MICHAEL CONNELLY – Echo Park. Harry Bosch #12. Hachette, hardcover, 2006; paperback, August 2007.

   What struck me most about Echo Park, a Michael Connelly thriller, was how well it captured the geography of Los Angeles and Burbank, two cities I am very familiar with. It’s that sense of place, that gritty urban realism, which makes this entry in Connelly’s Harry Bosch police detective series a worthwhile read. That’s not to say that’s it’s not a good thriller in and of itself. It is. It’s just that that the geography and topography featured in the work is, to my mind anyway, just as important as plot and character.

   For those not familiar with Harry Bosch, he’s Connelly’s best known fictional creation, a Vietnam veteran turned LAPD detective, the type of guy who plays by his own rules and has his own particular code of honor. In this twelfth book in the series, his code of honor makes him dogged in his pursuit of justice for the murder of Marie Gesto, a young woman who disappeared in 1993. Flash forward to 2006 and Bosch still hasn’t put anyone behind bars for the crime, and he hasn’t been able to deliver closure to the poor girl’s parents in Bakersfield.

   Through luck or something far more sinister, Bosch learns that a serial killer by the name of Raynard Waits is willing to confess to the murder of Marie Gesto. But there’s something off about this strange man’s willingness to confess to the crime. He wasn’t even on Bosch’s radar in 1993. Bosch had always thought that the son of a wealthy LA businessman was the likely culprit. Echo Park follows Bosch as he navigates not only Los Angeles, but also the byzantine internal politics of the LAPD. Along the way we meet a sleazy lawyer, an ambitious prosecutor, an FBI agent who may be in love with Bosch, and a coterie of police officers.

   I found Echo Park to be an engrossing read, what some critics would consider the hallmark of a successful work of commercial fiction. What the novel lacks in depth, it more than makes up for in forcing the reader to discover what comes next. However, when all was said and done, I can’t say that I found the villains in the work to be particularly compelling. But the geography and sense of place certainly are. This is a work of Los Angeles crime fiction par excellence.

CRIME WAVE. Warner Brothers, 1953. Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk, Ted de Corsia, Charles Bronson (as Charles Buchinsky), Jay Novello, Ned Young, Dub Taylor. Director: André De Toth.

   Here’s a relatively unknown film noir that I recently saw for the first time, and if you haven’t seen it, it’s one I’m pleased to recommend to you without a single reservation. Or if you have seen it but not recently, why not watch it again? It’s one of those films that you see more of it every time you watch it.

   It isn’t much of a crime wave. A small gang of ex-cons are pulling a small series of gas station robberies. The police assume that they’re only after eating money, as the take they get is never more than a few hundred dollars. But when their latest job costs the life of a motorcycle cop who stops to investigate, the attitude of the police changes dramatically, starting with Det. Lt. Sims, played by Sterling Hayden, who towers majestically over everyone, laconically shooting out his dialogue in torrents, tommy-gun fashion.

   Caught in between the police and the holdup gang is Gene Nelson and his wife, Phyllis Kirk. He’s out on parole, has a good job, and wants nothing to do with his former cell mates, but when they invade his home and hold his wife hostage, he has no choice to go along with them, and the plan they’re working on next.

   The movie has filmed in only 13 days, and mostly on location in the greater Los Angeles area, giving the film a sense of immediacy that it might not otherwise have.

   On a personal level, Lt Sims is adamantly against the idea of parole — once a con always a con — and to me this is Starling Hayden’s movie all the way. Gene Nelson does his best, but standing up against this hulking nemesis of a police officer? No way, no how.

   Even if the ending is a little rushed (and all does end well), as a well-photographed crime thriller, that, well — go back and read my first paragraph again.
   

   
JEROME DOOLITTLE – Half Nelson. Tom Bethany #5. Pocket, hardcover, 1994; paperback, 1995.

   I missed the fourth of Doolitttle’s tales of would-have-been-Olympic-wrestler-except-for-Carter’s-boycott, ex-pilot, now sort of PI Bethany, but fortunately these don’t require reading in strict sequence.

   Bethany is at a Harvard gathering as his lover Hope’s request, to meet with a save-the-trees environmentalist who has received death threats by mail. He’s not able to help the man much, who flies back to Oregon to go about his business. When shots are fired at his house there, however, Bethany packs up and heads West to see what he can do.

   The situation worsens drastically, and before it’s done Bethany is head-to-head against both Big Business and the FBI, and there have been more deaths than one.

   I like Doolittle’s writing, and I like the not-in-the-data-banks character of Bethany, so I like the books. I have a weakness for one-man-against-the-system (damn, there’s a lot of hyphens in this review) stories, and that’s basically what these always are.

   Doolittle is a good storyteller. What I don’t like is the unrelentingly liberal bias against business and authority in any form. Life just isn’t that simple, Jerome, however comforting it might be to think so. It’s still a damned good read, though.

Editorial Comment:   My review of Body Scissors, the first of the Tom Bethany books, appears here. There were six in the series in all. A complete list follows that earlier review.

Earlier this week, Bill Crider, one of my longest friends in mystery fandom, posted what is probably going to be his final blog entry.

Here’s the link: https://billcrider.blogspot.com/2017/12/update.html

I’ve known Bill for almost 40 years, but we’ve met in person only once. I’m not sure of the date, but if there was a Bouchercon held in Washington DC around 1980, that’s when it was.

There have been 115 comments of good wishes so far following this last post of his, including mine. There will probably be more. A nicer, more liked person in fandom you will probably never find.

MIKE BRETT – The Guilty Bystander. Ace Double D-349, paperback original, 1959. Published back-to-back with Kill Me with Kindness, by J. Harvey Bond.

   Before I begin the review of this book itself, a couple of things worth mentioning. First of all, the author is the same Mike Brett who wrote the much better Pete McGrath PI novels. There were ten of them, and I read and reviewed the first one, Kill Him Quickly, It’s Raining (Pocket, 1960), here.

   I enjoyed it, and in the process of talking about it, I brought up the fact that the author had written two books about a fellow named Sam Dakkers, both from 1959, and about whom I knew nothing. The Guilty Bystander, half an Ace Double paperback original, is one of the Sam Dakkers books. (The earlier one was Scream Street, also from Ace, and published the same year.)

   I didn’t know anything about Sam Dakkers at the time, but in the meantime I’ve discovered that he has a page in Kevin Burton Smith’s wonderful PI-oriented Thrilling Detective website. The thing is, though, is that Sam Dakkers is no PI. He’s a bookie who handles illegal bets, and who has been busted any number of times. Nor in this book at least, does he have anyone who even resembles being a client.

   He’s only a guy who gets into trouble, caught between a hood named Benny Flumshin — no kidding — and the cops, and it all starts with a girl. A girl who acts sexy in a bar and lets Sam take her home. Before things get too hot between them, the doorbell rings. The girl’s boy friend, she says, and Sam takes it on the lam out the window.

   A shot rings out. Sam goes back, and the girl is dead. He’s hit on he head, and when he wakes up the cops are there. Who’s the boy friend? None other than the aforementioned Benny Flumshim.

   There’s more, but this is the gist of the story. (The “more” consists of a guy who breaks into Sam’s apartment later that night with a knife and ends up dead himself, and in a major way, a stolen diamond worth a fortune.) The problem is, is that the story is not very interesting, nor (as far as I could tell) are all of the threads of the story tied up. Otherwise, strictly routine, and that’s stretching it.

   Sam Dakkers sure had the ability to attract some good-looking ladies, though, you gotta give him that.

JOHN COURAGE – Made to Murder. John Long, UK, hardcover, 1957. No US edition.

   Five top mystery writers are invited, and even commanded, to spend a weekend with Sir Arthur Troon at his remote estate. The five are (and these are all pseudonyms):

   â€” The narrator, Richard Dawn, who invents a new detective for each book and yet whose character, Michael Crombie, “brilliant Eton-and-Oxford sleuth,” is described as having a significant following. (I merely pass on what the author has to say; I don’t attempt to explain it.)

   â€” Marion Courlay, creator of Roger Drake, “the tough American detective with breeding and brains.”

   — Wallace “Valentino” Peck, who created Gaston Torr, “detective-cracksman.”

   â€” Roderick Black, whose stories about Spike Regan have been compared with both Simenon and Chandler, a comparison considered by some a libel on Black.

   â€” Dodo Fenn (whose place is taken by her husband. Paul), who writes about Archibald Creme.

   Sir Arthur has a dossier on each writer, with information therein that will destroy each of their careers and possibly send them to jail should the facts be divulged — or, in one case, lead to severe embarrassment. He has called them together because he has discovered that one of them is responsible for his son’s kidnapping, and his son’s resultant death, and thus for the suicide of his wife.

   Sir Arthur says he will give the information in the dossiers to each writer when four of them have discovered who the writer responsible for the kidnapping is and have disposed of, by some perfect crime, that individual. Otherwise, he will turn the information over to the authorities.

   As is to be expected under the circumstances, Sir Arthur is murdered. So is his secretary. So is his butler. So is —

   Some questions raised by this novel: will the compositor run out of exclamation points? Why doesn’t the Colt .45 that Dawn carries in his hip pocket cause him pain or at least discomfort when he sits down? Is there such a thing as a five-chambered revo1ver?

   An amusing work, though perhaps not intentionally, and flaw seekers should enjoy themselves.

Bibliographic Notes:   John Courage was — not surprisingly — a pseudonym, that of Richard Goyne (1902-1957); according to Hubin, other pseudonyms Aileen Grey, Scarlet Grey, Kitty Lorraine, Paul Renin & Richard Standish. As Courage, he was the author of some 25 mysteries, none published in the US. Under his own name, he wrote over 50 others, with one or two of them indicated as marginal entries. None of these were ever published in the US, either. Information as to the output under the remaining pen names will be provided upon request.

   Readers wishing to find a copy of Made to Murder, here is a head start: There is one offered for sale on Amazon.com in Canada, with an asking price in the $75 range.

99 RIVER STREET. United Artists, 1953. John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, Peggie Castle, Jay Adler. Director: Phil Karlson.

   Not a perfect noir film, but to me, it comes awfully close. John Payne plays a brooding ex-boxes who came within seconds of being the world champion, but because of a bad right eye, his life now revolves around driving a cab for a living and being driven to frustration by a wife (a luscious Peggie Castle) who wants more than a cab driver can give her.

   No one dos better at brooding than John Payne, and with fists that are essentially lethal weapons, he at times is a powder keg of ager wothin seconds of going off. Not only does he find his wife is cheating on him, but another woman (the very beautiful Evelyn Keyes), her heart set on Broadway, asks for Payne’s help after she kills her producer at a late night “audition.” (There may be more to it than that.)

   And so far I have not mentioned that Payne’s cheating wife is cheating with a guy (Brad Dexter) who has $50,000 worth of stolen diamonds, but whose fence (Jay Adler) won’t take them because in the course of the robbery, someone ended up dead.

   As you may have concluded on your own, there is more to the story than can fit with comfort in 83 minutes of running time. That is the movie’s only flaw. Beautifully photographed, and well acted — no one does better as an everyday kind of guy at brooding than John Payne. But even better in another way is Evelyn Keyes, whose attempt at vamping the villain in a shorefront dive will have every red-blooded guy’s heart pounding like there’s no tomorrow.

CLAIR HUFFAKER – Seven Ways from Sundown, Fawcett Crest #398, paperback original, 1960. Pocket, paperback, 1975. Cover art by Robert Maguire.

SEVEN WAYS FROM SUNDOWN. Universal, 1960. Audie Murphy, Barry Sullivan, Venetia Stevenson, John McIntire, Kenneth Tobey. Screenplay by Clair Huffaker, based on his novel Directed by Harry Keller.

   I rather suspect Huffaker wrote this book in close conjunction with the film, as part of a package deal, but neither of them is the worse for it. The book is compact and fast-moving as anything from Fawcett, but rich with colorful description and action in the Gold Medal style, spiced with bits of genuine cowboy humor.

   The story is a Western Staple: A lawman (in this case a green Texas Ranger named Seven Ways from Sundown Smith) brings in an outlaw (legendary gunman Jim Flood) across miles of dangerous country, and as the two are forced into an uneasy alliance, a mutual respect forms and grows into friendship.

   Huffaker has a deft way of putting across a months-long trek in a very few pages as the journey across four states and back again spins out in less than 130 pages, yet never seems rushed. We get a real feel for the toil of men and horses across snow, mountain and plain. And he doesn’t stint on the action either; Smith and Flood run into nasty Apaches, bounty hunters, bored roughnecks, plain ol’ owlhoots , and a conniving fellow Ranger, all handled with a pace and economy you just don’t see in great literature anymore.

   Over at Universal Studios, producer Gordon Kay had figured out how to make a good Audie Murphy movie: hire a strong character actor, give him all the good lines, and let Audie carry the story.

   In this case, they had one of the best in Barry Sullivan, who could look deadly just by shrugging his shoulders. It helps too that Murphy is cast as a neophyte lawman; like many other war heroes, he never projected toughness onscreen.

   Perhaps best of all though, Seven Ways from Sundown was directed by Harry Keller, who cut his teeth on fast-moving catch-penny Westerns at Republic, the best school of all for this sort of thing. Keller never made a great Western, but he never made a dull one either, and he moves Seven Ways from Sundown along with grace and vigor that make it a pleasure to watch.

ALLEN ADLER – Terror on Planet Ionus. Paperback Library #52-941, paperback, 1966; #63-048, 2nd printing, 1969. Originally published as Mach I: A Story of Planet Ionus Farrar Strauss & Cudahay, hardcover, 1957

   Wow.

   This science fiction novel, by a writer I’ve never heard of, is a knockout. Wise and gentle aliens from Ionus come to Earth to warn us that Klarkong, the monster that destroyed their planet is coming to Earth, an energy devouring monster that grows stronger no matter what you feed it.

   Earth’s only hope against this omnivorous energy monster is secret project Mach I, a super fast atomic powered ship, piloted by reckless dashing ladies man Lt. Commander Jeb Curtis, whose courage got him into the project despite his record as an insubordinate P.T. Boat commander in WW II.

   As the Ionusans warn, Klarkong is virtually unstoppable, and soon he’s in the Nevada and Southern California desert devouring all sources of energy. Helpless to fight him, the Americans have to stand by as the Soviet’s violate American air space to nuke the monster, which only sends it in a feeding frenzy for nuclear fuel.

   And where is there still nuclear power to devour? The Soviet Union, serves them right, so Klarkong heads across the Pacific.

   But the vast emptiness of the Pacific gives the desperate Americans one last chance to use Mach I where they can maneuver its incredible speeds and unleash it’s weapons safely if they can weaken Klarkong enough to kill it.

   If? The battle is down to the final paragraphs on a small island in the Pacific, Mach I’s last remaining nuclear torpedoes against a wounded Klarkong.

   This one is a pure fifties or early sixties monster movie in print, a kaiju from outer space rampaging across the world while desperate scientists and military, with a little alien help, fight and die bravely to end the menace. You can virtually see the epic unreeling in your head as you breathlessly read on.

   Granted it has little relation to actual mainstream or even pulp SF as such. It wears the cloak, but that is about all. Characterization is a B movie cliche, and actual scientific logic, or science for that matter, is zil.

   Adler isn’t unskilled as a writer of this kind of deathless prose, there just isn’t any there there beyond the basics, just like those movies we breathlessly devoured on Saturday Mornings or on late night television with all the epicurean dismissal of Klarkong himself.

   Still, it is short, great fun, slightly mad, and Klarkong a kissing cousin of Godzilla, Kronos, X the Unknown, and the Trollenberg Terror crossed with one of those Jack Kirby monsters that Marvel specialized in before turning to superheroes (Fin Fang Foom indeed) and Forbidden Planet’s monster of the Krell Id.

   If that is what you want, this book delivers in trumps.

   And give the guy this, Klarkong is a great name for an interstellar planet eater, not Galactus perhaps, but still pretty good, silvered surfing herald or not.

   Some books are full course gourmet delights.

   Others a filling home cooked meal.

   This one is a chili dog with the works and a side of greasy onion rings.

   I’m half surprised Klarkong himself didn’t eat it.

   Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need an Alka Seltzer and a nap.

WILD MONEY. Paramount, 1937. Edward Everett Horton, Louise Campbell, Lynne Overman, Lucien Littlefield, Esther Dale, Porter Hall, Benny Baker. Based on a story by Paul Gallico. Director: Louis King. Shown at Cinevent 26, Columbus OH, May 1994.

   The surprise “B” hit of the convention was Wild Money. Edward Everett Horton, on of my all-time favorite character actors, was the star. He played a stuffy accountant for a big-city newspaper, who, while vacationing with his cousin (Esther Dale) and her husband (Lucien Littlefield), is charged with reporting on the “breaking story” of the kidnapping of one of America’s wealthiest men.

   Horton, Dale and Littlefield make a delightful team, and there’s not a wasted frame in this comic crime film. Horton even gets the girl (Louise Campbell) and kisses her in the final shot.

   What films such as this demonstrate is that a well-crafted small movie is a safer bet than a larger-budgeted film with pretensions beyond its capabilities. But that’s another fatality of the demise of the studio system where the “A” crew could be used on the “B” film, giving it a professional sturdiness that has disappeared in the era of out-of-sight budgets.

BONUS:  Wild Money‘s Lucien Littlefield, a supporting actor whose career began in silent films, was even more delightful in the Joe E. Brown comedy, The Gladiator (credits below). Here he plays mild-mannered Professor Donner who’s discovered a formula that increases strength in animals and, as he discovers when Brown is unexpectedly administered a dose, humans as well.

   Brown was both touching and funny in the title role and although the film rushed through the final sequences to a pre-ordained conclusion, it was most enjoyable.

THE GLADIATOR. Columbia Pictures, 1938. Joe E. Brown , June Travis, Man Mountain Dean, Dickie Moore, Lucien Littlefield. Based on the novel by Philip Wylie. Director: Edward Sedgwick.