HAL GLATZER – The Last Full Measure.

Perseverance Press; trade paperback original; April 2006.

   Number three in the continuing mystery-solving adventures of itinerant 1940s swing band musician Katy Green turns out to be measurably better than number two, A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen (2004), in my opinion, but still not nearly as fine as number one, Too Dead to Swing (2002), which is still the best of the three so far.

   The primary setting for Katy’s latest adventure is an ocean liner that is headed for Hawaii in December, 1941.

    “Ah, ha!” you say. Yes, and you’d be right.

   It is indeed one of those novels in which the reader knows exactly what is in store, but for the passengers and crew, all they’re aware of are rumbling war clouds somewhere off in the distance (but getting closer and closer as time goes on). Katy is part of an all-girl group hired to entertain the passengers, and while you might think impending events would be trouble enough, it is not so.

   There is a murder on board, but as it is also one with no real suspects. Once the ship arrives in Hawai’i, there is (strangely) nothing to forestall a side journey by a subgroup of the all-girl orchestra and various other passengers to locate a treasure buried by native Hawai’ians during a failed insurrection against the haoles in control of the islands many years before.

   Of course this recitation of historical events requires a couple of short lectures, but while while they’re necessary, they also slow the action to a temporary crawl.

   Soon enough, however, it is back to the still unsolved murder, committed by one of the dumbest villains in print, magnified by two events having probabilities of say, one in a million each. (Since the events are not likely to be independent, the overall combined probability of the two events both happening is NOT found by multiplying the two individual probabilities together, so perhaps it’s not as bad as it sounds.)

   Other than that, the travelogue and on the on-board camaraderie are nicely done and may be in themselves worth the price of admission. The author certainly knows his music, and it shows.

   Note: A shorter version of this review appeared in Historical Novels Review.

[UPDATE] 04-06-09.   This was, alas, the last of Katy Green’s adventures in print, so far. Author Hal Glatzer is also a playwright as well as a writer and (not surprisingly) a musician. You can visit his website here.