WILLIAM LINDSAY GRESHAM – Monster Midway: An Uninhibited Look at the Glittering World of the Carny. Rinehart & Co., hardcover, 1953. Dunce Books, softcover, 2021.

   William Lindsay Gresham wrote Nightmare Alley (1946), arguably one of the great American novels about carnivals. Readers familiar with the Bret Wood-edited anthology Grindshow: The Selected Writings of William Lindsay Gresham (2013, see Walker Martin’s Mystery*File review) will know Gresham also published many articles and short stories about “the carny.”

   Monster Midway, first published in 1953 and recently reissued by small press Dunce Books, offers a detailed look into the carnival as an attraction and self-contained world. Gresham describes many larger-than-life figures: daredevil motorcyclists, snake handlers, knife throwers, airplane stunt pilots, and human oddities (the more accepted term for people with disabilities performing in “freak shows”). Interviews with the performers explore what the carny life looks like, and why some go from trying it for a season to living it for a lifetime.

   During an October 2023 visit to Gresham’s archived papers at Wheaton College’s Marion E. Wade Center, I discovered he kept a huge folder of this book’s reviews. Many were positive, although less-impressed reviewers noted it is based on previously published articles. While this is true, it’s notable that aside from a chapter on Houdini (more than that later), Gresham has rewritten the material enough that the book reads in one consistent style.

   It’s also an entertaining style: incredible topics explained with Hemingwayesque language (short, simple). His “tell big things in a small voice” often amplifies his ideas. For example, Gresham takes time to discuss technical details that make feats understandable while underlining the risks (like why a daredevil motorcycle ramp must be just the right height to avoid killing drivers).

   The style may be read as an extension of Gresham’s approach in Nightmare Alley and perhaps helps explain why his second novel Limbo Tower (1949) flounders. Critics have sometimes argued Nightmare Alley is overheated, especially in sexual scenes like a Freudian psychoanalyst making a patient paint her toenails. (As far as I know, Stanley Kubrick hadn’t read Gresham’s book before he made Lolita, but stranger things have happened.)

   Gresham’s content may get pulpy in Nightmare Alley but especially compared to many contemporaries who started in the pulps, his writing style is spare. Limbo Tower (reviewed by me earlier in Mystery*File) is more operatic. It opens with a faux Islamic parable about blind men and an elephant before shifting to events in a hospital, filling the early chapters with references to golden sunlight that make the setting feel otherworldly. But the promise something incredible will happen in the limbo tower never arrives.

   Gresham returns to telling big events in a small voice in Monster Midway and it works. The events may be “uninhibited,” but not how Gresham writes.

   Occasionally, he does something a little outré, like writing himself into the story. The chapter on knife throwing opens with a folk singer doing the trick in a club, and it’s only after the trick succeeds that Gresham reveals he’s talking about himself (he dabbled in folk singing in the 1930s-1940s).

   These “journalist becoming the material” moments are fun, not unlike Hunter S. Thompson’s work. But if so, it’s early Thompson (On the Road with the Hell’s Angels), objectively describing strange worlds without any surrealism (for that, read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72). Gresham is daring without being extreme (or indulgent, as Thompson became).

   The fact Gresham never gets too indulgent also means he can explore things with a little distance. That distance is helpful when he looks at paradoxes between a performer’s public image and private life. For example, he notes how safety-conscious daredevil drivers are, and quotes one driver saying his son admires his work but wants to be a baseball player. Or maybe he’s told his son to be a baseball player. Gresham never deconstructs anyone cynically, but he pokes at their paradoxes a little.

   The one moment where Gresham doesn’t dissect his subjects enough is in his chapter on Houdini. It reads like hagiography as he talks about his childhood love for Houdini’s tricks, then goes behind the scenes to explain how assistants and tools enabled the master’s work. This chapter sets the stage for his less-gushing 1959 book Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls, but perhaps predicts why his book on Houdini has been surpassed.

   Gresham is often credited with writing “the first great Houdini biography,” the first to correct many mistakes about Houdini’s life and show how he accomplished his tricks. Very true, but one thing Gresham doesn’t do that later biographies do better is face how much Houdini’s ruthless ego made him and killed him. Houdini’s ruthless self-confidence made him try what no one else tried, brag he could take any punch… then die via a ruptured appendix when he got when he wasn’t prepared.

   Gresham lays the groundwork for exploring that kind of paradox in Monster Midway but never goes far enough (in his Houdini chapter or his later biography). It’s never easy to interrogate childhood heroes.

   One or two missed opportunities aside, Monster Midway remains entertaining today. As his wife Joy Davidman commented in their letters, it proves that Gresham went from being an outsider looking into carnivals to being a “true carny” insider.

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About the Reviewer: G. Connor Salter is a writer and editor. He has contributed over 1,400 articles to various publications, including Mythlore, The Tolkienist, and Fellowship & Fairydust. His interview with mystery author Clayton Rawson’s son was published here earlier in Mystery*File.

RICHARD STARK – Plunder Squad. Random House, hardcover, 1972. Avon, paperback, 1985. University of Chicago Press, trade paperback, 2010.

   So I’d already read nearly all of ’em, the Parkers. The Hunter thru Butcher’s Moon. (I ain’t interested in Comeback, etc.) But this one had passed me by. For no reason. And this one resolves the George Uhl problem left off in Sour Lemon Score. So I wanted to read it for that closure.

   Anywho, Parker’s in a rut. Things ain’t working out. And he needs money. Badly.

   But still not badly enough to take the first couple jobs lined up for him. And the one he finally takes. That one’s completely fucked up too.

   So basically this one lines up three jobs. He declines two, and the third one goes to shit.

   Meantime, two interesting things happen in this one.

   First is that George Uhl, asshole I mentioned earlier, decides it’s time to kill Parker. You can guess how that ends.

   Second is a kind of cool scene where Parker opens the door to find Dan Kearney standing there. Yeah that Dan Kearney. It’s a reverse image of a scene from Joe Gores’ Dead Skip.

   Anyway. Aside from those two things, nothing really happens in this one. And you can skip it, from a narrative stand point.

   On the other hand, why would you want to? Parker’s in good form, as is Westlake. And there’s a paucity of great hardboiled lit. So hey, why not? You owe it to yourself and I owe it to me, to read all the Parkers, Hunter thru Butcher’s Moon.

   And like it, you will, says Yoda. Like it, you will.

TRAP. Warner Brothers, 2024. Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Night Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills. Written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

   Picture it: a middle-aged man and his pre-teen daughter are at a pop music concert. The performer in question, one Lady Raven, is on the top of her game and has legions of devoted fans. Then imagine the middle-aged man starts noticing something is off-kilter; there are simply way too many police around. What might be going on?

   That’s the premise of Trap, a recent film from prolific director M. Night Shyamalan. Josh Hartnett, whose performance carries the film, stars as Cooper, a seemingly normal guy from the Philadelphia suburbs. As it turns out, he is far from normal. In fact, he’s “The Butcher,” a serial killer that has been stalking the city. And the concert? Well, that’s an elaborate trap that has been set for him.

   Now, that might sound like a ludicrous premise. But trust me: when it works, it works. As a suspense flick filmed with a sense of fun and one that fortunately doesn’t take itself too seriously, Trap is an above average escapist thriller.

   It’s important to remember that screenplays need to be original, but not too original. They can’t be so off the beaten path as to confuse audiences. There’s a reason why genres and subgenres have tropes. Trap succeeds in being both a familiar “serial killer” movie and something entirely new. While it might not be palatable to all tastes, there’s a lot here to appreciate. For the squeamish, don’t worry. The movie relies on suspense rather than gore to get its point across.

DASHIELL HAMMETT “Fly Paper.” First published in Black Mask, August 1929. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   “It was a wandering daughter job.” Sue Hambledon had disappeared with hoodlum Babe McCloor. The Continental op finds her dead, poisoned by the arsenic from fly paper, the mere thought of which is enough for memories of cheap desolation. (4)

JO PAGANO – Die Screaming. Zenith ZB-4, paperback, 1958. Published earlier as The Condemned (Prentice-Hall, hardcover, 1947), and by Perma Star 286, paperback, 1954. Film: The Sound of Fury (United Artists, 1950), re-released as Try and Get Me.

   A little gem I recently picked up almost by accident is Jo Pagano’s Die Screaming, which was filmed in 1950 as Try and Get Me. I exaggerated just then for dramatic effect. Die Screaming is the Cheapo-house paperback reprint title of a work which was originally (and rather uninspiredly) titled The Condemned. And the title of the movie was originally (equally pretentious) The Sound of Fury. Fortunately for both book and movie, trashier heads prevailed.

   Content-wise, they both book and film are intelligently done, but marred by attempts to pump Social Significance into their slender frames. Howard Tyler, broke, married with child, hard-working but jobless and luckless (well-played in the film by Frank Lovejoy) hooks up with smart guy Jerry Slocum and ends up pulling a few quick robberies.

   As Howard flounders in bewilderment, the robberies turn into kidnapping and murder: Movie and book both brilliantly describe Howard’s total inability to come to grips with what has happened. Overwhelmed with guilt and fear, totally incapable of hiding his emotions from his family or even from strangers on the street, he seems like some vividly-drawn, well-tortured animal.

   Unfortunately, both book and movie dissipate the energy of all this with endings that come off as self-important and preachy. But while the ride lasts, it has its moments. I particularly liked the intelligent writing that went into the Jerry Slocum character, played in the film by Lloyd Bridges. (An actor, it seems, who came to Hollywood too late. In an expanding film industry, he could have been another Dan Duryea.)  The implicit sexuality of his dominance over Howard is cunningly conveyed in meaningless little requests that somehow sound like orders.

   When I talk (as I often do) of the way cheap books and B-movies sometimes surprise one with the care and thoughtfulness that goes into them, I’m talking about efforts like Die Screaming.

THEODORE STRAUSS – Moonrise. Viking Press, hardcover, 1946. Serialized before book publication in Cosmopolitan, August-September 1946. Bantam #889, paperback, 1951, as Dark Hunger. Stark House Press, softcover, 2024. Film: Republic Pictures, 1948 (with Dane Clark, Gail Russell).

   Danny’s daddy was in the noose before Danny got out of the cradle.

   Danny’s mother was sick. So Danny’s daddy called the doc. Twas the middle of the night, goddamn it. Said the doc. She’ll be fine til morning.

   Cept she wasn’t. So then it was Danny’s daddy made the housecall. Payback. And the noose.

   So Danny’s a bit of an orphan, then. With a chip.

   Don’t make fun of Danny’s daddy either. So Jerry learned.

   Jerry was a dick. His daddy ran the bank. And Jerry drove a cute little trick of a red sportscar or something. Convertible.

   And Jerry was a bully. Back in 1st grade when Danny started school, Jerry kicked the crap out of him with the whole school rooting him on.

   Danny didn’t forget. So when Jerry, at the big dance, pretty Gilly, the new schoolteacher in tow, starts ragging Danny bout his daddy in the noose, Danny says come on down to the pond and let’s settle this.

   And Danny gets him this time. Beats him up but good. Only Jerry won’t give up. And picks up a rock and tries to hit Danny. Only Danny takes the rock away. And hits Jerry. Hard. On the head. Too hard.

   So Danny throws Jerry in the swamp. Goes back to the dance and picks up Gilly. And drives her home.

   Only murder don’t go away that easy. There’ll be a reckoning, I reckon.

   Decent little 40’s noir. Almost said ‘descent’. And it is. But ambiguous. With a strange sort of redemptive end. Where one may want to be caught. For the truth of it. And the peace.

DASHIELL HAMMETT “The Gutting of Coufignal.” First published in Black Mask, First published in The Black Mask, December 1925. Collected in The Big Nightmare (Random House, 1966).

   An island in San Pablo Bay, the home of wealthy retired businessmen, is attacked by bandits with machine guns and grenades, The Continental OP is on hand, guarding wedding presents. It is not difficult for him to suspect an inside job at once. The observant reader will also. (4)

DASHIELL HAMMETT – The Big Knockover [edited by Lillian Hellman]. Random House, hardcover, 1966.

   Nine adventures of the anonymous Continental Op, plus an unfinished portion of a novel titled “Tulip.” The Op was [among the first] hard-boiled detectives in fiction, so the effectiveness of the writing may have become diluted by the appearance of all those who followed. The confused younger generation of characters in the stories this collection contains has a great role in the stories, as well as the usual underworld population at the time.

Rating: *****

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Note: I reviewed the stories separately, and these will be posted here on this blog individually over the next few days and weeks ahead. Also, in my original review of the collection itself, I referred to the Continental Op as the first hard-boiled fictional detective. The actual very first may  have been Carroll John Daly’s Terry Mack, or if not him, then certainly the same writer’s Race Williams, neither of whom I may have heard of at the time I wrote this review.

STUMPTOWN. “Forget It Dex, It’s Stumptown.” ABC, 25 September 2019. (Season 1, Episode 1.) Cobie Smulders (Dex Parios), Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Cole Sibus. Based on a series of comic books by Greg Rucka (story) & Matthew Southworth (art). Director: James Griffiths. Currently streaming on Amazon and Apple TV.

   First thought: What an ugly title for a TV show. I didn’t find out until quite a while later that the TV show was preceded by a series of comic books later  collected in graphic novel format. I also later discovered that “Stumptown” is a nickname for the city of Portland OR. (This may be the only time that Portland OR is the home of a (non-licensed) PI.)

   Said PI is female, a former Marine in Afghanistan named Dex Parios. She is now suffering from PTSD, gambling debts, and caring for a younger brother with Down’s Syndrome. Offered a job to find a missing granddaughter, she hesitates at first, then decides to take it. She can use the money.

   The plot suffers a bit from trying to tell a story along with filling us in with all of the people in her life, most of whom will show up again over the course of  the rest of the season. Stumptown was successful enough in its first season to be renewed for a second season only to be cancelled when Covid comes along.

   Cobie Smulders is an actress new to me, but she’s been around for a while, including long stints on the CBS series How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) and as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in the Marvel movies. (I’ve never watched either.) I also haven’t watched any of the other shows in the TV series to see which way the wind blew after this one, but based on this one, its future success, if any, would of course depend almost totally on her performance.

   Which, to coin a phrase, better than satisfactory. Smulders does, I thought, overdo it at time in terms of portraying a woman living a lousy life and being sour and witty and clever about it, but otherwise she is just fine. The young lady, at the end of this first episode, sort of decides she likes the job she has just done, and it is clear that, when offered another, she is almost assuredly going to take it.

THE WEB. Universal International, 1947. Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer. Directed by Michael Gordon.

   A mild-mannered mystery movie which with a little stronger punch might be remembered by more of us fans of old black and white films than I think is the case. To wit: Edmond O’Brien’s brashness as a small hick attorney garners him a job as a bodyguard for a rich man (Vincent Price) who tells him that a former business associate, just released from prison, has been making threats against him.

   Also in the story, as it plays out, is Ella Raines, who plays the rich man’s (very) personal secretary, and whom Edmond O’Brien’s character takes a strong liking to. She’s the sleek kind of young lady who holds secrets well, and whom we the viewer are never quite sure exactly how close to her boss (the rich man) she is.

   The problem is is that Edmond O’Brien is as always a very good actor, but let’s face it, he just isn’t in Ella Raines’ league. Vincent Price is, of course, as smarmy and unctuous player as he always is, and when his newly found bodyguard kills the former business associate (see paragraph one), we know there’s something going on that our hero is slow in catching up with.

   Enter William Bendix as the tough guy detective handling the case. Even though there’s a previous connection between them, he handles Mr. O’Brien a lot tougher than the circumstances seem to warrant. It is a puzzle, but not a overly challenging one.

   It all makes for a good movie, but in the mind of no one, I imagine, is The Web more than a mere entertainment, once seen and soon forgotten. Watch this one for Ella Raines’ elegant grace, aloof and yet most charming.