Thu 26 Jul 2018
Archived Review: M. S. KARL – Death Notice.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[8] Comments
M. S. KARL – Death Notice. Pete Brady #2. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1990. No paperback edition.
The second case involving Pete Brady as a retired New Orleans crime reporter, now the editor of a small weekly newspaper in Louisiana — murder and arson just seem to follow some people, no matter where they go. I missed the first one, but this one’s a humdinger.
This one begins when a paroled killer is unaccountably allowed to return to the town in which the murder occurred. Doing nothing but sit on his front porch, he simply allows subsequent events to happen as they will, in ultra high intensity. This one really is a page turner.
Even better, it’s actually a detective story. There are clues, lots of them, and lots of false trails too. Lots of promise here. The only weakness, as far as I’m concerned, is that the basic setting is that of corrupt politics, crooked politicians and the money grubbing political bosses that back them. My first reaction was that of disbelief, that Karl was overdoing it by a factor of ten — but then again, just maybe not, considering that this is the country that also hatched Huey Long.
Under the name of M. K. Shuman (real name Malcolm Shuman), Karl writes another series of detective novels with PI Micah Dunn as the leading character. Dunn’s beat is New Orleans, and if this book is any indicator, that may be a series worth looking into as well.
The Pete Brady series —
1. Killer’s Ink (1988)
2. Death Notice (1990)
3. Deerslayer (1991)
July 27th, 2018 at 2:25 am
Part of Louisiana’s charm was it corruption. But Edward Edwards was the last time it was fun. I have lived in the state off and on for a few decades. During the 70s the citizens elected a man to the state legislature. Problem was he was currently serving time in a Texas prison. But he was elected and the law said he could continued as he wasn’t convicted of breaking any Louisiana laws. They got rid of him for absenteeism.
July 27th, 2018 at 6:20 am
“Vote for the crook. It’s important.”
That was the successful slogan for Edwards’ fourth and final (so far, at least) Gubernatorial election, when he beat David Duke.
Getting back to Shuman, let me recommend his Alan Graham series of paperbacks, written as Malcolm Shuman. Like the author, Graham is a “contract archaeologist” (you could look it up), and works on various cases, including one on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi, the possible burial site of Meriwether Lewis (THE MERIWETHER MURDER), an ancient Tunica Indian burial ground (BURIAL GROUND), and the Yucatan (THE LAST MAYAN).
July 27th, 2018 at 6:05 pm
I had cutback my reading in this period, always amazes me how much I missed.
July 27th, 2018 at 9:20 pm
I sometimes wonder whether it’s worth even the small amount of effort it takes to post one of these old reviews of mine.
Then again, even though he had three books in this series, four Michal Dunn books, and than Alan Graham mysteries, my feeling is that Karl/Schuman went pretty much unnoticed, even when he was most active. Based on what I said about this book back when it came out, I think he deserved a lot more than that.
It’s too late to give his career much of a boost now, but if I can get one, two, or maybe even three readers interested in him — and authors like him — then I’ve decided, yes, it’s worth the time it takes to post an old review like this one.
PS. Thanks, Jeff, Comment #2, for telling us about the Alan Graham books. I’ve never seen any of them.
July 28th, 2018 at 5:52 am
Amazon has them, of course. At the time I read them, they were mostly available in my library. Now, they aren’t.
July 28th, 2018 at 9:57 am
I love the old reviews, and will use them to find an author (like Schuman) that I may have missed, or remember authors (Greenleaf) that I read, enjoyed but haven’t thought about in some time.
The recent review of the Archer Mayor book got me picking up where I left off, and 40 pages in realize how much I enjoy his stories.
July 28th, 2018 at 4:00 pm
Steve,
If you introduce, or warn off, just one reader to a new writer (to them) it’s worth it. I don’t find too many new writers I’m fond of so finding a writer I missed is just as good.
Anyway, I look on this blog as a sort of informal history of the genre exposing us to books and writers we may have missed — and sometimes should have missed.
Back in college in spare moments I used to scan the microfiche in the library for old mystery book review columns to discover books I had missed, wanted to know more about, or never suspected existed. This blog makes that a much easier task.
Good job as always.
July 28th, 2018 at 5:15 pm
Thanks for the comments. I confess that I’ve passed over some of my old reviews that (a) are totally forgotten now, and (b) aren’t very good. There’s no need, I’ve decided, to warn would-be readers off books they’re never going to come across anyway.
I don’t know what I’d think of this book by Karl if I were to read it now, but I trust myself enough to believe that it’s worth tracking down, if you’re of a mind too.
To make that task a little easier, perhaps, I have discovered that Mysterious Press has reprinted all of Schuman’s work as Kindle ebooks. You can find them on Amazon and probably elsewhere.