NOTE: I first read this book in 2006, and this review was first posted in June 2009. I’ve just read the book again, but instead of writing a new review, I’ve decided to re-post this old one.
   

DAVID DODGE – Shear the Black Sheep.   Popular Library 202, paperback reprint; no date stated, but circa 1949. Hardcover edition: The Macmillan Co., 1942. Magazine appearance: Cosmopolitan, July 1942.

   After I finished reading this, the second murder mystery adventure of accountant detective Jim “Whit” Whitney, I went researching as I usually do, and it didn’t come as any surprise to learn (from a website devoted to David Dodge) that Dodge was also a CPA by profession, and that he started writing mystery fiction only on a dare from his wife.

   Although Dodge went on to another series (one with private eye Al Colby) and after that several standalones, there were only four books in the Whit Whitney series, to wit:

Death and Taxes. Macmilllan, hc, 1941. Popular Library 168, pb, 1949.

   
Shear the Black Sheep. Macmillan, hc, 1942. Popular Library 202, pb, 1949.

Bullets for the Bridegroom. Macmillan, hc, 1944. Popular Library 252, pb, 1950.

   
It Ain’t Hay. Simon & Schuster, hc, 1946. Dell 270, pb, mapback edition, 1949.

   
   You can find much more detailed entries for each of these books at the David Dodge website, which includes a complete bibliography of all of his other books, both fiction and non-fiction. Not to mention his plays, his magazine stories, the articles he wrote and all of the radio, TV and movie adaptations of his work, the most well-known of which is To Catch a Thief, the Cary Grant and Grace Kelly film from 1955. Comprehensive is an understatement, and it’s definitely worth looking into, just to see a bibliography done right.

   As for Whit Whitney, his home base is San Francisco, but in Shear the Black Sheep he is talked into taking a case in Los Angeles over the New Year’s Eve holiday weekend. Against his better judgment, he agrees to check into the activities of a client’s son, who seems to be spending too much of his father’s money in the business they’re in. They’re a wool brokerage firm — hence the title. The son has also left his wife and new-born baby. Is there another woman?

   Assisting Whitney — or making her way down to LA on her own to spend the holiday with him, or as much of it as there is left after Whit’s investigative duties are over– is Kitty MacLeod, “the best-looking girl in San Francisco, and pretty clever as well,” as she’s described on page 12.

   I’ve not read the first book in the series, and make no doubt about it, I will, but in that book (according the short recap on just about the same page) Whit’s former partner was murdered and at the time, Kitty was his wife.

   It’s now six months later, and Whit and Kitty have become very close. Whit is beginning to worry that some of his colleagues are starting to talk. There had even been some talk at the time that Whit had had something to do with Kitty’s ex’s departure from life, and getting out of the jam at the time seems to be the gist of the story in Death and Taxes.

   But that was then, and this is now. There is indeed a woman involved, as suspected — getting back to the case that Whit was hired to do — and the woman leads to a hotel room, and in the hotel room are … gamblers. A crooked card game, and the black sheep is getting sheared.

   It is all sort of a light-hearted tale, in a way, but then a murder occurs, and a screwy case gets even screwier — in a hard-boiled kind of fashion. Let me quote from page 160. Whit is talking to his client, who speaks first:

   Here are a few lines from page 170, at which point things are not going so well:

   
   Those were the days when mystery thrillers were also detective novels. After a long paragraph in which Whit tries out his best logic on the tangled threads of the plot, and who was where and when and why:

   
   What’s interesting is that Kitty has more to do with solving the case than Whit does. Things happen rather quickly at the end, and if all of the loose ends are (or are not) all tied up, no one other than I seems to think it matters, as long as the killer is caught — who was not someone I suspected, or did I? I probably suspected everyone at one point or another.

   I also wonder if what happens on the last page has anything to do with the title of Whit Whitney’s next adventure in crime-solving. Read it, I must. And I will.

   
[UPDATE #1] 06-24-09.   That’s a promise to myself that I haven’t kept yet, alas, and re-reading this review (and looking at those paperback covers) gives me all the resolve I need to follow through. You can count on that and take it to the bank. Non-negotiable.

[UPDATE #2] 06-29-21. Looks like I can’t keep promises very well, even those I make to myself. This is still the only book in the series I’ve read. I have just given myself a good talking to.

WITNESS IN THE DARK. Alliance Films, UK, 1959. NBC, US, 1961 (TV). Patricia Dainton, Conrad Phillips, Madge Ryan, Nigel Green. Director: Wolf Rilla. Currently available on YouTube here.

   Most stories relay on relatable, often primal instincts to engage an audience. In thrillers, fear is the one most filmmakers try to evoke, and it can never be more acute than those times in which we are least in control. We feel especially vulnerable when we are incapacitated in some way and the most dramatic method of conveying this is injuring the protagonist. This usually happens towards the end of the third act, during the final confrontation when it seems as though the hero is about to perish. Sometimes, however, the injury is built into the story from the start in order to bring maximum intensity.

   The most famous example of this is Hitchcock’s Rear Window, in which James Stewart’s photojournalist breaks his leg and is forced to remain in his Greenwich Village apartment with nothing to do but stare out of the window and suspect people of murdering their wives. In Witness in the Dark, the injury is blindness. This had already been explored in 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956) and would be again in Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn and See No Evil with Mia Farrow.

   Jane Pringle (Patricia Dainton) was blinded five years ago in a car accident in France which also killed her fiancé. She now continues to work as a switchboard operator and even teaches a young boy how to read Braille. However, one night, alone in her flat, she hears a disturbance downstairs. She investigates, moving into the hall, and encounters a thief (Nigel Green) on the staircase. Fortunately for the thief, Jane is unable to see him and will not, therefore, be able to identify him later.

   The thief does not attack her and instead escapes. Inspector Coates (Conrad Phillips) investigates and discovers that the thief had also murdered Mrs Temple, the old lady whose flat had been burgled. Jane, realising that she came so near to the culprit, believes she can help. Things get charged, however, when the thief decides he must return and tie up one or two loose ends…

   A brisk, involving thriller, Witness in the Dark succeeds in what all such films must do and makes the audience care for the character in danger. Jane is a pragmatic, brave, independent and compassionate woman who clearly has not let the tragedy in her life define it, and Dainton convincingly portrays someone without sight, sans glasses. Nigel Green, unsurprisingly, makes for a dauntingly sinister villain and, in the final scenes, maintains dignity and tension in what might otherwise have seemed vaguely farcical.

   Conrad Phillips gives his usual best, here appearing after thirty-nine episodes of ITV’s The Adventures of William Tell. I’m always interested – though not morbidly so – in how long such actors ended up living, and Phillips left us five years ago at the age of 90, after publishing his autobiography Aiming True online.

   There is also some amiable comedy involving Jane’s neighbours Mr and Mrs Finch, in which the former is hoping to retain the stolen pocket watch he has recently bought down the pub and not relinquish it to the investigating officer. Elsewhere, eagle-eyed viewers will spot Man About the House and Robin’s Nest star Richard O’Sullivan, only fifteen as the young blind boy Jane coaches, while there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role from future Doctor Who and Emmerdale Farm star Frazier Hines as a newspaper boy.

Rating: ***
   

MICHAEL COLLINS – The Night Runners. Dan Fortune #9. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1978. Playboy, paperback, May 1981.

   What makes Dan Fortune distinctive among other fictional PI’s is that he has only one arm. Among the other obvious disadvantages it presents is that it makes it rather difficult to blend in with a crowd when tailing someone, for example, but little more than comes up in this, his ninth recorded adventure.

   He’s hired by the head of a small but profitable pharmaceutical company in this one to find the man’s older brother Bill, a fellow who works for the firm but is essentially useless on the job. Worse, every so often he goes off on gambling binges – the players in these floating poker games all being night runners – but what’s different this time is that he’s also completely disappeared.

   Fortune takes the job and quickly discovers that Bill has gotten involved with an attempt to rescue his nephew from a Mexican prison (involving a band of outlaws/mercenaries as another type of night runner)  and that the $8000 he had been entrusted with has also disappeared. Has he gambled the money away or has the bribery attempt gone bad? When an intermediary is found dead, Fortune cannot help but think the latter.

   There are a lot of people involved in the story that follows, perhaps too many for its own good: the ones working for the pharmaceutical company based in Connecticut; the sleazy go-betweens Bill has gotten mixed up with in New York City; and the even more ruthless ones down in Mexico. The quietly desperate lives of those living in the urban environs of the big city, most of them creatures of the night, are portrayed the best, which is not to say that those living in suburban and small town Connecticut do not have their own problems, except to say that they hide them better.

   Weakest are the scenes taking place in Mexico, which are both significant but thankfully short. All in all, it’s quite a mixture, and as such makes for fairly intense reading. Unfortunately I found the primary villain of the affair rather obvious, and you may too. Fortune simply does not ask the right questions at the right time; that is to say, when I thought he should.

SHELDON SIEGEL – Final Out. Mike Daley/Rosie Fernandez #12. Sheldon M. Siegel, Inc., paperback, January 2021.

First Sentence: The Honorable Robert J. Stumpf, Jr. scanned the empty gallery in his airless courtroom on the second floor of San Francisco’s crumbling Hall of Justice.

   Jaylen Jenkins is arrested for the murder of prominent San Francisco sports agent Robert Blum. He is on video holding a baseball bat walking toward Blum, and then running away without the bat. Jenkins claims he is innocent. But is he? Without contradictory evidence, can attorney Mike Daley and the team of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office use the “SODDI” defense to convince the jury that some other dude did it?

   The story begins with a soft case to introduce the principal characters in a casual, conversational manner. In very little time, one is taken into the meat of the story and a case that couldn’t be more timely. One of the benefits is learning something new. Siegel walks readers through every aspect of the case allowing one to experience exactly what is involved. He educates without lecturing or slowing down the plot. After all, who else is familiar with the legal term “wobbler”?

   It is impossible to conceive knowing one is innocent and while being told accepting a plea sentence of eight years is a “good deal,” yet that happens to so many.

   Through the principal character, Mike, an ex-priest turned lawyer, Siegel created an excellent ensemble cast of Mike’s family and friends. They are wonderfully drawn; brought to life mainly though his skill with dialogue. Even Mike’s internal monologues add dimension to the character and the story.

   One appealing aspect of the character is his realism. This isn’t a strutting, overly-confident lawyer, this is one who recognizes he could lose his case.

   Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, captured in perfect detail, Siegel brings the region into focus. It is always fun having a book set in one’s hometown, being familiar with the places visited by the characters. It is even more amusing when the author’s description of a particular building echoes one’s own thoughts— “The Salesforce Tower dominated the San Francisco skyline and dwarfed the Transamerica Pyramid. It’s impressive in its size and technology, but it looks like an enlarged phallic symbol to me.”

   Siegel’s style is one of short, tightly written chapters that read almost as vignettes. Each chapter compels one to continue reading straight through to the end.

   Final Out is well written and completely involving. The underlying theme is a sad, but important truth about our justice system.

Rating: Very Good.

THE BADLANDERS. MGM, 1958. Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado, Claire Kelly, Kent Smith, Nehemiah Persoff. Based on the novel The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett (1949). Director: Delmer Daves.

   I suppose I should tell you that I haven’t yet gotten around to seeing the earlier version of this movie, nor have I read the book. All I know is that it has a pretty good reputation (the movie, I mean; I don’t know about the book). Whose idea it was to turn it into a western, I don’t know that either, but it was a lousy idea.

   At least it’s one that didn’t come off, in terms of putting it into practice. I’m not surer what went wrong. The actors are professional and competent, and they seem enthusiastic enough. (Or in Alan Ladd’s case, as enthusiastic as he ever seems to get.) I would lay most of the blame on the people responsible for the script.

   But maybe I should tell you what the story’s about first. Ladd is a mining engineer or geologist who’s been framed for stealing some gold; Borgnine is a simpler sort who’s been cheated out of a mine (or the land it was on; it wasn’t entirely clear) and jailed for retaliating the only way he knew. They leave Yuma Prison at the same time, but not on so friendly terms with each other. Nevertheless, they decide to team up and steal some ore that’s still in a vein that only Alan Ladd knows about.

   Along the way somehow or another they become friends. Male bonding. Borgnine also saves a Mexican woman (Katy Jurado) from some overfriendly white men, and before you know it, he has moved in with her, full of surprisingly cheerful good will toward mankind.

   The heist comes off – don’t ask me how they can carry around three large bags of gold ore worth $200,000 (or more) with as little effort as this – and what it so unpredictable about the rest of the movie is that no one would predict anything as predictable as what happens next. If you see what I mean.

I’m back in business again, starting later today, I hope. I still don’t know what the problem was. While demonstrating it over the phone to my son-in-law Mark, the third time was the charm. It stopped.

And I’d already rushed over to Home Depot for five boxes of baling wire and duct tape. Fingers crossed that it won’t happen again, but next time I’m ready.

Posting from my phone. Will be back as soon as I can.

J. D. ROBB – Shadows in Death. Lt. Eve Dallas #51. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, September 2020; paperback, December 2020.

First Sentence: As it often did since he’d married a cop, murder interrupted more pleasant activities.

   Lt. Eve Dallas, with her husband, Roarke, goes to the scene of a murdered woman. While on-site, Roarke sees a man he knew from his past in Ireland. Lorcan Cobbe, a contract killer, claims he is Roarke’s father’s actual and first son. Lorcan hates Roarke enough to kill him, and everyone he loves. Eve is certain the dead woman’s husband hired Cobbe to perform the hit. Eve’s first task to proving the husband a killer, then stop Cobbe before he kills Roarke.

   There are times when one wants an entertaining, captivating read. With her 51st book in the Eve Dallas series, Robb succeeds in creating exactly that. Yes, the plots are somewhat predictable, but the world Robb has created is visual, and the characters are ones about whom readers’ care.

   What is remarkable is that the “…in Death” series began in 1995 with the first book set in 2058 and Eve being 30 years old, releasing two Dallas books/year, plus the occasional novella. Shadows in Death is set in 2061; three years and 51+/- cases later, bringing Eve’s clearance rate to ~17 cases per year, or once every three weeks. What police department wouldn’t love that?

   Robb has a deft hand when it comes to dialogue, even creating slang that fits for the near-future time period. How clever to use an expression known to readers in the present but would be anachronistic to the period. There are some great lines, and her wry humor is always a pleasure. A discussion on the subtle differences between colors leads to an internal observation— “Peabody turned a little green —perhaps celadon — and turned her head to stare hard at the wall.” Robb carries thoughts through from one scene to another with great deliberateness and ease.

   One learns more about Roarke’s childhood and one must respect that Robb, even this far into the series, still has new information to impart. One small irritant is Roark’s references to Eve being “his,” making her seem a possession. However, this is mitigated by the realization that Eve claims Roarke in the same manner and showing it is a manifestation of their commitment of care and protection, and not possessiveness, even including those around them. Yes, the scenes of lovemaking are hot, but they are more about emotion than sex.

   Eve is not perfect which makes her more real. She has areas of discomfort and gaps in her knowledge for anything beyond her job or her city— “They look like cops…I need them to look like farmers. Irish farmers,” Eve added. “Who are out there doing farm stuff.”

   There is an urgency and intensity to the investigation which gives the sense of needing to run to keep up. The action scenes are visceral, tense, exciting, and filled with twists. They provide excellent examples of Eve’s leadership and authority, and the respect she has earned. Even so, it is not a perfect book. There were opportunities for danger and suspense not taken, and the ending seemed too quick with a final scene a bit silly, albeit satisfying.

   Shadows in Death is an excellent remedy to offset the stress and uncertainty of these times in which we live.

Rating: B Plus.

REX STOUT – Champagne for One. Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin #31. Viking, hardcover, 1958. Bantam, paperback, April 1960. Reprinted many times since.

   Not only was this a long-delayed return visit to the brownstone mansion on West 35th Street for me, it’s also an impossible crime murder mystery — double the pleasure! And the only reason the cops cannot call the death of Faith Usher a suicide is that Archie Goodwin is there and watching as the dead girl is served a single glass of champagne with (apparently) no one else at the party able to drop the fast-acting cyanide into it between the time it was poured and it was served to her.

   This all takes place at a “coming out” party for a group of unwed mothers, guests of a large philanthropic organization. Nero Wolfe’s investigation, provoked in part to stand up to Inspector Cramer and the District Attorney, who want nothing more to whitewash the affair, shows that the dead girl had no friends, no acquaintances, only a mother she hated and wanted nothing to do with. And hence, no motive.

   It’s a baffling case, but if not needing to leave his house, not even once, is a criterion, this is an easy case for Nero Wolfe to solve, culminating in bringing all of the suspects together in the final chapters and having the scene of the crime re-created. That and Stout’s usual smooth and witty way of telling the story — through the lips and mind’s eye of Wolfe’s most trusted assistant — makes this a treat I’ve neglected for far too long.

THE SHOOTING. 1967. Walter Reade Organization, US, 1968. Will Hutchins, Millie Perkins, Jack Nicholson, Warren Oates. Director: Monte Hellman.

   This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, your typical, average western. This one is perky, murky, and quirky, à la Twin Peaks, of which this is very nearly the cowboy western equivalent. It does, however, except for the ending, which is deliberately obtuse, make more sense.

   Two men, apparently miners, are hired by a mysterious women to take her to a town which apparently lies across a desert. She has another idea in mind, however, and the two men soon realize that she is really on the trail of someone. Someone is on their trail, as well.

   That someone being a hired killer, played ultra-enigmatically by Jack Nicholson (the most subdued role I can ever recall seeing him play in a movie), and he eventually joins the small group of riders traveling through the sand and the barren hills on a trek that lasts, or so it seems, clear on to forever. (It’s no Lawrence of Arabia, but in a small budget sort of way, it comes close.)

   Brian Garfield, in his book on westerns, seems to have been totally mystified by what this movie is about, seeing all sorts of mystical things in it. I couldn’t tell you about the ending – I’m not sure if anybody could – but I didn’t have any problem with the rest of the film, nor should anyone who sees the first ten minutes. It seems like a straight-forward tale of revenge to me, without all the other motivations being spelled out completely (and believe me, this movie has more than most).

   Of course, maybe I’m wrong, so when you see it yourself, you’re entirely free to make up your own mind. It wouldn’t bother me. As I hope you can see, it’s that kind of movie. (And if you’re a western fan, see it yourself I think you should).