BARBARA D’AMATO – Hard Women. Cat Marsala #4. Charles Scribner’s, hardcover, 1993. Worldwide Mystery, paperback, 1994.

   This is the fourth of D’Amato’s novels about Chicago freelance journalist Cat Marsala. In previous books she has dealt with the lifestyle of the rich, the world of drugs, and organized lotteries; here she delves into the world of prostitution. As usual, she finds more than she likes or is safe for her.

   Cat has her first television assignment, a short piece on prostitution. A group of Chicago’s city fathers known as the Sinless Seven are making a push to rid the city of streetwalkers, and a local tv station thinks that this is a good time to feature a story on such. Though apprehensive, Cat is glad of the chance, and hits the courtrooms and streets in search of material. A young call girl whom she has interviewed shows up at her apartment, battered, and Cat takes her in for a few days. Then, the girl is found dead on the street in front, murdered.

   D’Amato is a good writer. She manages to pack a wealth of information about prostitutes and their sad, murky world into the story without slowing t down. But then, the story is as much about that world as is a murder mystery. The finding of the killer isn’t exactly an afterthought, but to me it clearly wasn’t as important to D’Amato as what she had to say about prostitution.

   I don’t care much for Cat Marsala as a person. Her attitudes are simply too different from mine for much empathy. It speaks well for D’Amato’s skill at characterization that she came enough alive for me to say that, but it’s hard for me to fully enjoy a book when I can’t like the lead character. Try it, though — if you can like Cat, you’ve got a winner.

      The Cat Marsala series —

1. Hardball (1989)
2. Hard Tack (1991)
3. Hard Luck (1992)
4. Hard Women (1993)
5. Hard Case (1994)
6. Hard Christmas (1995)
7. Hard Bargain (1997)
8. Hard Evidence (1997)
9. Hard Road (2001)

From Wikipedia: “Haymarket Square was a Chicago-based psychedelic rock band in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their [only] album, Magic Lantern, released in 1968, was pressed in an edition of 80 to 100 copies.” Gloria Lambert is the lead vocalist:

JOHN SHANNON – The Concrete River. John Brown Books, hardcover, 1996. Berkley, paperback, February 1998.

   What this book is, or rather what it is not, is your grandfather’s traditional PI novel. One blurb on the back cover makes a comparison to Raymond Chandler. The setting is Los Angeles, true enough, and the comparison is not badly made, but the setting has been updated to modern-day LA (as of twenty years ago, that is), and it is Raymond Chandler as filtered more through Robert Altman’s version than any slavishly imitated copy of Mr. Chandler himself.

   The PI in question, for which this is his first recorded case, is Jack Liffey, a Viet Nam veteran and currently an out of work technical writer, a father of one, but now divorced and far behind on his alimony payments. To supplement his income he has discovered a knack for finding missing children.

   In this case, however, the woman he is asked to find is the Mexican-American mother of a boy he found several months before. He’s asked on the job too late, however. Her body is found washed up in Long Beach; suspicion is that she was dumped into the Los Angeles River somewhere a lot closer to home, and the river did the rest.

   The fact that she was working on behalf a community activist group fighting the conversion of an abandoned rubber plant into an opera house — an amenity for the rich, not the people who live in the area — is the only lead Liffey has to go on. But still. Murder on behalf of an opera house? No. There is more to the story than that, as Liffey soon painfully discovers.

   Shannon’s view of L.A. is near apocalyptic. The city is running on fumes, with rotten infrastructure and bizarre traffic incidents consistently occurring as Liffey makes his way around town in hunt of a wider truth, a search for morality, if you will. His budding romance with an ex-nun also takes up a good portion of the book, which naturally will slow things down for the reader who expects only a pulp fiction mentality on just another PI tale.

   Which, to repeat myself, most definitely The Concrete River is not. One quote may may be enough to tell you whether or not this is a series meant for you:

   In case you were wondering, though, and you’re looking for more, there is a scene later on that shows that when he needs to be, Jack Liffey is also as hard-boiled as they come. Guaranteed.

      The Jack Liffey series —

1. The Concrete River (1996)
2. The Cracked Earth (1999)

3. The Poison Sky (2000)
4. The Orange Curtain (2001)
5. Streets on Fire (2002)
6. City of Strangers (2003)

7. Terminal Island (2004)
8. Dangerous Games (2005)
9. The Dark Streets (2006)
10. The Devils of Bakersfield (2008)

11. Palos Verdes Blue (2009)
12. On The Nickel (2010)
13. A Little Too Much (2010)
14. Chinese Beverly Hills (2014)

DEATH CURSE OF TARTU. Thunderbird International Pictures, 1966. Fred Piñero, Babbette Sherrill, Bill Marcus, Mayra Gómez. Screenwriter-director: William Grefe.

   To say that Death Curse of Tartu was made outside the Hollywood system is an understatement. Not only was this low budget horror film made outside of Hollywood, it was made way outside the State of California. This isn’t a West Coast production or even an independent New York film. This is a Florida production through and through.

   The product of cult film writer-director William Grefe, Death Curse of Tartu is the type of movie specifically tailored for the drive-in impresario attempting to bring in a swath of teenage spectators.

   Filmed in the Florida Everglades, this cheap production features a cast of relative unknowns, some of whom are far better actors than the others. It’s the type of movie that is valuable for the independent spirit behind it rather than for the admittedly low-rent finished product.

   The plot? It’s easily summed up in one sentence. A group of archaeology students and their teacher travel deep in the Everglades, disturb the sacred burial ground of a witch doctor (that would be Tartu), and suffer the consequences for their sacrilegious foolishness.

   If you turned on the movie in the middle, though, you wouldn’t have the faintest idea that these teenagers were being attacked by an Indian witch doctor. That’s because Tartu is able to take the form of wild animals. Pretty creative. Also, it was a great way to save money on special effects and make up.

   But I shouldn’t be so hard on Death Curse of Tartu. There’s spunk in it and some genuine heart behind it, and you do finally get to see Tartu in action. It’s just that there’s a lot of dead time (pun intended) where not much at all happens. And the soundtrack — if it could be called that — is about the most mind-numbing, repetitive thing I’ve encountered lately.

The lead singer for this California-based blues rock group was Lynn Carey, daughter of actor Macdonald Carey. Preserve Wildlife was released in 1972:

FRANCES NOYES HART – Hide in the Dark. Doubleday Doran & Co., hardcover, 1929.

   Somewhere in Maryland is Lady Court, an old manor house long uninhabited except for the possible ghost of a murderer. On All-Hallows Eve, 1928, the March Hares — four people born in March and claiming to be mad, in s good sense — hold a gathering of spouses and friends to become acquainted and be reacquainted. There are thirteen altogether, a fitting number, if you don’t count the ghost and the memory of another March Hare who had committed suicide on the grounds ten years earlier.

   Lots of undertones and overtones here as early-day jet-setters — I guess they are ocean-liner-setters — mingle with the not so successful, the jealous, the emotionally deprived. And then, after the apple bobbing, comes the game called “Hide in the Dark” and murder. All the people in the house had access to the means, most had the opportunity, and many had a motive.

   While I didn’t particularly appreciate most of the involved chitchat at the beginning — the list of characters that was provided came in handy here — when the murder occurs, the novel became quite gripping. Forgive the slow beginning; it’s worth struggling through it for the rest of the book.

HOWARD RIGSBY – The Lone Gun. Gold Medal #542, paperback original; 1st printing, December 1955. Reprinted several times, including Gold Medal T2641, no date stated (1972).

   I believe but I am not sure that Howard Rigsby wrote more mysteries and crime fiction than he did westerns, but many of each category were done for Gold Medal, including a number published as by Vechel Howard. This one’s a western, but with a slight change of authorial intent, it could be a detective novel as well. It’s certainly a work of crime fiction.

   Murdered by an unknown hand is Mr. Dave Tilton, wealthy but aging cattle rancher just returned from taking a herd to market. Since it’s Sunday when they get back, he refuses to pay off the cowboys working for him until the next day. During the night, however, he is shot and killed, and his money belt is gone.

   Blamed by a crooked sheriff is Brooks Cameron, the son of a man who fought for the Confederacy, a fact which still has enough stigma to make him a very convenient scapegoat. The only way to clear his name — and to win the hand of Mary Silk, the preacher’s daughter — is to escape from jail, go on the run, and find the real killer.

   Rigsby knew the West well, and he describes it in very fine fashion. But too much of the book consists of nothing more than Brooks riding through the hills alone (note the book’s title) dodging first a determined posse and then an even more determined bounty hunter. This is enjoyable for a while, but unfortunately, one begins to wish for something to happen.

   When it does, the conclusion is both (1) not surprising and (2) far too late.

For Sale was this Houston-based psychedelic rock band’s fourth album, released in 1970:

JEWEL ROBBERY. Warner Brothers, 1932. William Powell, Kay Francis, Helen Vinson, Hardie Albright, Alan Mowbray, Andre Luguet, Henry Kolker. Director: William Dieterle. Shown at Cinefest #14, Syracuse NY, March 1994.

   The two leading stars of Jewel Robbery, aided a more than capable supporting cast, exhibited the qualities of charm, wit and style in the story of a bored society wife (Francis) who is attracted to a polished crook (Powell). He pulls off an elaborately staged robbery in which he completely clears out the stock of an elegant jewelry store.

   The fast-moving 70 minutes of high-toned fluff climax with an exciting rooftop escape by Powell, leaving Francis tied-up in an apartment to throw off the police. Someone said to me that the actors must have relished working with such a polished script and this had some of the flair of a vintage Lubitsch comedy-drama. In the final shot Francis, in a tight closeup, looks at the audience, smiles and puts a finger to her lips, inviting us to join her as accomplices in her complicity with Powell.

   Dieterle was fond enough of this device to use it again, as I was reminded the other day when while channel hopping. I happened upon the final scene of the Dieterle-directed All That Money Can Buy (also known as The Devil and Daniel Webster). Here Walter Huston (as Old Scratch), rubbing his chin thoughtfully, looks from one side of the frame to the other, then in an expected move, smiling diabolically and looking directly at the camera, points at the viewer.

MORRIS HERSHMAN “Pressure.” First published in Manhunt, February 1958, as by Arnold English. Reprinted under his own name in Tales for a Rainy Night, edited by David Alexander (Holt Rinehart & Winston, hardcover; 1961; Crest d557, paperback, 1962).

   Sometimes all that a compelling crime story requires is a scenario, a mere vignette in which two characters face off in primarily one location. This works best in “short and taut” stories, those that focus on a single character’s dilemma and are of a length of no more than 2,000 words or so.

   Such is the case in Morris Hershman’s “Pressure,” a tense, albeit not overly memorable, tale about a gangster’s final confrontation with the police. Hershman conjures up the character of Dapper Phil Rand, an aging gangster from the Prohibition Era who has managed to survive well into the late 1950s. Rand’s gone to jail before and isn’t particularly afraid of going back. The one thing he simply won’t do is rat on the Syndicate.

   Enter “Coffee,” a cop who is willing to offer Rand a deal of a lifetime: protection and relocation to South America if he’s willing to name names. But Rand’s not willing to do that, so Coffee decides he is going to have to play hardball and apply some pressure, albeit not the physical kind. Rather, he tells the press that Rand’s singing like a canary, that Rand is spilling the beans on the Syndicate. Then he lets Rand out of the police station.

   What happens next tells us a lot about Dapper Phil Rand. Will he return to Coffee and catch a plane to South America or will he find a way to convince the Syndicate that it was all a ploy? What happens next is a portrait of a greying gangster under pressure.