TALMAGE POWELL – Corpus Delectable. Ed Rivers #5. Pocket Cardinal paperback original; 1st printing, 1964. Prologue Books, softcover, 2012.

   Ed Rivers was a Tampa-based PI who was head agent for the Nationwide Detective Agency’s Southeastern Division. For all intents and purposes, however, he seems to have largely worked on his own, an independent operator but one with the backup of the head company whenever he needs records and other information. He’s a rough-looking fellow, but that seems only to attract good-looking women all the more. He’s also a fellow with a good set of ethics – always above board in everything he does, in spite of the opportunities he’s offered.

   Corpus Delectable takes place during Tampa’s annual Gasparilla Festival, a real event something akin to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, named after a local early 20th century pirate by the name of José Gaspar. This means that all of Rivers’ investigation takes place against a backdrop of partying, fireworks and people wearing slinky dresses or bushy beards (one to a customer).

   Dead very early on is a girl who calls on Rivers with a case for him before she heads to one of those parties, but on arrival she dies at the foot of his stairs with a knife in her back. Conveniently she had mentioned who was hosting the party, giving Rivers a very handy foot in the door in terms of what follows. Which involves the death of natural causes of a wealthy woman who had fled her native Venezuela along with her son-in-law (a cad) and granddaughter (spoiled), and a hired assassin who has Rivers in his sights, for fear the dead woman told him something.

   It’s a complicated plot, but it goes down smoothly enough. Powell’s writing roots were in the detective pulp magazines, so by 1964, he was a grizzled old pro at this sort of thing. Which somewhat unexpectedly involves a certain amount of detective on Rivers’ part, and all of the clues, save one, fit together rather well. Unless I missed something, the “save one” involves a massive coincidence that paradoxically I might swallow more in real life than I can in fiction. Go figure.
   

       The Ed Rivers series –

The Killer Is Mine. Pocket Books, 1959
The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer. Pocket Books, 1960
Start Screaming Murder. Permabooks, 1962
With a Madman Behind Me. Permabooks, 1962
Corpus Delectable. Pocket Books, 1964