Tue 9 Jun 2009
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: FRANK KANE – Esprit de Corpse.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
William F. Deeck
FRANK KANE – Esprit de Corpse. Dell 2409, paperback original; 1st printing, August 1965. Cover by Ron Lesser.
Yes, there’s nothing new in one individual taking on the crooks and corrupt officials in a city. And it’s been done better and in greater depth — The Fools in Town Are on Our Side and Red Harvest come immediately to mind. Nonetheless, this thriller is quite satisfactory for the second rank.
When a private eye, out of his depth, gets framed for murder in the sleazy Barbary Coast of Carsonette City in Southern California and is, with the eager assistance of his estranged wife, doomed to spend his life in the loony bin, he asks his partner to call in another private eye, Johnny Liddell.
His partner — a she, although by no means another V.I. Warshawski — flies to New York to enlist Liddell’s help. Apparently she goes in person since her argument isn’t a strong one and she must compensate by “the hemispherical roundness of her full breasts.” Upon viewing them, even clothed, Liddell’s jaw drops and his good judgment vanishes.
She knows her man.
(Has there ever been a female client in private-detective literature who had “empty” breasts? Have no tough PI’s been weaned?)
Though threatened and attacked by the crooks and threatened and arrested by the corrupt police, Liddell emerges triumphant. He understands, and I’m taking his word for it, why the frame took place and how the bookies and the Mafia were being taken by other crooks.
As an added attraction, one of the villains ostensibly is a closet Edgar Wallace reader. When Liddell catches this desperado in a felonious act, the man says, “Okay, Mac. It’s a fair cop.”
EDITORIAL COMMENT. Bill Deeck, who died far too young in 2004, was a well-known mystery fan and over the years the author of a tall stack of articles and reviews for The Armchair Detective, Mystery Readers Journal, and a number of other zines, including The MYSTERY FANcier.
Before posting any of his work here, I consulted with Richard Moore, a close friend of his who lived not very far away, and Bill Pronzini, who helped ensure that Murder on 3 Cents a Day, Bill Deeck’s reference work on hardcover lending library mysteries, finally saw publication.
For covers of many of these books and more on Bill Deeck and how the book came into being, go here.
Said Richard, when I asked, “I am positive that Bill would be pleased to have his reviews receive another life. They were done without pay originally and the reprinting does not involve revenue. It is hard to imagine an objection.”
Bill Pronzini: “I agree with Richard. Bill D. would be delighted to see his reviews reprinted on the M*F blog. By all means go ahead.”
And so I have. This is the first of many of Bill Deeck’s reviews that I will be posting here. I feel greatly privileged to be able to do so.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Although I have heard the term misused in relation to Michael Shayne, I always thought of Johnny Liddell as the ideal generic private eye, which is how I read them at the time. They have the same qualities of an episode of one of those late fifties early sixties private eye tv shows (not surprising since Frank Kane aka Frank Boyd wrote many episodes of the Darren McGavin Mike Hammer series and wrote the novelization of Johnny Staccato). Quite a few of them appeared in shortened form in the men’s sweat mags too, usually alternating with Carter Brown, Richard Prather, and sometimes Talmage Powell.
As for the cleaning up the town scenario it sometimes seems as if every hardboiled writer has tackled Hammett’s Red Harvest at least once. Off hand I can think of Ross MacDonald’s Blue City, Spillane’s The Long Wait, Cleve Adams Private Eye, Brett Halliday’s Murder in a Mummer’s Mask, William Ard’s Hell is a City, and W.T. Ballard’s Murder in Las Vegas. I think Cleve Adams wrote at least three books on the general theme. I suppose it’s just a natural, like the lone gunfighter riding into town to clean it up. I sometimes wonder just how many of these we could come up with if we tried, but the numbers would likely boggle our little minds.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
David
I can’t think of another private eye who’s more generic than Johnny Liddell. (Not that he isn’t worth reading, in small doses!)
For Marv Lachman’s great take on the character, and Frank Kane’s plagarism of himself, everyone should go back and read this earlier review:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=684
— Steve
June 10th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Steve
I loved Marv Lachman’s take on Liddell and will probably go back and reread it. But generic as Johnny was, was he more generic than the Pete McGrath books? Much as I enjoyed them some of those were practically cookie cutter fiction. At least Johnny got a little far afield once in a while. And to be fair even Chandler cannibalised his older stuff, he just had the good sense not to keep it in print.
Then of course there are wonders like Edwy Searls Brooks who wrote six million words before he began his thirty year fifty two book career as Berekley Gray (and forty three more as Victor Gunn). You have to imagine he plagarised himself a few times.