Mon 10 Oct 2016
A PI Mystery Review: KENN DAVIS – Acts of Homicide.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
KENN DAVIS – Acts of Homicide. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback original; 1st printing, October 1989.
Here’s an example of another series of private eye novels that I managed to accumulate most — if not all of — back when they were being published, but until now this is the first I’ve read. Or maybe the second, as the first in the series came out in 1976, and sometimes it’s difficult to think back that far and be sure.
In any case, the PI in question is Carver Bascombe, who is black and who works in the Berkeley, California, area. Unfortunately, in this, the seventh of his eight appearances, there’s not much else that’s said about him. He tends to be taciturn, shrugs a bit when confronted, and that’s about I can tell you at the moment.
The case he’s on in Acts of Homicide finds him working undercover as an accountant for a acting company that’s preparing to put on an updated version of Medea. Unfortunately someone seems intent on stopping the production, and his or her attempts to do so are finally sufficient to bring on the police. The book begins with the murder of a young girl who would have liked to have been a member of the cast, but who was only allowed to work behind the scenes instead.
More murders occur, and besides helping the police, Carver Bascombe finds himself becoming more and more attracted to the officer in charge, a capable enough woman but one whose career depends on her hiding the hide the fact that she is severely disturbed by the sight of dead bodies.
With lots of suspects to be combed through, this is a detective puzzle through and through, undermined (in my mind) by the fact that the first victim was found nude with all of the blood drained from her — a sensationalistic killing there was no real need for in terms of the plot. Kenn Davis is a very smooth writer, though, especially when it comes to dialogue. On the other hand, an occasional propensity for using exclamation marks in his own narrative was (I thought) a negative.
All in all, however, this was a decent enough venture that I’d read another, when I come across another in my collection, entertained as well by an author who seems to have known something about putting on plays and the history of the stage.
In support of that last statement, let me point out that some of the characters’ names in Acts of Homicide are also those of actors in the past, sometimes the far distant past:
Edmund Kean
Charlotte Cushman
Colley Cibber
Frank Craven
Barton Booth
Charles Macklin
August Iffland
… and more than likely, a few others I missed.
The Carver Bascombe series —
The Dark Side. Avon, 1976 [with John Stanley]
The Forza Trap. Avon, 1979.
Words Can Kill. Gold Medal, 1984.
Melting Point.Gold Medal, 1986.
As October Dies. Gold Medal, 1987.
Nijinsky Is Dead. Gold Medal, 1987.
Acts of Homicide. Gold Medal, 1989.
Blood of Poets. Gold Medal, 1990.
October 10th, 2016 at 9:35 am
Thanks for this review. It led me to your previous post on Kenn Davis — quite an interesting guy.
October 10th, 2016 at 11:15 am
This is a little embarrassing — being reminded by someone else of books I’ve not only read but reviewed, and right here on my own blog — but I thank you, Jim, anyway! Here’s the link to my review of the first Carver Bascombe book, THE DARK SIDE:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=976
But from my comments there, Carver Bascombe appears to be a different character altogether. In that first book is described this way:
“… Bascombe is a combination of Superfly, Shaft and Virgil Tibbs, all rolled into one.”
and in ACTS OF HOMICIDE, that he is black is almost incidental.
An earlier post on this blog was entitled The Compleat KENN DAVIS, and this is the one that Jim was specifically reffing to:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=609
The post is eight and a half years old and the formatting needs some work now, but by all means go back and read it. There’s a lot there about not only the author but also the character. What is surprising is how little of Carver Bascombe’s very interesting background was referred to in ACTS OF HOMICIDE..
October 10th, 2016 at 2:34 pm
The “Superfly, Shaft and Virgil Tibbs” comment is typical of a publisher going after the wrong audience, just trying to sell some books. That certainly wasn’t Kenn’s intent when he created him. Kenn was a friend with whom I lost contact. When I found him again a few years ago he was painting, not writing, and quite successfully. Since then he has passed. he was in his 70’s.
October 10th, 2016 at 7:07 pm
Thanks, Bob. It’s good to know what the original intent was behind the the Carter Bascombe character. Without having read most of the books (so what do I know) I still have the feeling that CB changed over the years, much as say, Ellery Queen did, among others. Others, like Nero Wolfe, not so much.
October 12th, 2016 at 8:35 pm
That first one sounds familiar as does the author, but I can’t swear I read one.