JAMES HADLEY CHASE – We’ll Share a Double Funeral. Robert Hale, UK, hardcover, 1982. Corgi, UK, paperback, 1983 & 1988 (the latter shown). No US edition.

   It’s a great title, and more than that, it’s appropriate too. It comes up in the course of the book more than once. The cover is very nice, too, not that it has anything much to do with the story, but when did that stop a paperback publisher from doing whatever they could to catch a would-be buyer’s eye?

   As for the book itself, Chase was no wordsmith, there’s no doubt about that, but as always he’s as direct and single-minded in telling a story as he needs to be to keep the pages turning, and there’s nothing more complimentary I can say about an author than that.

   The main protagonist in Double Funeral is Chet Logan, as ferocious a killer when he’s cornered as a rabid animal, and by the time he’s finally tracked down and killed in the final chapter, he’s taken nearly a dozen others with him. Taken as a hostage in a Florida fishing lodge is Perry Weston, a big-time screenplay writer for the movies who’s come down from New York City to get away from his much younger wife who’s been cheating on him, and who decides to come down herself to make up.

   One paragraph is all it takes to sum it up, but when you finished reading all 176 pages of the paperback edition, you’ll know you’ve read the most hard-boiled book you’ve sped your way through all day. I guarantee it.