Wed 20 Apr 2011
Reviewed by Jeff Meyerson: FRANK GRUBER – The French Key.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[5] Comments
FRANK GRUBER – The French Key Mystery. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1940. Paperback reprints include: Avon Murder of the Month #4, 1942; Avon #91, 1946, both as The French Key Mystery. Jonathan Press J89, [1957], as Once Over Deadly. Belmont L92-592, 1964. Film: Republic, 1946 (story & screenplay by Frank Gruber).
Frank Gruber was a mainstay of the pulps, grinding out over 600,000 words a year for many years. In 1940 he turned out this, his first detective novel, in a week, and it was a big success (a film was made with Albert Dekker and Mike Masurki).
It is the first of fourteen books with quick-thinking, fast-talking Johnny Fletcher, the world’s greatest book salesman, and his brawny sidekick, Sam Cragg. Fletcher and Cragg are locked out of their hotel room for non-payment of the bill; when they climb in through the window of the next room they find a dead body in their bed clutching an extremely valuable gold coin in his hand.
From then on it’s one fast moving complication after another, as Fletcher must clear himself of murder, find the real killer, and solve the mystery of the coin. Despite a few improbabilities of plot, French Key is pulp writing at its best, with a briskly moving plot, breezy dialogue, and lots of action.
It also offers an interesting picture of New York in 1939, when a nickel could buy a hamburger at a greasy spoon, as well as a ride on a subway, and a suite at the Waldorf went for as little as twenty-five dollars a day.
April 20th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
I read this book so long ago I don’t remember any details other than I enjoyed it — I’m all but 100% sure it was the Belmont paperback.
I’ve not seen the movie, but it’s available in the collector-to-collector market. The one commenter on IMDB liked it and thinks it should have been picked up as a series. That’s encouraging!
April 21st, 2011 at 7:02 am
I feel the same way, Steve. By coincidence I read Gruber’s BRASS KNUCKLES, a collection of his pulp stories about encyclopedia salesman and self-proclaimed expert on everything Oliver Quade, this year, and it was just as much fun as this was.
April 22nd, 2011 at 9:10 am
I’m a big Frank Gruber fan. I’m going to have to crack open BRASS KNUCKLES and get reading!
April 22nd, 2011 at 9:38 am
The only Gruber I’ve read were westerns, probably when I was in high school. The Brass Knuckles collection sounds familiar, was it recently re-published?
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Richard
The answer’s no, and I think some small publisher is missing a bet by not doing a reprint of it. The only edition that I’ve been able to find is the original 1966 hardcover. Luckily it’s not very difficult to find a copy in decent condition; you shouldn’t have to pay more than 20 dollars, including postage.
I have a fondness for this book, above and beyond the stories themselves. It was my first real introduction to pulp fiction — other than Hammett and Chandler, of course. It started me down a deep dark path….