Tue 29 Oct 2013
Reviewed by Allen J. Hubin: ROBERT J. RAY – Merry Christmas, Murdock.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
Allen J. Hubin
ROBERT J. RAY – Merry Christmas, Murdock. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1989. Dell, paperback, 1990.
L. A. private eye Matt Murdock is back, celebrating a holiday in decidedly unfestive fashion in Merry Christmas, Murdock. Here the past rises up before Murdock in two ways.
Cindy Duke, a teen-ager who had maybe saved his life a couple of years earlier by driving him out of a burning canyon, asks him to find her father. He teaches in Wisconsin and came to L. A. in response to Cindy’s cry for help, raged at his ex-wife, battered her brother’s car with a baseball bat, ranged through a shopping mall in a failing search for Cindy, and disappeared.
Meanwhile, another teen-ager, Heather Blasingame, lies in a coma from a hit-and-run encounter with a vehicle at that same mall. She’s the daughter of Jane Blasingame, feisty Texas state senator, and the senator (though with considerable reluctance) hires Murdock to supplement what seems an inept police investigation.
These two cases are of course related, and powerful interests — not only Cindy’s grandfather Wheeler Duke and Duke Construction — are willing to go to about any lengths to keep Matt’s nose out of these matters.
Vivid, active tale.
Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 1990.
The Matt Murdock series —
1. Bloody Murdock (St. Martin’s, 1986)
2. Murdock for Hire (St. Martin’s, 1987)
3. Dial ‘M’ For Murdock (St. Martin’s, 1988)
4. Merry Christmas, Murdock (Delacorte, 1989)
5. Murdock Cracks Ice (Delacorte, 1992)
6. Murdock Tackles Taos (Camel Press, 2013)
Bibliographic Notes: For more on the author and this last book in the series, published after a gap of 21 years, go here. For more on Matt Murdock himself. check out Kevin Burton Smith’s essay on him here.
October 29th, 2013 at 9:21 pm
These are some of the funniest pun-titles ever.
“Dial ‘M’ For Murdock” is especially good.
October 30th, 2013 at 3:15 pm
I’m divided on Murdock. On one hand I liked him and Ray, but on the other the Murdock books often bordered on juvenile, and at times seemed to be channeling bad Mickey Spillane. I’m not sure even Ray ever fully invested in Murdock as a character.
And it didn’t help that Matt Murdock is also the secret identity of Marvel’s Daredevil and the Two Gun Kid.
October 30th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
I was hoping that someone (not me) would bring up the “Daredevil” connection.