Thu 10 Jun 2021
A 1001 Midnights PI Review: GEORGE HARMON COXE – Fenner.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[3] Comments
by Susan Dunlap & Marcia Muller
GEORGE HARMON COXE – Fenner. Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1971. Manor Books, paperback, 1974.
George Harmon Coxe was an extremely prolific writer whose early work appeared in such pulp magazines as Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly. His news-photographer hero, Flash Casey, first appeared in Black Mask in the early 1930s, and later Coxe used him in a number of novels, among them Silent Are the Dead (1942) and Error in Judgment (1961).
His other news-photographer sleuth, Kent Murdock, appears in many more novels than Casey, and is a more fully realized character than the creation of Coxe’s pulp-writing days. Coxe also created series characters Paul Standish (a medical examiner), Sam Crombie (a plodding detective), Max Hale (a reluctant detective), and Jack Fenner (Kent Murdock’s private-eye sidekick who starred in several novels of his own).
Many consider Fenner the most entertaining of Coxc’s later novels. Although published in 1971, it has the feel of the Forties. (Indeed, the hippie reference seems an anachronism.) Coxe has a simple formal style; he describes his characters but seldom invites the reader to identify with them. Action-oriented readers may find Coxe’s work dull; there is virtually no violence, but rather a charming concern for decorum (another hint of bygone days).
In Fenner, Coxe begins with heiress Carol Browning’s escape from a state mental institution. (Her husband committed her.) The scene shifts to Fenner’s office, where the husband, George Browning, hires the detective to find his wife. Why, with all her money, did he send her to a state hospital rather than a more tolerable private one? Fenner asks. Browning’s answer is unconvincing. Before Fenner can get to the bottom of this, Browning is murdered-in his wife’s apartment. There’s the hook; expect some good twists and a plausible conclusion. No more, no less.
Jack Fenner reappears in The Silent Witness (1973) and No Place for Murder ( 1975), as well as playing a role in many of the Kent Murdock novels.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
June 11th, 2021 at 4:18 pm
I keep meaning to read these late Fenner novels, but never have.
Fenner is always a good character, when he shows up in Kent Murdock books. He seems to have debuted in the first Murdock novel, “Murder with Pictures” (1935).
I’ve tried to cover Coxe on my website:
http://mikegrost.com/hardboil.htm
June 11th, 2021 at 4:48 pm
As far as I’ve been able to tell, you’re right about Fenner’s debut being MURDER WITH PICTURES. Murdock showed up in all of Fenner’s appearances, whether novel or short story, except Coxe’s final novel, NO PACE FOR MURDER (1975).
It’s been a while since I read this one. I’m sure it’s well written, but (since I can’t remember anything about it now), it’s not entirely a memorable one.
June 11th, 2021 at 7:43 pm
Coxe’s skill always showed through for the length of his career. He was gifted at plot and suspense, and as noted above didn’t spend a lot of time going into the psychology of his characters, he and his readers were more interested in what happened to them and what they did than why.
I can honestly say I have enjoyed most of the stories I’ve read by Coxe from his early career to his later one.