FLOYD WALLACE – Wired for Scandal. Ace Double D-357. Paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Published back-to-back with Lady in Peril, by Lester Dent.

   A sixteen-year-old boy overhears a bugging device transmitting a psychoanalyst’s conversation with a patient and so gets messed up withe the unsympathetic police in a case of blackmail and murder.

   The blackmailer’s identity is fairly obvious, but the story’s strength lies in its portrayal of a bored kid, with little to do, and no one to listen. Even listening to his shortwave receiver adds to his frustration – all those people talking, but no one wanting to pay him any attention.

   On the minus side, we have a police lieutenant willing to risk the boy’s life to catch the real criminal. Personal dislike does not seem motive enough, and contradicts what otherwise is great efficiency.

Rating: ***

— December 1968.