Fri 7 Apr 2023
A PI Mystery Review: MAXINE O’CALLAGHAN – Set-Up.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[7] Comments
MAXINE O’CALLAGHAN – Set-Up Delilah Wesr #4. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1991. Worldwide, paperback, 1994.
Delilah West’s write-up on the Thrilling Detective website begins thusly:
On the basis of Set-Up, this the fourth novel in the series, it’s clear that an injustice has been done. It is as good as any of those featuring those other PI’s above, but neither the author or Delilah West herself ever caught the eye of readers in meaningful way that I know of.
After successfully closing the case on a secretary whom she has found embezzling funds from her boss, Delilah’s next case concerns a bomb threat a environmental activist has received. In one of those coincidences that really do happen in the real world as well as fiction, the two cases ar connected, and her new client is suspect number one in the death of the woman convicted in Chapter One.
It’s quite a complicated case, with suspects and entangled relationships all over the place, but O’Callghan’s smooth and easy prose make the whole affair go down smooth and easy. There is, I warn male readers, a hint of coziness when Delilah ruminates a notch too often about the men in her life, most of whom are carry-overs from the earlier books (and can easily be ignored, if you are so inclined), but the case itself carries on in fine old PI fashion, whether male or female. (And the bomb threat is quite real throughout the book.)
The Delilah West novels —
Death Is Forever (1981)
Run From the Nightmare (1982)
Hit and Run (1989)
Set-Up (1991)
Trade-Off (1996)
Down For the Count (1997)
– plus seven scattered short stories.
April 7th, 2023 at 8:52 pm
Sounds like a series I need to look up.
April 7th, 2023 at 9:13 pm
Here’s your review of #3 in the series. https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=52086
April 7th, 2023 at 10:10 pm
In which I said pretty much the same thing about that one as I did abut this one, without remembering the earlier one at all.
Since posting this one today, I have been thinking about reinstating my trademarked H/B scale (for hardboiled novels). If I do, starting with this one, I’d rate this one a solid 3.5, out of ten.
April 7th, 2023 at 10:48 pm
Steve,
Is the h/b scale an egg timer for books? (Not to be confused with the f scale: https://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm)
April 8th, 2023 at 1:31 am
Yeah, the egg timer analogy works. Not perfect, but it works. Forget that f scale stuff.
April 8th, 2023 at 6:57 am
I could be wrong, but if my memory serves (which it usually does), the first (or first two) of these was a Raven House paperback original, and as such I had it at one time, though I didn’t read it.
Yes:
Death is Forever #28 Feb. 1981
Run From the Nightmare #46 May 1981
April 8th, 2023 at 12:05 pm
Jeff
I haven’t read either of O’Callaghan’s Raven House books, either. The books they published were shall we say uneven at best, but on the basis of the two of hers I have read, I would say that hers for RH were among the highs, not the lows.