THE TERROR WITHIN. Concorde Pictures, 1989. George Kennedy, Andrew Stevens, Starr Andreeff, Terri Treas, John LaFayette, Tommy Hinckley. Director: Thierry Notz.
Is this low-budget exploitation schlock, a wry homage to David Cronenberg and body horror cinema, or something that was deliberately made so it could be marketed for the late 1980s VHS market? Maybe it’s all three. For that’s the best way in which to describe The Terror Within. A movie that, at its core, is an unmistakably derivative post-apocalyptic science fiction/horror mash-up and that shamelessly borrows from such notable horror movies as Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive (1974) and Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). At its best, it attempts to channel those films’ main themes in a manner that’s at least vaguely entertaining.
Both of these aforementioned films notably involved scenarios in which otherworldly — and decidedly unwelcome — beings ensconced themselves within human hosts’ bodies. Because that’s the main thrust of what happens in this Roger Corman-produced feature that had only a limited theatrical release.
Set in the Mojave Desert after a biological weapons catastrophe that has wiped out the vast majority of humanity, the film follows the efforts of a small group of scientists holed up in an underground bunker while busy researching the effects the catastrophe had on their ecosystem. As you might well imagine, all is not well in this depopulated wasteland. The fallout has created a new race of mutants commonly referred to as gargoyles.
Not only are they hideous, with the obligatory sharp teeth and guttural sounds, but they also have the capacity to impregnate human female hosts. It’s when a pregnant female survivor makes her way to the scientists’ bunker that the real trouble begins. I don’t think I’m giving away that much of what follows when I say that a mutant child is born and that little bugger grows up real fast. Judging the way it behaves in the bunker, you would think it had been raised by wolves.
M. McDONNELL BODKIN “The Hidden Violin.” Short story. PI Dora Myrl. First appeared in Dora Myrl, the Lady Detective (Chatto, UK, hardcover, 1900). Reprinted in The Big Book of Female Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler (Black Lizard, US, 2018).
This very short story was probably not the lead one in the collection it first appeared in (see above), since it gets right down to business with no discussion at all as to how Dora Myrl got started as a professional detective way back in the year 1900.
And the business at hand is an “impossible” crime: how it is that a stolen Stradivarius violin can be heard being played in a locked room, but when anyone knocks and is invited in, there is no violin to be found, no matter how diligent the search.
The solution is simple but nonetheless rather clever, and what’s more, clues for readers to solve the case on their own are all there to be discovered. Nicely done!
Bio-Bibliographic notes: The author, Matthias McDonnell Bodkin (1850-1933), was an Irish nationalist politician as well as a noted author, journalist and newspaper editor, and barrister. (Follow the link above to his Wikipedia page.)
Besides the collection of a dozen stories that “The Hidden Violin” appears in, Dora Myrl also shared top billing in the novel The Capture of Paul Beck (Unwin, 1909) and makes a cameo appearance in the collection Young Beck (Unwin, 1911).
What is most assuredly a first, if indeed not unique in the annals of PI fiction, when Dora finds herself in competition with another detective by the name of Paul Beck in solving the case they are both working on. The book was the aforementioned The Capture of Paul Beck, and in it they end up falling in love and getting married.
DONALD E. WESTLAKE writing as RICHARD STARK – The Seventh. Parker #7. Avon, paperback; 1985. First published by Pocket (#50244) as a paperback original, 1966. Reprinted as The Split (Gold Medal D1997, circa 1968). Also reprinted by the University of Chicago Press, trade paperback, 2009, under its original title. Film: MGM, 1968, as The Split, with Jim Brown as McClain (not “Parker”).
This is the first solo Parker novel that I’ve read in a long time, perhaps as long as 40 years. The one I read back then was OK but not great. To put it as succinctly and honestly as I can, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to. I think it was simply too terse, too hard-boiled, with no joy to it and absolutely np characterization to speak of.
I’m quite a bit older now, but it didn’t make much of a difference. When I read The Seventh earlier this week, I found I had exactly the same problems with as I did with that earlier one. Some thoughts follow, some fully formed, but others I’m still thinking about. (I won’t tell you which are which.)
First of all, I think that Parker’s adventures need someone like Alan Grofield, his sometimes companion in crime, in them go given them some much needed balance. The love of Grofield’s life is actually the stage, but what he also is is a devout thief. What he has that Parker doesn’t is personality. Enough to make his own capers go down very very smoothly, and his pair-ups with Parker a lot more fun to read. One note sambas may be fine with some people, but they’re not for me.
We may as well take The Seventh as an example of Parker on his own. This is a heist story with a bit of a twist. The heist goes off just fine. It’s the aftermath that the book is all about. It begins with Parker in desperate need for some ready cash, and thus agrees to work with six other men to steal a small fortune from a football game’s box office while the game is going on.
Each of the seven hole up for a while, some in pairs, some alone. Parker, who is holding all of the money, is one of the latter, save for a steady bed partner (female) he has picked up somewhere.
After a few days, he goes out for cigarettes. He comes back and finds the girl dead, pinned to the headboard of their bed with a sword. And — you guessed it — the money is gone. Did the killer just happen to find the money by chance, or was he after the money and the girl was only collateral damage? Both are likely possibilities. Either way, Parker is sore, and the killer — perhaps one of the other members of the makeshift gang? — had better beware.
Things do not turn out well, to put it mildly. This is a very short book, only 144 pages in the Avon edition and maybe even shorter in the original Pocket printing. Even so, a lot of people don’t manage to survive it, and ypu can easily conclude that one big huge mistake on Parker’s part is the reason why.
Westlake has all of the writing chops you could ask for, but I think I’d have rather he hadn’t revealed the killer as early as he did. My interest in what happened after that flagged considerably, nor is Parker is the kind of guy you’d ever like to meet, and I find him too one-dimensional to care about his exploits either.
On the other hand, another possibility occurs to me. Was Westlake playing games with his readers when he wrote the Parker books? Was he trying to make his “hero” as blunt and hard-boiled for his readers as he could without going way over the top with him?
One last thing, and these are facts, not opinions or speculations. The movie The Split that was based on the book has a terrific top-notch cast: Jim Brown, Diahann Carroll, Ernest Borgnine, Julie Harris, Gene Hackman, Jack Klugman, Warren Oates, James Whitmore, Donald Sutherland and Joyce Jameson. I’ve never seen it, and I know they changed the story line considerably, but could you find a better bunch of heist movie actors than this?
Marissa Nadler is a singer-songwriter who had a concert in New York City last night. I didn’t go, but there was a brief write-up about it ahead of time in yesterday’s NY Times. Her music was described as “goth-tinged experimental folk music,” which seems to sum it up quite succinctly.
She has a number of videos available on YouTube. Of those I’ve seen so far, this is the one I liked best. That it was written by Leonard Cohen may have something to do with it.
MAX BRAND – The Darkness at Windon Manor. Altus Press, 2018. Introduction by William F. Nolan. Originally serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 21 thru May 12, 1923.
“We had one common topic which bound us together—our complete financial ruin. Some one remarked that if a man of mere uninspired common sense was capable of robbing a great bank with impunity for years, a group of intelligent men would probably be able to rob the world with impunity forever.”
Andrew Creel, the hero of this 1923 crime novel originally serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly and not appearing in novel form until this Altus Press reprint, is a somewhat bored and disaffected young man whose chance acquaintance with a close look alike on board ship leads him to be mistaken for his near twin and then fall in with an audacious group of businessmen turned super criminals who have taken up residence in the title’s Windon Manor after a bank failure wiped out their fortunes eight years earlier. (The idea that successful businessmen were only one step away from crime has always been popular in American fiction.)
The mistaken identity and the hero who accidentally falls in with a gang of criminals and is forced to play along to foil them is also an old theme, and certainly Brand himself played numerous variations on the theme of the look-a-like hero, most notably in Montana Rides, but here the unique touch is that Creel soon finds he likes being Edward Ormonde, master criminal, and that it fits him all too well.
Far from reluctant victim, Creel embraces his new identity which frees him from his ennui and falls in love with Anne Berwick, the heroine of the story, herself a jewel thief whose father betrayed the group.
As the novel opens, James Ashe who formed the group, and who also loves Anne, has returned to Windon Manor suspected of murdering Ormonde, his rival, who managed to recover an important case stolen by Anne’s father and who is returning it as part of a deal to spare the senior Berwick’s life.
Creel, having been identified as Ormonde by one of the conspirators at dockside is taken to Windon Manor, where playing along he learns the backstory of this dangerous and murderous lot.
Creel soon finds himself with two unexpected allies in his charade, Anne, who goes along with him to protect her father, and Ashe, the dangerous leader of the gang who Creel bluffs by seeming to know more than he really does, then audaciously challenges that he will win Anne away from him in the two days’ respite he is given to live.
The style here is more E. Phillips Oppenheim than Dashiell Hammett. — Brand’s Anthony Hamilton stories were also influenced by Oppenheim, in fact, it is pretty much an Oppenheim plot despite the American setting — with more talk than action, but it is fairly bright conversation and moves at a pace. And Creel and Anne make attractive leads playing at dangerous games with Ashe and the others, and as Creel soon demonstrates he is more than a match for the criminal Ormonde at his own game.
Despite Brand’s penchant for one particularly annoying stylistic tic that grinds my back teeth whenever he employs it, as he too often does even in his best works (The jaw of Ashe set hard/ The eyes of Ashe wavered/The whistling of Creel continued…) Darkness at Windon is an entertaining crime novel moving swiftly and building up to an audacious bank robbery and down to the wire conclusion that admittedly is a bit more Leslie Charteris than Oppenheim despite the half-hearted reformation required by the norms of the era.
He had thought at the time that he was merely playing a game—stealing and smashing laws merely to make the society, in the end, throw up its hands and bid him be gone forever from the precincts of Windon Manor…But now he saw clearly that this thinking had been the merest subterfuge. Crime for crime’s sake had fascinated him. He had been a thief; he might be a thief again at any moment, if the wild spirit of Edward Ormonde swept once more upon him in the storm wind or the hush of night.
Historically that echo of anarchy and adventure was already changing British popular fiction with the rise of the gentleman adventurer Creel resembles and would transform crime fiction soon in the pages of Black Mask and others this side of the Atlantic (Brand included) albeit on the right side of the law.
For those of you who are into such things, I’ve just put 24 old pulp magazines up for bids on eBay today. There are westerns, detective pulps, including two copies of Black Mask, and two copies of Unknown.
THE HAT SQUAD. CBS / Stephen J. Cannell Productions / Columbia Pictures Television, 1992-1993. Cast: Don Michael Paul as Buddy, Nestor Serrano as Rafael, Billy Warlock as Matt, James Tolkan as Mike Ragland, Shirley Douglas as Kitty Ragland in the pilot, replaced by Janet Carroll when the show became a series, and Bruce Robbins as Darnell. Creator & Executive Producer: Stephen J. Cannell. – Executive Producer: Bill Nuss. Supervising Producers: Jo Swerling Jr. and Charles Grant Craig.
Stephen J. Cannell is best remembered for his work on THE ROCKFORD FILES, but he is also responsible for some of the worst TV series ever to air. Remember BROKEN BADGES? I reviewed it here.
Cannell was a popular and successful producer from 1970s-90s, specializing in over the top fantasy hero with a gimmick.
THE HAT SQUAD was a fantasy cop drama about a detective squad of three adopted brothers who wore hats. Each of the brothers came from a different set of parents -– all victims of violence. Growing up they had been inspired by the stories of the LAPD’s Hat Squad told to them by their adopted father Police Captain Mike Ragland.
There really was a “Hat Squad.†The four huge men (Max Herman, Clarence A. “Red†Stromwall, Harold N. Crowder and Edward F. Benson) were not related but all were best friends. They worked in the Los Angeles Police Robbery Division in the 50s-60s, and were respected and feared by criminals and remain legends in the LAPD. Each was over six feet tall and 220 pounds. They wore fedoras and expensive suits to add to their intimidating look.
I recommend you click and read the LA Times article (March 29, 1987) interviewing two of the surviving members. It is a little thick on the hype but it is more entertaining than any of the TV episodes linked below.
The movies took the characters of The Hat Squad and made MULHOLLAND FALLS. TV writer/producer Stephen Cannell made them perfect heroes. Then in typical 90’s Cannell style, he created a cheesy fantasy where the boys grow up and create their own Hat Squad with their adopted Dad as their supervisor.
PILOT. September 16, 1992. Written by Stephen J. Cannell/ Directed by Rob Bowman. GUEST CAST: Sam J. Jones, Stacy Edwards and Darlene Vogel. *** The Hat Squad goes up against a super villain Victory Smith who is visiting Los Angeles to rob a bank. While he makes his plans, he terrorizes the public and escapes the attempts of the Hat Squad to catch him.
The pilot made several unwise choices in setting up the TV series premise and characters. The most damaging was making the villain more intimidating than the Hat Squad. Having the bad guy kick the Hat Squad butt repeatedly might have followed proper heroic drama format rules (hero loses until all hope is lost then defeats evil), but it was not how the real Hat Squad got famous. When a bad guy showed fear to Buddy when he put on his hat I laughed out loud, and even the actors looked embarrassed by how stupid the moment was.
Looking back at Cannell’s work it is sadly disappointing how cartoonish and absurd his writing could get. The way Cannell has the Hats capture the villain in the pilot was more appropriate for a bad movie serial of the forties than network prime-time TV of the nineties.
LA Times Howard Rosenberg was one disgusted TV critic. You can read the entire review of the pilot here.
Rosenberg’s first line was right on the mark. “THE HAT SQUAD is prime time’s new propeller beanie, an example of just how comically infantile and moronic television can get.â€
The pilot episode aired September 16, 1992, Wednesday at 8pm to 9:30pm (Eastern). According to “Broadcasting†(September 28, 1992) THE HAT SQUAD finished in 43rd place in the Nielsen ratings. NBC’s UNSOLVED MYSTERIES was 12th, and SEINFELD was 30th, ABC’s FULL HOUSE was 44th and HOME IMPROVEMENT aired two episodes, the first finished 27th and the second episode (opposite SEINFELD) finished 3rd, and FOX’s MELROSE PLACE finished 74th.
FAMILY BUSINESS. October 28, 1992. Written by Stephen J. Cannell. Directed by Kim Manners. GUEST CAST: Ron Ely and Mark Pellegrino. *** Darnell’s encounter with a bully at school leads the Hat Squad to a family gang that specializes in violent crime.
This episode aired on Wednesday at 8-9pm. Nielsen ratings (“Broadcasting†November 9, 1992) had NBC UNSOLVED MYSTERY at 11th place, ABC WONDER YEARS at 33rd and DOOGIE HOUSER at 37th, FOX BEVERLY HILLS 90201 at 59th, and THE HAT SQUAD at 74th.
According to “Broadcasting†(August 9, 1993) Cannell blamed the failure of the series to CBS programming it at 8pm rather than 9pm or 10pm. The cause of the series failure was more due to Cannell, but CBS did not do THE HAT SQUAD any favors with its scheduling. The series had three different time periods. From the pilot airing September 16 until November 11 the series aired on Wednesday at 8-9pm.
REST IN PEACE. December 9, 1992. Written by Charles Grant Craig & Bill Nuss. Directed by Bruce Kessler. GUEST CAST: Rebecca Staab, Pat Bermel and Gianni Russo. *** Buddy heads to Vegas to get the proof a local mobster killed his father.
TV series with multiple leads usually have episodes featuring one of the leads while the others stay in the background. This episode belong to Buddy as we got his back-story and he got to “meet cute†a gorgeous blonde by having their cars bang into each other.
This episode was the only one of the series to air at 9pm on Wednesday. Ratings were better, finishing 51st (“Billboard†December 21, 1992). ABC’s HOME IMPROVEMENT finished 5th and COACH was 15th. NBC’s SEINFELD was 38th and MAD ABOUT YOU ended up 56th. FOX with BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS finished 61st.
The next episode would not air until January 2. 1993, when THE HAT SQUAD moved to Saturday at 10pm and back to last place in its time-period. ABC had THE COMMISH and the better Cannell series out-rated HAT SQUAD every week. With few exceptions THE COMMISH would win the timeslot and NBC’s SISTERS finished a close second. Fox did not (and still doesn’t) program for the 10pm time period.
Production values and directors aided and abetted the series over the top style. They loved their fog machine, or since this was Los Angeles, their smog machine. The music was by Mike Post, who was admired for his work then, but today is more a source of earworms than music. This is the 90s so there were silent scenes illustrated by some awful pop song.
The cast gave forgettable performances burdened by stereotypical characters defined by role rather than any real human characteristics, such as Kitty the boys’ adopted Mother, a character who only existed as the old fashioned Mom who would tell her grown son to get a hair cut (he does) and give them hugs when they were sad.
The exception was James Tolkan who played the father Mike, a man devoted to family and a strong set of values. Tolkan is best known for his many roles as an authority figure that is a jerk. It was a nice to see him give a strong performance as a softer nicer character.
The three members of the Hat Squad were miscast as badly as their characters were written. The real Hat Squad was made up of gentle giants that terrified people by just walking into the room. The three adopted brothers were more average looking guys that looked silly rather than threatening wearing fedoras.
The oldest son, Italian-American Buddym was overprotective and bossy of his younger members of the Hat Squad. The middle son, Puerto Rican Rafael, behaved like Pepe LePew around women. The youngest of the Hat Squad, Matt, was the cute one who was studying to be a lawyer. There was a fourth adopted brother Darnell, a black teenager who kept this angelic family rainbow approved.
The last episode of THE HAT SQUAD aired January 24, 1993. That left two of the filmed thirteen episodes unaired. One of those episodes was “FRANKIE STEIN.â€
This episode has an ironic twist the writer probably did not intend. Of the real Hat Squad, three were lawyers while they were cops. Max Herman quit the force before he had earned his pension to become a defense attorney. Reportedly, Herman handled over thirty murder cases and none were convicted of the original (more serious) charge. The other two (Stromwall and Crowder) that had become lawyers would end up as judges.
FRANKIE STEIN. Never Aired. Written by David Greenwalt. Directed by Kim Manners. GUEST CAST: David Morse, Sondra Nelson and Linda Darlow. Matt questions his desire to become a lawyer. The Hat Squad has to deal with a violent criminal who was let out of prison early after he had agreed to be a test subject for some government experiments.
As a former professional TV critic in the late 70s and 80s who admired Cannell’s work in such shows as TOMA, CITY OF ANGELS (my review here ) and TENSPEED AND BROWNSHOE, I am finding myself embarrassed as I re-watch Cannell’s old series now. It is like looking at a picture of you in the past, seeing yourself in the stylish clothes and hair of the day and wondering, “What was I thinking?â€
GEORGETTE HEYER – Behold, Here’s Poison. Supt. Hannasyde #2. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1936. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1936. Dutton, hardcover, 1971. US paperback reprints include: Bantam, January 1973. Fawcett Crest, 1979. Berkley, July 1987. Also reprinted many times in paperback in the UK.
There was a time in the 1970s, I’d say, when every used bookstore that carried paperbacks had a shelf devoted to Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances. For all intents and purposes, she created the category. Many publishers put out two or three a month, all following the style, pace and mode of Georgette Heyer’s books Those were gentler times, and modesty prevailed. The category no longer exists. Like Gothic romances, publishers stopped publishing them quite a few years ago.
Heyer also wrote thrillers, twelve n all, four of them with Superintendent Hannasyde along with his trusty assistant Sergeant Hemingway, who if Behold, Here’s Poison is an accurate example, spent much of his time asking questions of the servants of the house.
Hannasyde’s problem in this book is two or maybe even threefold. Dead is the master of the house, one in which two overlapping but directly related families reside, and all of them had to put up with Gregory Matthews’ temperament and mean-hearted ways, or move out. There are plenty of suspects, in other words.
Problem number two: The doctor’s first diagnosis is that of natural causes, but when one family insists on an autopsy, the cause of death is discovered to have been nicotine poisoning. By t he time Hannasyde is called in, five days have gone by. No physical clues remain.
Alibis are also useless. There is no way to even determine how the poison was administered. It’s a tough case for any detective to crack, and Hannasyde has to admit so also, if only to himself and Hemingway.
But the dialogue between the squabbling and assorted family members is both wicked and delicious, particularly that of cousin Randall, whose sharp tongue exposes all of the false pretenses and facades of the rest of the family, much to the sophisticated reader’s amusement and pleasure. His barbs especially hurt since he is also the primary beneficiary of the dead man’s estate. He’s quite the character, Randall is, and one not easily forgotten once met.
The solution to the mystery is the weakest part of the book. The killer’s identity I’d say is impossible for the reader to discern on his or her own. The motive, at least. You might be able to figure who done it by the process of elimination, but what’s the fun in that?
The Superintendent Hannasyde series —
Death in the Stocks. 1935
Behold, Here’s Poison!. 1936
They Found Him Dead. 1937
A Blunt Instrument. 1938
The Inspector Hemingway series —
[all four of the above, plus]
No Wind of Blame. Hodder 1939
Envious Casca. Hodder 1941
Duplicate Death. Heinemann 1951
Detection Unlimited. Heinemann 1953
THREE STRANGERS. Warners, 1946. Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Joan Lorring, Robert Shayne, Arthur Shields, Rosalind Ivan, Peter Whitney and AlanNapier. Written by John Huston and Howard W.Koch. Directed by Jean Negulesco;
For my money, the best thing John Huston ever wrote — maybe because he was working from his own story and not adapting someone else’s.
Whatever the case, this is rich drama, starting with an ancient legend (undoubtedly of Huston’s invention) that if three strangers meet at Midnight on the eve of Chinese New Year and make a wish — just one wish, mind you — to the goddess Kwan Yin, she may open her heart and grant it.
Here the strangers are Sydney Greenstreet as a respected solicitor, Peter Lorre, a genial drunkard wanted by the police in connection with a murder, and Geraldine Fitzgerald as an obsessive who will do anything to get her estranged husband (Alan Napier) back. To this end she has coaxed the other two to her place and persuaded them to join her in a single wish.
They pool their wish on a ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes, and…
And then the movie lets them go their separate ways while they await the results. Sydney starts things off in a lightly humorous vein; he’s handling the finances of a wealthy widow (Rosalind Ivan) who still gets amorous visits from her late husband. Things get serious when he uses some of her money for a risky investment that turns out the way you think it would. Meanwhile….
Meanwhile, Peter Lorre is holed up in a cheap apartment with burly Peter Whitney, lying low till Robert Shayne’s murder trial is over. It seems Whitney and Shayne pulled a burglary, Shayne shot a cop, and Lorre got drunkenly mixed up in the whole affair. They’re aided by Joan Lorring, who is obviously smitten with Lorre’s lovable drunk, but at a crucial moment, Shayne betrays them, putting all three on the run. And while that’s going on…
Geraldine Fitzgerald acts out in the best Joan Crawford tradition, alternately seductive and plain-damn crazy as she lies, schemes, and ultimately cuts off her unwilling spouse from everyone but her. Faced with a life in ruins, Alan Napier gets a gun and heads for her apartment, where the three principals have gathered to cheat their fates.
And that ain’t the half of it.
Jean Negulesco directs all this with real style, imparting a sense of movement with his camera, even when nothing much is going on, and hiding the cheap sets with tricky camera angles. The headline players are at the top of their form, but what I loved here was the well-written and perfectly-played bit parts, which I attribute to co-writer Howard Koch.
Yeah, the story is Huston’s but when I look at the wealth of memorable supporting parts in Koch’s oeuvre — Casablanca, Sergeant York, and The 13th Letter, to name a few — I gotta give him credit for enriching the whole thing: from the clerks in Sydney’s law offices to the kindly cop who pinches Lorre, everyone acts like he’s the star and this is his movie. Negulesco lavishes time and close-ups on them, and the actors themselves, perhaps realizing they won’t get many chances like this, come through beautifully. The result is a film rich in detail and richly ironic.
PERSONAL NOTE: Oddly enough, I have a statue of Kwan Yin around here somewhere, but I’ve never thought to pray to it or even make a wish. And even if I did, I don’t know any strangers.
“I don’t know any strangers.” Let me think about that one for a minute.
SARA PARETSKY -Blood Shot. V. I. Warshawski #5. Delacorte, hardcover, 1988. Dell, paperback, June 1989.
I enjoyed Bitter Medicine, the previous adventure of Paretsky’s Chicago-based PI V. I. Warshawski, so much that I ranked it number one for the issue [Mystery*File 13, not yet online]. This one is nearly 100 pages longer, and unfortunately I don’t really think the extra pages add anything.
If it had been up to me, I’d have condensed the first 160 pages down to about 30 or so. That’s when this story of lost parents and criminal neglect in the chemical industry began to click for me. A number of good scenes follow, as well as some sharp characterization.
–Reprinted from Mystery*File #18, December 1989, very slightly revised.
Devoted to mystery and detective fiction — the books, the films, the authors, and those who read, watch, collect and make annotated lists of them. All uncredited posts are by me, Steve Lewis.
