Mon 8 Feb 2010
A Review by Dan Stumpf: WILLIAM HARDY – The Case of the Missing Coed.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[2] Comments
WILLIAM HARDY – The Case of the Missing Coed. Dell D360, reprint paperback; 1st printing, July 1960. First published as A Little Sin, Dodd Mead & Co., hardcover, 1958.
Case of the Missing Coed was one of those old-bookstore finds that proved to be quite rewarding. Bruce Graham is a professor at a small college, just getting on toward middle-age, who finds himself pursued by an attractive coed and growing a bit distant from his wife, a situation that can lead to some very enjoyable regrets.
What this leads to is trouble, as Graham, tempted to visit the coed at a remote lodge, finds her murdered. Bad enough, but author Hardy rings in some interesting wrinkles: naturally, Graham has to remove any trace of his presence in order to preserve his marriage and his job, a task which he bungles beautifully.
Then, since he thinks he knows who killed the coed, he tries to lead the police to her ex-boyfriend and proceeds to entangle himself in enough circumstantial evidence to get him convicted of murder.
The mystery here isn’t particularly mysterious, and I’m betting most steady readers of the genre will spot the “surprise” killer early on, but Hardy does a neat job of getting his hero enmeshed in his own mistakes without making him look stupid, creating that sick, dizzy sensation of watching a character get spun out of control.
As such, it’s a pretty engrossing few hours’ read… and you can’t beat that cover!
February 8th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I’ve owned this book, the paperback, since almost forever, it seems, and I’ve yet to read it. Thanks for the review, Dan — I’m glad to know that it is in fact readable!
I probably bought the book when it was new, due in large part to the cover, I’m sure. The artwork was by Ted Coconos — or so the Internet says — an artist in the Robert McGinnis school, right down to his signature.
Also note that the title change is to one that’s a lot sexier than that of the hardcover. I don’t think female college students are referred to as coeds any more, and probably haven’t for a long time.
February 13th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Though this is a reprint of a hardcover I thought it ought to be mentioned that Dell in this period was second only to Gold Medal in the forefront of the paperback original game. John D. MacDonald, Charles Williams, Marvin Albert, Richard Wormser,Howard Hunt, William Ard, and many other Gold Medal names also wrote originals for Dell, and of course Dell’s big gun Brett Halliday also did a couple of Gold Medal’s under different names.
For a time Dell really seemed to be trying to compete with GM in the paperback original game with the Dell First Edition line, and in the western and movie novelization line, but for whatever reason the dueling publishing houses were short lived and Dell pretty much ceded the race to GM, though the Michael Shayne series at Dell was the biggest competition for Mickey Spillane in the paperback game (in terms of over all sales, not individual titles — after all Halliday and the writers using the Halliday name churned out at least three titles for every one of Spillane’s).