Tue 16 Aug 2022
A PI Mystery Review by Tony Baer: WILSON TUCKER – The Chinese Doll.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
WILSON TUCKER – The Chinese Doll. Charles Horne #1. Rinehart, hardcover, 1946. Detective Book Club, hardcover, 3-in-1 edition, May 1947. Dell #343, mapback edition, 1949.
Charles Horne is a mediocre PI in a one horse town in Illinois. Just sitting around.
Then a snazzy large dude named Evans bursts in, hands him $500 cash and says it’s for bail because he’s about to be arrested. He immediately bursts out of the office, getting flattened by a cute Chinese girl in a supercharged Studebaker who doesn’t bother to touch her brakes.
The car’s later found trashed on the side of the road. It belongs to Evans, the guy that just got run over.
Later that night the same Chinese chick picks our detective up in a brand new supercharged Studebaker and takes him to a secret casino hidden in a barn in the countryside run by the mob.
Departing the casino that eve, he sees the Chinese doll skating on the frozen pond. It’s the last he sees of her alive as she shows up in the morning morgue, drowned. In tap water.
It turns out the doll and Evans were in love, she his mistress, she with child, he remained with wife. So kablammo.
But things are not always what they seem, as the mob was pulling all the strings. And wrapping up with bow and string, they drowned her, the Chinese doll.
Horne is bound and determined to earn the $500 from his dead client and get to the bottom of things. He does, after a time, and in the nick of time too.
Horne is not particularly hard or tough or smart or brave. He starts shaking when in danger. He makes witless decisions putting himself and his clients in harm’s way. He lets the bad guys push him around. Sometimes you wish Mike Hammer would show up and slap the meshuggenah out of him.
And worst of all he writes every single thing to his wife by letter. Every confidence. Every move. Every thought. The entire book is in fact a book of letters from Mr. to Mrs. Horne, during the pendency of their trial separation.
I thought I was going to complain about this affectation. But I can’t. Because this affectation is the plot device upon which the entire novel turns.
It’s a bit like the Fredric Brown’s surprise in his short story “Don’t Look Behind You†in that the medium is vital to the message.
It’s a good detective novel. It kept my attention and the ending was unique and surprising.
It’s also nice to know that the device could only be used once because frankly I detest books of letters.
NOTE: Previously reviewed on this blog by William Deeck here.
August 17th, 2022 at 5:28 am
Always a worthwhile author. His books deserve a resurgence. This was the first of five Charles Horne mysteries; Tucker published another five mysteries in addition to the nine science fiction novels for which he is most remembered.
August 17th, 2022 at 10:57 am
A fanzine issue dedicated to him here: https://fanac.org/fanzines/SF_Commentary/sfc43.pdf
August 17th, 2022 at 1:26 pm
Thanks for the link, Tony. As Jerry says, Tucker is remembered more today as a SF fan and author than he is for the mysteries he wrote, which is probably not at all.
August 17th, 2022 at 7:45 pm
Tucker is one of the few SF writers to successfully combine SF and Mystery so it is no surprise he wrote some entertaining mystery novels. He also penned a spy novel with a hint of SF and the supernatural, THE WARLOCK, late in his career.
Epistolary novels are an acquired taste, but not uncommon (DRACULA for instance), and fair to say you can do some interesting tricks with that format or the alternating narrator (first cousin of the epistolary novel).
Not a favorite device, but you can’t argue with success.
I notice this was published pre I, THE JURY, so not a reaction to the Spillane style P.I., though a few writers would take up that banner as a reaction to Hammer.
Is this Tucker’s first novel. I assume he had a pulp presence before this, but is this is first hardcover title?
August 17th, 2022 at 7:55 pm
Yes, his first novel. Somewhat surprisingly, his first science fiction title wasn’t until THE CITY IN THE SEA (Rinehart, 1951).
August 18th, 2022 at 5:31 am
According to FictionMags index, Tucker had one prior appearance in a detective pulp: “Drown or Die” written with Dorothy Les Tina under the joint pseudonym “Sanford Vaid” in CRACK DETECTIVE (Canada), January 1943. The joint pseudonym was only used one other time, a year later for a science fiction story.
August 18th, 2022 at 10:06 am
David,
In an interview (in the above fanzine link) Tucker opines that the essential form of the novel is the mystery novel—that regardless of whether the genre is romance, sci-fi, historical fiction or straight bestsellerdom, that a mystery to be solved is generally the device used to propel a story.
August 23rd, 2022 at 8:13 pm
Tony,
I think a good argument can be made for that going back to the quest novel. The mystery may not be a crime, but there is almost always something to be resolved that requires learning and gathering information.
Still SF more often used the thriller and adventure story form than the detective story though there are numerous examples of the latter.
Tucker is one of those writers like Chad Oliver who I often find I like better than the bigger names in the field.