JAMES SALLIS – Drive. Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover, September 2005; Harvest Books, trade paperback, September 2006.

DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI – The Wheelman. St. Martins, hardcover, September 2005; trade paperback, November 2006.

   There are those who say that too many of us identity ourselves too much with our jobs. That’s certainly true of the protagonists of these two fast-moving novels.

   Sallis’s lead character has simply taken the name Driver because that’s what does, both as a movie stunt driver and as a getaway specialist. Swierczynki’s Patrick Lennon is an apparently mute Irishman who harbors secrets even from the reader.

   Both stories spin off from capers gone wrong. Indeed, could anyone write a novel about a caper that goes off without a hitch? And would anyone read it?

   Sallis’s lean tale spins back and forth in time and ultimately leads to a point where Driver will have to decide whether he can still exist in the form he’s created or evolve into something else. If you get what I’m getting at, you know Sallis and you know this is as readable as it is speculative.

   Good, lean, intriguing.

   The Wheelman, on the other hand, speeds forth in the aftermath of a botched bank robbery and doesn’t stop until there’s virtually no one standing.

   Patrick Lennon finds himself flailing about among a cross section of Philadelphia Mafioso, Russian gangsters and corrupt bottom feeders, none of whom are as clever as they think, most of whom are double-crossed by sharpies who are in turn double-crossed by even rougher scoundrels.

   At first, I thought the book was going over the top but then it came gradually clear that this isn’t so much a hardboiled caper as it is a black comedy, one that ends with an appropriately bitter chuckle that could also be perceived as a death rattle.

   Grand, nasty fun.

HIGH TREASON. GB/Tiffany, 1929; Maurice Elvey, director; Benita Hume, Jameson Thomas, Humberston Wright, Basil Gill, James Carew, Judd Green, Milton Rosmer, Henry Vibart, Irene Rooke, Renee Ray. Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   This was a science fiction film previously unknown to me and to, I suspect, a majority of the audience. Although it was filmed in both sound and silent versions, the sound track had decomposed, and only the silent version appears to survive.

   Set in the mid-20th century, some twenty years after the date of the film’s release, it chronicles an explosive situation in which subversive capitalists and terrorists, working behind the scenes, are attempting to set off a war between the two major international powers represented by North America and Britain and continental governments.

   (The writer of the program notes seems to think Britain and the US are a co-joined superpower even though the film makes it clear that Washington and London are the leaders of their respective alliances.)

   This was released two years after the seminal German science fiction film, Metropolis. High Treason has none of the visionary power of Lang’s film but its simplistic view of the future city (airplanes landing on roofs, and TV) is somewhat compensated for by a plot which culminates with the murder of the leader who’s pushing for war by the world’s leading pacifistic in an attempt to derail the race toward disaster.

   It’s certainly superior to the rather silly American SF film Just Imagine (1930) but it will not be until 1936 that Britain, with the release of Things to Come, will produce an important science fiction film.

ANNE PERRY – Funeral in Blue

Fawcett; paperback reprint, 1st printing, September 2002. Hardcover edition: Ballantine, 2001.

   All that Victorian private enquiry agent James Monk can remember of his life are the last six years, his memory lost in a coach crash, but his abilities as a detective are still intact. This is the 12th of his cases to appear in book form, and the first that I’ve read. (Perry has also written at least 22 mysteries in which Thomas and Charlotte Pitt are the detectives. She is one prolific lady.)

   Besides having a solid, almost palpable sense of time and place — London in September (always foggy) plus glorious, free-spirited Vienna — the story Perry tells is as complicated as any detection aficionado could possibly wish.

   The wife of the doctor with whom Monk’s wife Hester works as a nurse for has been murdered. Her portrait was being painted, and her body is found in the artist’s studio, along with the artist’s live-in model. Once the artist has been eliminated from suspicion, Dr. Beck, as the husband, is the most obvious other suspect.

   There is more to the story. Both Dr. Beck and his wife were young revolutionaries together in Vienna, fighting tyranny in the 1848 uprising, and failing, but after they also became lovers, they seem to have found their infatuation with each other fading, after 13 years of humdrum life in England. To track down clues about their hidden past, Monk is required to make a memorable trip to Austria, where he learns a great deal, but only a small hint of anything tangible to help in Beck’s defense.

   Perry is a meticulous writer, with a great care to physical detail. It is therefore all the more puzzling when small glitches in the mystery itself appear. Small matters unknown to the reader are referred to before the facts are revealed by Monk in his investigation. And when what one witness says ignores what another has stated, it seems to go without notice — nor it is a clue that fits in place later, as an overly observant reader might suspect.

   Worse, especially if you’re a fan of courtroom drama, Perry will have you turning the pages as fast you can, only to have Monk take the stand — but for the prosecution, which makes no sense at all, except for dramatic effect. The effect is powerful, but it wouldn’t, couldn’t have happened that way. (Could it?)

   Net result: Funeral in Blue is an engrossing period novel, a small triumph of historical fiction, but it’s marred by a seemingly indifferent approach to mystery telling. This could easily have been a five star detective novel, with an ending as good as one of Agatha Christie’s, but it hits on only five cylinders, not six.

   The book is still very much worth reading, but if you were to gather from my comments above that I was disappointed, you’d be right.

GEORGE HARMON COXE – Murder for Two.

Dell #276; mapback edition; no date stated, but circa 1949. Hardcover edition: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.

   Another Boston mystery, this one featuring “Flashgun” Casey, ace photographer for the Express, but one of another style and another era. While Death of a Harvard Freshman [reviewed earlier here] was wordy and cerebral, this novel by George Harmon Coxe is terse and prone to violent action. Casey is as good with his fists as with his wits.

   As you might have known without my saying so, had I mentioned earlier that this novel was originally published as a Black Mask serial. Its original title in the pulps? “Blood on the Lens.” [A three-part serial, beginning January 1943.]

   And as far as titles go, Murder for Two is the more appropriate, even though it’s rather meager and bland in comparison. The first death is that of crusading columnist Rosiland Taylor. Apparently someone objected to a story she was working on. The second death is that of a former secretary who held some incriminating evidence against the target of that story.

   The case is all so straightforward that it comes as quite a pleasant (though not unexpected) surprise to learn that Coxe has more of a mystery in mind than that, so if you pick this one up and give it a try, don’t take it too lightly as a work of detective fiction. Keep reading. (The question is more of how Coxe is going to pull off what he does, not whether.) The key here is that there is a very nifty alibi involved, one so nifty, as a matter of fact, that no one is even aware it is an alibi.

   Or in other words, there is a lot of action going on in this book, so take this as a warning. Coxe’s meticulous plotting can easily blindside you and catch you as flat-footed as I was. (A humbling admission to make, but there you are.)

   He also catches a rare male camaraderie between Casey and police lieutenant Logan of Homicide — one that can suddenly flare into mutual irritation and tired sarcasm but then, with common sense and good humor, just as quickly right itself back into place again.

STEPHEN KING – The Colorado Kid.

Hard Case Crime. Paperback original; first printing, October 2005.

   Let me be the first to state that the authorial specter hovering over Stephen King’s latest is none other than George V. Higgins.

   Maybe it’s being from New England, but starting with the long monologue about why the Boston Globe reporter’s money is being slipped to the waitress, and in a clandestine fashion, and then recognizing that the book is one long alternating monologue among two aging Maine newspapermen attempting to instruct their young intern on the nature of mystery and the mystery of life, well, this is the sort of thing Higgins did in many of his books.

   And this slim volume succeeds as lecture, meditation and tall tale. Its brevity works in its favor. Any longer and it would get caught up in itself.

   Basically, this is the story of two old codgers enticing a young would-be reporter with the sort of sour wisdom old time newshounds expel with the ease and frequency they break wind: Kid, there are some things for which there are no answers, some mysteries that will never be solved.

   Want closure? Write fiction. This book is a creative gamble for King and a marketing gamble for Hard Case, and I applaud them both for trying.

   It’s not Hard Case’s usual type of book (except for the cover) although, when all is said and done, it’s very much an old fashioned paperback original in its brevity and smooth, swift, readability.

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. Paramount, 1957. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland, Lyle Bettger, Frank Faylen, Earl Holliman. Vocals: Frankie Laine. Screenwriter: Leon Uris; director: John Sturges.

   As a technicolor movie running just over two hours in length, this was a true western epic at the time it was released, and if it isn’t considered one now, it isn’t the fault of either of the two leading stars.

   Burt Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp, straight and narrow to the core, and Kirk Douglas is in fine boisterous mettle as Doc Holliday, dying of TB and therefore unafraid of any man with a gun, and (as they say) untameable by any woman (Jo Van Fleet, as the much-abused Kate Fisher). And here lies an early cinematic revelation, perhaps, that a western hero’s deeds need not always be heroic.

   But the events of the O. K. Corral are what everyone who watches this movie is going to be waiting for. Don’t expect either historical accuracy or intelligence on part of the Clantons and their gang, including Johnny Ringo (the always menacing John Ireland). Along the way we get a bit of romance between Wyatt and a gambler lady named Laura Denbow (the beautiful redheaded Rhonda Fleming) but I noticed no particular sparks flying.

   No sir or ma’am, Kirk Douglas is the star of this show, tagging along as he does with Wyatt as the latter takes his lawmaking abilities from town to town, and a rough craggy friendship, even respect, gradually develops. And that’s the story as far as I was concerned. Friendships, even craggy ones, are never to be shunned. (Getting up from a sick bed to face the Clantons with me, as does Doc, that’s a bonus I wouldn’t ask of anyone.)

BILL S. BALLINGER – Not I, Said the Vixen

Gold Medal k1529; paperback original, 1965.

   Ballinger had a long career as a mystery writer as well as working for television and the movies, but for some strange reason, this is the first book of his I’ve read. So, whether this one is any way typical or non-typical of his fiction, I couldn’t tell you.

   His one-time protagonist in this largely courtroom affair is Cyrus March, perhaps the best defense attorney in the country. But unlike Perry Mason, say, March also has a drinking problem. And somewhat unlike Perry Mason, his client admits to pulling the trigger in the fatal shooting of a wealthy female socialite.

   Like so many of Perry Mason’s clients, Cyrus March’s is a beautiful woman, perhaps even narcissistic, and her story is that the victim was an unknown intruder in her apartment. March’s problems with the bottle began with the death of his wife, and unlike Perry Mason, he soon declares his love for person he’s defending.

   The dialogue is sometimes stilted, and the action often stagy, but every once in a while Ballinger mixes in a brilliant turn of phrase that makes you remember why you’d rather be reading instead of watching the tube. He also alternates chapters between first and third person, an unusual format that doesn’t quite click, even though you know why he’s using it.

   Lesbianism is a key ingredient of what makes the courtroom drama go — it’s seemingly kept at arm’s length at first, but the nuances become less and less subtle as the story works its way out.

   Rather a minor effort overall, but if you ever find a copy to read, I think it’ll keep you interested all the way through. It did me, and sometimes that’s all you need.

[UPDATE] 12-05-08.   Out of curiosity, I checked again to see if Cyrus March showed up in any of Ballinger’s other mystery fiction, but I’ve found nothing to suggest that he did. Ballinger did have a series character named Joaquin Hawks, who was in five paperback originals put out by Signet in the two year period 1965-66.

   As a Native American detective, tribal affiliation unknown, Hawks is mentioned in my list of N.A. sleuths on the primary M*F website, but I’ve not read any of his adventures. Another website says that he “is a case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. His normal beat is Southeast Asia.”

   If you follow that last link, you’ll find a lot more information about him. For the record, here’s a list of all five of the Joaquin Hawks books, expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

             HAWKS, JOAQUIN:
      The Spy in the Jungle (n.) Signet D2674, pbo, May 1965 [Viet Nam]
      The Chinese Mask (n.) Signet D2715, pbo, June 1965 [China]
      The Spy in Bangkok (n.) Signet D2820, pbo, Dec 1965 [Thailand]

      The Spy at Angkor Wat (n.) Signet D2899, pbo, May 1966 [Cambodia]
      The Spy in the Java Sea (n.) Signet D2981, pbo, Sept 1966 [Far East]

UNKNOWN VALLEY. Columbia, 1933; Lambert Hillyer, direction and screenplay; Charles “Buck” Jones, Cecilia Parker, Wade Boteler, Frank McGlynn, Ward Bond, Arthur Wanzer, Alf James, Brett Black, Frank Ellis, Gaylord Pendleton and “Silver.” Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   An unusual western. Buck, in search of his missing father, after crossing a desert to a range of mountains where his father appears to have been heading, stumbles on a community of religious extremists.

   Buck discovers that their leaders, Ward Bond and Wade Boteler, have been mining for gold with the help of Buck’s missing father, now their prisoner, and plan to escape shortly with their loot.

   The religious sect is not really identified, but they are (with the exception of their treacherous leaders) peaceful folk, who want only to maintain their way of life without interference from outsiders.

   Buck was my favorite cowboy hero when I was a kid, and I think I had good taste. An intelligent film that has enough thrills and suspense to keep an audience enthralled.

FREDRICK D. HUEBNER – The Joshua Sequence.

Fawcett Gold Medal; paperback original. First printing, November 1986.

   [Rather than make any changes, I’m going to leave this review pretty much as it was written, back in early January 1987. You’ll see why in a moment. Keep reading.]

   I guess I’m getting old. It’s not so much that I’ll be 45 years old tomorrow, because I really don’t think that’s what I’m feeling. It’s more that for the past few semesters I’ve gotten the feeling that for the students in my classes, the Vietnam War is something they’ve only read about, in history books, and not from newspapers.

   And here in The Joshua Sequence we have a mystery novel with the root causes based in the early 70s, with the various underground movements, the bombings, the thoughts (carried over from the 60s) that protests could change the world. The longer Seattle lawyer Matt Riordan searches for the killer of former student activist Stephen Turner, now a computer programmer, the more sure he becomes that the reason is connected with Turner’s days with the Weathermen and the Northwest Nine.

   Ancient history. Has it been 15 years ago, already? In the passage of time, most of Turner’s co-conspirators have gone establishment, in one form or another, depending on how you define the term, but there is a secret from those earlier days that one of them does not want revealed. And therein lies the mystery.

   Drugs, and a government cover-up, are also involved. Lacking sufficient muscle, Riordon has to call in a private eye friend from Montana. He also gets too closely involved with his client, the dead man’s sister. You can probably write the rest from here.

   Huebner is also a lawyer, so here in his first novel, he is writing largely what he knows, but every so often I thought his ear for dialogue was off. It may look good in print, but as opposed to the recently reviewed Death of a Harvard Freshman, I don’t think this is the way people really talk. There are an awful lot of typos, too.

   Or maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age?

[UPDATE] 12-05-08.  No further personal comment is necessary from me, I don’t believe. My copy of the book is packed up and stored away where I can’t get to it, so I don’t have a cover image to show you. Next best thing, though: a cover shot of one of his other Matt Riordan books, then a scan of his most recent book. And why not a complete bibliography for him also, expanded from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

HUEBNER, FREDRICK D. 1955- .     MR = Matthew Riordan.
      * The Joshua Sequence. Gold Medal, pbo, 1986, MR
      * The Black Rose. Gold Medal, pbo, 1987. MR
      * Judgment by Fire. Gold Medal, pbo, 1988. MR
      * Picture Postcard. Columbine, hc, 1990; Gold Medal, ppbk, 1991. MR

      * Methods of Execution. Simon & Schuster, hc, 1994; Gold Medal, ppbk, May 1995. MR
      * Shades of Justice. Simon & Schuster, hc, 2001; Signet, ppbk, Jan 2003.

JUDSON PHILIPS – The Laughter Trap. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1964. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club [3-in-1 edition], December 1964. Paperback reprint: Pinnacle P154N, January 1973.

   Although his work as Hugh Pentecost is better known, Judson Philips has published some excellent novels of suspense and detection under his own name, and created one notable series character — Peter Styles, a national columnist for Newsview magazine who specializes in human-interest stories.

   The Laughter Trap is the first of many novels featuring Styles and dramatizes the tragic events that irrevocably altered the shape of his life and career.

   While on their way home from the Darlbrook Lodge in the Green Mountains of Vermont, Styles and his elderly father, Herbert, a successful but alcoholic advertising executive, are forced off the road by two thrill killers. Herbert Styles dies in the fiery wreck; Peter is thrown free, but sustains a serious injury that forces doctors to amputate his right leg halfway between the ankle and the knee.

   He recovers with the help of a former lover, Liz Connors, whose husband is a doctor specializing in prosthetic devices. His new artificial leg allows him to move around with only the slightest limp, and once he has recovered, he devotes his life to an ongoing search for the men who cost him his father and his leg. His only clue is the “hideous high giggling laugh” he heard before the crash.

   All of this is told in flashback and through conversations with others as Styles returns a year later to Darlbrook Lodge. He has wired for private accommodations, but ends up sharing a room with the lodge’s publicity man, Jim Tranter, through whose eyes we view the rest of the story.

   Styles’s first evening at the lodge is without unusual incident — until he awakens Tranter in the middle of the night, claiming he has again heard the hideous laughter. In the morning, a much more disturbing event is revealed: Two young women staying in one of the cabins — Jane Pritchard and Martha Towers have been brutally stabbed to death. Jane Pritchard’s father appears on the scene, accompanied by his other daughter, Laura, and offers a reward for the apprehension of the slayer.

   Styles interests himself in the investigation, believing the killings and the laughter he heard have a connection. By the time he solves the grisly double homicide, the usually peaceful atmosphere of the mountain lodge has been disrupted by yet another killing, an attempted murder, a melee in the bar, and dangerous undercurrents of hatred and suspicion. But while Styles finds satisfaction in the resolution of the case, he finds only frustration in his search for the driver of the car who took his father’s life.

   Styles continues his quest in such other novels as The Twisted People (1965), Nightmare at Dawn (1970), Walk a Crooked Mile (1975), and Why Murder (1979).

   Of the other series characters created by Philips under his own name, the most interesting are Carole Trevor of the Old Town Detective Agency and her ex-husband, wealthy man-about-town Maxwell Blythe, who appear in two early mysteries: The Death Syndicate (1938) and Death Delivers a Postcard (1939).

         ———

   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.