NICK QUARRY – The Hoods Come Calling. Jake Barrow #1. Gold Medal #747; 1st printing, March 1958. Cover art: Barye Phillips.

   Having discovered that he has a talent for PI work in Chicago, Jake Barrow returns to New York City intending to take over an agency of his own there. He needs $1600 to buy the current owner out, however,  but he soon discovers that his former wife has cleaned out the money he was counting on in his savings account.

   In that regard he confronts her in front of her current boy friend, the brother of a gangster whose party he has been invited to. Two days later he discovers her staggering home badly beaten and in very sad shape. Leaving her in her apartment for a short time, he does not expect to find her dead, strangled to death with his own necktie.

   What does he do? Hide the body, of course, but as it turns out, not all that well. Hard on his heels for the rest of book are the cops and at least two gangs of crooks. It’s a good thing he’s in great physical shape, since he also takes a couple of good beatings at the hands of various parties in what follows.

   To compensate for that, however, perhaps, is that he is very attracted to the women he meets in the course of his investigation – to get the police off his trail, he must find the real killer – or they to him. You know how it goes in tough guy man-on-the-run stories such as this.

   Nick Quarry was the pen name of prolific paperback writer Marvin Albert, and this is the first of six appearances of PI Jake Barrow. If you can forgive the fact that there’s really not a lot that’s new in this one, it is both well-written and well-paced, and overall it is an above average debut. Not that much above average, but if PI stories are your meat, you won’t be sorry if you decide to track down a copy of this one.

      The Jake Barrow series —

The Hoods Come Calling (1958)
The Girl with No Place to Hide (1959)
Trail of a Tramp (1960)
Till It Hurts (1960)
No Chance in Hell (1960)
Some Die Hard (1961)