STAR OF MIDNIGHT. RKO Radio Pictures. William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart. Director: Stephen Roberts.
In this case a suave lawyer must both solve a murder and find a missing leading lady. He’s aided in this by his determined young girl friend, who is equally determined to make the relationship permanent.
The plot is complicated, but the result is not much of a detective story, when it comes down to it. Powell, who is his usual urbane self, finds the killer, but only in cooperation with a police lieutenant whose aching feet nearly steal the show.
E. C. TUBB – The Space-Born. Ace Double D-193, paperback original; 1st printing, December 1956. Cover art by Ed Valigursky. Published back to back with The Man Who Japed, by Philip K. Dick (reviewed here). Equinox/Avon (SF Rediscovery, softcover, 1976.
One page is enough to fill in the background of a ship heading for the stars, containing 5000 people living out their lives within its confines, making a 32 light-year journey in something over 300 years. But in spite of the obvious closeness to journey’s end, Tubb manages to breathe some life into the characters, unaware of the crisis coming upon them.
The task of the ship’s Psycho-Police is to maintain the population at a constant level, with murder as the method at hand. Forty is the maximum age allowed. But positions of power lead to violations of that rule, as the instinct for survival bred into the ship’s inhabitants leads to restlessness, then corruption.
But the journey is ending; warnings to that effect are readily apparent to the reader. Thank goodness the builders of the ship were so prophetically wise in preparing for all contingencies.
A book easily forgotten, but one to get caught up on for a short while.
