DAVID WILLIAMS – Treasure By Post. Mark Treasure #15. Macmillan, UK, hardcover, 1991,. St. Martin’s, US, hardcover, 1992.

   For the delectation of those with taste and perception, here is yet another fine Mark Treasure novel. [Besides solving mysteries, Treasure is a merchant banker in London, England.} In this one he is asked if he would consider being beneficiary of a Church of England convent — not a penniless convent, but one that has assets of around 11 million pounds in trust, all for the benefit of three nuns.

   A recently late, if I may put it that way, beneficiary had been beaten up by yobbos and suffered a fatal heart attack. After Treasure goes to the area and begins to ask questions about the trust, another death occurs and the convent is fired by an arsonist.

   As always, Williams’s characters are top-notch, particularly Sister Mary Maud, the setting superb, the humour (or wit, if you prefer) plentiful and unforced, and the trust and crimes marvellously complex.

   In addition, the philatelists among mystery readers, whose hobby is often neglected in the literature, should find the stamp information fascinating, as should those who use stamps only for dispatching things in the post.

   In addition, I was delighted that Treasure managed to work everything out satisfactorily in the end since, like Canon Stonning, I was in a bit of a muddle.

DAVID WILLIAMS – Planning For Murder. Mark Treasure #16. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1992. No US edition.

   On the back of the dust jacket for David Williams’s most recent Mark Treasure novel is a quotation from Mystery & Detective Monthly, a U.S. letterzine, that describes Williams as “the English Emma Lathen,” a claim that is indisputably true.

   This Treasure novel is slightly less amusing than its predecessor, Treasure By Post, which is not a criticism, merely an observation. Even David Williams’ talent, which is considerable, would be hard-pressed to turn politics, planning permission, and economics into constant amusement.

   However, he does make what might seem a tedious subject interesting and understandable, while providing sufficient sly and dry wit, complex crimes, the usual first-class Treasure investigation, a wonderfully insalubrious pub, and a superb comic character in Larkhole. In addition, the title turns out to have a double meaning.

   Williams continues to be an author to be cherished and encouraged by both word and gesture.

The Belairs were a pioneering surf rock band from Los Angeles, active in the early 1960s. This song is included on their retrospective album The Origins of Surf Music, 1960-1963 (Iloki/Hep Cat, 1987).

THE FUNHOUSE. Universal Pictures, 1981. Elizabeth Berridge, Kevin Conway, William Finley, Cooper Huckabee, Miles Chapin, Sylvia Miles. Directed by Tobe Hooper.

   This stylish, if somewhat mediocre, horror film might as well have been entitled The Good, the Bad, and The Very Ugly. Because let me tell you: the monster in this Tobe Hooper directed feature is not just ugly; he’s very ugly. Hideous actually.

   Unfortunately, aside from the shock value of the creature’s disfigurement and the crisp photography, there’s not all that much that makes Funhouse an overly memorable horror film. That’s not to say that it’s a particularly bad film. It’s just that, overall, the film lacks both the character development and requisite memorable dialogue that could very have made it something that stood out from the pack.

   There were just so very many horror films released in the 1980s, many of which followed the standard plot of a final girl facing off against some sort of evil figure that it’s difficult to consider each one without reference to all the others. Indeed, in this particular regard, the plot of Funhouse doesn’t stray too far from the proverbial straight and narrow. There’s a female protagonist who, against her better judgment, gets caught up in a life-or-death situation and who, despite her meek nature, ends up defeating the evil antagonist. She is, in every respect, the final girl. The one who ends up surviving all the mayhem that transpires throughout the course of the film.

   Amy Harper (Elizabeth Berridge) is a small town girl who lives with her parents and her kid brother. The latter is a prankster and something of a brat, it would appear. Against her better judgment, she ends up going with her friends to the carnival that has recently arrived in town. There, she and her date, as well as another couple, will make the fatal decision to spend the night in the funhouse.

   But, alas, something lurks – and drools – in the funhouse. And it’s not fully human. And it kills. This is essentially the entire plot. One, it should be noted, that doesn’t truly come into fruition until at least thirty or forty minutes into the film.

   Now again, don’t let me make you believe that Funhouse isn’t worth seeing. In many ways, it is. It’s actually, believe it or not, a fun movie, one that thankfully relies far more on atmosphere than gore to convey a general air of creepiness at the carnival.

   Harper, along with Sylvia Miles who portrays a fortuneteller, are strong female characters in a movie filled with overall unpleasant or just plain dull male characters. So the movie’s got a few things going for it. Just not enough to make it one that’s especially compelling, or one that stays in your mind for any length of time after you’ve left the movie theater. If you like horror movies set at carnivals, however, this one’s definitely worth checking out.

BIG HOUSE, U.S.A. Bel-Air/United Artists, 1955. Ralph Meeker, Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr, William Talman, Felicia Farr, Reed Hadley and Charles Bronson. Written by John C. Higgins. Directed by Howard W. Koch.

   Despite the title, this isn’t really a prison movie. It’s a film that could have been agreeably subversive, in the manner of Kiss Me Deadly, but instead it settles for being merely unpleasant.

   Ralph Meeker stars as Jerry Barker, who seems at first to be just a guy out for a walk in the woods who stops to help a lost child. But this is Ralph at his nastiest, in a role that makes his Mike Hammer look like Saint Francis by comparison.

   Things get disagreeable pretty quickly, and what seemed at first to be an act of kindness turns into extortion. Ralph almost comes out of those woods with $200,000 and a guilty secret. I won’t go into details, but it was all pretty grim, even for a seasoned old movie-watcher like me.

   I said Ralph “almost” comes out of the woods with the money. Turns out he hid most of it back in the timber (at Royal Gorge National Park, where most of this was filmed) and when he’s picked up he only has a few thousand on him — enough to get nailed for extortion and draw a one-to-five-year sentence; with good behavior he can expect to get out in a few months and go back to claim his loot.

   But things take an interesting turn when Ralph gets thrown in a cell full of cult-movie bad guys: Broderick Crawford, William Talman, Lon Chaney and Charles Bronson. And there’s another fun twist when Ralph’s cell-mates plan to bust out and take him with them… to lead them to his loot.

   Like I say, this could have been enjoyably loathsome — like The Lineup or The Killers (the 1964 remake) with a writer and director attuned to its noir potential. But the folks in charge here decided to go for a Dragnet-style approach; Reed Hadley comes on as an FBI agent, complete with voice-over narration, and everything gets filmed at arm’s-length, in a near-documentary style, but without the sense of gritty realism.

   Even the most harrowing moments — and there are quite a few here — are shot with a detachment that seems almost uncaring. And when everyone gets their comeuppance, we get no sense of things coming together or falling apart. All we get is the sad conviction that with this story hook and those actors, this could have been a lot better.

From their LP Spanky & Our Gang Live. Recorded at the Gaslight Club South in Coconut Grove, Florida, early 1967. The album was released December 1970. Shown on the cover are original members Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane, Nigel Pickering, Paul “Oz” Bach and Malcolm Hale:

  LEIGH BRACKETT – The Tiger Among Us. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1957. Also published as 13 West Street: Bantam J2323, paperback, 1962. Reprinted in the UK as Fear No Evil (Corgi, paperback, 1960).

   This is Leigh Brackett’s best crime novel — a simple, straightforward, consistently gripping, and powerful story of one man’s nightmare encounter with random teenage violence. Walter Sherris, an average family man and a white-collar employee of a company in an Ohio mill town, takes a walk along a dark road one night and is brutally beaten by five young “tigers” out looking for thrills.

   But that is only the beginning of his ordeal. When Sherris is finally released from the hospital, he sets out to do what the police haven’t been able to: learn the identities of his attackers and see justice done. It isn’t long, however, before he is again the hunted — and his family along with him. For the five boys, continuing their random attacks, have gone too far with another of their victims: They are already murderers and stand ready to kill again. Even if Sherris learns to wear the stripes of the tiger himself, even if he survives this second assault, he knows his life will never be the same.

   Fine writing and some genuinely harrowing scenes make The Tiger Among Us one of the best of the spate of Fifties novels dealing with juvenile delinquency. In the forcefulness of its message, in fact, it is second only to Evan Hunter’s mainstream novel The Blackboard Jungle. An effective screen version appeared under the title 13 West Street in 1962, starring Alan Ladd and Rod Steiger.

   Brackett’s other crime novels are An Eye for an Eye (1957) and Silent Partner (1969). She also ghosted a mystery for actor George Sanders, Stranger at Home (1946).

         ———
   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.

EVAN HUNTER – Criminal Conversations. Warner Books, hardcover, 1994; paperback, 1995. Pocket, paperback, 2002.

   Is there anyone who doesn’t know that Evan Hunter, nee Salvatore Lombino, is also Ed McBain? No, I didn’t think so. This is his first novel under the Hunter byline in 10 years.

   Michael Welles is an Assistant DA heading up an organized crime unit. He has a beautiful wife, Sarah, and an adorable daughter, Molly. Sarah Welles is a fine and dedicated school teacher with an adoring husband, Michael, along with Molly. Andrew Faviola is a bright young man with a gruff old father, Anthony, who is serving five concurrent life sentences. Andrew has an extended family, too. Some people call it the Mafia. Michael wants Andrew — in jail. Andrew wants Sarah — in bed. Andrew’s extended family wants a lot of things, but mainly to get richer and stay out of jail. What we may have here is a set of irreconcilable goals.

   Well, I’d say what Hunter may have here is a winner. There are cops, and robbers, and lovers, and sex, and violence, and even a cute kid. There are a lot of characters, all of whom ring true, and the writing is as expert as you expect out of an old pro like Hunter, and haven’t always gotten of late from his alter ego, McBain.

   You can tell this one is written for a different audience than are the 87th Precinct books the first time you come to a four-page sex scene with lots of dirty talk. It’s a good book of its kind, which I’d call a “big” crime novel, and maybe a very good one. At the very worst it’s an entertaining read.

  DESIRE AND HELL AT SUNSET MOTEL. Two Moon Releasing, 1991. Sherilyn Fenn, Whip Hubley, David Hewlett, David Johansen, Kenneth Tobey. Screenwriter-director: Alien Castle.

   An unhappily married couple, a toy salesman and his bored wife, check into a 1950s hotel four miles from Disneyland. He hires a friend to spy on his wife; she asks her lover to kill her husband.

   This was described somewhere as “comedy noir,” but unless you have a high tolerance for ennui, forget it. It’s arch and snooty, and on a low budget in a cheap motel, that won’t even buy you a vanilla phosphate.

NINE LIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH. Warner Brothers, 1941. Ronald Reagan, Joan Perry, James Gleason, Howard da Silva, Faye Emerson , Edward Brophy, Peter Whitney, Charles Drake. Based on the novel by Jerome Odlum. Director: A. Edward Sutherland.

   You can call me confused if you want, but the leading character in this film is a brash young reporter named Matt Sawyer, while the Kirkus review for the book says the reporter’s name is Johnny O’Sullivan, and Al Hubin in Crime Fiction IV says the leading character is somebody called John Steele, a fellow that in a review Kirkus did of another of Odlum’s books they call a PI. There is no PI in the movie.

   No matter. Maybe someone can straighten me out on this, even though Jerome Odlum as a mystery writer is all but unknown today. I’ll stick to the film in the rest of the review, and I’ll bet you’ve already matched a young brash Ronald Reagan with the Matt Sawyer fellow I mentioned up there in the first paragraph.

   Sawyer is the kind of guy who when he calls in a story he gets a small detail wrong, and when the detail (murder vs suicide) somehow gets into the headline of the paper he’s working for, it doesn’t make his editor (Howard da Silva) very happy at all.

   Sawyer does have a point, however. The dead man is supposed to have shot himself, but the body is found with his hands in his pockets. But what is the coroner to think when the door is locked and the windows shut tight? It has to be suicide.

   Sawyer has to depend on to a pair of agreeable cops (one of whom is played of course by James Gleason) to help him out of the jam he’s in. That he also falls immediately in love with the dead man’s daughter (Joan Perry) causes some complications.

   Much of the film is played for laughs. The second cop always seems to have his tongue hanging out for his next cold brew, for example, and Peter Whitney (his film debut) plays a hulk of a boy-man with limited (shall we say) mental capabilities.

   As always seems the case in movies like this, the first half plays better than the second. When the producer and director are forced to realize that they also have to solve the case, they also start to get serious. Well, at least a little. They can always fill in any gaps in the plot with a lot of action. They locked room aspect, for example, is covered in one throwaway line. Blink for a moment and you’ve missed it.

   I enjoyed this one, though. You may, too, if you allow your sense of humor to prevail. It won’t make much of any other kind of sense, but it’s still a movie that’s fun to watch.

CHARLIE JANE ANDERS “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime.” First published in Cosmic Powers, edited by John Joseph Adams (Saga Press, trade paperback; 1st printing, April 2017).

    Browsing at Barnes & Noble yesterday, a brand new science fiction anthology called Cosmic Powers caught my eye. I bought it almost immediately, brought it home, and I’m already three stories and 70 pages into it. The overall theme, according to the editor, John Joseph Adams, in his introduction are “stories of larger than life heroes battling menacing force, in far-flung galaxies, with the fate of the universe at stake.”

   Well, yippee! As long as the authors don’t go all early Edmond Hamilton on us, or E. E. Smith, Ph.D., this is the kind of science fiction I’m always on the lookout for, and so far, I’m happy to tell you, they haven’t. The stories are huge in scope, but up close and personal in scale. (I hope that makes sense.)

   The first story in the book, “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime,” by Hugo award-winner Charlie Jane Anders, is a pretty good example. In fact, compared to the deadly dull military SF being published (what I’ve seen of it), it could be faulted in going too far in the other direction; that is to say, making too light of the affair — which in this case consists entering the realm of a huge blob of existence called The Vastness, escaping with a device called a hypernautic synchrotrix on a spaceship called the Spicy Meatball, one of the two perpetrators thereof (one male and one female) being someone who calls on a pair of gods totally new to me (“Thank Hall and Oates!”), and all this in only the first eight pages, with 26 more to go.

   I enjoyed this one. I think the author manages to keep both feet on the right side of fun versus slapstick, but this may very well be one of those situations where simply said, your mileage may vary.