FRED DICKENSON – Kill ’Em with Kindness. Bell Publishing, hardcover, 1950. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, July 1950. Bestseller B131, digest paperback, no date.

   Although you couldn’t fault Ronald Tompkins’s physical preference in females, you could definitely criticize his judgment in regard to brides. Six was the number he had reached, with the marriages lasting from 16 hours to six weeks.

   As he is preparing for No. 7, he is planning to hire Mack McGann, former FBI man and now private eye, because he fears for his life.’ While McGann is elsewhere in Tompkins’s house interviewing an inebriated disc jockey who had just brought Tompkins a personal warning, Tompkins is shot dead in his study.

   Dickenson’s only mystery breaks no new ground, indeed doesn’t disturb any of the old ground. The murderer is patent, the characters not all that interesting, and McGann’s FBI training apparently wasn’t up to that outfit’s best. However, the dialogue and McGann’s sense of humor save it from being just a time waster.