Thu 1 Mar 2007
Review: VALERY SHORE – Final Payment
Posted by Steve under Authors , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews[5] Comments
VALERY SHORE – Final Payment
Major Books 3236, paperback original; copyright 1978; no other date stated.
Next on the agenda, and the final book I read in 2006, is the only mystery written by the pseudonymous Valery Shore. Al Hubin in Crime Fiction IV says that Shore was the pen name of Lon Viser, born in 1932. All I’ve been able to come up with regarding Mr. Viser is that he had something to do with the American Art Agency, a publisher based in North Hollywood in 1965.
From the small print inside Atualidades Globo Controle Da Natalidade, written in Portuguese and illustrated throughout, aka The Complete Book of Birth Control:
It’s not a common name. Maybe it’s the same man. All that comes up for Valery Shore, in case you were wondering, are a few dealers offering this book for sale on eBay, or maybe it’s the same book offered at different times. I didn’t check.
The dedication reads as follows: “To Yvonne, Rhoda, and Lon, without whose help this book could not have been written,” so I assume that Al is correct – not that there’s any reason to doubt him.
The primary detective in Final Payment is a former Scotland Yard inspector by the name of Christopher Camel, still young, who’d recently been left a fortune by an aunt, in her day a sex symbol of the silver screen. Staying with Camel in his aunt’s Tudor-style Hollywood mansion is “his beautiful Eurasian companion, Kim Lee Chance.” I’m quoting from the back cover.
In attendance upon them both is Potter Goodleigh, his aunt’s former lover and a long ago movie director who’d been exiled to the guest cottage, but who is now cook, butler and father figure to the two young people who are now “livening up the old museum,” as he puts it.
It is Potter’s daughter Felicia who’s murdered, her body found in the piano in her living room. Unfortunately Felicia was also a blackmailer, and there are thirteen suspects that Camel, Kim Lee, and the local lieutenant of police named Davidson have to deal with. In spite of his new-found money and all of his resultant leisure time, there is no way Camel can be kept off the case, as you can well imagine if it had happened to you and sunny fortune had smiled your way in such a fashion.
The story, as I’ve relayed to you so far, may also sound to you as the basis for a made-for-TV mystery movie. If so, you share my feelings exactly, and I have the advantage of having actually read the book. If you also were to suspect that on page 177 there would be a gathering of the suspects in the dead woman’s living room, in an attempt to recreate the crime, I would certainly begin to wonder about you. How could you possibly know that it was on page 177?
As entertaining as made-for-TV mystery movies may be, and some more than others, in general I’ve always had a relatively low opinion of them. This one, I’ll conclude by saying, is better than most of them. If there had ever been a second book in the series, I’d make sure that I had it in my collection too.
UPDATE [03-01-07] Victor Berch has done some preliminary spadework on Lon Viser, and so far he’s come up with the following: His full name as Lorenzo Ludwick Viser, born February 26, 1932 in FL, died August 9, 1994 in LA. There was a Lorenzo M. Viser living with him in the 90s, probably a son. More later, if and when!
March 6th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
[…] 6 Mar 2007 Bill Pronzini on VALERIE SHORE and MICHAEL KNERR. Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews , Collecting Was amazed to seeyour review of the Valery Shore paperback, Final Payment. Reason: I’d begun to suspect the book didn’t exist, despite the listing in Hubin, because it has been on my paperback want list for maybe a dozen years and yours is the first copy I’ve ever seen. So happens I collect Major Books — in general, they were the Phoenix Press of 70s paperbacks, more than 50% qualifying as “alternative classics” — and Final Payment is one of only two MB mysteries that I don’t have. And judging by your review, it’s one of the few good ones MB published. […]
October 16th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I can certainly remember when Yvonne Beltzer, Rhoda Luczon (my mother) and my Dad, Lon Viser wrote this book. The name Valery Shore came from the magazine my parents started Valley & Shore Magazine later named by the owners Valley Magazine (San Fernando Valley), a sort of Sunset Magazine for the L.A. suburbs… He also wrote several books under other pen names.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
You cannot imagine my shock to come across a review of Final Payment by Valery Shore! I co-wrote this book with Lon and Rhoda to defeat the boredom of a summer when we were all out of work and seeking to start something of our own. We literally wrote it together in Viser-Luczon apartment in Sepulveda (now North Hills).
Lon arranged for it to be published by a small publisher… and I believe he collected the modest payment.
Lon was a spectacularly talented friend whose passing I forever regret.
The last I heard of Rhoda (the matron of honor at my wedding) was she was moving to Oregon.
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I worked with a Wil Hulsey at American Art Enterprises back in ’71-’72. The office was originally in Van Nuys, I think, or within shouting distance of it anyway. In the late summer or early fall of ’71, they moved to Chatsworth. Wil Hulsey was the art director there, at the time.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
My father is Wil Hulsey. I have discovered alot about him through the Internet more than can be imagined.
His art and his life are going to long endure his frail and old body. I have his hands, I do not have his experience with such eclectic subjects nor do know enough about the people he was associated but he recently said,” they use to want me to pose and I would get paid for the photo session, he had alot of fun acting out the scenes for the other artist to paint his face. But; he always painted his own face and his was better then theirs.!” His paintings reflects that to be true. I am glad he has good memories during such times in his mind he can reflect on. He has been through much in his long enduring life. He deserves credit for all of his paintings. Oh! Anyone who thinks they have an unsigned Illustration look closely with a magnifying glass you might find his signiture. He is a trickster with hiding it to leave his mark on it, he has done that on some of the one’s he still has painted in his retired years. Revealing to me he did not want anyone to find it.
Good Luck!! Everybody….
Linda Lee Hulsey
Check out my own Art for Sale on the craigslist, of course not like my father’s but who knows what will show up having his hands someday.