SHEILA RADLEY – Death and the Maiden. H. Hamilton, UK, hardcover, 1978. US title: Death in the Morning, Scribner, hardcover, 1979; Dell (Murder Ink #1), paperback, 1980.

   Excellent debut novel set in East Anglia and featuring “up through the ranks” Chief Inspector Quantrill and newcomer “blue blood” Detective Sergeant Tait. The problem: death by drowning of a pretty teenage girl.

   The writing is top class, the atmosphere keenly evoked and the personal involvement of the two detectives, with their opposing views and methods, realistic and relevant.

   An author to watch out for.

      The Inspector Quantrill series —

1. Death in the Morning (1978)
aka Death and the Maiden
2. The Chief Inspector’s Daughter (1980)
3. A Talent for Destruction (1982)
4. The Quiet Road to Death (1983)
aka Blood on the Happy Highway
5. Fate Worse Than Death (1985)
6. Who Saw Him Die (1987)
7. This Way Out (1989)
8. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (1992)
9. Fair Game (1994)

   There are some songs you know will be hits as soon as you hear them for the very first time. This one’s from 1979:

   From Wikipedia:

“Jones and her lover/fellow songwriter Tom Waits spent a lot of time hanging out with their friend Chuck E. Weiss at the seedy Tropicana Motel in Los Angeles. Eventually Weiss, affectionately referred to as “Chuck E.”, disappeared. Later Weiss called the apartment where Jones and Waits lived. When Waits took the call, Weiss explained that he was in Denver, and that he had moved there because he had fallen in love with a cousin there. When Waits hung up he announced to Jones, “Chuck E.’s in love”. Jones liked the sound of the sentence and wrote a song around it. Although toward the end of “Chuck E.’s in Love” the lyrics state, “Chuck E.’s in love with the little girl singing this song,” the twist ending is fictional; Jones was never the girl with whom Chuck E. was in love.”

RAY BRADBURY Something Wicked This Way Comes. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1962. Bantam H2630, paperback, September 1963.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. Walt Disney Productions, 1983. Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd, Royal Dano, Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson. Screenplay by Ray Bradbury and John Mortimer (uncredited.) Directed by Jack Clayton and Lee Dyer (uncredited.)

   I first read Something Wicked This Way Comes back in High School. Then again in College. Since then, I’ve come back to it every ten years or so, and each time found the story enchanting, the imagery compelling and Bradbury’s prose irresistible.

   Reading it this year, fifty-five years on and gray-bearded, puffing on a pipe I carved out of deer antler, reflecting that this is likely the last time I shall visit these pages, I was taken out of myself and transformed once again into the boy of wonder whose story this is.

   Or rather boys, not boy. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. A dark circus come to their small town to trap the townsfolk’s souls and the boys fall into that childhood dream of forbidden knowledge, the evil only they comprehend, and only they can battle.

   As created by Bradbury, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival is a thing of splendid nightmare, promises of wonder paid with misery amid gaudy colors and laughing crowds. And once they learn its secret, the boys become the prey of brutal Mister Cooger and sinister Mister Dar k — along with a panoply of grotesques passing themselves off as freaks and entertainers.

   Bradbury conveys all of this in poetic prose that never slows down the action or becomes self-important. This is, in short, not so much a novel as a treasure to be taken out and enjoyed .

   A lot of folks in Hollywood took a lot of interest in Something Wicked, including Gene Kelly, Kirk Douglas and Sam Peckinpah, but it ended up with the folks at Disney, where it was filmed, then re-edited, re-shot, re-scored and partly rewritten, all at great expense. The result was a great white elephant of a movie that cost almost twenty million to make (back when that was a lot of money) and grossed less than half that. And along the way to failure, they insulted Bradbury and antagonized his fans, feeding Ill feelings all the way around — almost like the Pandemonium Carnival itself!

   Too bad, that, because the film actually borders on greatness at times. It stays mostly faithful to the novel, casts the boys (Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson as Halloway and Nightshade respectively) effectively, and embodies Mister Dark chillingly in Jonathan Pryce.

   The makers also get a thoughtful and well-judged performance from Jason Robards as Will’s father Charles — here promoted from janitor to librarian in the opulent small-town library. If Will and Jim are the motivators of the story, Charles is its firm anchor, and Robards rises to the occasion wonderfully. The confrontation between him and Jonathan Pryce is masterfully written, fluidly directed, and played to the hilt by two actors who seem to know they’re on to a good thing — pure movie magic!

   If none of the rest of the film quite lives up to this moment, well it supports it quite nicely indeed, and Something Wicked This Way Comes – book and movie – are literary/cinematic friends I’m glad I’ve known.

   
   I had a great time with my brother, sister and spouses in Michigan this past weekend, but my advice is, if you ever make an airplane reservation at any time in the future, make sure I’m not going to be on the same flight. I won’t name the airline (not SW), but I ran into all kinds of trouble.

   Going to Michigan, I had a 35 minute layover in Detroit, which is a lot tighter than I’d prefer, but I’ve done it before with no difficulty. Problem was, there was no wheelchair waiting for me, as I’d requested. Well, there were wheelchairs, but no one to push them. Another fellow and I were abandoned at the first gate for ten minutes before I decided I’d better hoof it. And hoof it I did. Down a two story escalator, through a 100 yard underground tunnel (with moving walkway), then up an escalator the same height as the first. My next gate was three down from there, and I made it with five minutes to spare, huffing and puffing the whole way.

   Coming home Sunday night, I had a three hour layover time. No problem, I thought. Came the first gate, after a 2½ wait for a radio to be fixed, the flight was cancelled. Called my sister, she came to get me. They gave me a new flight for Tuesday. A 30 minute layover time, but the gates were in the same concourse, so that wasn’t a problem. We boarded and waited for takeoff, but not so fast. The A/C wasn’t working and they couldn’t fix it. We all trooped off and went over to wait while they got the airplane next door ready to fly. Made it home 2½ hours later than scheduled.

   The good news was that in both of these last two instances, both those of mechanical problems, all of the passengers took them relatively calmly and lined up when asked, with no pushing and shoving and with no fistfights breaking out. Everyone was orderly, and the staff was continually apologetic.

   But I’m obviously a jinx, so as I said up above, don’t book yourself on the same flight if you know I’m going be on it. Luckily for you, I don’t plan on flying anywhere again this year. There’s something to be said about having too much fun.

Leaving tomorrow for a short stay in Michigan visiting my brother, sister, and respective spouses. We haven’t gotten together like this in three years. I’ll have access to a computer, so it’s not it’s the end of the world, but I am leaving my laptop at home. Back late Sunday night, then here again at the blog on Monday. See you then.

UPDATE: Tuesday AM. My flight home Sunday night was cancelled. Will be home later today.

WHIPSAW. MGM, 1935. Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy. Director: Sam Wood.

   There are other members of the cast, but the only other name I recognized was John Qualen, and he was so far down in the list, I decided to mention only the two leading stars. They’re all that’s needed, though, to make this the best movie I’ve seen in quite some time. If it ever comes on in your area, don’t miss this one.

   She’s a lady crook, working for a gang of jewel thieves, He’s a cop, pretending to be a tough hoodlum to gain her confidence. He doesn’t know she’s onto him, but she needs him to help shake the members of a rival gang who are on her trail.

   It’s a pleasure to watch a movie written with some intelligence behind it. The people in it are thinking, and none of the usual ploys in your usual run-of-the-mill crime caper seem to work as well here as they do in every other film you sit down to see. What’s more, it may be corny, but it’s also a pleasure to watch a picture in which even the crooks (well, some of them) have moral standards.

   And it’s not enough that Myrna Loy can act cool and disinterested and obviously be falling deeply in love at the same time; she’s also beautiful and charming, and she simply fills the screen with her presence every minute she’s on it, Spencer Tracy tries hard, with an intensely casual portrayal of a policeman caught between his job and a woman he begins to care for more and more, but I think this is the lady’s picture, all the way.

ANTHONY BOUCHER – The Case of the Seven of Calvary. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1937. Collier, paperback, 1961.

   Although Anthony Boucher has several differing series characters in his brief but illustrious mystery writing career, TCOT Seven of Calvary has none. Even so, the gentleman who solves the case does so with both precision and aplomb, and if he’d had the opportunity to have been involved in another, I’m sure he would have done equally well.

   He’s Dr. John Ashwin, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkley, and what you might call an “armchair detective,” as all of the details of the case are related to him by one of his students, a chap by the name of Martin Lamb. (And as far as I know, the latter never appears again in any of Boucher’s works of mystery fiction, either.)

   While probably not unique, the structure of the tale is unusual. It has a prelude, a postlude, and (I think) three interludes. In these various “ludes” Tony Boucher discusses the case with Mr. Lamb, who is telling the story to the former, who then is tasked with transcribing it into third person book form.

   These discussions include, for example, what it feels like to be the “Watson” for a primary detective, not to mention a “Challenge to the Reader” that in the last Interlude Martin dares Tony to determine the solution to the case based on the facts in the case as told to him so far.

   Tony fails, and so did I.

   I love it when that happens.

   I also love it when the setting is as tweedy an academic setting as this one is. The first death is that of an unofficial peace ambassador from Switzerland, as gentle and unassuming man as there could possibly be, without an enemy in the world and with not a single person who could gain anything from his death. Found next to his body is a strange drawing, one which is also prominently displayed on the front of the jacket of the hardcover edition. (See above.)

   Could an obscure cult of Christian heretics be responsible? It is apparently the only possibility, but Dr. Ashwin is not convinced. Nor of course was I, having read as many detective novels as I have in my lifetime – not, as I suggested above, did it help me in deducing who the real killer was.

   I enjoyed this one. As the author, Anthony Boucher is witty, clever and above all, erudite in telling this particular tale. I also enjoyed being so intimately involved in academia life one time more. It was like being back in grad school again.

J. L. POTTER – …Or Murder for Free. Jeff Tyler/Loafalong #2. Chicago Paperback House A-104, paperback original, 1962. Wildside Press, trade paperback, 2018.

   I will never forgive this writer for his middle initial being an L. instead of a C., because it ruins a perfect one sentence review.

   Yes, this book is sausage.

   And yet, this second novel in the Jeff Tyler/Loafalong series almost perfectly mirrors what John D. MacDonald would do three years later with his beach bum salvage expert Travis McGee. This book only goes to prove its the delivery and not the idea, because this is not JDM or McGee. This isn’t even William Fuller’s Brad Dolan. At least Philip Wylie’s Crunch and Des caught fish once in a while.

   As boat bum heroes go Jeff Tyler is beached.

   His boat is the Loafalong if I didn’t mention it. God knows he does endlessly.

   Maybe it’s because he gives the damn boat equal credit in every other sentence. Can you imagine the Busted Flush getting credit on the cover next to McGee and over Meyer? This guy loves his 84 foot boat and he is not going to let you forget it.

   He loves that stupid pun name too. Frankly it doesn’t work very well in print. It just doesn’t pay off on the written page. It’s prime thud ear stuff.

   It’s the kind of boat name a retired insurance adjuster gives his fishing boat, not the kind of name a dashing tough semi-private eye salvage expert gives his working boat.

   Busted Flush is clever, but JDM doesn’t beat you over the head with it. They aren’t the Travis McGee/Busted Flush series.

   You know the old joke about how the Gothic genre is basically a girl gets house plot?

   This is a guy owns dreamboat genre.

   Every other paragraph…

   Potter is the kind of guy who repeats a punchline until you just want to scream.

   Did I mention there were four or five of these?

   To give the guy credit, he isn’t awful. He does well with some of the boating stuff, a nice little passage about navigating a river is oddly shown on the back cover instead of an action or sexy passage, but it is well done. He’s pretty good on diving too. His biography shows he had experience as a seaman and a Navy Frogman. A lot more of that and a lot less of tired tough guy stuff would make this better.

   An editor might have done something with J. L. Potter. Not a lot, but something.

   So Jeff and his crewman Red are cruising along when they spot a raft. Inside is a dead young man, and a barely alive nearly naked young woman suffering from sunburn and exposure. The raft is from the Volstok, a private vessel.

   Tyler administers first aid, calls the Coast Guard, gets roped in to getting the girl to help in New Orleans , and calls a good buddy to report he is going for salvage on the Volstok.

   It turns out there were valuable jewels on the Volstok. There was a robbery that went wrong, people died, and the dying young man with a bullet in him and the girl got away in the lifeboat.

   Save that isn’t the story the captain of the Volstok is telling.

   Things get rough. Everyone is lying, which is private eye writing 101.

   Here his his terribly overwritten version of the Philip Marlowe black pool:

   I’m guessing Chicago Paperback House didn’t employ editors or were really into Jackson Pollock and splashes of color on too broad a canvas. This is Readers Digest How to Develop a More Colorful Vocabulary stuff.

   Last time I was knocked in the head and passed out, I just fell forward.

   I guess I’m just not colorful. Or maybe he thought he was getting a penny a word.

   We get another colorful awakening from being knocked out, but he does spare us the rainbow vomiting.

   Small favors.

   He’s not very good at the tough guy monologues:

   
   â€œContributing to Girl Scout cookies?” What, the bad guy bakes?

   Of course he is warned off by an old friend since the mob is involved:

   How does that Hammett line go about the cheaper the punk, the gaudier the patter?

   Some sixty thousand words later of a lot of tough guy posing and half digested Mickey Spillane monologues later we find out what was really going on all the lies are sorted out, some people get shot and our hero gets the girl and the reward, neither much worth writing home about, much less writing a novel.

   At the finale after a fairly bloody ending his crew washes down the Loafalong before setting sail even though one of their own has a bullet in him saving them. Got to get your priorities straight. Swamp down the boat then sail for help.

   It’s the boat, stupid. Pardon me, the Loafalong. I think I went almost a paragraph with only mentioning its name once. In Potter’s world you could be shot at dawn for that.

   I know nothing about Chicago Paperback House. Frankly this looks and reads like vanity press stuff, poorly edited with poor production, but then what kind of masochist would publish four or five vanity press books?

   Maybe I’m being too hard on the guy. Maybe the crimson and yellow black meanies are on my back as I plunge forward into this review.

   I read this.

   I fell down.

   I may just stay down.

   I’ve been beaten into submission. I never got knocked down in the ring, but on this one I’m throwing in the towel.

   I’m just gonna loaf along to bed now and contribute to some Girl Scout cookies.
   

      The Jeff Tyler series —

Jambalaya Loverman. Newsstand Library, 1961.
Kill, Sweet Charity-Kill. Chicago Paperback House, 1962.
…Or Murder for Free. Chicago Paperback House. 1962.
Room at the Bottom. Chicago Paperback House, 1962.

RUTH FENISONG – Jenny Kissed Me. Doubleday, hardcover, 1944. Also published as Death is a Lovely Lady, Popular Library #173, paperback, 1949. [Possible reprint but not found: Collier, paperback, 1965.]

   The “Jenny” of the title 1s Gwen Mattice, beautiful, amoral, on  the make with any man who shows promise of giving her a good return on her investment. There are men for fun, and there are men for making. Gwen a living; she has no trouble catching either kind, and they stay caught.

   Her desirability is also her death knell. Men want her so badly that they will do anything to keep someone else from having her, and one does.  So Gwen dies, and a young naval officer is involved. His father is a celebrity; Joseph Wheaton, Fact Photographer, writer   of a daily column for a newspaper,   “one of the outstanding brains of the century.” First task, find out for his son who has killed his loved one, then to save his  son  from suspicion.

   Wheaton does the detecting himself.  One more killing later, he catches up with  the murderer, but not before he has investigated everyone who knew Gwen at the Hotel Whitman, where Bud Wheaton fell for her. Even old Mrs. Wheeler is interrogated, for she introduced Gwen to the men.

   The people in this book are real, with real feelings. Their motives ring true. And they are not without compassion, a quality lacking.in too many mystery characters.

Bio-Bibliographic: For a long biography of the author, complete with considerable discussion of her mystery fiction, check out Curtis Evans’ blog here.

   His essay begins thusly:

   “American author Ruth Fenisong published twenty of her twenty-two crime novels between 1942 and 1962, putting her at the temporal heart of mid-century American murder fiction, yet like many of the prominent women crime writers from that period, she fell out of publishing fashion after her death. Most underservingly so, for in her day she was a justly praised crime writer, with the dean of American crime fiction critics, Anthony Boucher, leading Ruth’s estimable cohort of admirers.”

OVER MY DEAD BODY.  CBS, 26 October 1990. Two-hour premiere of TV series. Edward Woodward, Jessica Lundy,  with Ed Winter, Dan Ferro, Gregory Itzin, Brenda Thomson. Created by William Link & David Chisholm. Suggested by the motion picture Lady on a Train (story by Leslie Charteris, who later published a novelization of the film). Director: Bradford May.

   As a TV series, not by any stretch of the imagination should it be compared to The Equalizer, Edward Woodward’s previous venture into TV-making.  Considering its lineage, it should come as no great surprise that it bears far more resemblance to Murder She Wrote, but I think Woodward is more suited to drama than he is to comedy, which is [mostly] what he does here.

   Maybe his character, Maxwell Beckett, famous  mystery writer and (so everybody believes) former inspector of Scotland Yard — maybe, as  I say, he’ll grow on me.  (They couldn’t get Michael Caine?)

   Beckett’s sidekick, his female Watson, if you will, is newspaper obituary writer Nikki Page (Jessica Lundy) who sees a murder committed in an apartment across from hers, but who finds it impossible to find anyone to believe her. This is where the movie Lady on a Train comes in, which is a movie I’ve wanted to see for  a long time, and somehow it’s never been shown on TV on any station I have access to, or if it has, I’ve missed it.

   However, there is not enough plot here to fill two hours (less commercials), so it takes a lot of funny scenes to fill in the gaps (most of which — the funny scenes, not the gaps — it was possible to see ahead of time in all the promos for the show that ran all the week before. On the plus side, I do have to tell you that there were a few individual lines that were quite clever and perhaps even funnier than the anything than those which were available earlier).

   Unfortunately, the killer is easy to spot. I knew who it was as soon as he appeared on the screen. (This is nothing, though, compared with my wife Judy, who knew who did it as soon as his name appeared in the opening credits.)

   Unlike Murder, She Wrote, it does not seem as though detection will be this series’ strong point. Myself, I think the strong point is going to be Jessica Lundy, who besides being young and good-looking, is also perky, loud and perfectly suited to be on television. You can quote me on this one.

   Incidentally, I thought it was interesting that Leslie Charteris was actually given onscreen credit. He must have a good agent.