MAGGIE ESTEP – Flamethrower

Three Rivers Press; trade paperback. First Edition, September 2006.

   This is the third in Maggie Estep’s Ruby Murphy mystery series, and as usual, I came in late. The first two were Hex (Three Rivers, March 2003) and Gargantuan (Three Rivers, July 2004), and while I’ve been meaning to – and I haven’t yet – my intentions are to get my hands on the first two as soon as possible.

   If I thought that Doug Swanson’s Dreamboat was somewhat over-the-top and humorous, and I did, I certainly didn’t see this one coming. Ruby Murphy, who lives as low-key and laid-back a life in Brooklyn and environs (post-Giuliani Manhattan, Queens, Coney Island) as anyone possibly could, begins this episode with a visit to her psychiatrist, Dr. Jody Ray. Ruby has been seeing Jody since the death of someone she cared about – well, Attila, her lover – in a previous book. Unfortunately, not having read the previous book, this did not mean a lot to me, personally, but having a sociopath murder someone close to you right before your eyes, I grant you, maybe a psychiatrist could help.

   And Ruby’s new boyfriend is obsessed by a new object of his affection, his new horse, making this her primary complaint to Jody during this particular visit. Which is summarily interrupted when Ruby discovers, you will not believe this, one of Jody’s husband’s legs in the fish tank outside her office.

   That’s when you know that you have a story that has gone completely off the tracks, and in fact there are no tracks in sight. Where, oh where, you could most reasonably ask, could a story possibly go from here? The quote above came from only page 11 and continues thusly:

   Eventually, a few twists and turns of the plot later, Ruby is hired (after being mysteriously (and falsely) fired from her job at the Coney Island Sideshow Museum) to find the missing doc, who seems to have a past history that Ruby knew nothing absolutely about, including (page 211) the aspect of the previously mentioned past from which the title of the story arises.

   That the last 12 pages have nothing to do with the mystery end of things tells you something about where the priorities lie in the Ruby Murphy mysteries: not all that so very high. And truth be told, mystery-wise you will have had to have read the other two books to reap all you should from this one. The last chapter is about Ed, the new boyfriend, who became somewhat estranged from Ruby partway through this one, and Ed’s new horse, and Ruby’s new dog Spike.

   That you might not care (that the last 12 pages have nothing to do with the mystery end of things) – and I didn’t – shows you what kind of writer that Maggie Estep is, and how finely etched her characters are. Or, on the other hand, you being you and not me, it might do absolutely nothing of the kind.

ENTRAPMENT. 20th Century-Fox, 1999. Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ving Rhames, Will Patton. Rating: PG-13. Director: Jon Amiel.

   I have listed four actors in this movie, and while the last two of the four have small but significant roles to play, the fact of the matter is that this is a two-star picture — Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones — and no one else matters very much at all. One or the other is on the screen, let’s say about 99% of the time, and often both. If for some reason you have an aversion to either one, and I don’t see possibly how, but OK, I’ll concede it, then this is not the movie for you.

   Storyline: Virginia Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) works for an insurance company specializing in security. Robert MacDougal (Sean Connery) is an art thief.

   Um. Do you need more than that? Of course there’s more. This is a caper movie, one with many, many intricate plans for stealing things, and getting away with it, and yes, they are working together on almost all of them, for reasons that are complicated and you don’t want to know about them before you watch this movie anyway.

   A question though: If you are forced to go along with a theft — you know, incriminating photos or the like — is that entrapment or blackmail? I thought so.

   Many of those leaving comments on IMDB mention the lack of chemistry between Gin and Mac, or the actors who play them. Nonsense, I say. Utter nonsense. One of Mac’s rules is that there be no romantic involvement between partners in the crimes he commits, and he is sorely if not wistfully tempted to break it; and it is clear — well, as clear as anything is clear in this small masterpiece of role-playing, we know she is playing a role, but what role is not so clear — that she returns the feeling. Those IMDB viewers must have been very young.

   At the age of 30, Catherine Zeta-Jones may have been at the peak of her youthful beauty — slim and lithesome and fair of face — when she made this movie. At the age of 69, Sean Connery is as handsome as ever, mismatched in terms of age, perhaps, but most definitely not in terms of the fire within.

EDWARD S. AARONS – Assignment–Stella Marni

Gold Medal 666; paperback original. First printing, April 1957. Reprinted several times: as 906 (2nd pr., 1959), k1515 (4th pr., 1965), d1729 (5th pr., 1966), T2308 (6th pr., 1970), and M2949 (1973).

   Search as I may, I cannot determine what the number and date of the third printing might be. Although, of course, I fully realize that I may be the only person reading this who may care. The data as given above may also be suspect, it is true, determined as it was largely from listings on ABE and elsewhere, which is hardly the most reliable way of doing bibliographic research.

   But one thing that is clear is that the book, published as the fourth in the Sam Durell “Assignment” series, came out early enough to be reprinted again and again as later ones came along. (In the same way the the oldest child in the family gets the vast majority of the appearances in the family’s photo album.) What is not so obvious from the bibliographic data is that the book is not among the better ones in the series.

   At first I thought that this may have been due to the fact that the action takes place solely in the five boroughs of New York City. It’s been a while since I read one of the books in the series, but what I remember always enjoying is Aarons’ detailed descriptions of the exotic places of the world where he would place Durell next. But that’s not really the problem Even this early in the series Aarons shows how he could make even the most mundane places suddenly come to focus, and with a fresh perspective. Here, for example, is Sam on page 87 as he is tracking down a frightened girl’s father – well, all right: Stella Marni’s father – who has been kidnapped and may be hidden away on a freighter docked along Manhattan’s west side:

   Stella Marni is a crucial element in a campaign by several communist countries to “call home” refugees who’ve come to the United States seeking political asylum. Convinced that all is well back in their native land, several such people have gone back, only to never to be seen again. As a famous successful photographic model, Stella Marni has gone before a Senate committee stating her willingness to return to her native Hungary. Sam wonders why, and if there is any way to change her mind. The final key to her mysterious change of heart: her missing father.

   Stella is also one of those women who draw men to her like the proverbial moths to a flame, and even Sam may not be immune. On pages 72-73 he has a long and increasingly bitter confrontation with his close lady friend Deirdre, who, although she herself asked Sam to help Stella in the beginning, is also beginning to have second thoughts. As it has transpired, Sam has spent the previous night with Stella, causing Deirdre to become suspicious and increasingly jealous. And even though the night spent together by Sam and Stella was innocent enough, the fact remains that Deirdre has every right to be.

   The primary focus of this tale is therefore Stella: as an enchantress, as a unwitting Jezebel, and yet as an innocent victim. And if you are beginning to wonder if this makes the book a “cozy” in any sense of the term, the answer is no. There are some extremely tough fight scenes in this book also, one example of which is on page 127. (Severely tempted to add quotes both here and up above a paragraph, I decided to reconsider when I looked and saw just how long each of the insertions would have to be, in order to convey the full effect.)

   And this is strange. As I am typing up my comments on the book just now, based on the notes that I took (over a month ago) I am suddenly discovering that I may have liked the book more than I thought I did. But no, it is not so. The last comment I see that I made is that it is “lightweight at the core.”

   Which meant at the time, and still so now, that there are no twists or surprising turns of the plot. Paths I anticipated did not occur, even the less imaginative ones. The story has but one direction to go, and that it does so with skill – and a modicum of finesse – still does not mean that it is not going in any more than in one direction.

Postscript: I wonder somewhat about Deirdre. Being the girl friend of an ruthless CIA agent whose jobs continue to take him to exotic places around the world, places in which equally exotic women are always available and/or near at hand, would hardly seem ideal for a long-lasting relationship. The future for her appears rather blaak and dismal. All seems well again at the end of this book, but just how long, I wonder (that is to say, for how many more books) does Deirdre manage to stick it out? Anyone know?

HERBERT JENKINS – Malcolm Sage, Detective

Jenkins, 1921; Doran, 1921. The complete contents are as listed below, as given in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Some of these are apparently bridging episodes only and not complete stories in themselves.

   Malcolm Sage was an accountant who was always finding “little wangles” in the books. Refused for war service by the army, he worked for the Ministry of Supply and found a much larger wangle, eventually transferring to Department Z in Whitehall. The department handled secret service work during the war and now the conflict is over and the Department is being demobilised, Sir John Dene, his old chief, agrees with Lady Dene Sage that Sage should be set up in a private detective agency.

   Sage has a “bald, conical head”, a “determined” jaw, and protruding ears. His keen gaze is aided by gold-rimmed spectacles and his “shapely” hands are always restless, drawing on his blotting pad, balancing a spoon on a knife, constructing geometrical designs with matches, that sort of thing. He is kind, quiet, and never smiles. Nevertheless Sage’s Whitehall staff is devoted to him and it is from their ranks he chooses a handful to work at his agency. Gladys Norman will continue as his secretary and other departmental personnel engaged for the new venture are Sage’s assistant James Thompson, office junior William Johnson, and chauffeur Arthur Tims.

   ● This collection of investigations kicks off with “The Strange Case of Mr Challoner,” who was found an apparent suicide in a locked library. However, foul play is suspected and Richard Dane, Mr Challoner’s nephew is fingered as the likely culprit, having violently quarreled with the dead man the day before.

   ● In “The Surrey Cattle-Maiming Mystery,” Sage is called in to hunt down the person responsible for the crimes. There had been almost thirty going back over two years, despite villagers organising a committee to keep watch at night. Peppery General Sir John Hackblock, whose mare has been similarly mutilated, asks Sage to look into the matter since he is not satisfied with what he was told when he consulted Scotland Yard.

   ● “The Stolen Admiralty Memorandum” opens with a summons to a country mansion where the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of War are both weekend house guests – and all are in a panic. The memorandum has disappeared and could do a great deal of damage in the wrong hands. Who is responsible for its theft? There are plenty of suspects, including over a dozen house servants and a number of other guests along with their ladies’ maids and valets.

   Next we have an interlude in which secretary “Gladys Norman Dines with Thompson,” Sage’s assistant. Gladys debates why the staff is so loyal to their employer, with a nice little sideswipe at expectations raised by romance novels (E. M. Hull sprang to mind!). Their conversation explains how Gladys came to work for Sage and where Thompson first met their employer, fleshing out the lives of the bureau employees as also happens elsewhere. The reader never has the impression the staff are spear carriers whose role is to admire Sage’s brilliance, and learning something of their lives was an attractive sidelight.

   ● Then it’s back to criminous business with “The Holding Up of Lady Glanedale,” wife of margarine magnate Sir Roger Glanedale. She has been robbed at gun point in a nocturnal burglary at the family’s country house. The Twentieth Century Insurance Corporation Limited calls Sage in to investigate the circumstances and find the missing jewelry.

   ● “The McMurray Mystery” deals with Professor James McMurray, found murdered in a locked laboratory. It is a particularly mysterious matter because the body of the professor displays a strangely youthful appearance. McMurray’s friend and philanthropist Sir Jasper Chambers was the last person to talk to the professor, who was in the habit of living in his laboratory for days on end and refusing to admit anyone for any reason. How then did his murderer get
in and out and what is the role of marmalade in the affair?

   ● A flurry of scandalous poison pen letters allege a vicar’s daughter and his curate are carrying on an intrigue. Naturally these foul communications cause much distress and agitate the villagers of Gylston and its surrounding area. “The Gylston Slander” sees Sage called in to find the culprit.

   ● Charley Burns is “The Missing Heavyweight,” who disappears on the eve of an important fight on which many have wagered large sums. Where has he gone and why? Was he taken ill, kidnapped, or did he run away, afraid to fight? This particular entry includes an excellent example of Sage’s deductions from evidence, in this case a patch of garden soil. Unlike some of the more startling deductions made by Holmes, here as in other stories the detective’s explanations seem reasonable and the reader is left with the impression they too could have made the same conclusions, if not as quickly.

   In the final chapter, “Lady Dene Calls on Malcolm Sage,” Lady Dene arrives at the bureau with an unusual aim. To the amazement of the staff she’s there to decorate Sage’s office with vast quantities of red and white roses on the anniversary of the agency’s founding and to present him with an antique platinum and lapis lazuli ring from her husband and herself to set off his “lovely” hand. To the astonishment of secretary Gladys and disbelief of Thompson, Sage accepts the gift — and smiles at Lady Dene.

   My verdict: Malcolm Sage is clever and yet an “ordinary shmoe” protagonist surrounded by a likable staff. It would be difficult not to warm to him and them. No astounding leaps of deduction or parade of esoteric knowledge here! Sages uses common sense, a keen eye, and the occasional bit of psychology to solve the cases he investigates. I enjoyed this collection a great deal.

Etext: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200921.txt

   Not too many mystery writers can claim to have created a whole new sub-genre, but according to his obituary in yesterday’s New York Times, that’s what Paul Erdman did. Mr. Erdman died on Monday, April 23rd, on his ranch in California at the age of 74.

   If I were to list the books to his credit, as supplied by Allen J. Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, and give you a hint: “fi-fi,” I think perhaps you may be able to work it out. (In all truthfulness, “fi-fi” is not a term I had seen used myself until yesterday.)

ERDMAN, PAUL E(mil) (1932-2007)
      * The Billion Dollar Killing (n.) Hutchinson 1973 [Switzerland] U.S. title: The Billion Dollar Sure Thing.
      * The Billion Dollar Sure Thing (n.) Scribner 1973; See: The Billion Dollar Killing.
      * The Silver Bears (n.) Hutchinson 1974. Scribner, 1974. Film: EMI, 1977 (scw: Peter Stone; dir: Ivan Passer).
      * The Crash of ’79 (n.) Secker 1976. Simon, 1977. [Middle East].

      * The Last Days of America (n.) Secker 1981. Simon, 1981. [Switzerland; 1985]
      * The Panic of ’89 (n.) Deutsch 1986. Doubleday, 1987. [1988]
      * The Palace (n.) Deutsch 1987. Doubleday, 1988. [New Jersey]
      * The Swiss Account (n.) Deutsch 1991. Tor, 1992. [Switzerland; 1945]
      * Zero Coupon (n.) Macmillan 1994. Forge, 1993. [San Francisco, CA]
      * The Set-Up (n.) St. Martin’s 1997. Macmillan (London), 1997. [Switzerland]

   The earliest reference found to “fi-fi” after a quick search on Google was in the opening paragraph of a 1992 review of The Swiss Account:

   In the second paragraph of this review written by Lawrence Malkin for the International Herald Tribune, he goes on to say:

    “Fi-fi” refers to financial fiction, of course, and if Mr. Erdman didn’t invent the genre, he was certainly the one who popularized it. Published in the US as The Billion Dollar Sure Thing, his first book won an Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America in 1974 for Best First Novel.

   The story is true. Paul Erdman was in a Swiss jail when he wrote that first book. After a bank he established had collapsed in 1970, incurring a loss of tens of millions of dollars, he spent eight months in prison, posted bail, moved to the US and after being convicted in absentia, never returned to Switzerland.

   His novel The Silver Bears was filmed in 1978, the movie starring Michael Caine, Martin Balsam, Cybill Shepherd and Jay Leno. Says IMDB of the story line: “Financial wizard “Doc” Fletcher (Michael Caine) is sent by crime boss Joe Fiore (Martin Balsam) to buy a bank in Switzerland in order to more easily launder their profits.” Things go downhill from there. Turns out that the story (as filmed) is a comedy.

   Mr. Erdman’s unplanned career change obviously went well with him, and the millions of readers he garnered never complained either. Along with the abundant dose of criminal intent in each of his thrillers, there was enough real world application that came with them that, if they were paying attention, his readers could have earned a practical degree in economics or international finance as well. Many of his readers probably already had one.

   Mystery author Rosemary Kutak has two books to credit, both written in the 1940s. Up until today, her entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, has looked like this :

   At some point in her life, as it turns out, Mrs. Kutak seems to have subtracted a few years from her age. Victor Berch has learned that — well, wait, I’ll let him tell it:

   In a later email, Victor reported further that “Rosemary shows up as Margaret Rosemary Norris in the 1910 Census. Daughter of Samuel C. and Luella Norris.”

   This investigation began when Al Hubin had discovered earlier that:

   Al was right and the Library of Congress, as Victor has shown, was wrong. The heading for Mrs. Kutak in the online Addenda for CFIV will look like this

   A blurb for Darkness of Slumber, which was reprinted as Pocket #402 in 1946, described the story thusly: “A young doctor investigates the sudden madness of a beautiful woman.” Another dealer quotes from the Canadian hardcover: “We got murder, we got a madhouse, and we got a beautiful woman — add to that a doctor with a reputation he wants to clear, and you’ve got a book the New York Times Book Review said was one of the ‘Ten Best.'”

   I Am the Cat was reprinted twice in paperback, first as a digest-sized softcover in abridged form as Mercury Mystery #130 (December 1948), then by Collier in 1966 with an introduction by Anthony Boucher.

   My apologies for the lack of a cover image, but one online seller says: “Great old plot here, a Long Island mansion, six guest/suspects, mysterious events, all the typical players in a suspenseful story. […] The dust jacket is dark green, with foreboding picture of a stairway leading to where?”

   Author Freda Kreitzman is difficult to locate in CFIV. The book she was in part responsible for is entitled Eighteen by Thirteen (1998), a group-effort novel published as by The Writer’s Workshop. The entry looks like this:

   She was one of the thirteen writers. Neither she nor any of the other twelve participants have another credit in CFIV. Using social security records, however, Al Hubin has come up with the following dates for Ms. Kreitzman: She was born November 28, 1917, and died December 9, 2006.

   A website page for the Southern Adirondack Library System no longer functioning, but entitled New York State Regional Authors, says of one of the book’s participating writers:

   Freda Kreitzman was 80 or 81 years old when the book was published. Further investigation has revealed that the The Writer’s Workshop met at the Forum, a Marriott Senior Center Living Community in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

[UPDATE] 04-27-07.  Excerpted from an email from Victor Berch, who did some investigation into the other members of The Writer’s Workshop:

   I have the dates of some more of those writers. The hard part is finding the women authors’ maiden names. Some of their obituaries were in local Sun-Sentinel newspaper for Broward county, but [they are not generally available online]. At any rate, here are some of the dates from the SSDI   [Social Security Death Index]:

   Bartel, Molly (or Mollie) [H], May 2, 1911 – Nov. 11, 2003

   Bissette, Doris [W], Aug. 2,1923 – Nov. 28, 2005

   Hartman, Charlotte, Nov. 17, 1923 – Nov. 8, 2005

   Nyfield, Julia [S], May 4, 1909 – Nov. 24, 2003

   Robinson, Leon, Dec. 26, 1910 – Aug. 21, 2001

   Webster, Betty [i.e. Elizabeth J], May 2, 1927 – June 23, 1999

   Erwin Lissau was an interesting one. He was born in Vienna, Austria on Feb. 17, 1916. He and his younger brother were living as students in Zagreb, Yugoslavia after Hitler had taken over Austria. They came to the US in 1939. Erwin joined the Army in 1941 and more than likely obtained his citizenship because of that. He died Aug. 10, 2001.

MARGUERITE SILVERMAN – The Vet It Was That Died. Nicholson & Watson; UK hardcover. First edition: 1945. No US edition.

   Of the three mystery novels written by this author, this one is the most common among those found offered for sale online: there are six copies available at the time I am writing this. Of Silverman’s second (Who Should Have Died?, Nicholson, 1948) there are none, and of her third (9 Had No Alibi, Nicholson, 1951) there is but one.

   According to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, the primary detective in each is Chief Inspector Christopher Adrian. Coming to his assistance in this one, at least, a relatively minor affair, is a newly graduated veterinarian surgeon by the name of Helena Goodwin.

    Helena’s involvement with the mystery is due only to this, her first job, however, and in fact she’s one of those immediately on the scene when her body of her veterinarian employer is found. (Hence the title.) And yet, even though both the inspector and his wife are old friends of her family, it doesn’t seem as though there?s enough of a connection there to warrant her presence in any of Adrian?s other cases. I could be wrong. It will also be difficult to find out, but if and when I do, I will be sure to tell you.

    It comes as no surprise that “the vet it was that died,” as both Mr. Thorpe and his wife are two of the most terrifically unlikable people that one can imagine. They are hated by their niece Carol, who lives with them; Dora, the other girl who works for them; their neighbors, and even their clientele, believe it or not. That the couple were not especially fond of each other is also an understatement, to put it mildly. When Mr. Thorpe is found poisoned to death, what Adrian and Helena quickly realize is that they have a lengthy list of suspects to work with. There is no need at all to start looking under rocks or for tramps passing by.

    By page 92, however, the list has been narrowed down to five: the only ones who had access to the brandy to which the strychnine was added, but with 100 pages yet to go, it takes quite a bit of time (and false leads) to whittle the list down any further.

    I called this mystery a “minor affair” a short while back, and truthfully that is all it is. The dialogue on occasion is rather juvenile in tone, and on other occasions one gets the unsettling feeling that the author is making up facts as she is going along. Neither of these are necessarily fatal flaws, mind you, but neither of them allows for much in the way of recommendation, either.

FRAMED. Columbia, 1947. Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan, Edgar Buchanan. Director: Richard Wallace.

   More than a B-movie, but not quite an “A,” Framed is generally considered to fall into the noir style of filmmaking. One definition I found online (Encyclopædia Britannica) is that noir is “a film genre that offers dark or fatalistic interpretations of reality. The term is applied to U.S. films of the late 1940s and early ’50s that often portrayed a seamy or criminal underworld and cynical characters. The films were noted for their use of stark, expressionistic lighting and stylized camera work, often employed in urban settings.”

   I’ll tell you the general plot line, then you tell me. An unemployed mining engineer named Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford) comes into a cheap bar where a beautiful girl named Paula (Janis Carter) is a waitress.

   Bad luck seems to follow Lambert, even getting him into trouble almost as soon as he hits town (literally), but – good luck at last? – Paula is there to bail him out of jail. Of course she has ulterior motives, and Lambert almost realizes it, but he can’t quite make a break from her.

   One of Paula’s bedtime buddies is a local banker named Steve Price (Barry Sullivan), and their plans for Mike Lambert are both sinister and obvious. Of course we, the viewer, know full well that plans of this nature do not always work out the way they’re expected to, and in this movie, no exception is made.

   Noir? I thought you’d say so, and I’d agree, but I don’t think it fits the definition above, unless it’s expanded to include “… dark or fatalistic interpretations of reality, often involving unexpected twists of fate, against which the participants feel helpless to react.” Well, maybe the phrasing needs some work, but work on it I will.

   Glenn Ford’s sometimes goofy-faced grin serves him well in this film, but the chemistry between Paula and him doesn’t quite seem to work. She’s also a little too glamorous – especially to be a waitress in a cheap bar – and not quite vampish or seductive or dangerous enough. (If I include enough words here, maybe the point I’m making will also make itself clear.)

   As Jeff Cunningham, though, the genial old prospector whom Lambert hopes to work for, and who – completely bewildered – ends up in jail, Edgar Buchanan is in a role made expressly for him. All in all, while you may find the plot line a little too familiar, if this is the kind of movie you like, then you won’t mind seeing yet another variation on the same theme, one more time, with just enough gusto to get by.

   Two more recently discovered deaths, the first in this post being that of spy fiction writer Owen John. Born in Wales in 1918, he passed away there in January 1995. Added also to his entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, is his first name, Leonard, unused in his byline for the following crime novels, the last three marginal (as usual, so indicated by a dash in front of the title):

JOHN, (Leonard) OWEN (1918-1995)

      * Thirty Days Hath September (n.) Joseph 1966 [Haggai Godin; Italy] Dutton, 1967; Paperback Library 63-127, pb, 1969.

      * The Disinformer (n.) Joseph 1967 [Haggai Godin; Canada] Paperback Library 53-773, pb, 1968.

      * A Beam of Black Light (n.) Joseph 1968 [Haggai Godin; Russia] Paperback Library 63-085, pb, 1969. “The story of a young British civil servant planted in a fantastic Russian secret laboratory in the wildest terrain in the world, is insidiously terrifying.”

      * Dead on Time (n.) Joseph 1969 [Haggai Godin; Middle East] Paperback Library, pb, 1969. “The Arab-Isaeli conflict is the setting for a tale full of action and tension … reality is blended with fiction, with great skill and dash.”

      * The Diamond Dress (n.) Cassell 1970

      * The Shadow in the Sea (n.) Cassell 1972 [Haggai Godin; Russia] Dutton, 1972. Fawcett Crest M1928, pb, 1973. “A mysterious Russian submarine is discovered patrolling off the coast of England — Haggai Godin was the one man who could stop it.”

      * Sabotage (n.) Cassell 1973 [Haggai Godin; Wales] Dutton, 1973. Fawcett Crest M2097, pb, 1974. “Two men meet at night on a dark road in Carreg Wales. In London, Roge Platt, Chief of Special Operations, and his agent, Haggai Godin, discover that a nuclear power plant somewhere in England may be sabotaged.”

      * Getaway (n.) Coronet 1976 [Haggai Godin]

      * -The Controller (n.) Hale 1978

      * -Festival (n.) Hale 1978

      * -McGregor’s Island (n.) Hale 1979 [Hebrides]

   Haggai Godin, presumably the young man pictured without a shirt in the paperback cover above, is the agent whose adventures took him all over the world.

   Another writer whose death Al Hubin has recently found out about is Henry Kolarz, who died in 2001. He was the author of one book included in CFIV:

KOLARZ, HENRY (1927-2001)

      * Kalahari (Fawcett Popular Library, 1979, pb) [Africa] Translation of “Kalahari” from the German. Frankfort, 1977. Reprinted in a Reader’s Digest hardcover collection of condensed novels, 1980.

   Kalahari is one of a extremely small number of crime novels to have taken place in Botswana. A description of the book, as provided by the Reader’s Digest edition:

   Kolarz was the author of at least one other work of crime fiction that was never translated from German into English, Nachts um 4 wird nicht geklingelt (1961), a novel based on an actual event, that of the escape of 19 prisoners from a North Carolina security prison in 1959.

   Hal Braham was my father. I stumbled onto the list of his books still out there by mistake the other night, and saw there are a few I don’t have, so I’ve been rounding them up.

   My father wrote extensively in the 1950s, and published a great deal in the old pulp detective magazines (of which I have a collection). He supported us by working as a technical writer by day. The rhythmic sound of his typing on his old Underwood upright lulled me to sleep many a night during my childhood. He also worked as a private investigator and took police science courses. He captures the color and character of Los Angeles and San Pedro of the post-war years extremely well in Call Me Deadly. He also co-wrote a screenplay, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, which starred Jackie Gleason. It was one of Gleason’s earliest films.

   He belonged to a group of L.A. writers called the Fictioneers. Among them were Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson (Duel and other screenplays), Charles Beaumont (Twilight Zone), William Campbell Gault (murder mysteries and juveniles), Les Savage (westerns) and Bill Cox. I remember some of their parties at our house with great affection.

   I have followed my father into the writing profession. I am a journalist, currently working at The Fresno Bee. I’ve not published any books as all my work has been newspaper related. Writing seems to be in the family genes. Nelson Algren (Walk on the Wild Side, Man With the Golden Arm) was a cousin and grew up with my father in Chicago.

      From a later email:

   You might add that my father had a passion for writing, and it was a passion of joy. He never agonized; he wrote with pure enjoyment and when he talked about the process of writing there was a twinkle in his eyes. I’ve never been comfortable writing fiction because I can’t be as good as he was. I feel he is looking over my shoulder. He never did, of course. He always encouraged and supported me, and was never critical. But I held him in such high esteem that all my efforts seemed to fall short.

   I’ve always been intrigued by the cover illustrations. They stood out all right, but they never really had anything to do with the novel, and I always tried to imagine a plot based on the drawings. But if they sold more books, who can complain?

   One of my father’s best friends, the author William Campbell Gault (now deceased, sadly), told the story of how his juveniles used to be stolen from the libraries in Santa Barbara, where he lived. The librarians were livid, with the appropriate priggish indignation of how bad the youth of our day have become. Bill thought it was great. “It just meant they had to replace my books, which meant more money for me,” he said.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Expanded from an updated entry for Hal Braham in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

BRAHAM, HAL [i.e., Harold Braham] (1910-1993); see pseudonyms Mel Colton & Merrill Trask

* Call Me Deadly (n.) Graphic #152, pbo, 1957. [Los Angeles, CA] “When a bride who lost her laughter – met a man who lost a corpse …”

COLTON, MEL; pseudonym of Hal Braham, (1910-1993); other pseudonym Merrill Trask

* The Big Fix (n.) Ace Double D-3, pbo, 1952. “He’d won a hundred grand – and a sure bullet if he claimed it.”

* Big Woman (n.) Rainbow 1953 [Panama] “The nights in Panama are hot and dangerous — just like the women!”

* Double Take (n.) Ace Double D-27, pbo, 1953 [Los Angeles, CA]. “She was hard to meet and deadly to know.”

* Never Kill a Cop! (n.) Ace Double D-19, pbo, 1953. “Had his own brother framed him for the fall guy?”

* Point of No Escape (n.) Ace Double D-101, pbo, 1955

TRASK, MERRILL; pseudonym of Hal Braham, (1910-1993); other pseudonym Mel Colton

* Murder in Brief (n.) Mystery House 1956 [Los Angeles, CA]

SHORT FICTION: All stories as by Mel Colton.

FILMS:

Hal Braham wrote the story which was the basis for Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (Columbia, 1942), starring Jackie Gleason, Jack Durant and Florence Rice.

Synopsis: A pair of barbers are driven out of business because most of the men in their small town are being drafted into the army. When they attempt to enlist and are turned down, they decide to form a Home Defense Force, getting them involved with a gang of crooks.

Thanks to Bill Pronzini for providing several of the cover images and the big assist in putting together the list of Hal Braham’s short fiction.