Mon 21 Sep 2020
A Mystery Review by Dan Stumpf: HARRY WHITTINGTON – The Humming Box.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:
HARRY WHITTINGTON – The Humming Box. Ace Double #D-185, paperback original, 1956. Published back-to-back with Build My Gallows High, by Geoffrey Homes.
I recently revisited a book I picked up back in College. I was pretty wild back in those days, you see, and my gang and I would sometimes get in an old jalopy, pool money for gas, and tear up to Cleveland, where we’d spend the day prowling the seedier parts of town, scouting out Used Book Stores and whistling at girls. Or maybe we just scouted out Used Book Stores. It’s been a long time, Anyway, on one of these raids, I picked up Ace Double #D-185 featuring The Humming Box by Harry Whittington. Inside the front cover, the blurb page offered a Cast of Characters, including:
LORNA PALMER: A modern Pandora. Her box was no myth!
Ah, the things they used to get away with in those days! Anyway, The Humming Box is better than it sounds, despite the pulpy plot (Everyone in it seems to be plotting to murder somebody, though none of them are much good at it.) and the lurid packaging. Whittington works some really creepy scenes from the (rather timely) concept of a package of disease-carrying mosquitoes smuggled out of Korea by a psychotic GI, then fallen into the hands of a scheming heiress who’s being blackmailed by …. well, you get the idea. Sheer pulp, but carried off competently by a past master of the form.
By the way, the flip-side of this gem is none other than Build My Gallows High, Geoffrey Homes’ novel basis of the Ultimate Film Noir, Out of the Past. It’s a bit more diffuse and perhaps less powerful than the film, but still a well-plotted and tightly-written bit of business. Homes evokes the minor characters well and keeps the story moving with the occasional oddly poetic touch that recalls Chandler at his best. Makes me wonder why he never did anything else as good.
September 21st, 2020 at 7:40 pm
I suspect mystery fiction just didn’t pay Homes/Mainwaring as much as screenwriting did.
Whittington remains a favorite of the period.
September 21st, 2020 at 7:47 pm
This is a great pairing. Both books are excellent, and the Whittington has never been reprinted, not even on Kindle. Which is why it’s one old paperback that’s maintained something of its value. Copies in Very Good condition seem to start in the $70 range.
September 21st, 2020 at 8:11 pm
Dan,
I read this Whittington quite a few years ago and thought it was a lousy book, not up to the other Whittington’s I had read. As I say, it was a long time ago. Maybe I’ll try it again. I think it was at the time where I thought that the Ace Doubles were of the same high standard as Gold Medals, which I’ve found out is not true, most of the time.
Steve,
I’d guess the asking price for this book on the used market would be more for the Homes half, not necessarily the Whittington half. The Homes book in a first ed. hardcover w/jacket brings a few hundred last time I checked.
September 21st, 2020 at 8:18 pm
I remember liking the book a lot — well, better than average — but that was 40 years ago. If you ever read the book again, maybe I should too. Maybe there’s a reason it’s never been reprinted.
And you’re right about Ace Double mysteries, in general. They’re nowhere near as good as the Gold Medal’s being published at the same time.
September 21st, 2020 at 8:20 pm
I also have to mention the cover art for “The Humming Box”. It would have been a good fit if Ace did the book the original “Cape Fear” movie was based on. I always think of Robert Mitchum at the end of the movie after he swam out to the boat house. Incredibly menacing! 100 times better than that POS of a remake!!
September 22nd, 2020 at 12:30 am
Well, maybe, but I didn’t think it was that bad.