ reactions and a puzzle page, the latter a snap only if you’re thoroughly familiar with the life and career of Hercule Poirot.

   Altogether this is a most satisfying issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION.

—

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CAFÉ METROPOLE. 20th Century Fox, 1937 Loretta Young, Tyrone Power, Adolphe Menjou, Charles Winninger, Helen Westley, Gregory Ratoff, Christian Rub. Screenpla: Jacques Deval. Story: Gregory Ratoff Directed by Edward H. Griffith.

   This Hollywood take on French farce written by character actor Gregory Ratoff could use a bit less romance and a bit more farce, but thanks to the cast and an intelligent screenplay has more than enough charm to get by.

   There are no real crimes here, though the police are certainly involved. It’s the sort of film where everyone is conning everyone else, sometimes even themselves.

   Monsieur Victor (Adolphe Menjou) owns the Café Metropole and his accountant Maxl (Christain Rub) has just informed him he is in the red and the auditors are coming. He needs to think and act fast, but luckily for Victor things are already falling in place in the person of an American millionaire Joseph Ridgeway (Charles Winninger), his sister Margaret (Helen Westley) and his daughter Laura (Loretta Young) who are arriving soon and hoping to meet celebrities and royalty. If Victor can arrange a royal romance, he might get the money he needs from Winninger.

   All he needs to arrange that is the right man, and who should show up but flat broke American heir Alexander Brown (Tyrone Power), who manages to fall in debt at the gaming tables to Victor with a rubber check bouncing around signed by him.

   But everything will be just fine if Alexander Brown becomes the Russian Prince Alexi Paneiev and charms the beautiful Laura.

   And almost immediately things get complicated. Alexander and Laura meet before they know who the other is (or is supposed to be) and actually start to fall in love, Daddy Ridgeway smells a rat (though the wrong one), and Paul the waiter (Gregory Ratoff) proves to be the real Prince Alexi more than a little incensed by the impostor.

   Power and Young, who were virtually a screen team, play their parts with effortless charm, their combined beauty and screen presence, even as male and female ingenues, enough to carry any film, but this one doesn’t have to rely on that alone, with Menjou as the suave continental con man Victor, Winninger the slightly befuddled comical American millionaire, Westley his sharp witted sister and advocate for Laura, and Ratoff a proud, haughty, but for sale Russian prince.

   Menjou specialized in variations on this jaded but still romantic charmer no more honest than was required by the circumstances. What energy the film has comes mostly from him, Ratoff, and Westley, though Young gets her turn at the end.

   Power bridled at these sort of roles eventually and welcomed a chance after the War to play something with a bit more depth.

   Young proves smarter and tougher than anyone expects when Alexander wants out of the con game and gets framed by Victor to get money from Ridgeway, and this being American and not quite French farce, there is little edge and no sex considering the model here is known for both.

   This isn’t Lubitch, Billy Wlder, Preston Sturges, or Mitchell Leisen, and their deft hand at this sort of material is sorely missed, but it is still fun in a low key, all white tie and tails, elegant settings, good food, great wine, beautiful young people in beautiful clothes quoting François Villon in charming cafes and gorgeous suites, and charming con artists.

   The best way to describe how this material is done in the grand Hollywood style is effortless. Café Metropole is a souffle and not a meal, light, charming, romantic, and with just enough spice to keep it from being boring. Of course it is almost impossible to make this kind of film today, which may or may not be a good thing, but we will always have Paris, at least the Hollywood one.

   The sharpest bite is saved for the great last line with Westley and Ratoff getting the fade out and the laugh.

         â€œGet your checkbook out. Here we go again.”

   It’s almost enough to redeem the whole film on its own.

JOHN RACKHAM – The Double Invaders. Ace Double G-623, paperback original, 1967. Published back-to-back with These Savage Futurians, by Philip E. High (reviewed here).

   This seemingly simple story of invasion from outer space is indeed something more. The prologue introduces the mystery, a secret plan of Earth against the expanding empire of Zorgan. Without knowing about this underlying factor, the reader would proceed quickly and enjoyably through the greater part of the book.

   As it turns out, a little more concentration is required. Motivations are not as obvious as they might first seem, relationships are not as they might first appear. And yet, if the blurb on the inside front cover is interpreted correctly, everything becomes as obvious as it does at the story’s conclusion. It should be obvious all along, but Rackham does a creditable job of fooling the reader.

   The society of Scarta, the invaded planet, is very well developed, with a [Poul] Anderson-like astronomy influenced theology. Another feature, passing almost without notice, is the linguistic problem of translation: for example (page 69) how do you describe war without a word for it?

Rating: 4½ stars.

Bibliographic Notes: John Rackham was a pen name of British writer John T. Phillifent. Under that name and as Rackham, he wrote 18 traditional SF novels for Ace and Daw between 1964 and 1973. He also wrote three of the series of “Man from UNCLE” books published by Ace in the 1960s.

EDWARD S. AARONS – The Art Studio Murders. Macfadden 50-198, paperback, 1964; Manor, paperback, 1975. Originally published by Handi-Book, #122, as Dark Memory by Edward Ronns; Avon 688, paperback, 1950, also as by Edward Ronns but under the new title.

   First let me assure everyone out there that I don’t feel the least bit suicidal. But if I ever do, I know the perfect, fool-proof method: I shall simply call the Police, tell them I know who the Killer is, but I can’t name him over the phone — I must meet a Detective and tell him in person. Meeting arranged, I can simply sit back and relax, secure in the knowledge that when the cops get here, they will find me dead, bludgeoned from behind. Or fatally stabbed. Or perhaps shot. Maybe poisoned, a la The Big Sleep, but that’s rare. In any case, I shall be well & truly Dead.

   Works all the time in fiction. With metronomic regularity. So much so that when I came across it here, I had a flashback to High School and Julius Caesar:

   Well I couldn’t say off-hand, but I myself just couldn’t take any more. I closed Art Studio and picked up something else.

   Up to that point, it had been a perfectly serviceable mystery. Aspiring artist and babe-magnet Henry Dana gets pushed off a subway platform two days before his big show at a prestigious gallery. No one sees him get pushed, the police are inclined to disbelieve him, and he himself begins to have doubts, but a second attack… well you can write the rest yourself. Or read my copy, which has a rather nice cover.

   I just couldn’t get past that familiar phone call that always, invariably, repeatedly, inexorably, eternally, persistently, habitually, unceasingly, perpetually, unchangingly, endlessly, unfailingly, inalterably, everlastingly, and without exception, leads to the same end.