MICHAEL AVALLONE – Little Miss Murder. Signet T4616, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1971.

  For a while in his long career, Mike Avallone’s favorite PI, Ed Noon, did double duty as “the only private investigator in captivity who works for the Man” — the Man in the White House, that is, the President of the United States. Spy biz, that is. And this particular episode in Noon’s career was prompted (apparently) by Michael Avallone’s being so entirely captivated by the Mets’ Miracle Year of 1969 that he wrote the whole story around it.

  Microfilm inside a baseball, that is. With Noon a courier who is to pick it up from British(?) Intelligence(?) and pass it on to the CIA. All goes well, except that a nun is stabbed (and turns out to be a man), Noon is followed home on the expressway by a 70-year-old lady who drives like A. J .Foyt, and is kidnapped (along with lady friend Felicia Carr) by a gent with a face like a reassembled pudding.

  It all turns out well, of course, with the usual wheels within wheels that all good spy fiction is supposed to have, all of which could have been eliminated if someone had simply said, “This is dumb, why don’t we just do this instead.”

  No story, that’s why. Other than that, this is the story of a man who loves (and is loved by) two beautiful women at the same time, the other being Melissa Mercer, Noon’s long-time secretary (who is black), and wouldn’t you know it, when the two ladies finally meet, they become friends as well. Strictly a male fantasy, and if you happen to be female, you’re welcome to observe, but you’re not invited in.

   If you looked for a January column and couldn’t find one, the reason is very simple. There wasn’t any.

   Early in the morning of the day before Christmas I went into the hospital for something relatively minor and was told that I had suffered a silent heart attack and needed bypass surgery. As you can imagine, the news hit me like a ton of bricks. The operation was performed on January 3. I was told afterwards that I came very close to death. I was discharged from the hospital on the 16th of the month and since then have been recuperating at home. I’m getting stronger by the day but am still nowhere near 100%.

   Before my medical adventures began I had written much of what I thought would be my January column. A month later, here it is.

   It was more than half a century ago, either 1962 or 1963, an early Sunday morning around 1:00 or 1:30 A.M. I returned home from a date with the first love of my life to find my brothers still up and the TV tuned to the Late Show, or maybe the Late Late Show. The movie looked interesting so I sat down to watch the last 20 minutes. It was about a Nazi spy ring based in a Manhattan skyscraper.

   The spies are holding a young woman prisoner but she manages to get a message out. Feds raid the building. A couple of spies escape into a nearby movie theater. The gun battle with the Feds coincides with a gun battle on the screen. An unlucky moviegoer falls over dead. One spy gets out and into a cab and heads for the Battery, followed by the hero whom I recognized as Robert Cummings.

   They both wind up at the Statue of Liberty. The spy tries to escape again, crawls out onto one of the statue’s arms. Cummings reaches for him, grabs his coat sleeve. The spy starts to fall as Cummings tries to haul him in to safety. Then we get a close-up of the stitches at the shoulder of the spy’s jacket starting to give way. An unearthly scream. The End.

   Recognize the picture? It’s Hitchcock’s Saboteur, made in 1942, back when I was busy being a fetus, roughly twenty years before I caught the end of it on the small screen. Remember the name of the man who played the spy? It was a Broadway actor 27 or 28 years old named Norman Lloyd.

   Now let’s time-travel in both directions at once, forward ten years or so from when Hitchcock made that movie, back a decade or so from when I watched its climax. The year was 1952, or maybe ’53. My parents had recently bought their first TV set and already I was an addict. One Sunday afternoon I happened to be watching the cultural program Omnibus, which was running a made-for-TV movie in five (I think) weekly installments.

   The title was Mr. Lincoln. The voice of the actor playing young Abe was one of the most distinctive I’ve heard in my life: biblical, prophetic, patriarchal. At the end credits I learned his name: Royal Dano. An unusual name, easy to remember. (Trivia question: Anyone know who played Ann Rutledge? It was Joanne Woodward.) I don’t remember noticing who directed the film and the name wouldn’t have meant anything to me at age 9 but, as if you haven’t guessed, it was Norman Lloyd. A cut version is now available on DVD.

   Lloyd was born in 1914, when my parents were small children. His career began in the early 1930s with the left-wing Group Theater. Later he joined Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater and went to Hollywood with the company but returned to New York when the movie Welles was planning got cancelled. Had he stayed awhile longer, he would have had a part in Citizen Kane. As it was, his film debut was in Saboteur, and later he appeared in Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) and Chaplin’s Limelight (1952).

   His first television role was in one of the earliest TV dramas ever broadcast, an experimental program that dates back to 1939. In the late Fifties and early Sixties he served as associate producer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-62) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962-65). He also directed several episodes, usually based on short stories by John Collier, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Ellin, or literary figures like John Cheever and Philip Roth. But he never stopped being an actor, and among today’s audiences he’s perhaps best known for his role as Dr. Auschlander in St. Elsewhere (1982-88) and for playing opposite Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society (1989).

   I bet you thought I’d next give you the year of his death. I can’t. He’s still alive today. At age 102 he’s the oldest working actor in the U.S. and probably in the world. For 75 years he was married to the same woman, who died in 2011, the same year my own wife died. Until recently he played tennis, the game which was his passion for generations. In the 1950s he played regularly with Charlie Chaplin and usually beat him, mainly because Chaplin was too vain to wear his glasses and often lost sight of the ball. His memory remains sharp as ever, and the Internet is full of reminiscences of him by himself and others. If ever there was a person with an awesomely long life and creative career, it’s Norman Lloyd. In the first months of this new year, let’s celebrate him.

   I can’t guarantee a March column but my health is improving so nicely that it’s far more likely than not that there will be one. They may never see the column you’re now reading, but my deepest thanks to all the people — doctors, nurses, family, friends – who helped me through this crisis.

Intended to be the British response to the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds, the original version of this LP in 1968 was limited to only 100 copies:

Billy Nicholls – 1968 – Would You Believe

KEN KUHLKEN – The Loud Adios. St. Martin’s, hardcover, August 1991. Poisoned Pen Press, trade paperback, 2006.

   This was the winner of the 1990 PWA/St.Martin’s “Best First Private Eye Contest,” and let me tell you right away that at the price they’re asking [$16.95], it’s a bargain.

   Not many authors these days write hard, tough Black Mask fiction anymore — short, terse sentences that never pull a punch, and characters who never give an inch — and it’s always a pleasure to find one who does. This is it, guys, the real stuff.

   PI Tom Hickey is doing double duty for the Army as an MP watching the border between San Diego and Tijuana. The year is 1943, the war is on, and refugees and politics are on everyone’s minds. Then Hickey takes on a job for a solider about to ship overseas — to rescue a girl doing nude shows in a rundown bar south of the border. The guy claims she is his sister; to Hickey she looks like an angel on earth.

   What neither Hickey nor his client knows is that the stakes are much higher than this — there may or may not be a plot by Germans in Mexico to take over all of Baja California, there may or may not be a fortune in gold available for the taking.

   Unfortunately, the girl, Wendy Rose, is either all or in part mentally retarded, or she has been so badly traumatized that she does not know reality from fantasy, either of which makes a tougher job even worse.

   The title sounds like Chandler, on the back jacket is the inevitable quote from someone comparing Kuhlken to Chandler, and as usual, the Santa Ana winds are prominently mentioned, but to my mind, most of the book reminded me more of Dashiell Hammett, with a bit of Paul Cain thrown in. (Kuhlken, by the way, has written one other book, Midheaven, which according to the flap on the back of dust jacket, was nominated for a Hemingway Prize. He’s obviously got the right technique.)

   Unfortunately, there is a down side to all of this. I wouldn’t call the plot line as straight as a string, but in many ways it’s like a one-note samba, one that simply goes on too long. Until Wendy Rose is finally rescued, Hickey and her brother simply make one sortie across the border after the other, each time getting a bit more daring, bringing along additional reinforcements with each trip, and continuing on until the job is done.

   This takes over half the book. The remainder consists of gathering weaponry, forces and (most importantly) nerve, and then (but not till then) finally going back to finish the job — either making themselves rich, or saving America from a growing evil to the south. Or both, or neither — and that is something I simply shouldn’t tell you.

   This is more than mere quibbles, but even without my seeing the rest of the entries in the contest, I think the judges made the right choice. Even though he hasn’t made much of bis life so far, Tom Hickey is no loser in my book.

      The Tom Hickey series —

1. The Loud Adios (1991)
2. The Venus Deal (1993)

3. The Angel Gang (1994)
4. The Do-Re-Mi (2006)

5. The Vagabond Virgins (2008)
6. The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles (2010)
7. The Good Know Nothing (2014)

EDWARD MATHIS – From a High Place. Dan Roman #1. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1985. Ballantine, paperback; 1st printing, July 1987.

   Edward Mathis died at the relatively young age of 61 in 1988. He started late, but once he got going, he must have been a very fast writer, because four of the eight recorded cases of Texas PI Dan Roman must have gotten backed up at Scribner’s at the time of his death and were never published until two or three more years had gone by.

   From a High Place is the first of the series and the first I’ve read. In large part it’s a personal affair, since the man whose death he’s asked to investigate lived in Roman’s home town of Butler Wells. His widow was Roman’s high school teacher. The death has been written off as an accident, but since her husband had a severe case of acrophobia, she wonders what he was doing at the top of cliff he fell from.

   Revisiting his home town in many years also brings back many memories, almost all of them centered on the glory days of high school — good buddies, football, and the girl who introduced him to the delights of sex — one never-to-be-forgotten night only.

   Roman’s life has not been a happy since then. Both his wife and son have died, leaving him a loner, for example, and who could blame him for the moodiness that sometimes seems to swallow him up? Life in a small Texas town can also be a lot more complicated than an outsider could ever imagine, and this is depicted well.

   I think, though, that 278 pages (in the paperback edition) is a little too long for a case that should take a lot less time than that to tell. A little leaner story might have helped, in my opinion, but given how it all comes out, Mathis knew what he had in mind all along. As I say, it’s a moody, nostalgic kind of tale, and if that’s right up your alley, this is exactly the book for you.

      The Dan Roman series —

From a High Place (1985).

Dark Streaks and Empty Places (1986).
Natural Prey (1987).
Another Path, Another Dragon (1988).

The Burned Woman (1989).
Out of the Shadows (1990).

September Song (1991).
The Fifth Level (1992)

JOHN TOMERLIN – Return to Vikki. Gold Medal #900, paperback original; 1st printing, 1959.

   I’d better review this one quick before I forget it. It’s not bad, but somehow it’s not terribly memorable either.

   The plot lifts just a bit from Out of the Past (RKO, 1947) as Frank Selby, suburban husband, finds his 9-to-5 routine disrupted by a visit from an old “friend” who summons him back to his previous life as a meticulous planner of successful heists. And the borrowing continues as Frank finds he’s wanted by his previous employer, a sadistic and wealthy mega-crook with a legitimate “front” — for that iconic plot device: One Last Job.

   Out of the Past echoes keep resounding as we learn Frank’s old love Vikki is still hooked up with the bad guys, and before long Frank finds himself framed for murder and scrambling for the pieces of his old life, in between passionate clichés with Vikki and brutal run-ins with her new and very deadly beau.

   All of which makes Return to Vikki sound much worse than it is. In point of fact, it’s a tightly-written, fast-moving piece, with well-developed minor characters and a tense, timed-to-the-second caper told in gritty, real-sounding prose — the sort of thing you’d expect from Gold Medal, and a fun way to pass an hour or two.

   Don’t expect anything spectacular, but it’s pleasant to be reminded just how taut and enjoyable these two-bit paperbacks could be.

This group’s only LP, from 1968. From Wikipedia: “Debbie Harry went on to join The Stillettoes in 1974 and other bands until subsequently achieving success in 1976 fronting the new wave band Blondie.”

CRACK HOUSE. Cannon Films, 1989. Jim Brown, Anthony Geary, Richard Roundtree, Cher Butler, Angel Tompkins, Gregg Thomsen. Director: Michael Fischa.

   This one isn’t for the faint of heart. Although the story takes place in Los Angeles, there’s little sunlight – real or metaphorical – in this surprisingly gripping exploitation film about rival gangs and the urban crack epidemic that gripped the nation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The mood is somber, the performances better than one might expect, and the atmosphere is bleak. But make no mistake. Crack House is an exploitation film par excellence. It truly exploits the public’s dual fascination with how the other half lives and fears about the crack-related urban violence spreading out to suburban America.

   The plot is an essentially a Romeo and Juliet inspired love story set against the backdrop of an increasingly drug infested neighborhood. Rick (Gregg Thomsen), a Hispanic high school student who has recently quit a gang, is in love with Melissa (Cher Butler), one of the few – if only – white girls in the neighborhood. Their trouble really begins when Rick ends up in jail, having taken part in the very gangland violence he swore he had given up.

   That leaves Melissa at the mercy of local street toughs and dealers. Things go from bad to worse for her as she ups her social cocaine habit to crack addiction.

   Her spiral downward goes from bad to worse. She learns that one of her high school teachers (Anthony Geary) is involved in the crack trade. He is also a total sleaze and expects sexual favors from her.

   But the heart of the action in this movie revolves around two blaxploitation giants. Richard Roundtree portrays Lieutenant Johnson, a LAPD cop determined to break the backs of the crack dealers infesting his city. His nemesis is the aptly named Steadman (Jim Brown), a cruel brute SOB who makes Melissa a virtual captive in his crack house.

   If it weren’t for the presence of these two men who starred in many 1970s urban crime dramas, there’d honestly be no reason to watch Crack House. But with them in it, the movie actually does have something going for it. It is not fine cinema and it doesn’t have much artistic merit, but it hit all the buttons in terms of exploiting the public’s dual curiosity and revulsion when it came to the crack epidemic.

   
MINETTE WALTERS – The Ice-House. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1992; paperback, 1993. First published in the UK by Macmillan, hardcover, 1992.

   Minette Walters is an author new to me, and in 1992 at least, was new to everyone. I think her first novel is a most impressive debut.

   Set in Hampshire, the story begins with the discovery of a badly decomposed (and partially eaten) body in an abandoned ice-house at Stretch Manor. The Manor is no stranger to trouble — ten years ago its sadistic master vanished, and though the police believed his wife to have murdered him, were unable to make a case. Since then, she and two schooldays chums have lived there, ostracized by the villagers and the subject of devoutly believed rumors ranging from lesbianism to witchcraft.

   The police return to Stretch Manor in the person of Inspector Walsh, who investigated the original murder and still is convinced of the lady of the manor’s guilt, and Sergeant McLoughlin, a brooding Scot undergoing marital difficulties and a bout with the bottle. Questions: Is the body that of the missing husband, or someone else? Why have the three women locked themselves away in despised isolation for a decade?

   This is an excellently written book with very few flaws, and one of the best first novels I’ve read in recent memory. The characterization was outstanding for both major and minor players, with only a character shift or two that didn’t quite ring true. The almost Gothic-seeming plot had several unexpected twists, and never strained my credulity to excess.

   I don’t believe this has the makings of a series (though I’ve been wrong before), but you may be sure I’ll read Mrs. Walters’ next offering regardless. You should read this, and if you like it spread the word.

   
From Wikipedia:   “Her first full-length novel, The Ice House, was published in 1992. It took two and a half years to write and was rejected by numerous publishing houses until Maria Rejt, Macmillan Publishers, bought it for £1250. Within four months, it had won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey award for best first novel and had been snapped up by 11 foreign publishers. With her next two books, The Sculptress and The Scold’s Bridle, Walters won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award and the CWA Gold Dagger respectively, giving her a unique treble. She was the first crime/thriller writer to win three major prizes with her first three books.”

WHISTLING HILLS. Monogram, 1951. Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Ellison, Noel Neill, I. Stanford Jolley, Marshall Reed, Pamela Duncan. Director: Derwin Abrahams.

   There’s a little more plot than usual to this otherwise run-of-the-mill western, enough so that I decided it was worth talking about. It seems that the local stage is being held up on a regular basis by a gang of outlaws who always seem to know which pass it’s going through, and they go into action only on days when the strongbox is full.

   Key to their success is a rider dressed all in black who rides the crests of the surrounding hills and blows a whistle when it’s time for the bandits to go into action. The local sheriff (Jimmy Ellison) is stumped; he has no clue as to who the rider in black is.

   When Johnny Mack Brown comes to town looking for a horse that has been stolen from him (and finds both it and the fellow responsible), he stays on to help the sheriff, the owner of the stage line (I. Stanford Jolley), and his niece (a very petite Noel Neill). Problem is, although very much a good guy, Sheriff Dave Holland resents Johnny taking over the chase, and more: he really resents the fact that the niece seems to be making a play for Johnny.

   There is the usual amount of riding and shooting, and barroom fisticuffs, too, but the little bit of mystery adds to the story — not a detective story in reality, although it acts like one, since there’s no reason to suspect the guilty party ahead of time — unless, that is, you realize that there are only a limited number of suspects it could be.