Tue 10 Nov 2009
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: ALFRED EICHLER – Death of an Ad Man.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews[10] Comments
William F. Deeck
ALFRED EICHLER – Alfred Eichler. Death of an Ad Man. Abelard-Schuman, hardcover, 1954; paperback reprint: Berkley #105, 1955. British edition: Hammond, hc, 1956, as A Hearse for the Boss.
It is a rather frantic time at the Malcolm and Reynolds Advertising Agency. Reynolds has retired, and Malcolm has just had what appears to be a heart attack.
While various officials of the agency are struggling for power in an attempt to replace Malcolm as the agency’s head, someone makes sure that Malcolm won’t be around to protest. A pair of scissors is shoved into his chest while he is in the hospital.
Kindergarten was never like this advertising agency. Children do have some sense, but precious few employees of this agency have any. The only sensible person is Martin Ames — who appears in several of Eichler’s novels — head of the radio department, which also includes television.
Even he is erratic. He is at one point firmly convinced that an agency employee is Malcolm’s murderer and a few moments later is brooding because he didn’t stop the murderer from killing the employee.
Ames has inherited the agency from Malcolm, and he had an opportunity to commit both murders. For this reason, and in a hope to keep the agency from disintegrating, Ames investigates. He spots the killer by discovering a new motive for murder, or what would have been a new motive if it had had anything to do with the murder.
He also says things like “Holy hatpin!” which I guess is typical advertising talk. And he is one of the few people who have visited a psychiatrist with a “crowded anteroom.” Does this mean a ten-minute hour?
The novel isn’t well written and the plot isn’t that great, but the insights into advertising agencies may appeal to some.
Bio-Bibliographic data: According to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, Alfred Eichler, 1908-1995, was a advertising copywriter based (it is to be presumed) in New York City, an easy inference, since that’s where he was born.
He was the author of nine detective novels, many of which seem to reflect the author’s own occupation in the advertising and radio business, especially the first two, Murder in the Radio Department and Death at the Mike.
Each of these also have as their leading characters Martin Ames and Inspector Carl Knickman, the latter of whom Bill didn’t happen to mention as being the detective of record in Death of an Ad Man, as well as several other cases told to us by Eichler. See below:
EICHLER, ALFRED. 1908-1995.
Murder in the Radio Department (n.) Gold Label 1943 [Insp. Carl Knickman; Martin Ames]
Death at the Mike (n.) Lantern Press 1946 [Insp. Carl Knickman; Martin Ames]
Election by Murder (n.) Lantern Press 1946 [Martin Ames]
Death of an Ad Man (n.) Abelard-Schuman 1954 [Insp. Carl Knickman; Martin Ames]
Death of an Artist (n.) Arcadia 1955 [Insp. Carl Knickman; Martin Ames]
Moment for Murder (n.) Arcadia 1956 [Insp. Carl Knickman]
Bury in Haste (n.) Arcadia 1957 [Insp. Carl Knickman]
Pipeline to Death (n.) Hammond 1962 [Martin Ames]
Murder Off Stage (n.) Hammond 1963.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:51 am
The language I recall from ad agency days was a bit more colorful than “holy hatpin!” More a cross between a convention of Maltese sailors and a locker room. In fact Mad Men is pretty tame and sane compared to the reality.
It’s a wonderful creative experience — a bit like being locked in a room full of creative pit bulls all vying for attention at the same time.
But it certainly is a natural place for a murder — maybe even of the mass kind.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Which has me wondering. Eichler seems to have specialized in fictional murders occurring in ad agencies. There must have been other mysteries in the same sub-genre, but other than Frank Orenstein, whose first novel was Murder on Madison Avenue, I’m drawing a blank.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Didn’t Dorothy L. Sayers write a Wimsey novel called MURDER MUST ADVERTISE? I also think that one of the Nicholas Blake-Nigel Strangeways novels was set in an ad agency. MINUTE FOR MURDER?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Emma Lathen did at least one Thatcher book set in an ad agency, and certainly it was used by other series, but I don’t know how many series used the setting regularly. Gore Vidal’s Peter Sargent III was a PR man as was Stuart Palmer’s Howard Rook, and E. Howard Hunt’s Steve Dietrich but I don’t think any of them were agency men, or ran their own one man operations.
There was a spate of ad agency novels in the period after WWII like The Hucksters (Frederic Wakeman), and it was almost as common for writers at ad agencies to have a novel in their bottom drawer as the cliched newspaper editor so there are bound to be a number of mysteries.
Off hand I can think of Darwin Teilhet’s The Fearmakers, which was more thriller than mystery (and also a film with Dana Andrews). And of course the grand-daddy Dorothy L. Sayers Murder Must Advertise. Also C.S. Forester’s Plain Murder, and Julian Symons The 31rst of February and A Man Called Jones.
Albert Menendez The Subject Is Murder (by no means complete), lists Marvin Kaye’s Hilary Quayle and Katherine Moore Knight’s Margot Blair as PR tecs, and two Nero Wolfe outings, Before Midnight and And Be a Villain used the setting, but most of the books listed save for Eichler and Orenstein are not regularly set at an ad agency with ad agency tecs.
Aside from those listed others who wrote ad agency set mysteries include David Delman, Marion Babson, Richard Lockridge, Howard Browne, Leonard Gribble, H.R.F. Keating, Patrica Moyes, Hugh Pentecost, Colin Watson, and Henry Slezar.
Quite a few series and individual titles set in radio and television also deal with ad agencies and advertising though, so you could include William DeAndrea’s series as at least associational.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Ray and David
How I couldn’t think of the Sayers book I can’t imagine, thanks!
As well as all of the other suggestions, too, double thanks. Henry Slesar was one that almost came to me. I don’t think of heads of PR agencies as advertising execs, but they’re close enough to warrant inclusion here, so a tip of the hat once again.
— Steve
November 10th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Actually PR and ad agencies are pretty well tied together, and while there are PR agencies, most ad agencies have a PR department. I’ve written copy and done PR, and the skills aren’t all that different, you just have that Hollywood image of the PR guy, which like most cliches is a little truth and a lot of fiction.
The chief difference between the two is that advertising tends to focus on a specific product, while PR is more often aimed at the image of an individual, a corporation, or an entire line of products.
Look at it this way. The ads between segments on daytime talk shows are ad agency material, the shows content is about half PR.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The mystery with an ad agency background that first comes to my mind is THE GRAY FLANNEL SHROUD by Henry Slesar, who had long experience working for ad agencies. It won the Edgar for best first novel in 1959.
As for public relations, one mystery with the perfect name is DEATH OF A FLACK by Henry Kane (Signet 1961). It was one of his Peter Chambers series.
I worked for twenty years for a big public relations firm (Burson-Marsteller) that was owned during that time by first Young & Rubicam and later the U.K. firm WPP. Originally, Burson itself was a marriage with advertising as Bill Marsteller was the ad guy. (Marsteller Advertising did the Indian in the canoe shedding a tear ad). But then Y&R bought out the firm and there was a real gulf between the two. When the head of Y&R unexpectedly sent word he was going to visit the Washington office of Burson-Marsteller in the late 80s, it worried my boss so much he had the carpets cleaned. It was the first time we had had a visit from the parent company.
Later, campaigns grew bigger and mixed account teams including both advertising and PR became common.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Richard
Working for smaller firms the separation of PR and ad agency was often more in the mind of the employees than real fact. There was a tendency to tackle whatever came up when it came up and worry later if it was really in your field.
I mostly worked freelance, but did a little of everything. I much preferred writing copy or designing a campaign to PR work, but in some ways they weren’t that far removed.
Slesar’s Gray Flannel Shroud and the Kane you mention were both good. I’m trying to remember without having to look it up, but wasn’t Peter Rabe’s spy hero at Gold Medal, Manny De Witt, a Madison Avenue type when he wasn’t working for Uncle Sam?
November 11th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Let us not forget Hugh Pentecost’s very mod PR man Julian Quist. (Well, actually, I may have forgotten, but I’m pretty sure that was the name of the character.)
November 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Jerry
You know I did forget Quist, and God knows I read enough of them. There are probably more PR tecs than ad agency simply because both the ‘voice’ and the type work comes closer to a classic private eye.