Wed 17 Feb 2016
A Review by Stephen Mertz: CARTER BROWN – Negative in Blue.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[23] Comments
CARTER BROWN – Negative in Blue. Signet Q6220, paperback original; 1st printing, December 1974.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart (or is it my head?) for Hollywood-based private eyes. Which is probably why, of the many series characters created by Australian mystery writer Alan G. Yates (who writes as Carter Brown), my favorite is Rick Holman.
Holman bills himself as an “industrial consultant,” and specializes in clearing up nasty messes, invariably involving homicide, which film colony stars find themselves in, with causing any bad publicity for the stars or studios involved. He, like Shell Scott, is a direct descendant of my beloved Dan Turner, Robert Leslie Bellem’s wonderful Hollywood shamus of the pulps, and is one of the very few of the breed still active.
This is the best Carter Brown of recent memory. Two opposing factions are involved in all kinds of skullduggery concerning the negative of an unfinished movie whose female star died of an overdose of barbiturates. A member of one of the factions catches a shotgun blast in the face, and Holman steps in to investigate.
Although the process by which Holman solves the mystery is glossed over to the point of being ignored, the pace, as always with Brown, is excellent, building to a stunning, satisfying conclusion. If you haven’t yet sampled one of Brown’s more than a hundred novels, here would be a fine place to begin.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:33 pm
After Mavis Seidlitz, who I think is a rather neglected screwball gem and superior to Honey West, Holman is my second favorite Brown sleuth. It may be because he reminds me a bit not only of the Shell Scott and Dan Turner types but a slicker version who could easily have had offices say at 77 Sunset Strip or with the television Richard Diamond once he moved to the West Coast.
That isn’t a knock. I liked those series, and I think Brown, and Frank Kane’s Johnny Liddell, offered some of the same pleasures. The plots moved quickly, the action came fast, the sex was mostly suggested but not too blatant — even at this late stage — the hero charming as well as smart — but not too smart — and tough, the bad guys uncomplicatedly bad, and the women attractive — not a bad formula at all for a private eye story.
And it always seemed to me that there was a subtle difference in voice between Brown when he dealt with Holman than when he wrote about New York eye Danny Boyd, and from them to Al Wheeler or Randy Roberts and certainly Andy Kane. Maybe I was instilling him and them with something that wasn’t there, but it was an impression I had reading them.
February 17th, 2016 at 5:28 pm
I think (but I am not 100% percent sure) that I have all of the Carter Brown’s published in this country, including later printings that had different covers. I also have 2 or 3 Brown’s published in Australia that were never published here.
But I have been a little leery about picking one up to read now. It used to take me an hour to read one. I have a feeling that maybe, just maybe, five minutes would be all I’d need before putting it back down again.
Sometimes, as I’ve discovered recently, you can’t go back home again. Maybe in this case, though?
If I do, I will let you know.
February 17th, 2016 at 7:47 pm
I agree that the different Carter Brown series have slightly different voices, as well they should. Yates was inconsistent but mostly very entertaining. I’ve read only a handful that I didn’t enjoy.
February 17th, 2016 at 7:50 pm
I still read one or two per year.
February 17th, 2016 at 11:24 pm
I know what Steve means when he says he is a little leery about reading a Carter Brown novel now. I hope he lets us know his opinion about the experience if he ever does.
February 18th, 2016 at 12:16 am
Walker
I will of course let you know, one way or the other.
My wife and I had a followup visit at the UConn ER (or ED) this evening, and the book I had with me at short notice was a John West – Rocky Steele PI novel. It was slow going at first, and I have a feeling that if I’d had another choice, I wouldn’t have finished it.
I still haven’t finished it, we were there only three hours there this time, but I will. In the meantime, before I report back on it, here’s Max Allan Collins’ take on one of the books in the series:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=997
February 18th, 2016 at 10:38 am
I had many Carter Brown books at one time. They were all over the place and I could never resist collecting an author in quantity. I don’t remember what happened to them. I also don’t remember ever reading one.
About John West and Rocky Steele. West was African American (as I recall) and I told an African American friend about the books and she added them to her collection of African American mystery writers. No, I never read them either.
February 18th, 2016 at 2:23 pm
After reading Randy’s comment about his Carter Brown collection taking The Big Sleep, I got worried and ran up to my paperback room to see if I still had my copies.
Looking at the stacks of Carter Brown paperbacks reminded me of how I got about 70 of them. Each year there is a booksale in Princeton that lasts several days and back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I used to be one of the first collectors in line as the doors opened. You had to move fast or the dealers behind you would knock you down.
Someone must of died and there were his Carter Brown paperbacks, all with comments and date read. The dates were in the 1950’s and 1960’s in ink. I use pieces of paper for my comments. I believe I paid a quarter each for the 70 copies.
I stopped going to the Princeton sale a few years ago. Why? I’ve found just about all my wants on the internet and even browsing is convenient. Plus I don’t have to pay the $25 preview charge and risk getting run over by younger readers as they charge through the doors on opening day.
February 18th, 2016 at 2:41 pm
Before they get their first iPhone, those three-year-olds are really voracious readers.
February 18th, 2016 at 2:58 pm
After reading Max Allan Collins’ take on Rocky Steele I see I was wrong about West being African American. The Liberian doctor sounds familiar.
February 18th, 2016 at 3:23 pm
I have all the Rocky Steele books because they’re Fifties private eye novels published by Signet. But the only time I tried to read one, I didn’t get very far in it before putting it back on the shelf. I’d like to try it again sometime just to be sure. I’ve given up on other books before, multiple times in some cases, only to read them later and enjoy them.
February 18th, 2016 at 3:57 pm
Randy
You must somehow have misread Collins’ review. West was indeed a black author, and while I don’t know if it’s still true or not, at one time Rocky Steele was supposedly the only white detective created by a black writer.
February 18th, 2016 at 4:22 pm
Steve,
I stand corrected, West was African American and only moved to Liberia later. I thought Collins said he was from Liberia. Apparently he set one book (Death on the Rocks) in West Africa, but died before it was published.
Anyway, I never read him and no longer have the books, but I think I had all six of them.
February 18th, 2016 at 8:14 pm
If you only read one Rocky Steele, it should be DEATH ON THE ROCKS, which has Rocky traveling to solve a mystery (and kick butt) in Liberia.
February 18th, 2016 at 10:02 pm
Stephen,
Agree about DEATH ON THE ROCKS, easily the best of the Steele series. Granted they are no great shakes, but they entertain in a generic way, and aren’t a bad way to kill forty five minutes or so.
I have a taste, possibly perverse, for the more or less generic private eye books of this period. Likely it is more nostalgia than critical judgment, but I liked the Steele series for what it was.
February 19th, 2016 at 11:51 am
I have seen the Rocky Steele books described as “undemanding, cliche-filled fun” and the author described as more unusual than his character.
February 19th, 2016 at 2:48 pm
There are dozens of carter brown paperbacks in the Kelley Collection but I don’t think I have them all. They used to be common, easy to find. No more. I haven’t run across a carter brown paperback in five years!
February 19th, 2016 at 5:15 pm
My father bought and read loads of Carter Brown novels when I was a kid, so I wound up reading a few myself, then in later years actually buying some. My favorites were always the Mavis Seidlitz titles, though I’ve also read some Rick Holmans, a Danny Boyd, an Al Wheeler or two, and one or two Larry Baker and Boris whatshisface entries.
February 19th, 2016 at 11:17 pm
George, #17
The last few library sales I went to, at one time the most lucrative way of finding old mystery paperback to keep or sell, there were no more than 2 or 3 paperbacks more than five years old, and they were Agatha Christie’s.
It is hard to believe that this Carter Brown paperback that Steve M reviewed is more than 40 years old.
Of course so is the review! Almost.
Who’d have thought back then that it would get more comments now than it did in 1977?
February 19th, 2016 at 11:19 pm
Barry, If your father was buying the Carter Brown novels when you were a kid, you gotta be one of the young guys on the block.
February 20th, 2016 at 12:24 am
Steve brings up an interesting point in the last sentence of Comment # 19. Yes, this review got more comments in 2016 than it did in 1977 but a big part of the reason is because the internet and email makes responding very easy and fast. I can type out a comment in a very short time, only a few minutes and submit it.
Back in 1977 it was a more laborious process. You would have to write or type out a letter and then mail it by snail mail to THE MYSTERY FANCIER. They would then have to retype it and put it in the next issue which would appear months later, etc.
It’s just a lot easier now to comment on blogs, facebook, email.
February 20th, 2016 at 8:40 am
Steve, I recently turned 69. Does that qualify as young enough? 🙂
February 20th, 2016 at 1:08 pm
I wish I was 69 again.