Fri 22 Jun 2012
Reviewed by Marv Lachman: ROBERT L. FISH – Brazilian Sleigh Ride.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[13] Comments
ROBERT L. FISH – Brazilian Sleigh Ride. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1965. Paperback reprints: Berkley, 1967; Foul Play Press, 1988.
Robert L. Fish, after a successful business career, became a successful mystery writer at age 48. He wrote the hilarious Schlock Holmes parodies and a fine series of ten books about Captain Jose Da Silva, one of the best of which, Brazilian Sleigh Ride, has just been reprinted by Foul Play Press.
Fish uses two locales he knows best, Brazil (where he worked many years) and New York, in chronicling the efforts of Da Silva and his friend Wilson of the American Embassy to find who stole a fortune in negotiable bearer bonds.
The story is compelling and Fish tells it in very lively fashion, especially regarding Da Silva’s extreme fear of flying and his feuding with Wilson.
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.
The Captain Jose da Silva series —
The Fugitive. Simon & Schuster, 1962.
Isle of the Snakes. Simon & Schuster, 1963.
The Shrunken Head. Simon & Schuster, 1963.
Brazilian Sleigh Ride. Simon & Schuster, 1965.
The Diamond Bubble. Simon & Schuster, 1965.
Always Kill a Stranger. Putnam, 1967.
The Bridge That Went Nowhere. Putnam, 1968.
The Xavier Affair. Putnam, 1969.
The Green Hell Treasure. Putnam, 1971.
Trouble in Paradise. Doubleday, 1975.
June 22nd, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Before posting this review of Marv’s this afternoon, I hadn’t thought of this series for a long time.
Which is all the more surprising because at the time Fish was writing them, they were among my favorites. Another fine series of books I would love to find time to re-read.
And the rest of his output is uniformly excellent as well. For a complete list, including lots more covers, go here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/robert-l-fish/
June 22nd, 2012 at 6:43 pm
HOHOHO ,Steve !
Fish was VERY successful, for instance, according to Wiki, he wrote the novel upon which ‘Bullit’ with McQueen was based.
The Doc
June 22nd, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Right you are, Doc. BULLITT was based on the novel MUTE WITNESS (Doubleday, 1963) that Fish wrote as Robert L. Pike. There are I suppose a few movies that are better than their source novels, and BULLITT is right up there toward the top of the list. (I don’t mean to say anything negative about MUTE WITNESS, which I have never read. It’s just that BULLITT was such a jackhammer of a movie.)
June 23rd, 2012 at 3:23 am
Hmmm.. let’s read ‘Mute Witness ‘ and come again .
The Doc
June 23rd, 2012 at 9:02 am
I still have my set of Fish’s books and I may start re-reading. Fish himself was a terrific person whom I met at an early Bouchercon and looked forward to meeting again every year. I asked him to autograph my copies of his Schlock Homes collections and when he came to the second one he asked “Where on earth did you find this one?” Apparently it was not an easy title to locate at the time.
June 23rd, 2012 at 4:34 pm
I just looked at my signed copies of the two Schlock Homes collections. I don’t see why the second one would have been so scarce since my copy is the third printing! I also remember making my way to the front of the room where Bob Fish was standing (seated?) to ask him for a signature. His wife (another terrific person) saw my hesitant approach and motioned to me to walk right up and ask for his signature, which I did. (I have other stories about Bob Fish, but lest this turn into Fish*File from Mystery*File I will step aside.)
June 23rd, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Why step aside, Randy?
Fish obviously was a late great in the trade.
The Doc
June 23rd, 2012 at 7:53 pm
I’ll have to think a bit before adding more stories. Some of them demonstrate just how opinionated he was.
June 24th, 2012 at 5:27 am
I’m sure it’s me, but in spite of (or perhaps BECAUSE of) Brazil being my dream destination, I find Fish’s DaSilva mysteries flat and dull. I’ve tried three or four and never finished one…
June 24th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Rick
I don’t know if it’s one of the ones you tried, but the one in the da Silva series that I’ll never forget is ISLE OF THE SNAKES. I always got along with snakes, sort of, before reading this one, but I’m more like Indiana Jones now.
— Steve
June 24th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
I had a copy, Steve, but the paperback literally fell apart before I read it — pages went everywhere when the spine cracked. Since I hadn’t liked the others I never hunted another copy down…
I’ll see if the L.A. Public Library has a circulating copy. Thanks.
June 25th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
I have to admit I don’t have too many Bob Fish stories after all. I recall in a car on the way to lunch one day he began to wax eloquent about the merits of Joyce Cary’s novel _The Horse’s Mouth_ and I started to say something about the movie with Alec Guinness that had long been a favorite of mine. Without reference to what I was going to say (and probably he didn’t hear me) he said it was too bad it was such a lousy movie. I bit my lip and didn’t say anything.
Speaking of _Mute Witness_, the novel is about a cop named Clancy while the movie changed the name to Bullitt. If I ever saw the movie it has escaped my memory.
June 29th, 2012 at 8:30 am
And one more. In 1979 I was with Bob Fish somewhere and had him sign a number of my copies of his books (Besides his name, the year is included in each). But this is what he wrote on the inside front cover of the Curtis paperback of REARDON that he wrote as “Robert L. Pike” — “For Randy Cox — who beat me to this pirated edition, darn him! Robert L. Pike (Robert L. Fish)” I have no idea what he meant by “pirated edition” regarding this book.