Fri 10 Nov 2017
A PI Mystery Review: M. E. CHABER – The Flaming Man.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[6] Comments
M. E. CHABER – The Flaming Man. Milo March #18. Holt Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, 1969. Paperback Library 63-353, paperback; “Milo March #9”; June 1970. Cover art by Robert McGinnis.
Insurance investigator Milo March’s assignment in The Flaming Man is to investigate the death of one of Intercontinental Insurance’s clients in a department store fire during the Watts riots in Los Angeles.
I’ve always been a fan of this series, but I seem to have never read this one until now. It’s a short book, just over 150 pages in the paperback edition, and what I said in paragraph one summarizes the story completely. There is not a single surprise or unexpected event in the entire book.
And if you cut out the references to drinking, the book would be at least 20 pages shorter. Milo March is one of those guys who could really put it away. For breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime and every other half hour in between, another drink. From one bar to another, it seems, nonstop. (March does find time, while solving the case, for a good-natured dalliance with a well-endowed stripper lady. They make a good couple. She knows how to toss them down as well.)
The cover is nice, but the reading is awfully slow going. This is the kind of book that makes me tell myself that I could do better, and what’s worse I know I couldn’t.
The Milo March series —
Hangman’s Harvest (n.) Holt 1952 [California]
No Grave for March (n.) Holt 1953 [Berlin]
As Old As Cain (n.) Holt 1954 [Ohio]
The Man Inside (n.) Holt 1954 [Madrid]
The Splintered Man (n.) Rinehart 1955 [Berlin]
A Lonely Walk (n.) Rinehart 1956 [Italy]
The Gallows Garden (n.) Rinehart 1958 [Caribbean]
A Hearse of Another Color (n.) Rinehart 1958 [New Orleans, LA]
So Dead the Rose (n.) Rinehart 1959 [Berlin]
Jade for a Lady (n.) Rinehart 1962 [Hong Kong]
Softly in the Night (n.) Holt 1963 [Los Angeles, CA]
Six Who Ran (n.) Holt 1964 [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]
Uneasy Lies the Dead (n.) Holt 1964
Wanted: Dead Men (n.) Holt 1965
The Day It Rained Diamonds (n.) Holt 1966 [Los Angeles, CA]
A Man in the Middle (n.) Holt 1967 [Hong Kong]
Wild Midnight Falls (n.) Holt 1968 [Moscow]
The Flaming Man (n.) Holt 1969 [Los Angeles, CA]
Green Grow the Graves (n.) Holt 1970
The Bonded Dead (n.) Holt 1971 [Miami, FL]
Born to Be Hanged (n.) Holt 1973 [Nevada]
November 10th, 2017 at 7:38 am
This is the series where the McGinnis covers make March into James Coburn.
November 10th, 2017 at 9:03 am
The resemblance is remarkable. I wonder if the real James Coburn knew anything about it.
November 10th, 2017 at 12:21 pm
Funny, I am a Coburn fan but the cover made me think of the Flint movies. Late 60s there was a spy craze, I wonder if that had anything to do with the covers (not the books).
November 10th, 2017 at 1:34 pm
James Coburn as he was in the Flint movies? Yes, absolutely. Whether Milo March was a spy or not, it was no coincidence at all, and for precisely the reason you say.
November 10th, 2017 at 6:00 pm
Ironic the only actor to play Milo was Jack Palance.
The series was uneven, but at its best it was the culmination of Ken Crossen’s considerable experience at everything from SF to the Green Lama.
December 5th, 2017 at 1:39 pm
Yes, Coburn knew about it. McGinnis also illustrated posters for Coburn’s movies. (See p. 46 of The Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis.) One notable thing about The Flaming Man is the sympathetic relationship Milo strikes up with an African-American. A similar character appears in A Hearse of Another Color, which takes place in New Orleans–a man who deliberately acts stereotypically but Milo recognizes his intelligence and hires him. Ken wanted to portray black people positively, which he also did in his 1940s Green Lama comics and some early stories. We have this passage from A Hearse of Another Color:
A bellboy came in looking for me a few minutes later. I beckoned and he came over.
“There’s a nigra in the lobby asking for you, sir,†he said.
“Oh?†I said. “Well, I’ll go right out.†I stood up and reached in my pocket while he waited expectantly. “Oh, by the way, I always tip according to how words are pronounced.†I dropped a nickel into his hand. “Go have yourself a honeymoon. That’ll get you into a little building that has a sign saying Whites Only.†I turned and walked away while he was still staring at the nickel.>>
It’s true that as the series progressed Milo drank more and more. Often, hanging out in bars was his way of getting to know the locals and gathering information. But Ken said, “Milo March is me,†and like many writers he was a heavy drinker, starting with gin and grapefruit juice for breakfast. His favorite Greenwich Village bar when he lived in NYC is featured in some of the books–the Blue Mill. That’s how it was.