Wed 5 Jul 2023
A 1001 Midnights PI Mystery Review: THOMAS B. DEWEY – Deadline.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[9] Comments
by Bill Pronzini
THOMAS B. DEWEY – Deadline. Mac #13. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1966. Pocket 55002, paperback, 1968. Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1984. Probably condensed and reprinted as the story “Deadline†appearing in Sir!, August 1968 [see Comment #6].
Thomas B. Dewey is one of detective fiction’s severely underrated writers — a craftsman of no small talent whose work is among the most human and compassionate of any in the genre. Although Dewey was clearly influenced by Hammell and Chandler, his Chicago-based private eye, “Mac,” is not one of the wisecracking, vigilante breed of fictional ops; he is intelligent, quiet, gentle, ironic, tough when he has to be, a light drinker, and a man not incapable of being hurt either physically or emotionally. All in all, a far more likable creation than the bulk of his brethren.
In Deadline. Mae is hired by a group of do-gooders in a last-ditch effort to save the life of a small-town youth, Peter Davidian, who has been convicted of the mutilation murder of an eighteen-year-old girl and is awaiting execution in the state prison. When Mac arrives in the rural Illinois town, Wesley, he meets considerable hostility: The crime was a particularly vicious one, and the girl’s father, Jack Parrish, is an influential citizen who is convinced of Davidian’s guilt.
Racing against time-he has only four days before the scheduled execution, the “deadline” of the title- Mac utilizes the aid of a retarded handyman, a friend of the dead girl’s named Mary Carpenter, and a schoolteacher named Caroline Adams to find out who really murdered Esther Parrish. In the process he has to overcome a conspiracy of silence, threats, and a harrowing brush with death.
This is a simple, straightforward story, told with irony, fine attention to detail, and mounting suspense. Satisfying and memorable.
———
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.
July 5th, 2023 at 9:06 am
An excellent book. I read and reviewed it a while back. Here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=78873
July 5th, 2023 at 2:10 pm
In the comments on your review, Bill Pronzini says that he liked it a lot more than you did. Your review wasn’t negative but I guess it wasn’t gushing. Does the book seem better now a year later?
I find sometimes, for me anyway, that is true. That I may initially not like something and then, with time and distance, my heart grows fonder (to coin a phrase). Movies like Boogie Nights and Magnolia and Pulp Fiction and There Will Be Blood and Big Lebowski, my initial reactions were quite negative for some reason–but with sufficient mastication, I’ve grown to appreciate them quite a bit.
July 5th, 2023 at 4:48 pm
When I read my review after posting Bill Pronzini’s, I noticed the same thing, that I didn’t say very much either way, positive or negative (but certainly not the latter). It’s difficult to say who liked it more, but at the moment, I’d go with Bill. What I can tell you that after all the time since I wrote, there are scenes and situations in it that still remember, and vividly. That tells me something.
July 5th, 2023 at 2:49 pm
Dewey desperately needed the kind of attention Macdonald and Archer got with attractive uniform editions from a single publisher, instead you mostly got Mac in dribs and drabs, a few from one publisher then a few from another.
Dell did better for his lesser Pete Schofield series than anyone really did for Mac.
The writing was excellent and the books in their own way as important and literate as Archer and Macdonald, in fact I would honestly appraise Dewey as the better writer of the two, certainly less harnessed to certain psychological hobby horses.
There are a couple of writers from the late Forties Fifties and Sixties who didn’t get their due in my estimation, Dewey and Mac at the top of a list that includes Bart Spicer and Carney Wilde, Wade Miller’s Max Thursday, and John Evans (Howard Browne)’s Paul Pine. Spicer and Dewey aren’t even well represented in reprints which is a shame because a lot of lesser material that is available never came near their quality.
July 5th, 2023 at 5:06 pm
You are absolutely right. All of the authors you mention should still be in print today. Hopefully some publisher will read this some day and do something about it.
July 5th, 2023 at 2:59 pm
hardcover, 1966. … paperback, 1968. … Presumably expanded from the short story “Deadline†appearing in Sir!, August 1968.
One of those dates seems off since it’s saying that the book was based on a story that appeared two years AFTER the book was published.
July 5th, 2023 at 4:30 pm
No, the dates are right. I’ve double-checked them all, but thanks for catching that. I’m going to assume that the version in SIR! was a reprint/condensed version of the story, and so note it that way. Until discovered otherwise!
July 11th, 2023 at 9:23 am
I’ve just finished it and I’ll add my voice to the choir that it’s a fine hardboiled detective novel in one of the better hardboiled detective series. There’s some good action when the locals try to run out the clock by clocking Mac and cuffing him in a manger. The deadline of an execution is a good way to amp up the urgency of the tale.
I guess my only complaints are: 1. I have never heard of an execution being held less than a year after the murder, especially when the case has allegedly been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. The timing, of course, keeps the wounds fresh. But I just don’t feel the timing’s plausible. 2. The ‘insanity plea’ by the alleged murderer is just a terrible piece of lawyering for a supposedly brilliant lawyer; it’s pretty obvious from the beginning that the evidence against the alleged murderer is completely circumstancial, that the local jury was biased, and if the prime suspect is incompetent, why accept his coerced confession? And why is Mac the first person that realizes the factual contradictions in the murder confession? I realized it myself, and I’m no Clarence Darrow.
So, anyway, it’s a good detective novel by a good detective novelist. But some plausibility issues keep it from being more.
July 11th, 2023 at 11:53 am
A well-reasoned and thought out analysis, Tony, and I can’t disagree with any of it. Thanks!