Thu 8 Nov 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: ALICE MacGOWAN & PERRY NEWBERRY – The Million Dollar Suitcase.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews[12] Comments
William F. Deeck
ALICE MacGOWAN & PERRY NEWBERRY – The Million Dollar Suitcase. Stokes, hardcover, 1922; International Fiction Library, hardcover reprint, n.d.
Impossible-crime fanciers get a bonus and a debit here. The bonus: There are two locked-room situations. The debit: They aren’t very good.
The first occurs when a San Francisco bank teller absconds with nearly a million dollars. Close on the teller’s heels is the bank’s private detective, Jerry Boyne. He arrives at the teller’s hotel room to find the windows latched with burglar-proof locks and the door closed with the usual spring lock.
In front of the door is a woman repairing a rug, and she had been there since the teller had entered his room. The teller had not left by the door, but neither he nor the money was in the room.
Worth Gilbert, whose father has stock in the bank, offers the bank’s board $800,000 for the contents of the suitcase. It seems he needs a challenge. While Gilbert can raise most of the money, he has to ask his father to provide the rest. After a fight with his father, he doesn’t get the money. Shortly thereafter his father is found shot to death in the second locked room.
Fortunately for Boyne, who would not have been chosen by his predecessor to head the detective agency and one can see why from the many mistakes he makes in this investigation, he has the aid, on the rare occasions he’s sensible enough to use it, of a young woman whose psychologist father trained her from childhood to be a lightning observer and reasoner. She figures out the first locked room; Boyne, after having the solution shoved under his nose, solves the second.
This novel apparently appeared first in the Saturday Evening Post as “Two and Two.” As far as I can recall, the Post printed no bad stories, but it did publish some mediocre material, in which category this falls, despite an occasional good observation such as “A financier’s idea of indecency is something about money which hasn’t formerly been done.”
Since this is the first in a series of books featuring Jerry Boyne, I’ll be looking for the other novels by MacGowan and Newberry but only to establish who solves Boyne’s other cases.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alice MacGowan & Perry Newberry —
[All with Jerry Boyne.]
The Million Dollar Suitcase. Stokes, 1922.
The Mystery Woman. Stokes, 1924.
Shaken Down. Stokes, 1925.
The Seventh Passenger. Stokes, 1926.
Who Is This Man?. Stokes, 1927.
November 8th, 2012 at 1:13 am
I have a confession to make. I’ve heard of neither author before, nor their PI detective. That the latter’s a PI makes me want to hunt all five of his adventures down. On the other hand, Bill’s relatively unenthusiastic review has (so far) made me think twice, luckily (you might say) for whoever opens my next month’s MasterCard bill.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
THE MILLION DOLLAR SUITCASE may not be very good, but at least one of the authors’ other Jerry Boyle mysteries is first-rate. SHAKEN DOWN (the title has two meanings) takes place in San Francisco in 1906, involves kidnapping for ransom, and features some decent detection along with several well choreographed action scenes. It also has to recommend it one of the most vivid fictional depictions of the infamous ’06 earthquake and its devastating aftermath that I’ve come across. The last half of the book takes place during and just after the quake.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Forgot to mention that Boyle is a patrolman on the SF police force in SHAKEN DOWN, not yet a PI, so the novel serves as a prequel to the others in the series.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Bill
I’ve already thought twice about trying to track down some of the Jerry Boyle books, and now you’re making me think again a third time. That’s too much thinking, I think, and all before lunch, too!
November 8th, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Bill, on the net you can watch a movie, showing Frisco just before the 1906 Quake.
You see quite a lot of cars for that time, it is fascinating.
The Doc
November 8th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Doc:
I’ve seen that early SF film on the Net and you’re right, it is fascinating. But I think, and others who live in this area agree, that it’s erroneously dated as having been made prior to the ’06 earthquake. The cars shown look to me to be post 1910 models and there wasn’t nearly as much automobile traffic on Market Street pre-earthquake.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Ahaaa ! Good to know, Bill !
Well, then apart from the wrong date, it is STILL fascinating.
Although not as ….
The Doc
November 9th, 2012 at 8:27 am
Steve:
On WorldCat there are quite a few editions of
The Million Dollar Suitcase all carrying a 1922
publication date, which I believe is the copyright date for the book.
I am also wondering if The Million Dollar Suitcase was the same as the serial story
that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, which was written with Alice McGowan, titled
Two and Two. It ran weekly from Feb. 5, 1921 to Mar. 12, 1921
November 9th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Steve:
I see my guess was right. The problem I have is that I try to solve the problem before reading the whole thing through. At least I know now that I was correct in my assumption.
Incidentally, Publishers Weekly gives this synopsis of the story:”A mystery story of a man who takes six years to plan a discovery-proof crime and gives the detectives a run for their money”
November 9th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Well, it may not be a good ‘un, but I sure do like that DJ. A few copies of this book with the vibrantly colored DJ came up for sale on eBay during the past year. (Or maybe it was one copy being resold over and over!) I recognized the title immediately. I may have to hunt down a copy of SHAKEN DOWN and acquaint myself with Jerry Boyle.
Janet Rudolph recently had a list of hurricanes in mystery novels at her blog and I added a few vintage titles to her mostly contemporary list of books. Noting Bill’s mention of the earthquake in SHAKEN DOWN I wonder how many earthquake detective novels there are? I already know of a few volcano mysteries. Be interesting to do a study of of disaster themed detective novels from the early part of the 20th cnetury (up to about the mid 50s, say) to see how differently they are treated than the kind of natural disaster story formula we all know from movies like The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake.
November 9th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
John:
My favorite earthquake detective novel, aside from SHAKEN DOWN, is Norbert Davis’s wonderfully wacky MOUSE IN THE MOUNTAIN. A quake plays an important role in one of the Nameless novels, BONES, and one of Marcia’s Sharon McCone short stories, “Somewhere in the City,” takes place during CA’s 1989 Loma Prieta quake. Can’t think of any others offhand, but there must be some.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
An earthquake happened three weeks before the events in The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel (1897), a fascinating impossible crime tale included in A Master of Mysteries by L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace.
I remember the spaghetti dinner in BONES! It is really funny.
MacGowan and Newberry are completely new to me. This has been a very informative discussion.
The Million Dollar Suitcase is available on-line at:
https://archive.org/details/milliondollarsu00compgoog