CLEVE F. ADAMS – Murder All Over. Rex McBride #4. Signet #765, paperback; 1st printing thus, January 1950. Originally published as Up Jumped the Devil by Reynall & Hitchcock, hardcover, 1943; Handi-Books #33, paperback, 1944. A condensed version appeared in Cosmopolitan, June 1943.

   This case of PI Rex McBride, on the trail of a valuable stolen diamond for an insurance company, comes as if straight from the pages of Black Mask. This is true even though by 1943 that particular pulp magazine was printing much milder stuff than the hard-boiled fiction this book is a throwback to.

   McBride’s recipe for detection consists largely of heating up the pot just to see what boils over, producing a tangled weave of characters and plot lines that will make your head swim. The prose in this book is terse and enigmatic, and what would get spelled out completely by today’s authors is referred to here by Adams with only the strongest of hints and intimations. I like it better this way.

PostScript:   Based on this example of size one, Adams was apparently not very adept in tying up plot lines. It’s part of McBride’s enigmatic nature, let’s say. I would also be remiss if I did not point out that this is the book in which McBride will be long remembered for saying “…an American Gestapo is goddam well what we need…”