MIKHAIL CHERNYONOK – Losing Bet. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Dial Press, hardcover, 1984. Russian title: Stavka Na Proigrysh, 1979.

   To many American readers, Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park was a curiosity — a murder mystery set in Moscow. But since World War II, the mystery has been a popular form in the Soviet Union, and novels by writers such as Vil Vladiminovich Lipatov, the brother team of Arkady and Georgy Alexandrovich Vainer, and Julian Semyonovich Semyonov are widely read.

   Most of these mysteries would not appeal to Western readers; they are long-winded and parochial. But Mikhail Chernyonok’s Losing Bet was an excellent choice for translation.

   A young woman has fallen — or been pushed — from the balcony of an apartment in Novosibirsk, a city of a million inhabitants in remote western Siberia. Detective Anton Birukov is in charge of the case. The woman, Sanya, is the ex-wife of the apartment’s tenant, Yuri Demensky, but he claims he has not seen her for years.

   In the apartment are found the fingerprints of a well-known professional criminal, Vasya Sipeniatin, but his specialty has always been cunning, not violence. Other suspects include Ovchinnikov, a self-styled ladies’ man who borrowed Demensky’s apartment for romantic liaisons; Zarvantsev, a talented artist who has “gone commercial”; and Stepnadze, a railroad conductor with a lucrative career on the side, illegal speculation in hard-to-find books.

   All had known Sanya, but who had killed her, and what was she doing at Demensky’s? As Birukov and his aides methodically track down clues from the bars and theaters of Novosibirsk to the resorts of the Black Sea, they begin to see a conspiracy of bribery and corruption that has led to one murder and will lead to more.

   Much of the appeal of Losing Bet lies in its incisive but affectionate portrait of working-class Russians at work, play, and love. The police work is without frills. Aside from the interesting structural differences between Soviet and Western police forces, Birukov’s crime-solving techniques would seem familiar, and sound, to American readers of police procedurals.

         ———
   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.

DEBORAH DONNELLY – Died to Match.

Dell, paperback original; 1st printing, October 2002.

   I missed the first one, of course, but I managed to catch up with Deborah Donnelly in this, her second mystery novel. The protagonist in both is Carnegie Kincaid, who’s a high-profile wedding planner in the city of Seattle. While she’s not number one, her clientele still consists of some of the wealthier big-names in town.

   In Died to Match an engagement masquerade party for two of the latter — wealthy big-names, that is — held at the Seattle Aquarium, results in one bridesmaid falling (or jumping or being pushed) into the ocean. Later on yet another one — a bridesmaid, that is — is found murdered in an exhibit with her head crushed in.

   There are a lot of characters to keep track of, which has the advantage of providing a host of possible suspects, but some of them seem to come and go without being fully introduced. Carnegie has a male friend, a newspaper reporter named Aaron, with whom she is having a touch-and-go almost romance. He seems to be the unthreatened jealous type. She thinks he smokes too much.

   The book itself is just over 300 pages long. About half of it is devoted to the various vicissitudes of the wedding planning business, Carnegie’s off-and-on affair with Aaron, and me just in general wondering why the wedding is going on as scheduled with someone (seemingly) stalking the bridesmaids like this.

   Donnelly does some fast talking and shuffling around to explain this (reference Aunt Enid, who may live not much longer) and lest I seem to be neglecting the other half of the book, she does a better-than-average job of providing all of the clues, false leads, and other required paraphernalia of an honest-to-goodness detective story.

   I doubt that I’m among the primary audience intended for this book, but in all honesty, Deborah Donnelly certainly delivers everything her readers are looking for, and maybe others, like me, who are satisfied as well.

[UPDATE]  11-22-08. For whatever reason, the wedding planner ambiance, or the fact that the books were a rare breed these days, fully clued detective stories (or hopefully, a combination of both), the series seems to have caught on, at least for a while. There are six of them in all; you’ll find a complete list below. The bad news is that the last one came out nearly two years ago, and there’s not been another one since.

  Veiled Threats. Dell, pbo, Jan 2002. “In the first Wedding Planner Mystery, Carnegie ventures off her Seattle house-boat to deal with a handsome suitor, an annoying reporter, and a kidnapped bride.”

  Died To Match. Dell, pbo, Oct 2002. “When a Halloween engagement party turns murderous, Carnegie finds herself costumed as a bridesmaid and stalked by a killer!”

  May the Best Man Die. Dell, pbo, Sept 2003. “In this Yuletide caper, Carnegie encounters a drowning at a bachelor party, a stripper in a Santa suit, and a murderous chase through a coffee roasting plant…”

  Death Takes a Honeymoon. Dell, pbo, Apr 2005. “Where there’s smoke, there’s murder, in this fiery tale of smoldering smokejumpers, hot-tempered actresses, and a super-heated Sun Valley summer.”

  You May Now Kill The Bride. Dell, pbo, Jan 2006. “On picturesque San Juan Island, love and lavender are in the air. But so are poisonous gossip, passionate jealousy…and murder.”

  Bride and Doom. Dell, pbo, Dec 2006. “When a baseball-themed engagement party is crashed by a corpse, Carnegie steps up to the plate to clear her pal of murder. Too bad her fiancé Aaron has suddenly come down with Relationship Deficit Disorder…”

   Note: The short synopses above came from Deborah Donnelly’s website.

THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU. Columbia, 1942. Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, ‘Slapsie’ Maxie Rosenbloom, Larry Parks, (Miss) Jeff Donnell, Don Beddoe. Director: Lew Landers.

   This movie came before the filmed version of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), but from all accounts, there’s no coincidence involved in the fact that the plot of Boogie Man so closely resembles that of Arsenic. Boris Karloff was still in the Broadway run of the latter, and from what I’ve read, the movie was done to cash in on its popularity.

   (For some reason that’s not entirely clear, Karloff wasn’t offered his Arsenic role in the movie; Raymond Massey played the part, but Peter Lorre, on the other hand, was in the Arsenic film. You tell me.)

   The main concept of Boogie Man is that Boris Karloff, as mildly befuddled and bemused Professor Nathaniel Billings, a role he could have played in his sleep but never did, is trying to create a legion of super-powered zombies in his basement laboratory.

   Unfortunately all of the door-to-door peddlers he tries his invention on fall out of the machine as corpses – and no super-powers. That’s delightfully dimwitted powderpuff salesman Maxie Rosenblum as one of the subjects right here on the left.

   Some reviewers whose comments I’ve happened to read have complained that nothing in this film is very scary. It is to laugh. In spite of the title, this is not a horror film at all. It is a comedy. And while I don’t think I laughed out loud, I may have giggled to myself a few times. I know I smiled a lot.

   Playing against Mr. Karloff is Peter Lorre as Dr. Lorencz, the local sheriff, undertaker, and justice of the peace, along with a few other titles. The good doctor favors a wide-brimmed black hat and a long black coat with a Siamese kitten with a nose for crime and corruption in one of the inside pockets.

   I got the feeling that Boris Karloff was playing it straight (or as straight as he could be, knowing full well that it was a comedy) and Peter Lorre, whose comedic skills are much greater than you may ever have realized, was doing his best in a droll, expressive deadpan way (not a contradiction) to throw his fellow thespian off-balance.

   They make a good team, and after this movie they made a two or three other horror films together that were also really comedies, including The Raven (1963) and The Comedy Of Terrors (1964).

   Here’s a clip from YouTube to demonstrate them in action in this movie, and here’s another, beginning with Dr. Lorencz being called in on the case and running over seven minutes long.

   Also in the cast are Jeff Donnell, later to become George Gobel’s wife Alice on his TV show in the mid-1950s, and Larry Parks, later to become Al Jolson.

   As the blissfully unaware divorcee Winnie Shaw, who oohs and aahs over every decrepit aspect of the rundown country inn the professor is more than willing to sell to her, as long as he can keep working in the basement, Miss Donnell made more of an impression on me than he did.

   One warning. I said that this was a comedy, not a horror movie. Before wrapping up this review I went to IMDB to read what the commenters there had to say, and sadly to say, some of the humor went right over their heads. They’re too young, I guess, but I have to admit that some of the funny stuff was awfully corny. It’s part of the charm, that’s all I can say.

CHINATOWN NIGHTS. Paramount, 1929; William Wellman, director; Wallace Beery, Florence Vidor, Warner Oland, Jack Oakie, Jack McHugh, Testsu, Komai, Peter Morrison. Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   I may have a very soft spot for the resourceful Mary Miles Minters and Mary Pickfords of the film world, but let it not be thought that I subsist only on sweets. I’m also partial to Warner Oland, both for his masterful incarnation of Charlie Chan and for his earlier screen career as an Oriental villain, a role he once again assumes in this flavorful treat.

   Chinatown is ruled by two gang lords, Chuck Riley, the Caucasian tong leader played by Wallace Beery, and Boston Charley, the Chinese tong leader, played by Warner Oland. (It’s of interest that this screening was preceded by the showing of a trailer for one of the early, lost Chan films starring Oland.)

   Florence Vidor is the society woman who tours Chinatown and stays, infatuated with Riley, whose familiarity with Shakespeare and some signs of tenderness captivate her. The most striking scene takes place at the performance of a Chinese opera, attended by both Riley and Charley, that explodes in a shoot-out that shatters the always fragile quiet of Chinatown.

   The soundtrack is somewhat rough, but Beery is a commanding presence, with the dark, dangerous streets, punctuated by gunfire, creating an ominous background to the troubled (and troubling) relationship of Beery and Vidor.

   Oland’s role is, unfortunately, not large, but he doesn’t get lost in the crowd.

[EDITORIAL COMMENT]   Walter doesn’t mention it, but this movie is regarded as Florence Vidor’s first and last sound film. Her voice was dubbed by another actress, the story goes, and after a long career in the silent era (and once married to director King Vidor), she decided to quit the movie-making business, having married again, this time to violinist Jascha Heifetz in 1928.

   I’ve tried, but so far I’ve come up empty in finding a photo of Warner Oland in this movie. Sorry, Walter!    — Steve

JIM WRIGHT – The Last Man Standing. Carroll & Graf, hardcover, 1991.   Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club; 3-in-1 edition.

   This is the second of two crime thrillers written by Jim Wright, both published in hardcover by Carroll & Graf. His first one, The Last Frame (1990), also came out in paperback, but I can’t find any record that this one ever did.

   Which is a shame, because it’s more than a decent entry in the “serial killer” sub-category of thriller fiction, and a strong case could be made for it to be cross-classified in the “hard-drinking newspaper reporter” branch of detective fiction as well — and what’s more, with real detection. If the book had come out in paperback, maybe its author would have more than the tiny dual listing in Hubin and be all-but-unknown anywhere else.

   The reporter is Stuart Reed, who literally stumbles across the mutilated body of Diana Diaz while jogging. While he’s only the New Jersey paper’s environmental columnist, Reed becomes obsessed with the story, even in the face of what seems to be official indifference, then losing his job (and not so incidentally) his wife when he pushes too far, allowing the case to subsume his life completely.

   While getting the basic elements of the workaday world exactly right, Wright might not be the most polished writer in the world, sometimes describing the most mundane everyday activities in too much detail: on pages 38-39, Reed comes home to his Manhattan apartment and we’re told that he uses two keys in the front entrance, one for his mailbox (empty) and then three on his front door. Parking lots are described in close-up: “a square lot, with a row of diagonal parking spaces on both sides…”

   But caring about detail comes in handy later on, when the thriller aspect takes an abrupt about-face and morphs itself into the fair-play tale of detection alluded to earlier. All of the details jar into place, and suddenly this double-faceted crime thriller becomes a small never-discovered treasure in the rough.

[UPDATE]  11-20-08.   Revised: 11-25-08.    Although The Last Man Standing never came out in paperback, copies of the hardcover are not hard to find online. (What is strange is that while I have a copy myself, there’s only one DBC edition listed on ABE. Why should the book club edition be scarcer than the First Edition? I have no idea.)

   In my original comment I talked about the fact that I wasn’t able to come up with a cover image for the book. That’s been rectified, as you will have seen. At the time, all I had to show you was a copy scan of Jim Wright’s first book which you see here to the left.

   As I said earlier, all he wrote were the two mysteries; in the late 1970s he also wrote two non-fiction books about sports stars Bobby Clarke and Mike Schmidt.

   His full name is James Bowers Wright, and Contemporary Authors says that he started working for several New Jersey newspapers in 1972. Working his way up the ladder, he eventually became the metropolitan assignment editor for the Bergen Record, and that’s the connection that helped me track him down. He answered a few questions that I asked, and he was also kind enough to send me the cover image you see at the top of the page.

   Here’s his reply to the email I sent him:

[UPDATE #2] 11-23-08.  For a complete list of all 27 weeks’ worth of “forgotten books,” see Patti Abbott’s latest post on her website, where all this started. It’s a spectacular array of good reading, that’s for sure.

GEORGE C. CHESBRO – Shadow of a Broken Man.   Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1977. Paperback reprints: Signet, 1978; Dell, 1987.

   This is the first Chesbro novel featuring Dr. Robert Fredrickson, a professor of criminology who doubles as a private detective, is a dwarf, and is known to his friends as Mongo. A onetime top circus performer, Mongo possesses some very useful skills for tight situations, among them tumbling and gymnastic ability and a black belt in karate.

   While preparing to leave for vacation in Acapulco, Mongo is approached by Mike Foster, who married the widow of famous architect Victor Rafferty. Foster’s wife, Elizabeth, happened to see a photograph of a new museum in an architectural magazine, and is convinced that the design is the work of her husband.

   But Victor died five years ago, and the museum’s design is listed as the work of a man named Richard Patern. Victor Rafferty died from a fall into an open smelting furnace, so there was essentially no body to be recovered, and Elizabeth is haunted by the conviction that Rafferty is still alive. Mike Foster’s marriage is suffering; he wants Mongo to clear up this matter so he and Elizabeth can get on with their lives.

   Mongo assumes there won’t be too much complication here, so he postpones his vacation and accepts the case. His first move is to consult professor of design Franklin Manning, resident architectural genius, who flatly tells Mongo that the museum is Rafferty’s design, without question.

   And suddenly Mongo is involved in something much more complex and dangerous than he imagined. Russian and French agents are part of the package, as are U.N. Secretary Rolfe Thaag and more than one victim of Communist brutality.

   The writing here is literate and fast-paced, the plot is intricate, the concept is bizarre yet entirely plausible. This is a well-spiced recipe that results in haute cuisine.

   Chesbro is also the author of City of Whispering Stone (1978), An Affair of Sorcerers (1979), and The Beasts of Valhalla (1985), which likewise feature Mongo.

         ———
   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.

GEORGE C. CHESBRO, R. I. P.   On a sad note to go with this review, news of George Chesbro’s passing is making the rounds of the mystery fiction blogs today. The best reportage, as usual, is on The Rap Sheet, including some of Jeff Pierce’s personal remembrances of the author.  — Steve

MILES BURTON – Beware Your Neighbour. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1951. No US publication.

   Hallows Green is a quiet street of detached houses with highly respectable inhabitants, a microcosm of middle-class England. There’s Walter Glandford, retired science professor; general practitioner Dr. Jeremy Teesdale; solicitor Peter Raynham; brothers Lawrence and Barry Flamstead, who live at opposite ends of the street and unfortunately do not get along too well; retired admiral Sir Hector Sapperton,; philanthropist Miss Florence Wayland; former civil servant Charles Vawtrey; and bank manager Claude Dodworthy. An exotic note is struck in this residential backwater by Hopton and Rachel Egremont, the couple holding regular religious services with a vaguely Eastern flavour in their corner house.

   Generally speaking the neighbours are friendly but alas, this soon changes following a series of anonymous communications, causing each resident of Hallows Green to look with suspicion on the others.

   It all begins when Glandford’s morning post brings a note informing him murder stalks Hallows Green. Miss Wayland receives a New Year card signed as from Death, while Peter Raynham is the recipient of an antique dagger blade inscribed “Honourable Death Is Best.” Lawrence Flamstead gets a drawing of a tiger with the message “Media vita morte sumus” or “In the midst of life we are in death.” Dr Teesdale’s note, a torn-out advertisement inscribed “H.C.N.,” is left under the windscreen wiper of his car. Sir Hector receives an envelope containing one of his own calling cards amended to show “Death comes for” written above his name.

   Banker Dodworthy’s communication arrives in the form of a parcel left in his bank’s night safe. It contains a wooden box which by the agency of an explosive strip from a Christmas cracker goes bang when he (rather foolishly in my opinion!) opens it. Further, the box lid is embellished “Next time…Death” in poker work. Vawtrey is the recipient of a photograph of a skeleton marked, in reversed letters, “Yours.” Only Barry Flamstead, one of the warring brothers, and the religious Egremonts are left out.

   It becomes apparent whoever is keeping the postman busy is a resident of the street. And since the inhabitants naturally want to keep the situation quiet to avoid the scarlet taint of scandal, enter the admiral’s former colleague and now friend Desmond Merrion to investigate.

   Hardly has Merrion arrived when Vawtrey’s garden goes up in flames, gigantic footprints are discovered here and there, matters escalate, and ultimately murder is done. But who is responsible and what could be the motive for the crimes disturbing this quiet pocket of suburbia?

My verdict: I felt Beware Your Neighbour leaned towards metamorphing into a literary curate’s egg, yet I cannot say any part of it was actually bad.

   All through the novel I was racking my brains as to what messages the anonymous communications could possibly mean. There’s much innocent fun to be had speculating on the matter. For example, did the honourable death dagger blade sent to solicitor Raynham point to a disgruntled former client or a shady incident in the legal eagle’s past? Then too why were one brother and the religious couple left out of the general correspondence?

   The reader is drawn along through a string of strange incidents until Merrion begins to unravel what is going on. When the solution is revealed, readers may accept the motive behind the odd communications as fitting with the ultimate crime, though if like me they begin thinking about it later they may begin to wonder if the whole odd arrangement was over-egging the pudding somewhat — not to mention pointing the finger into a very small circle, surely something the culprit would wish to avoid.

   So there was a little disappointment at the end of a novel with an otherwise excellent set-up. I for one would have loved to see what sort of plot Agatha Christie would have constructed using those letters as its kicking off point!

 Etext: http://www.munseys.com/diskfour/bwaredex.htm

[EDITORIAL UPDATE] 11-20-08.  I’ve deleted my previous comment, which dealt with my inability to find a cover image to go along with Mary’s review, the first failure I’ve had along those lines in quite a while.

   The good news, though, is that I’ve had the good fortune to have one sent to me, and you will have already seen it above. Sometimes all you need to do is ask. And to offer special thanks in return to Ian of SA Book Connection, who said and I quote:

   Me again. Thanks again, Ian. If anyone’s interested, please follow the link above. And when doing the required search for the book, don’t forget to spell Neighbour correctly!

   Joe Gall is the Cadillac of hardass spies. Sure, Matt Helm can crush a foe’s kidneys with a crowbar, but would Helm allow himself to be turned into a heroin addict as Gall does in The Death Bird Contract (Fawcett, 1966), surely one of the best books James Atlee Phillips (who writes the Joe Gall series as “Philip Atlee”) ever wrote?

   I started the Joe Gall series early on with The Green Wound (Fawcett, 1963) and The Paper Pistol Contract (Fawcett, 1966). I was immediately impressed by the quality of the writing:

   We find out later that the man was carrying nearly half a kilo of uncut heroin in his butt, sealed in pliofilm and insertion surgically assisted. However, something went wrong: the bundle busted and a pound of pure heroin blasted into the tissues of the man’s body without warning. And the description of the event is graphic, yet at the same time poetic.

   The other trademark of the Joe Gall series is detailed references to local food, buildings, streets, and exotic customs. The reason is that James Atlee Phillips visited each of the sites of the novels in the series, many times writing the first draft on location to be sure to capture faithfully the local flavor. (Details of Phillips’ writing habits were related to me by a friend of his, Tom Van Zandt.)

   From Van Zandt’s information, Joe Gall is a projection of Phillips’ own fiery personality and style. Early in the series, Phillips has a minor character describe Joe Gall’s role that remains more or less consistant throughout the series:

   Joe Gall has class. He works only on a contract basis for large sums of money and spends most of his time in a fabulous mountain retreat in the Ozarks. He’s similar in style and flair to that legendary Western “consultant,” Paladin.

   In terms of quality, I like the first four books in the series best. The Skeleton Coast Contract (Fawcett, 1968) features my favorite Joe Gall scene: Joe’s staked out on an anthill, and I assure you the description will make you itchy and wiggly for weeks. I have a certain amount of sentimental fondness for The Canadian Bomber Contract (Fawcett, 1971) because my home town is Niagara Falls, New York and I appreciate the fact that Phillips took the time to write an adventure taking place in my backyard and get it right.

   I recommend all the books in the Joe Gall series without reservation, but you have my preferences. The later books seemed to lack vitality and The Last Domino Contract (Fawcett, 1976) has Joe Gall calling it quits. Whether Phillips brings Gall out of retirement remains to be seen; however we have several top quality books to continue to enjoy while they remain in print.

      Bibliographic data: The JOE GALL books. [Expanded from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

   Pagoda, as by James Atlee Phillips. Macmillan, hardcover, 1951. Bantam 1055, paperback, 1952. [Burma]. Joe Gall is an independent soldier of fortune.

All later books are paperback originals:

   The Green Wound. Gold Medal k1321, July 1963 [New Orleans, LA] Joe Gall is now a semi-retired contract agent for the CIA. Reprinted as The Green Wound Contract, Gold Medal, 1967.
   The Silken Baroness. Gold Medal k1489, 1964 [Canary Islands] Reprinted as The Silken Baroness Contract, Gold Medal, 1966
   The Death Bird Contract. Gold Medal d1632, 1966 [Mexico]
   The Paper Pistol Contract. Gold Medal d1634, 1966 [Tahiti]

   The Irish Beauty Contract. Gold Medal d1694, 1966 [Bolivia]
   The Star Ruby Contract. Gold Medal d1770, 1967 [Burma]
   The Rockabye Contract. Gold Medal d1901, 1968 [Caribbean]
   The Skeleton Coast Contract. Gold Medal D1977, 1968 [Africa]
   The Ill Wind Contract. Gold Medal R2087, 1969 [Indonesia]
   The Trembling Earth Contract. Gold Medal, 1969 [U.S. South]
   The Fer-de-Lance Contract. Gold Medal, Jan 1971 [Caribbean]
   The Canadian Bomber Contract. Gold Medal T2450, August 1971 [Montreal, Canada]
   The White Wolverine Contract. Gold Medal T2508, Dec 1971 [Vancouver, Canada]
   The Kiwi Contract. Gold Medal T2530, Feb 1972 [New Zealand]
   The Judah Lion Contract. Gold Medal T2608, Sept 1972 [Ethiopia]
   The Spice Route Contract. Gold Medal T2697, April 1973 [Middle East]
   The Shankill Road Contract. Gold Medal T2819, Sept 1973 [Ireland]

   The Underground Cities Contract. Gold Medal M2925, Feb 1974 [Turkey]
   The Kowloon Contract. Gold Medal M3028, August 1974 [Hong Kong]
   The Black Venus Contract. Gold Medal M3187, Feb 1975 [South America]
   The Makassar Strait Contract. Gold Medal P3477, March 1976 [Indonesia]

   The Last Domino Contract. Gold Medal 1-3587, 1976 [Korea]

Note: In a chart created by R. Jeff Banks accompanying the first appearance of this article, he points out that the background of the unnamed hero of The Deadly Mermaid by James Atlee Phillips (Dell 1st Edn #26, pb, 1954) is very similar to that of Joe Gall’s.

ARTHUR W. UPFIELD – An Author Bites the Dust.

Angus & Robertson, Australia, hardcover, 1948. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hc, 1948. Many reprint editions, both hardcover and soft, including Angus & Robertson, UK-Australia, hc, 1967; and Scribner’s, US, ppbk, August 1987 (both shown).

   The most under-rated writer of detective fiction is certainly Arthur Upfield. His books provide levels of characterization and description of places exceptional in the mystery. Most importantly, his half-aborigine Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte can and does detect.

   Moreover, Mr. Upfield did not, to my knowledge, write a bad book. For the first few chapters, though, of An Author Bites the Dust, I thought he had; for Mr. Upfield had difficulty breathing life into the dry husks of the coterie of colonial litterateurs led by the soon-to-die Mervyn Blake, who see their purpose in life as shaping the future of Australian literature.

   Fortunately, other characters appear and Bonaparte is able through questioning to make some of the remaining writers come to life. It turns out the unenviable Blake met his death from poisoning by coffin dust (i.e. ptomaine spores latent in the dust we all become — would it work?) for a motive so well-wrought, all-encompassing, and completely literary that description would take pages.

   Let my “fair play” in not disclosing the murderer serve as an additional incentive for those of you who have not, to read this excellent book. Cat fanciers will want to know that the clue that starts Bony on the path to success is delivered to him by a cat.

   Other thoughts: I wonder if the mystery writer Clarence B. Bagshott who appears here in a minor role was an intended or sub-conscious self-portrayal of the author? I wonder also if the American compositor and proofreader thought the “De Cameron” (p. 18) was a clan of Scots who emigrated to France?

   Most of all, I wonder — as I’ve wondered while reading each of Mr. Upfield’s books — how a half-caste named Napoleon Bonaparte could move through the generally upper-middle-class society of Australia of the 1930’s and 40’s with so few comments about his name (one here) and without a snub due to his ancestry (In this book he even poses briefly as a South African (!) journalist.)

CARTER BROWN – The Deadly Kitten.  Signet D3345; paperback original, December 1967. Horwitz #141, Australia, ppbk, July 1968.

   It now seems apparent that the mystery writing career of Australian Alan G. Yates has taken on a unique significance. Although Yates is still active under his real name in the science fiction field, as “Carter Brown” he produced 179 short novels between 1953-76, and it now appears that these books comprise not only one of the longest, but quite possibly the last series of hardboiled mysteries told in the humorous, decidedly tongue-in-cheek vein which was also, once upon a time, the specialty of such practitioners as Robert Leslie Bellem, Jonathan Latimer and Richard S. Prather.

   It’s too bad. There’s definitely a place for happy go-lucky, good-natured mayhem played more for smiles than anything else, and while I’m not forgetting Donald E. Westlake, there’s simply no one like Brown writing in the private eye field these days. And that’s a pity.

   Every Carter Brown novel was “typical.” One of Brown’s many series characters would take on an incredibly complex case populated by any number of sexy ladies and bad-ass men — all of whom generally hated each other’s guts and never missed an opportunity to say so, quite humorously at times — and while ratiocination was never the forte of Brown’s heroes, the case would always be satisfactorily wrapped up no later than page 128.

   The Deadly Kitten stars Hollywood “industrial consultant” Rick Holman — a hard drinking wise-cracker of a private eye of the Dan Turner/Shell Scott school — who takes an assignment from macho movie star Leonard Reid to try and quiet down one of Reid’s ex-live-in male lovers who is going around town making waves about Reid’s sexual habits.

   In most ways this too is a “typical” Brown, but Kitten is distinguished by a singularly colorful cast, some great dialogue and, for a change, the solving of a really twisty puzzle by actual deductive reasoning. And nobody has ever packed more plot twists into 125 pages, and still maintained narrative pace, like Carter Brown. The book is fast, lightweight and engaging.

   Recommended as top drawer “Brown” as well as a fine paperback quickie for those who like to read them at one sitting.