It was well over a year ago that Victor Berch, Bill Pronzini and I put together our annotated bibliography of Dutton’s line of Guilt Edged hardcover mysteries, and luckily we haven’t had to make very many corrections.

   The Guilt Edged line lasted from 1947 to 1956, with the two most highly collectible authors in the group arguably being Mickey Spillane and Fredric Brown. There were lots of unknowns as well, but William Campbell Gault was a Guilt Edged author, and so were Lionel White, Stewart Sterling and Sam S. Taylor.

   If you know all of those names, congratulate yourself. If you know all but the last one, give yourself only half a pat on the back. It was in Sam S. Taylor’s entry in which we recently discovered that we were in error. According to all of the sources we consulted at the time, Taylor was supposed have died in 1958, soon after his last book. Not so, and I’ll get to the correct date in a minute.

   First, though, is Taylor’s complete entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, as it stood until a few weeks ago, slightly edited and expanded.

   TAYLOR, SAM(UEL) S. (1895-1958); see pseudonym Lehi Zane; Radio and film scriptwriter, short story writer. Series Character: Neal Cotten, in all titles.

       * Sleep No More. Dutton, hc, 1949. Signet 821, pb, 1950. Boardman, UK, 1951.
       * No Head for Her Pillow. Dutton, hc, 1952. Signet 1057, pb, 1953. Foulsham, UK, 1954.
       * So Cold, My Bed. Dutton, hc,1953. Signet 1247, pb, 1955. Foulsham, UK, 1955.

   ZANE, LEHI; pseudonym of Sam(uel) S. Taylor

       * Brenda. Gold Medal 264, pbo, 1952. Red Seal, UK, 1957.

   It turns out that both dates for Mr. Taylor were wrong. After reading our first efforts, one of his sons emailed me, stating that his father died in 1994, not 1958. This was enough to go on. Victor then did a search in Social Security records and came up with a Samuel S. Taylor who was born October 11, 1903 and died February 1994 in California.

   Having a ready-made excuse for compiling a compleat profile, we did, and here is the result. Jackets of the hardcovers in the Bill Pronzini collection provided the blurbs and other information. The paperback covers came from various other sources. I still can’t get to my own accumulation of books.

   First a photograph of Mr. Taylor, found on the back cover of his second book, along with a short biography underneath it:

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

   Sam S. Taylor, author of No Head for Her Pillow, is the author of one other mystery story, Sleep No More, published by E. P. Dutton & Company in 1949. Innumerable radio scripts, and a good many magazine stories round out a full writing career.

   Upon receiving a medical discharge from the U. S. Coast Guard in 1943, Mr. Taylor affiliated himself with the Army Signal Corps as expert consultant on training films, where he also wrote many scripts for Army posts.

   His personal interest in crime (from the observer’s seat) stems from that time when, as a member of the New York City special panel of jurors, he was called to serve on the famous Jimmy Hines case, prosecuted by Gov. Thomas E. Dewey.

   When Mr. Taylor first married his beautiful French Canadian bride, she spoke no English; Mr. Taylor now has a French accent after three years of marriage.

   Mr. Taylor makes his home in Tarzana, California, with his wife and baby.

      SLEEP NO MORE.

   From the hardcover front dust jacket flap:

   Delving into the private life of a luscious copper heiress, especially one with a tangle of soft red hair and a roving eye, was going to be a pleasure

   Or so thought Neal Cotten, head of the brand-new Cotten Bureau of Investigation. That was before a simple case of blackmail developed into a hunt for a desperate killer … a grim hunt that led from a luxurious mansion in Pacific Crest to a shoddy flop-house on Skid Row; from a remote ranch in Nevada to a crooked gambling house in Angel Gardens.

   The chase uncovered a secret rendezvous high up in Clearwater Canyon, a will with some startling changes, a fat bankbook hidden under a filmy negligee, a muscle-bound extra who didn’t go to Reno — and a handsome movie idol who played with fire once too often

   But none of it made sense. Not until Neal took Jennie, the Polish waitress, to see Madame Butterfly … and Jennie innocently gave him the lead that cracked the case wide open.

   A swift-paced tale of homicide and passion, of violence and corruption, set against the vivid background of Los Angeles, Sleep No More will be devoured by mystery fans in one breathless sitting.

      NO HEAD FOR HER PILLOW.

    From the hardcover front jacket flap:

   It may be an everyday occurrence among artists and art dealers to mutter vindictively, “Oh, I could kill him!” as it is among the brotherhood of almost any other business.

   No Head for Her Pillow has a couple of artists, an art dealer, some racketeers, some newspaper people, and Neal Cotten, director of the Cotten Bureau of Investigation and his own chief operative. It was a good thing for California art circles that Neal was hired by Colonel Millard Baldwin, publisher of the San Vincente Sun, to aid in the Sun‘s campaign against the slot-machine racket in the city.

   It happens that Col. Baldwin’s two daughters, Sharon and Diana, were on intimate terms with the others of the San Vicente art world, one being a painter, the other a sculptress. Diana, the sculptress, appeals mightily to Neal Cotten who sees her as a “king-size dame with a mass of sunset hair.”

   Investigations, of whatever kind, often lead to murder, as well as vice versa, and slot machines sometimes turn up more than merely lemons. The proof of these adages is offered, with dividends, in No Head for Her Pillow, a fast exciting mystery that is almost as tough as a forty-cent steak.

      SO COLD, MY BED.

    From the hardcover front jacket flap:

   Private eye Neal Cotten has a visit from a beautiful doll who commissions him to trace her aunt, an oldtime actress. Her story sounds phony but she pays cash so he takes the job. His first link to her whereabouts is a thug who offers to sell him information, but the deal is never closed. The thug is murdered.

   Neal stays with it and finds the old actress who spends most of her time in a specially made coffin. Then Neal gets a new client — the governor’s wife, no less, who thinks her stepdaughter is running in bad company. There is a link between the murdered thug and his pals, the beautiful client, the lady in the coffin and the governor’s family, but it is one murder and many near misses later that Neal gets the pitch and solves the case, with a night club singer in distress slowing up the process considerably.

   Sam Taylor is already known for his original and fast-paced mysteries through his earlier books Sleep No More and No Head For Her Pillow. His new one, So Cold, My Bed spells top entertainment for the mystery fan as it again features Neal Cotten, the hard-boiled but likeable private eye who has a way with the ladies and an affinity for easy money and screwy cases.

           BRENDA.

      From the front cover:

      Three wise men met Brenda — and joined the fools’ parade

      From the back cover:

                BRENDA

   There was the simple, pious valley town.

   And there was luscious, lustful Brenda.

   The hard-handed farmers knew work — and prayer.

   Brenda knew pleasure — and conquest.

   Tragedy rode on the wings of passion when good and evil clashed.

   Sam S. Taylor also published five criminous short stories in the early 50s:

       “Summer is a Bad Time” — Manhunt, October 1953.
       “A Clear Picture” — Manhunt, May 1954.
       “State Line” — Manhunt, September 1954.
       “The General Slept Here” — Manhunt, April 1955 (with Neal Cotten).
       “Dig It, Brother” — The Saint, May 1956.

  Hi Steve

   I’ve come to Mystery*File via Steve Holland’s Bear Alley and his mention of your recent entries about the British writer T. Arthur Plummer.

   You have a fascinating blog, with tons of material that interests me. For instance, I began reading Sexton Blake books when I was eight or nine, and I began my working life at Fleetway House as editor W. Howard (“Bill”) Baker’s junior assistant on the venerable detective series when Michael Moorcock left the company in 1961.

   Like yourself, I haunted my local public library’s grown-up section from a very young age, borrowing Saint books and the like on my dad’s library card. So, since this was in England, I was well aware of Plummer’s Frampton titles.

   These days I live in New Zealand and write for a UK genre fiction line published by Robert Hale Ltd — Black Horse Westerns. I also run a website at www.blackhorsewesterns.com . You might enjoy the article “Detectives in Cowboy Boots” in the March-May edition.   [I’ve read it, and I recommend it highly to everyone reading this.  –Steve]

   You’ve mentioned having a primary collecting interest in writers like Plummer and Andrew Spiller. Another I remember was Richard Goyne. They were regular fixtures on the Stanley Paul/John Long catalogues in the 1950s and later. Others were W. Murdoch Duncan and the now famous Ruth Rendell. A few years ago, I picked up a positively shocking sum of money for a first-edition copy of Rendell’s first book, From Doon With Death (1964) in “fine” condition. When I say the money was more than I can earn in three months of writing, I’m sure you’ll understand why I couldn’t say no to the offer.

   All the Paul crime authors were absorbed eventually into the Long list as part of a Hutchinson group rationalization. Yes, they did make such moves in the publishing industry even back then, though they might not have called it “rationalization”.

   Another writer from the Stanley Paul stable was T.C.H. Jacobs/Jacques Pendower, with whom I later had some dealings when editing westerns and the Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine in the 1960s. You can pick up on some of this in the “Detectives in Cowboy Boots” article.

   To continue with the blog comments made in connection with Plummer, I don’t think any of these writers of the past wrote to achieve immortality. I doubt whether the thought entered their heads. Money was one driver. Another was that writing fiction is for many something like a drug — you just can’t kick the habit.

   No way will I or my writing fellows of today achieve immortality, by the way. The print-runs for hardcover library fiction are even shorter than they were in Plummer’s time. After all, each copy is going to have a hundred or so readers in its lifetime. So don’t expect to find them on Abe or equivalent sites in 50 years’ time! My latest western, Misfit Lil Fights Back, was published on July 31. By August 17, the publisher’s warehouse was out of stock and the title was deleted from his online catalogue after just over two weeks of “life”. Reprints — other than in large-print editions, again for libraries — are unheard of. In some ways, this can be very dispiriting.

   I’ve heard from others besides yourself, Steve, that westerns in your country are nearly an extinct breed. “Except for the steady line of sexy westerns, which I don’t read,” you say. To look on the brighter side, Hollywood is going through one of its sporadic revivals of interest and there’s a lively new blog, the Saddlebums Western Review.  [A site that’s gotten off to a great start. I hope they can keep it up.   –Steve]

   I was interested in what you had to say about the “sexy” western lines, not because I sprinkle my work with gratuitous scenes — as some of the anonymous authors for those lines have done in the past — but because I do like to write a genuine adult story. This does sometimes cause problems. Conservative library-book publishers have their worries about “violence towards the women characters,” for instance.

   I take care to see that the sex/violence in my books is woven into the fabric of characterization and storyline. Also, observations on the morality, the beliefs and social behaviour of the times are based on careful research. Generally, I believe unfudged scenes are what an adult reader of fiction in 2007 expects to find. The old “show don’t tell” imperative is stronger than ever and very evident in successful books, movies and TV programmes.

   I understand that US publishers Five Star have lately put out the original, unexpurgated version of Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. One day I hope to obtain a copy and study the differences.

   I also found your blog entry on western writer L. P. Holmes. Your comments on the crime component in westerns are well put, and coincide with my — and many others’ — conclusions.   [This was in a review of Edge of the Desert, which he wrote as by Matt Stuart. Alas, my coverage of western/crime fiction has dwindled greatly since then.  –Steve]

   By all means use my email as a blog post if you think that fitting, though you’d be right in saying it’s off-the-cuff stuff. Short on startlingly new facts, for sure. I enjoy the reminiscing, but pleasant though it can be, it does cut into your more productive writing time. As I recently told another blogger, I try not to look back for “greatest satisfactions” in life. I’m sure that for me the notion the best lies somewhere in the past carries with it the danger of making me a melancholic. I look for satisfactions in the present and I’m content when I finish my latest book convinced that from one aspect or another it’s the best thing I’ve written.

   This is the second in a series of checklists compiled by Victor Berch of turn-of-last-century authors whose careers consisted largely of novelizing plays having varying degrees of criminous content. The first was Helen Burrell Gibson D’Apery, 1842-1915, who wrote as Olive Harper.

   The author of interest this time around is Grace Miller White, 1868-1957, who wrote an even longer list of such novelizations, as you’ll see in a moment, all within the very narrow time frame of 1901 to 1907.

   After 1907 either the market for such novelizations began to dry up or (equally possible) a severe case of fatigue on Ms. White’s part had set in. According to Al Hubin, she wrote four additional novels worthy of inclusion in his bibliography, Crime Fiction IV, as follows. (The dashes indicate marginal crime content.)

      -From the Valley of the Missing (n.) Watt 1911
      -When Tragedy Grins (n.) Watt 1912 [Paris]
      -The Ghost of Glen George (n.) Macaulay 1925
      The Square Mark [with H. L. Deakin] (n.) Dutton 1930 [Academia]

   At the moment, I know nothing more about Grace Miller White’s life. For a short account of the practice of novelizing plays, the introduction to Olive Harper’s entry will have to do for now. (Follow the link above.)

   In the checklist that follows, no dashes are included. By the time this information is incorporated into the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, such indications of lesser crime content will have been determined and included.

  Alone in the World (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

  Another Man’s Wife; or, The Life That Kills (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of 4 act play The Life That Kills, by Walter [W.] Fessler

  Because She Loved (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Reinhart

  Broadway After Dark (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud. of Owen Davis. Silent film: Warner Bros., 1924 (adapt.: Douglas Doty; dir.: Monte Bell)

  A Child of the Slums (Ogilvie,1904. pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by W Howell Poole and Henry Belmar

  The Child Wife (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Charles A[lonzo] Taylor or Hal Reid

  The Confessions of a Wife (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

  Convict 999 (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud. of Owen Davis

  Custer’s Last Fight (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid. Also contains two Sherlock Holmes stories by A. Conan Doyle.

  Dangers of a Working Girl (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Martin Hurley, pseud of Owen Davis. Originally titled Dealers in White Women.

  Deadwood Dick’s Last Shot (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

  Deserted at the Altar (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Pierce Kingsley

  Driven from Home (Ogilvie,1903, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Arnold Wolford (?) and Owen Davis

  Edna, the Pretty Typewriter (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud of Owen Davis

  Fallen by the Wayside; or, A Chorus Girl’s Luck (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud. of Owen Davis. Originally titled A Chorus Girl’s Luck in New York

  Fast Life in New York (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer

  From Rags to Riches (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Charles A[lonzo] Taylor

  From Tramp to Millionaire (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis. Originally titled The Power of Money; or, In the Clutches of the Trust

  The Great Express Robbery (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

  Her Mad Marriage (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Frank [Charles] Allen

  The Holy City (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Clarence Bennett

  The House of Mystery (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [Arthur] Langdon McCormick. Originally titled The House of Mystery and the Black Five

  How Hearts Are Broken (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [Arthur] Langdon McCormick

  Human Hearts (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid. Originally titled Human Hearts; or, Logan’s Luck

  Lights of Home (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Lottie Blair Parker

  Lured from Home (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid

  A Marked Woman (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis. Silent film: World Film Corp., 1914; (scw: Owen Davis; dir.: O. A. C. Lund) [China]

  A Midnight Marriage (Ogilvie,1903, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Walter [W.] Fessler

  Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis. Silent film: Goldwyn Pictures, 1924 (adapt. H. H. Van Loan; dir.: Emmett Flynn)

  No Wedding Bells for Her (Ogilvie,1903, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer

  The Peddler (Ogilvie,1903, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid

  A Prisoner of War (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer.

The Queen of the Cowboys (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Joseph B[yron] Totten

  Queen of the White Slaves (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 5 acts by Arthur J[ohn] Lamb

  A Race Across the Continent (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud. of Owen Davis

  Rachel Goldstein (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer

  A Ragged Hero (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Maurice J. Fielding

  A Royal Slave (Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Clarence Bennett

  Ruled Off the Turf (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by John Oliver, pseud. of Owen Davis

  Secrets of the Police (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis and Arthur J[ohn] Lamb [Paris, London, New York City]

  Shadows of a Great City (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Livingston Robert Shewell

  Since Nellie Went Away (Ogilvie,1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

  Sky Farm (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Edward E. Kidder

  The Street Singer (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid

  Two Little Sailor Boys (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Walter Howard

  Under the North Star (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Clarence Bennett

  The Vacant Chair (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Joseph B[yron] Totten

  The Warning Bell (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts

  Way Back in ’61(Ogilvie,1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Clarence Bennett

  Wedded, But No Wife (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Maurice J. Fielding and Conninghame Price

  When the World Sleeps (Ogilvie,1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [Arthur] Langdon McCormick and Lawrence Marston

  When Women Love (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Abraham A. Spitz

  Why Women Sin (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by William C. Murphy. Silent film: Wistaria Productions, 1920 (scw:Lloyd Lonergan; dir.: Burton King) [New Jersey]

  A Wife’s Secret (Ogilvie,1904, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid

   To tell you the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I don’t know how complete this entry actually is. The one book I own by Charles Westhill is not known to either Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, nor to www.bookfinder.com, the search engine that searches all of the various online venues where books are offered for sale. If you were to Google the title, you might still pick up the eBay dealer I purchased it from not too long ago, and nothing else.

   If the book I have by this author is unknown to anyone but me, how many others by him might there be, as yet undiscovered and equally unknown?

   An upcoming entry to the ongoing online Addenda CFIV will look like this, slightly expanded:

   WESTHILL, CHARLES
      Man-Bait. Digit (Brown-Watson) D.204, UK, pb, 1958. Setting: London.

      From the front cover:

      Story synopsis, from the back cover:

   Not so very helpful, right? A rather low-key approach, I’d say, in spite of rather lurid cover. Let’s open the book and try

      The first few paragraphs:

   Barson, as it turns out, is the author of Murder in the Morgue, fiction or non-fiction, it is not clear. Later on, still on the first page, he says:

   The tale Arty had told Mark Barson the night before was about a recent Exhibition Hall robbery in which the haul was worth over a million pounds. The one item the thieves really wanted was a white elephant made of ivory, reportedly with a map to a buried treasure hidden inside.

   Mark recalls to himself an uncle whom he’d never seen and a story about a white elephant and a treasure his family had been interested in years before. Now, on the morning after, the murder he’d read about in line one? It was his uncle who’d been killed.

   Are these enough clues to know where the story is going? You may take it from here.

[UPDATE]   Al Hubin says: “The book is in the British Library, but with no author date. And there’s no Charles Westhill listed in freebmd, which makes me wonder if it’s not a pseudonym.”

   My reply:  It’s more than likely you’re right. The book is copyright by Brown & Watson, the publisher, which is almost always a dead giveaway.

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN – Night Cover

Detective Book Club; reprint hardcover, three-in-one edition. First edition hardcover: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Paperback reprints: Berkley, January 1980; Perennial Library, 1984; Foul Play Press, September 1995.

   For those who are interested, there is a slew of information about Michael Z. Lewin on his website, located at www.michaelzlewin.com. The first of his novels that I remember reading was one of the first three cases tackled by his private eye character, Albert Samson. I enjoyed them, and maybe I read all three, but the particulars? Right now, I couldn’t tell you.

      Ask the Right Question. Putnam, 1971.
      The Way We Die Now. Putnam, 1973.   [Note: My review appears in the preceding post.]
      The Enemies Within. Knopf, 1974

   A gap of few years was filled in by the book I just read (1976), followed by five other Samson novels, with a hiatus of 13 years between the last two:

      The Silent Salesman. Knopf, 1978.
      Missing Woman. Knopf, 1981.
      Out of Season. Morrow, 1984.
      Called by a Panther. Mysterious Press, 1991.
      Eye Opener. Five Star, 2004.

   As for the aforementioned book in hand, it’s the first title in Lewin’s Lt. Roy (Leroy) Powder series:

      Night Cover. Knopf, 1976.
      Hard Line. Morrow, 1982.
      Late Payments. Morrow, 1986.

   In addition to his own series, however, Samson also makes a small but significant appearance in Night Cover. Al Hubin, in Crime Fiction IV, does not mention Samson as having any role in the other two books, so with no first-hand knowledge of my own, it may be safe to assume that he does not.

   But on the other hand, maybe not. Not only does (Mrs.) Adele Buffington, a probation officer, appear in Night Cover, but she has a solo adventure of her own:

      And Baby Will Fall. Morrow, 1988.

      And not only that, a description I found of this book suggests that in it Adele is Samson’s girl friend, which puts a totally different light on something I was going to mention when I got to the review itself. Now that I think about it, I will anyway, but in any case, some further investigation is going to be needed. What I would like to know is simple. Which series characters are in which books?    [See the UPDATE below.]

   All three are in Night Cover, that much I do know, but there is no doubt that this is Powder’s book. He’s the lieutenant in charge of the Indianapolis police squad’s night squad (Homicide and Robbery), and I confess that I had him pegged wrong from the start. Powder is loud and obnoxious, his private life is a mess (married but not divorced), bullies his subordinates with exactitude, and only occasionally does he allow a hint of solicitude to creep in. Tough love? Maybe. As for civilians, watch out. They’re on their own when they deal with him.

   I also pictured him as somewhat obese, with a sagging belly, caused by too many doughnuts from being out on the streets on too many cases on too many nights.

   And yet. He’s fit enough to be attracted to the aforementioned Adele Buffington, the probation officer for the missing teen-aged girl that Powder is (in desultory fashion) looking for. And (more importantly) she to him.

   You can credit author Michael Z. Lewin for this. Looking back over the first couple of chapters, I can find no reference to Powder’s outward appearance. We learn about him only through what he says and what he does. Which is plenty. Up close and personal – but no physical description.

   In this book he meets private eye Albert Samson for the first time, and they definitely do not get along. If – and this is a big if – if Adele is Samson’s girl friend at the time – it is not so revealed, so I could easily be way out on a limb here, even in bringing it up – it puts a completely different slant on their later interactions, Samson, Powder and Adele. A twist in the plot that only those in the know would know about, if indeed there is anything to know.

   But surely I digress. When a Mao-quoting teen-aged boy comes in with a complaint about his teacher and his (questionable) grading policies, Powder indulges him (surprisingly) for a while. When the boy mentions a girl he knows who seems to have disappeared, Powder asks around and shunts him off to Samson.

   As a police procedural, which is what Night Cover is, there are a small multitude of other cases to be investigated and solved. Powder’s intuition on cases far exceeds those who work under him, to his great disappointment and frustration. Besides the missing girl, a sequence of murders suggests a copy-cat killer at work, requiring a vigorous search through back records to uncover patterns before the culprit(s) is/are nabbed.

   There are parts of this tale which are amusing, if not at times laugh-out-loud funny. Lewin has a knack for understated humor, a wry look at the world that you should experience for yourself. But there’s a serious side of the story as well. As Powder’s life story becomes more and more clear, he finds himself looking at himself and his career with a greater intensity than he ever has before.

   Being able to keep track of series characters in their daily life as they go from book to book is rather common in mystery fiction published today. Watching one change before one’s eyes from the beginning of one book to the end is not so common, neither now nor thirty years ago, when this book was first written.

[UPDATE] November 2005.    I forwarded the review to Mr. Lewin, and received the following replies, interrupted by a question from me:

    “Thanks for letting me know about the review you did of Night Cover, and for paying attention to such a venerable volume.

    “As for your questions, Powder was not in the first three Samson books, but he has appeared in the five later Samson books including the current one, Eye Opener (Five Star, 2004).

    “Adele appeared in Samson’s first seven novels as his woman friend – so she was in her relationship with Samson during Night Cover. I doubt I mentioned it. That was her issue and the book was Powder’s.

    “In the new book Adele appears, but she is no longer Samson’s amour. She also had her own book, And Baby Will Fall (Child Proof in the UK). I think Samson was in that; Powder may have been mentioned.

    “The subsequent Powder novels have included Samson but not, as far as I recall, Adele. Powder has also appeared in another Indianapolis novel, Underdog (Mysterious Press, 1993), and two short stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine – “Night Shift” and “911.” The latter was earlier this year.

    “Mind you, I haven’t exactly read the books lately, so if I’ve gotten details wrong here and there, I won’t faint.”

    “As I said earlier, Adele was Samson’s woman friend from the beginning and through the first seven novels. Your concern is that she got close to Powder briefly. Well, Samson might have been upset, at least for a while, if he’d ever known about it, but she would never have told him, and neither would Powder. Adele’s subsequent relationship with and affection for Samson was unchanged; how she handled it or justified it was her business.

    “I might have gone into that more if I’d ever written more books about her but, for various reasons, that didn’t happen and is unlikely to happen now. Depending, of course, on the size of the check you’re offering me to write them. I think it would have to be pretty large…”

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN – The Way We Die Now.

Putnam’s, hardcover, 1973. Paperback reprints: Berkley, 1979; Harper Perennial, 1984; Mysterious Press, June 1991.

   Albert Samson is a rather sensitive soul to be a private detective. Not only that, but the only reason that he gets this case is because he’s the cheapest one listed in the Indianapolis telephone directory.

   No wisecracks, please. The key word here is “sensitive”, not “cheap,” and Indianapolis has enough crimes and other divorce work to keep more than a couple of private eyes on the street. This isn’t a divorce case, however. A troubled Viet Nam veteran with a history of psychiatric treatment is in jail, accused of murder. Samson, hired in quiet desperation by the man’s wife, has only one question: With his past record, why was this innocent Childe Ralph hired as an armed guard?

   I liked the homey Midwestern atmosphere, and I liked Albert Samson. However, it seems only fair to point out that his slow, casual approach to the investigation can be awfully frustrating to a reader who has a lot of unanswered questions. Still, it’s the police who are guilty of taking the simple explanation, while Samson’s appraisal of Ralph Tomanek as one of the children of the world convinces both himself and the reader very early on that the job he took as a watchman was but a part of a much broader scheme.

   In short, good characters nicely scaled down to earth, in a plot stretched precariously thin.    [B minus]

  [UPDATE] 09-10-07. I didn’t happen to mention that this was Samson’s second case, the first being Ask the Right Question (Putnam’s, 1971), which was also Lewin’s first mystery novel. Reading through the review right now, almost thirty years later, I can’t say that the story comes back to me any more than what’s there and with no more insight than you can gather for yourself. The phrase “homey Midwestern atmosphere” evokes more feeling in me than any of the specific details. That must mean something, I’ve been telling myself, and I’m sure it does.

   I’ll have more to say about the author, Michael Z. Lewin, in a review I wrote much more recently. If you don’t see it here next, it’ll show up soon.

    Mr. Dixon has but one title to his credit in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. His entry, as it presently stands, is as follows:

   DIXON, J. EARLE
       Killers in the Sun (London: Abelard-Schuman, 1960, hc) [Spain] Abelard-Schuman (New York), 1961.

   The book was published as part of Abelard-Schuman’s largely unknown and vastly under-rated “Raven Book” line of mysteries. You should be able to pick out the logo on the lower right portion of the front cover — that of a raven standing (and pecking) on a human skull.

   Story synopsis, from inside the front cover:

   If you couldn’t quite tell, or if you really weren’t sure, telling the story is Earle Dixon himself, a brash young insurance investigator from Sydney, which in essence qualifies him as a Private Eye in almost anyone’s book. That the author and the main character are one and the same makes one wonder about the author — a pen name?

   Author information, from inside the back cover:

   Unfortunately, so far as I’ve been able to discover, he hasn’t, neither one, or at least not under that name. As usual, more information, if you have it, would be welcome.

   I am always fascinated by the credited (as well as the uncredited) work of interesting genre authors for television: not, generally, that it really signifies anything very much, but there is considerable satisfaction to be drawn from recognising, or kidding oneself that one recognises, the hand of a favourite author in some otherwise unremarkable small screen work.

   Rather sadly, not too many such opportunities present themselves these days.

   David Goodis is an interesting case in point: while his novels and his source-as-screenplays are duly honoured in their respective quarters (read, viewed, reviewed), his admittedly slim trail of TV credits have been all but forgotten.

   Thank you, Mr. Nevins, for your astute observations once again (the Bourbon Street Beat segment). (I am still indebted to you for your enlightening article ‘Cornell Woolrich on the Small Screen’ in The Armchair Detective of Spring 1984.)

   The earliest Goodis television credit that I’ve been able to unearth belongs to the live anthology series Sure As Fate (CBS, 1950-51), which staged ‘Nightfall’ in September 1950, adapted by Max Ehrlich and directed by Yul Brynner in his days as a studio director with CBS-TV. John McQuade featured as the young artist on the lam from both gangsters and police. A version of ‘Nightfall’ was also presented by (Westinghouse) Studio One in the following year (July 1951).

   Edmond O’Brien and Maria Riva featured in ‘Ceylon Treasure’, adapted by Irwin Lewis from a Goodis story for Lux Video Theatre in January 1952. This was a Far East adventure yarn in which treasure hunter O’Brien tries to keep safe a fabulous sapphire against the larcenous efforts of Riva and her cohorts. Adapted from the 1953 short story “The Blue Sweetheart”, I believe.

   In January 1956, Lux presented their version of Warner’s 1947 The Unfaithful, featuring Jan Sterling and Hugh Beaumont in a noirish tale of murder and infidelity. Benjamin Simcoe adapted the Goodis-James Gunn story and screenplay for the hour-long play.

   The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (CBS/NBC, 1962-65) was one of the most effective chiller-suspense anthologies of its period, and it seems fitting that Goodis developed for the series the teleplay ‘An Out for Oscar’ from Henry Kane’s story My Darlin’ Evangeline (Dell, 1961). Telecast in April 1963, the multi-twist story has Larry Storch’s bank clerk being set up as the fall guy by his unfaithful wife (Linda Christian) and her killer boyfriend (Henry Silva) in a turnaround heist thriller.

   An anthology package of more recent years, the superbly dark and diverting Fallen Angels (Showtime, 1993; 1995), presented the 1953 Goodis short story ‘The Professional Man’ (1995), with Brendan Fraser as a hit man with a conscience. Teleplay veteran Howard Rodman (Naked City, Harry-O) adapted the half-hour episode for director Steven Soderbergh.

   By happy coincidence, another favourite from the past, W.R. Burnett, whose novel Dr. Socrates has recently been revived by O’Bryan House. It may therefore be of interest to overview the TV work of Burnett, another original whose credits cropped up on the small screen, albeit intermittently, between 1950 and 1967, but whose name as screen value seems now to have faded from view.

   Following adaptations of his works, by others, for the anthology series Danger (with ‘Dressing Up’ in October 1950) and Studio One (‘Little Man, Big World’ in October 1952, from teleplay by Reginald Rose), Burnett supplied two notable teleplays for episodic series in 1960. The first was ‘The Big Squeeze’ (February 1960; co-scripted with Robert C. Dennis from Dennis’s story) for The Untouchables, an exciting hour with Dan O’Herlihy as a bank robbery mastermind (of almost Dillinger dimensions) capable of outwitting Robert Stack’s Eliot Ness at almost every turn.

   The second teleplay, ‘Debt of Honor’ (November 1960) for the excellent Naked City series, was a moody, sensitive piece about gambler Steve Cochran repaying an old debt to a man in Italy by marrying the man’s daughter so that she can enter the U.S.

   The following work was skipped from the above chronology because, while sharing Mr. Nevins’s dread of the Warner Brothers TV ‘sausage factory’ of the day, one still wonders what was made of the race-track thriller ‘Thanks for Tomorrow’ (October 1959) for 77 Sunset Strip. With a teleplay adapted by William L. Stuart — whose own 1948 Night Cry was turned into the memorable Where the Sidewalk Ends in 1950 by Preminger — from (and I’m not certain here) Burnett’s Tomorrow’s Another Day (1946), there just may be a little of something left to savor.

   In 1961, MGM used the title of their 1950 Burnett/John Huston movie, The Asphalt Jungle, for a short-lived police detective series which, while fairly interesting in itself, bore absolutely no relation to the taut caper feature. Burnett was credited (with Paul Monash) for the screenplay of the European-released ‘feature’, The Lawbreakers (1961), an extended version of the series’ second episode (‘The Lady and the Lawyer’).

   His non-crime genre work for television included John Ford’s 1955 baseball drama ‘Rookie of the Year’ (story only) for Screen Directors Playhouse, ‘Manhunt’ (1965) for The Legend of Jesse James, ‘The Hellcats’ (1967), a pilot episode co-scripted with Tony Barrett about barnstorming flyers in the 1920s, and ‘The Fortress’ (1967) episode of The Virginian series (co-story with Sy Salkowitz), focusing on a Canadian border manhunt.

   Earlier talents and their moments of television (and cinema) remain, unfortunately, much in need of discovery.

HUGH CLEVELY – The Case of the Criminal’s Daughter

Sexton Blake Library #323; The Amalgamated Press. Paperback. No date given.

   As it says, this slim (if not flimsy) 64-page digest-sized paperback comes with no bibliographic information, but luckily for those with Internet access, help is just a few keystrokes away. There is a website devoted to all things Sexton Blakian, and where the link will take you, you will discover that this is #323 of the Third Series of the Sexton Blake Library. The stories appeared monthly; this is the one that came out in November, 1954. And the illustrator responsible for the cover art was none other than Reginald (Heade) Webb.

   This being only the first Sexton Blake novel I’ve read in some 20 years, and the second overall, there’s no way I will talk in any general way about the character, nor should I, except to say that he, Sexton Blake, appeared as a character in over 3000 stories written by some 200 authors over a period of well over a century.

   As for Hugh Clevely, well, first of all, he was one of the 200 authors who wrote stories about Sexton Blake, but of course you knew that, or you should have. According to Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, however, he only wrote 10 other Sexton Blakes, at least in novel form. His overall writing career spanned the years from 1928 to 1955 and includes a list of 35 novels under his own name, one co-written with Edgar Jepson. Only four of these novels have been published in the US.

   As Tod Claymore, he wrote another eight mysteries, all with a series character named Tod Claymore. According to W. O. G. Lofts and Derek Adley’s website The Crime Fighters, “He [Claymore] had been a Wimbledon tennis player and a wing commander during the war, then switched to writing, with detection as a hobby.” Some of these books were imported or published in this country as Penguin paperbacks, the green ones.

   Returning to the books Clevely wrote under his own name, the series characters that appeared in them were Chief Inspector Williams, Maxwell Archer, J. D. Peters, and John Martinson. According to a New York Times review of a film based on one of the Maxwell Archer books, the latter was a “famed fictional private detective whose greatest pleasure in life is to second guess Scotland Yard…” The occupations of the other series characters remain either unknown or quite guessable.

   So Clevely was an experienced mystery writer when he started doing the Sexton Blake books, which were all written toward the end of his career. All eleven of them appeared in the four-year period from1952 to 1955. Does the experience show? It does and as the saying goes, it doesn’t.

   The plot of the case in point, that is to say the book in hand, is a complicated one, and the pace is a lively one, but there’s a considerable amount of what is generically called sloppiness in the details, making you wonder if it were written too fast for a market that didn’t offer very much in compensation.

   The criminal in the title is a circus performer (billed as The Great Costello) who once spent some time in jail, but who now is worth a considerable amount of legitimate money. His brother is a ne’er-do-well who is currently in a jam with some British style hoodlums. Add in the fact that Pat Costello, the acrobat, does not know he has an American daughter, but after his death by misadventure – deliberate – the fact of her existence – and that she is on a schoolgirls’ trip in Europe – means a lot to everyone who’s involved. There is also a not-so-small matter of some missing diamonds, and there (without going into further details) you have the basis for a decent if not overly rousing mystery for private enquiry agent Sexton Blake, his assistant Tinker, and Inspector Fosdyke to solve.

   The details that the author works into the story, a rather pulp-like yarn, help to make the story more of a something than it is, along with a few twists in the tale that I frankly didn’t see coming. It was more than enough for me to start searching out more of the entries in Sexton Blake’s long history, but –

   – some of the details don’t fit, or they clash with other ones. The conversation that Blake has with newspaper journalist Peter Grayson on page 26, for example, makes it seem that he had never heard of the girl Josie Benson before, whereas on page 23 the same two gentleman had a long conversation about the very same girl, and what Grayson should do to contrive to meet her. On page 53 Grayson and the girl are being held captive in a Martello Tower, he in a handcuff that severely restricts his range of motion – yes, that’s the kind of thriller this is – but the handcuff is never mentioned again, nor is there any restriction on his range of motion, when it comes time to attempt an escape.

   And yes, of course, such a point in time does come, and not too soon at that.

GILBERT CHESTER – The Man Who Wouldn’t Quit.

Sexton Blake Library #74; Amalgamated Press. Paperback. No date stated.

   Once again the Sexton Blake website comes galloping to the rescue. This is #74 of the Third Series, published in June, 1944. The date being in the midst of World War II, and by some reckoning among the darkest days of the war, I wondered how scarce this book (thin, digest-sized, but 100 pages long) might be. I was right. There are no other copies to be found anywhere on the Internet, and while I do apologize, mine’s not for sale.

   Gilbert Chester was the pseudonym of one H. H. Clifford Gibbons (1888-1958), whose total criminous output totaled approximately 100 novels, all but a handful of them Sexton Blakes, either anonymously or under his pen name, beginning in 1923 and continuing on through 1949.

   And if I knew more, I’d tell you, but I don’t, so I’ll get right to the story this time. And what a great first chapter this story has! It’s one that’s designed to grab the reader right in from the start, or maybe I’m just a sucker for stories taking place on trains, beginning with a frightened girl who enters Fenton’s compartment just as the train is leaving the station. She hurriedly tells him that she’s going to bale out before the next stop and furthermore requests that if he’s ever asked, he should say that never saw her.

   From page 4:

       “Forget you’ve ever seen me.”

       “I’m not the type to quit, I assure you.”

       “Then you’re asking for trouble, sure enough. Well, are you going to play up?”

   She jumps, and so (without much hesitation) does he. And of course he has no idea where they are or into what kind of trouble he’s leapt into.

   Chapter Two can hardly compete with this, but it nearly does. Dropped off by the mysterious girl at Professor Barton’s home (where he had been heading) after a short hike and a longish drive in the dark, Fenton (a research scientist) is surprised to find himself in the morning a prisoner, with another young girl holding the key to his cell-like room.

   Chapter Three. We have nearly forgotten about Sexton Blake by this time, speaking collectively for myself alone, but the author hadn’t. Another young lady calls on Blake to solve a problem for her – her bungalow is being tampered with. Someone has been entering and prowling about while she is away. By an invisible man, she claims. No one has seen anyone enter or leave.

   It seems like a minor problem, but Blake takes the case, thinking her recitation too theatrical and wondering what could be behind such a fanciful tale. And of course, there is a surprise in store, and not only to Sexton Blake. On page 22 they discover a body in her locked and sealed home, riddled with lead – the body, that is.

   If some care had been taken, this could have been quite a mystery to unravel, but Blake makes it look easy. With only a cursory examination, Blake suggests a solution – and a rather ingenious one – to Inspector Briggan after he shows up, and of course Blake’s right and I have no idea how he did it. But it certainly is ingenious.

   In any case, no more details from me. You will have a find a copy of this book for yourself, if you’d like to know more. Suffice it to say that the opening three chapters are the best, but Chester certainly makes a more than competent story out of the rest of it.

   Some additional comments, though: Chapter Six is a long, ten-page conversation between two of the characters (already alluded to) which manages to both be informative and entertaining and moves the plot along while at the same time not being a mere recitation of topics and events that each of the two participants already know. It’s a neat trick, if you (as an author) can do it. Try it sometime and see.

   The weakest links in the chain of the narrative are (I sadly acknowledge) Sexton Blake’s own deductions, which consist almost entirely of whole cloth and gauze and mirrors, which is (I also admit) one heck of a way to run a railroad, um, detective novel. The gaps could have been fixed, but it is entirely to Mr. Chester’s credit that the story is still is as enjoyable as it is, even if they weren’t, and they never will be.

   Apparently it’s been common knowledge to Sexton Blake fans and collectors for some time now, but I didn’t know it until yesterday, and I don’t think that most Gold Medal collectors in this country do either.

   What seems to have happened back in 1956 or 1957 is that three Gold Medal books were published by Amalgamated Press, the folks who published the Sexton Blake books at the time, and had them rewritten to become, you guessed it, adventures of Sexton Blake instead.

   For the full story, you can go here, but here’s a brief recap. The three Gold Medal books were the following:

The Crimson Frame, by Aylwin Lee Martin, Gold Medal 253, pbo, August 1952.

Fear Comes Calling, by Aylwin Lee Martin, Gold Medal 214, pbo, 1952.

Little Sister, by Lee Roberts (Robert Martin), Gold Medal 229, pbo, March 1952. (The cover shown is that of the Canadian printing.)

   A fellow named Arthur Maclean was the chap who was asked to do the conversion, which was not a very easy job, as he describes it. (“Maclean” was actually a writer named George Paul Mann, which is another tale altogether, one told in the comments in this earlier post. But I digress.) Changing the hero’s name was the least of it. Locales had to changed, Blake’s assistant Tinker had to be written in, and if Amalgamated thought they were saving either time or money, they were sadly mistaken, and they never tried such a short cut again.

   For the record, also included in Part 18 of the online Addenda for the Revised Crime Fiction IV, here are the adventures of Sexton Blake that each of the above were transformed into:

The Crimson Frame ==> Deadline for Danger, by Arthur Maclean (George Paul Mann), 4th series #380, April 1957.

Fear Comes Calling ==> Roadhouse Girl, by Desmond Reid (George Paul Mann), 4th series #386, July 1957.

Little Sister ==> Victim Unknown, by Desmond Reid (George Paul Mann), 4th series, #384, June 1957.

   Collectors of hard-boiled Gold Medal paperbacks who think they have them all may have another think coming. For them and everyone else, for that matter, tracking down copies of each of two versions and comparing them might provide a thesis for someone – or who knows? – a doctoral dissertation. (Probably not, but I’ll leave the suggestion on the table for anyone who wants it.)