THOMAS BLACK – Four Dead Mice. Rinehart & Company, hardcover, 1954. Bantam #1448, paperback, 1956, as Million Dollar Murder.

   I’m going to change things around from the way they usually occur here, not just a little, but from top to bottom. Instead of a complete list of Thomas [B.] Black’s private eye Al Delany character at the end of this review, here they are at the beginning:

      The 3-13 Murders. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946.

      The Whitebird Murders. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946.

      The Pinball Murders. Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947.

      Four Dead Mice. Rinehart & Co., 1954.

   There are are only the four of them, and why the gap, and why the abrupt end to the series, I do not know. I’d welcome any information that you might have. According to Al Hubin, Thomas Black was born in Kansas in 1910, with a possible death date of 1993, not confirmed. (Information on hand as of the current Revised Crime Fiction IV.)

   I’m sure I’ve read at least one of the first three, but it was so long ago, I’ll not rely on memory, and I’ll report on only this one. It takes place in Chancellor City, an small metropolis with more than its share of alleys, back streets, rundown housing and a wide-open red light district. I had the feeling that it might be St. Louis, in disguise, or Kansas City, perhaps, but that’s only a guess, and it’s probably not relevant anyway.

   Delany is asked by a bakery to find out who might have dropped some dead mice into a vat of bread dough, and the case escalates from there to include the death of a job applicant who flunked an employment check, and more.

   The dialogue is bright and chipper and slangy, and maybe some of the slang makes the book unreprintable today. For example, S.Q.Q. stands for? San Quentin Quail, if that helps any, and that’s what Delaney knows what Honey Ward is, a precocious young girl (in ways also probably unreprintable today) who grabs his attention early on and doesn’t let go.

   Here’s an early scene that doesn’t have anything to do with the plot, and Cora Collins doesn’t appear again, but I liked the flavor it provided:

   From a little later on, from page 37, this excerpt is getting closer to the plot:

   With other characters involved named Delight (a big nut-brown colored hairpin, handsome as sin and better proportioned), “Baggy Pants” Vance, Bam Carson, George Washington Hite, Little Phil Murio, and a hophead named Sleepy-Sleep, this reads like a cross between Damon Runyon and Harry Stephen Keeler, with triple the coherency of the latter, thanks to numerous recaps and timetables and lists of questions that haven’t have been answered yet.

   I’m not so sure about the ending. I wish Black had pumped up the descriptions of some of the characters earlier on, to give them the presence they needed to fit the roles they were designed to play — and I’m not (necessarily) referring to the killer(s). As it is, it’s solid detection on the run, winging it as it goes, and cramming it all in to fit (for the most part) until the number of pages runs out.

[UPDATE] 02-10-12.   I’m sorry to say that this is all I remember of this book. If I hadn’t written the review, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you where the four dead mice came in. I think this is a positive review, however. I’ve convinced myself I ought to read the book again, next time I get the chance.

RUSSELL THORNDIKE – The Slype. Dial Press, hardcover, 1928. First published in the UK: Holden, hardcover, 1927. Also: Jonathan Cape, UK, 1933.

   Forget about the plot in this thriller, which must have creaked even in the ’20s and which Thorndike does not energize or even, I must confide, make much sense of at the end.

   It has to do with a treasure hunt by a flagitious doctor of medicine who is featureless and a Chinese villain who in his brief appearance manifests great charm despite his lust for the heroine and despite his vile antecedents and even viler predilections.

   Most of the events take place in the fascinating Dullchester Cathedral. In the Precincts strange disappearances are occurring. A Minor Canon vanishes, followed shortly by a second Minor Canon. Then the spinster bee lady, complete with veil, is found missing, if that makes any sense. Soon the Dean, a speckled pig — the rest of the sty goes later — and a wind-up toy cannot be located.

   As I said, the plot is not the reason to read this novel; it should be read for Thorndike’s descriptive ability and his characters. Foremost among them are Sergeant Wurren of the Dullchester Constabulary as he goes about his bumbling investigations and ludicrous questioning, and Wurren’s nemesis, Boyce’s Boy — you know, the lad who delivers for the greengrocer — a most extraordinarily intelligent and amusing imp. These two, and some minor characters, are worthy of being compared to Dickens’s creations.

   First-class entertainment if you aren’t a plot person.

   By the way, a slype is a covered passage, especially one from the transept of a cathedral to the chapter house.

Editorial Comments:   Thank goodness, I thought when I read it, Bill added that last parenthetical paragraph. I had no idea what a “slype” was, and I still wonder what it has to do with the story. I will have to read the book. It sounds terrific.

   Bill also used the word “flagitious” in his review. Neither my spellchecker nor I remembered ever having seen the word before, so I had to look it up. It means “criminal” or “villainous.” I love learning new words, especially those I can now use in my own reviews.

   Of the author of this book, Russell Thorndike, I know nothing, except that he also wrote seven books of the adventures of smuggler-hero Dr. Syn, none of which I’ve read, nor I have I seen the Disney TV miniseries The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, based on the first of them.

NINE GIRLS. Columbia, 1944. Ann Harding, Evelyn Keyes, Jinx Falkenburg, Anita Louise, Leslie Brooks, Jeff Donnell, Nina Foch, Lynn Merrick, Shirley Mills, Marcia Mae Jones, Williard Robertston, William Demarest, Lester Matthews, Grady Sutton. Director: Leigh Jason. Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.

   This was the third of the Leigh Jason films that have become an eagerly awaited event at Cinecon. (The earlier films were Dangerous Blondes and Three Girls About Town.)

   A bevy of sorority sisters, chaperoned by Ann Harding (recovered from her tragic demise in East Lynne), drives to a mountain lodge where almost immediately Anita Louise, the most unpleasant member of the group, is murdered. Nina Foch and Evelyn Keyes are the prime suspects as the cops arrive and the entire crew is prevented from leaving by a convenient storm.

   The humor is somewhat broader (and less effective) than in the other two films, but this was still a delightful film. The screenwriters (Karen DeWolf and Connie Lee) also wrote for the Blondie series, one of my early affections (or rather, Penny Singleton was the affection).

Editorial Comments:   My own review of this film appeared earlier on this blog. Check it out here. Of the three lobby cards shown below, only the first two are (as I recall) from the movie itself. I have a feeling that the one at the bottom (with the girls in bathing suits) is only a promotional pose.

  W. R. BURNETT – Underdog. Knopf, hardcover, 1957. Bantam A1819, paperback, 1958.

   Underdog finds W.R. Burnett at the top of his form, which is about the best there is. Clinch, the aptly-named, emotionally-constipated anti-hero of the piece, is an ex-con working as a chauffeur to a powerful political boss who befriended him in prison.

   He isn’t long on the job, though, when he discovers (a) that his boss has a lovely and restless wife, and (b) the up-and-coming powers-that-will-be want to put said boss out to pasture — and whether he’s eased out or carried out depends on how much trouble he gives them.

   Naturally, for this sort of thing, the Boss makes trouble for the new guys, and Clinch finds himself framed for murder, whereupon Burnett puts his own special slant on the old same song: Clinch doesn’t try to clear himself or catch the real killers; he just goes out to get back at the mugs what done him dirty. And what he does and how he does it makes for some of the most taut and violent reading to come my way lately.

   Burnett was one of the few writers who could carry off this sort of thing perfectly. He evokes Clinch as a memorably ordinary guy, out for himself but loyal to his friends and nagged by his relationship with an underage hooker who wants to be a wife to him.

   Additionally, the Boss, his wife and their “associates” come off the page in neat cameos that linger in the mind. As for the action scenes, well they’re the kind of writing that put hard-boiled literature on the map, and I can recommend this highly to lovers of the stuff.

THEY CALL IT MURDER. TV movie, 17 Dec 1971. NBC / 20th Century Fox TV /Paisano Production. Based loosely on the book The D. A. Draws a Circle and characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner. Cast: Jim Hutton as D.A. Doug Selby, Lloyd Bochner as A.B. Carr, Jessica Walter as Jane, Leslie Nielsen as Frank, Jo Ann Pflug as Sylvia, Robert J. Wilke as Sheriff Rex Brandon, Edward Asner as Chief Otto Larkin. Written and developed by Sam Rolfe. Directed by Walter Grauman. Executive Producer: Cornwell Jackson. Associate Producer: William Kayden. Executive Story Consultant: Erle Stanley Gardner. Available on DVD and for downloading (Amazon).

   This TV Movie pilot for NBC is the only time the Selby character has been adapted for TV or film. Doug Selby first appeared in Country Gentleman magazine in 1936. The first of a series of nine books, The D. A. Calls It Murder was published in 1937. This story was loosely based on the third book The D.A. Draws a Circle (1939).

   There is evidence the TV movie was filmed in 1969 but did not air until December 17, 1971, and that Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason) was involved. Garner died February 11, 1970, yet is credited as executive story consultant. Executive producer Cornwell Jackson was Gardner’s literary agent.

   More than one reference book gives 1969 as the date made. In an article about Ed Asner (New York, March 15, 1982), Pete Hamill wrote than when Grant Tinker was casting Mary Tyler Moore in 1970 he remembered this pilot from his NBC executive days and asked Asner to read for the part of Lou Grant.

   They Call It Murder was a better than average TV whodunit. Set in a small town called Madison City, Doug Shelby and Sheriff Brandon had recently won election pledging to keep the evil big city Los Angeles from taking over the town. The local Police Chief, Otto Larkin was on the other political side and supplies comedic relief. (He has his police car stolen while he is in it.)

   A dead body is found in the swimming pool of Jane Antrim’s home. She shares her home with her disabled father-in-law Frank Antrim. Frank lost the use of his legs in a car accident that killed his son and Jane’s husband Brian. They are waiting for the insurance company to pay their $500,000 policy, but an insurance investigator refuses to approve the payout.

   The victim did not die in the pool, but was shot elsewhere, twice, with two different guns using the same entrance hole. The first bullet killed him, but which gun fired the first bullet?

   Selby spends his time interviewing suspects and potential witnesses, despite having his own “Paul Drake” aka Sheriff Brandon. The defense attorney’s “Hamilton Burger,” A.B. Carr arrives and actually beats Selby in the single very brief courtroom scene as Selby loses his fight to keep his murder suspect in Madison City jail. Instead the suspect is transferred to big city Los Angeles.

   Selby realizes it all ties into the accident involving Frank and Brian a year ago. He asks his questions, nearly gets run off a mountain road by a bad guy, finds the clues and reveals all in the end.

   Even Sam Rolfe (Man from U.NC.L.E., Delphi Bureau) was unable to install a personality into Hutton’s Selby. The script relied too much on the stiff boring Hutton and the equally boring Selby.

   The supporting cast from the books was underused and their relationship to each other implied rather than explained. It was the relationship between Mason, Drake, Della, and Burger that made Perry Mason so much fun to watch. That was sacrificed here to focus on Selby.

   I am not a fan of the puzzle mystery. I am a fan of Perry Mason but ignore the story until Mason gets involved. I rarely care who the murderer is. But this proved to be an interesting puzzle with who did it not as surprising as the twists in who did it.

   There was little visually interesting about They Call It Murder, a whodunit more interested in clues than action. However the filming of the denouncement scene by director Walter Grauman was creative. As Selby explains, in voice over, what happened and who did what, the picture broke up into picture within a picture (slightly similar to the Mannix opening theme).

   Fans of TV whodunits might enjoy They Call It Murder and wish it had been made a series. But the D.A. as the hero cop working for the establishment (compared to Perry Mason doing the opposite) did not have much appeal at that time. Plus, Hutton’s Selby had virtually no appeal as someone you would want to watch every week. They Call It Murder may have had a good whodunit, but it was no Perry Mason.

      ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

Justice Denoted, by Terry White (Greenwood, 2003)

IMDB.com

“Murder by Proxy.” An episode of Cannon (1971-76). Season 3, Episode 5. First broadcast: October 10, 1973. William Conrad (Frank Cannon), Anne Francis (Peggy Angel), Linden Chiles (Ray Younger), Marj Dusay (Mrs. Farrell), Charles Bateman (Lt. Paul Tarcher), Ross Hagen (Wendell Davis), Charles Seel (apartment house manager), James Nolan (Sparks Foster), Jack Gaynor (man). Writer: Robert W. Lenski. Director: Robert Douglas.

   There was a time when many, perhaps most, detective stories were whodunnits — the identity of the malefactor(s) would be withheld until the final “reveal” at the finale. (Personally, I prefer them.)

   But there is another type of crime fiction called the “inverted detective story,” a kind pioneered by Freeman circa 1912, and which is so ably described by its inventor just above.

   In the inverted, the reader/viewer knows more than the detective; and if done well, it can be just as entertaining as a whodunnit.

   In the wake of the phenomenal success of the Columbo TV series, which with only one exception were all inverteds, other television shows tried their hand at it — bringing us to “Murder by Proxy.”

   This particular Cannon episode could be regarded as a model of the form.

   Peggy Angel (Francis) is a business woman who often frequents a certain bar after hours to unwind. She has no idea that she’s being set up to be framed for the murder of someone she doesn’t even know, by people she’s never even met.

   The bartender slips her a mickey, and after a few minutes the world is just a blur to Peggy. The man with a mustache at the end of the bar offers to help her to her car– but when she comes to in an unfamiliar apartment with the murder weapon in her hand and a dead man on the floor, she understandably loses it.

   As it turns out, the helpful man with the mustache (Chiles) is the murderer. He’s working on behalf of one of his clients (Dusay), for whom he has more than just professional feelings. (No, I’m not revealing too much — remember, the emphasis is not on whodunnit but “whydidtheydothat” and “howdowecatch’em.”)

   With Peggy passed out on a couch, Younger (Chiles) goes about methodically executing his plan. The victim has been lured to the same apartment on some pretext, and Younger guns him down without compunction. He then moves a floor lamp from near the sliding doors to the other side of the room, gathers up some extension cords, stands on a chair to fetch something attached to a suction cup inside the skylight in the foyer, removes a tape from the cassette player, puts the gun in Peggy’s hand, and makes his exit.

   And that’s just Act I, roughly the first fifteen minutes, an admirably efficient piece of film making requiring about half the time it would take a Columbo episode to relate.

   Enter Frank Cannon, an old friend of Peggy’s and an ex-cop turned PI. As usual, all of this circumstantial evidence is solidly against her, and she’s languishing in jail as a guest of the county. It’s fairly obvious clearing Peggy is going to be a tough job.

   Unlike many Cannon episodes, which suffer from a lot of filler — usually in the form of car crashes, gun fights, helicopter chases, and so forth — “Murder by Proxy” shows its protagonist in full detective mode, with any attempt to terminate our hero left to the next-to-last scene.

   Cannon’s investigation has, as Freeman indicated, “the effect of new matter.” That moved lamp, for instance: Cannon notes the markings on the rug and the lamp’s removal and correctly concludes how it was used to establish an alibi for the killer(s), as well as to exploit Peggy’s well-known temper.

   He finds fragments on the rug in the foyer and, using a chair, locates that easily overlooked suction cup in the skylight (the police forensics was pretty sloppy in this case, nevertheless), and reasons out its connection to the floor lamp, as well as just how the cassette player figured in all this.

   And for Ellery Queen fans, there’s even a dying clue.

   About the cast: William Conrad (1920-94) starred in 121 episodes of Cannon, 14 installments of the short-lived Nero Wolfe (1981), and 104 episodes of Jake and the Fatman (1987-92).

   Anne Francis (1930-2011) featured in 30 episodes of Honey West; she also gave a superb performance in the Twilight Zone installment “The After Hours” (1960).

   Linden Chiles (born 1933) specializes in character parts; he appeared in four episodes of Banacek as the frazzled insurance company executive.

   The director, Robert Douglas (1909-99), was a worthy successor to Basil Rathbone as a Hollywood villain (59 titles to his credit); he also directed mostly TV (39 titles), including Surfside 6 (7 episodes), 77 Sunset Strip (12), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (4), Adam-12 (6), Cannon (5), The F.B.I. (13), The Streets of San Francisco (4), Baretta (9), Future Cop (2), and one Columbo (“Old Fashioned Murder,” 1976).

   PulpFest 2012 continues the proud tradition of a summer pulp con, now entering its 41st year. PulpFest is the summertime destination for fans and collectors of vintage popular fiction and related materials. It will be held at a new venue, the Hyatt Regency in downtown Columbus, Ohio. It will begin on Thursday evening, August 9th and continue until Sunday afternoon, August 12th.

   PulpFest continued to grow in 2011 with more than 430 registrants. It was the largest crowd ever for a summertime pulp con. Reviews were generally very positive, from Walker Martin’s “…when the dealer’s room opened officially, it was obvious that this was another rousing success,” to Ron Fortiers’ “…a truly fun and exciting program with a little of something for all pulp enthusiasts,” and newcomer Sean Levins’ “This was, without a doubt, the best convention I’ve ever been to!”

   Sellers of pulp magazines, vintage paperbacks, and other paper collectibles and related items are already filling up our exhibit space. There will be more than 100 tables of pulps, books, vintage comics, original art, B-movies and serials, and similar items available for sale, daily from 9 AM until 5 PM. The evening hours, from 7 PM until midnight, will see a variety of programming.

   2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Under the Moons of Mars,” better known by its book title A Princess of Mars and, more recently, John Carter, a major motion picture from Disney. Robert E. Howard’s Conan the barbarian will also be 80 years old in 2012. PulpFest will be celebrating both of these occasions during their highly regarded evening programming. The award-winning science-fiction writer and noted Burroughs authority, Mike Resnick, will also be appearing as the convention’s guest of honor. Author readings and an art show featuring work by illustrators Jim and Ruth Keegan and, possibly, Mark Schultz, are also planned.

   For further information, please visit the convention’s website at https://www.pulpfest.com/ or write to David J. Cullers, 1272 Cheatham Way, Bellbrook, OH 45305 or via email at jack@pulpfest.com.

   The contact phone number for the hotel is 1-614-463-1234. Be sure to mention PulpFest 2012 when booking a room to get the convention rate. Hotel reservations can also be through the convention’s website through a dedicated link to the Hyatt Regency Columbus.

Price: $15.00 – $35.00

Member Discount: A three-day prepaid membership will cost $30. Send payment to David J. Cullers, 1272 Cheatham Way, Bellbrook, OH 45305. Payment at the door will be $35 for a three-day membership. Daily memberships will cost $15.

   Doug Anderson has just started a new blog focused on “Lesser Known Writers” of weird fiction.

   He says in part: “…many of the authors covered wrote supernatural fiction and are today fairly forgotten. Most of the entries are illustrated with photographs and dust-wrappers. Some of the authors wrote for Weird Tales (e.g., Bassett Morgan, and Lyllian Huntley Harris). Others wrote supernatural novels (Marion Fox, and C. Bryson Taylor). Interested in cricket fantasies? Check out the entry for Alan Miller.”

   Authors covered so far:

Vivian Meik (with newly discovered information), author of Devil’s Drums (1933)

C. Bryson Taylor, author of the vampire novel In The Dwellings of the Wilderness (1904)

Marion Fox, author of Ape’s Face (1914) and The Mystery Keepers (1919)

Blanche Bloor Schleppey, author of The Soul of a Mummy (1908)

Alan Miller, author of Phantoms of a Physician (1934) and Close of Play (1949)

Lyllian Huntley Harris, author of one known short story in Weird Tales, the subject of a later-day fraud

Bassett Morgan, prolific Weird Tales author

   And many others, with more to come.

WITHOUT MOTIVE. ITV, UK. Series One, Fall 2000, 6 x 1 hour, less adverts. Ross Kemp, Kenneth Cranham, Jamie Foreman, Hazel Ellerby, David Kennedy, Lou Gish, Sean Murray, Jane Hazlegrove.

   Without Motive doesn’t have the same philosophical ambitions about the nature of crime as did the recent Tough Love [reviewed here ]. It is an investigation, pure and simple, of a series of rapes and murders committed in the Bristol and South Wales areas.

   Taking title lead is Ross Kemp as DC Jack Mowbray, who is part of the investigating team. We see him at work and at home where the stresses of the investigation cause friction and create problems. The investigation drags out over a year and though suspects are found it is impossible to find evidence to convict.

   The pressure mounts on the team leader, Detective Superintendent Henderson, played superbly by veteran Kenneth Cranham, but suddenly (in episode 6) the killer makes a mistake.

   Enjoyable watching without being any great shakes and a little disappointing, as often, in its ending. Kemp was enticed by ITV away from his starring role in the BBC’s EastEnders with the promise of lead dramatic roles but so far he has done little to suggest he has the acting range to cope.

NOTE:   A second series was aired in 2001. Both seasons are available on DVD in the US in a fairly expensive box set of four disks.

ROBERT BARNARD — At Death’s Door. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1988. Dell, paperback, 1989. First published in the UK: Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1988.

    — Death and the Chaste Apprentice. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1989. Dell, paperback, 1990. First published in the UK: Collins Crime Club, 1989.

   In At Death’s Door, Cordelia Mason, the daughter of actress Dame Myra Mason, is writing a tell-all biography of her (still-living) mother and decides to visit her half-brother, who is caring for their senile father, once a successful novelist. Cordelia was the outcome of a brief affair between the two, and wants to go through her famous father’s private papers from that period.

   Her mother, anxious not to be painted as “Myra Dearest,” also visits, to keep Cordelia from going through with her plans. Shortly after a heated argument between mother and daughter, Dame Myra is found murdered.

   In The Chaste Apprentice, the Ketterick arts festival is staging an Elizabethan play, “The Chaste Apprentice of Bowe,” in the courtyard of an old English Inn and everyone involved in the production — plus a number of Arts Festival participants — is staying there.

   The one incongruous character in the entire milieu is the new manager of the Inn, who spends his brief hour upon the page butting into others’ affairs with unwelcome advice and/or ferreting out their secrets for psychological blackmail. I somehow managed to keep my jaw from dropping in astonishment when he turned up murdered in his room after the first performance.

   I don’t know, but it somehow seemed to me that Barnard couldn’t seem to hit his stride in either of these efforts. The characters are serviceable but hardly memorable, and neither story has any great originality, except for a slight twist at the end of Door, unrelated, alas, to the plot.