ROBERT C. DENNIS – Conversations with a Corpse. Paul Reeder #2. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1974. Ballantine, paperback, 1976.

   Robert C. Dennis wrote dozens of short stories for the pulps in the 1940s and hundreds of teleplays for such popular TV
series as Dragnet, Cannon, and Perry Mason from the 1950s to the early 1980s. But his output of novels, regrettably, was limited to just two — both published in the early Seventies; both narrated by architect Paul Reeder, “a psychic, a man with a freak brain capable of recovering mind pictures of past events”; and both literate and expertly constructed whodunits that even ESP skeptics can enjoy.

   On a business trip to the small California wine-country town of Orofino, the “Wine Capital of the West,” Reeder rents a car at the local airport and, as soon as he touches the steering wheel, has a psychometric vision telling him the man who last drove the car is now dead. Directed by his “inner mind,” he embarks on a search that leads him into conflict with Sergeant Dryden of the Orofino police and with members of the Chicano community; into an abandoned winery filled with bloated rats and an equally bloated corpse; and finally to a confrontation with a homicidal madman at the Mission Santa Teresa Dolorosa.

   Library Journal called the novel “a suspenseful and menacing puzzle”; the Los Angeles Times praised it as “tough and furiously fast-paced … [with] bone-chilling situations.” Both assessments are on target. The scene in which Reeder is trapped in the bankrupt winery is a minor masterpiece of its kind, guaranteed to give the most jaded reader a case of the shudders.

   The first Reeder novel, The Sweat of Fear (1973), is also a fine piece of criminous storytelling and highly recommended.

———
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.

   Rex Stout’s third Nero Wolfe collection, Trouble in Triplicate (1949), contains a trio of novellas first published in The American Magazine: “Before I Die” (April 1947), “Help Wanted, Male” (August 1945), and “Instead of Evidence” (May 1946); the latter debuted as “Murder on Tuesday,” yet was curiously advertised a month before as “Too Stubborn to Live.”

   That’s how Martha Poor describes husband Eugene, convinced that his partner, Conroy Blaney, plans to kill him for his half of their novelty business. All agree that it is impossible to prevent this, but Gene wants Wolfe to ensure that Blaney gets caught, while she would prefer that he be bought out for a ridiculously low $20,000 — yet remain alive.

   When a real exploding cigar kills Poor, obliterating his face, longtime genre readers are perhaps unsurprised as “Gene” is revealed to have been her accomplice, eliminated after helping Martha implicate Blaney, and in fact, all three stories have imposture in common. In “Before I Die,” Wolfe surprises Archie by having him admit Dazy Perrit, King of the Black Market, who provides a phone number to offset the “Great Meat Shortage.”

   He is being blackmailed by Angelina Murphy, set up in his penthouse off Fifth Avenue as his faux daughter, Violet; he took this precaution because his enemy Thumbs Meeker learned that he had one somewhere: Beulah Page, now “among the top of her class at Columbia.”

   She turned two the week he went to prison, and believes that Perrit merely represents her mysterious, wealthy father; Dazy, whose minion is Archie’s namesake, also fears that her appearance and mannerisms, strongly resembling her dead mother’s, will be a give-away. Himself posing as Harold Stevens of the Dayton, Ohio Community Health Center, Archie invites Beulah and her fiancé, law student Morton Schane, to dine with Wolfe, who later threatens to turn “Violet” (aka Sally Smith) in on a Salt Lake City charge if she does not give him 90% of what she gets from Perrit. Archie assumes he plans to kick it back, but as he escorts her home she is gunned down, her last words, “It’s — uh…shame. Shame!”

   Archie is released after telling Lt. Rowcliff that the killer fired from a (stolen) car with a handkerchief over his face; no sooner has he reached the brownstone to be confronted by Perrit and Archie 2 than they, too, are shot dead from a taxicab. L.A. Schwartz, Dazy’s lawyer, tells Wolfe he will get $50,000 if he assents to be the executor “and in effect the guardian of his daughter,” then turns over a sealed envelope containing background data on Beulah, and a request that Wolfe make sure she receives his sizable estate. They are interrupted by calls from Fabian, an “associate” who may blame them for Perrit’s death, and Beulah, who has seen Archie’s photo in the paper, and shows up with Schane in tow.

   With Beulah — to whom he has revealed her patrimony — up in the plant rooms, Wolfe has just convened Fabian, Schwartz, Schane, and Saul Panzer when Meeker breezes by Fritz; per Archie, “Before I die I get to hear Wolfe bawling hell out of Thumbs … for dashing in to where Fabian is ready with his gun out.”

   Wolfe denies telling the cops that Archie had fingered Dazy and Violet for him, explaining that she had learned Beulah’s identity, and Schane, with whom she had a history, secretly cultivated Beulah. Violet’s final word was not “Shame!,” but “Schane!,” and when confronted with the truth he fires on Wolfe yet is shot down by Fabian, Meeker, and Saul, leaving Archie to dine with Beulah at Ribeiro’s.

   Like the stories in Not Quite Dead Enough (1944), “Help Wanted, Male” occurs during Archie’s World War II service as Major Goodwin of Military Intelligence (who notes in “Instead of Evidence” that “I had been a civilian again for only a week”). Publisher and politician Ben Jensen, whistle-blower in the (unrecorded) case of court-martialed Captain Peter Root, brings Wolfe the warning he’s received in the mail: “YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE—AND I WILL WATCH YOU DIE!” Archie recognizes it from an ad for the movie Meeting at Dawn, published in The American Magazine, ha ha ha, but Ben is not amused, especially when Wolfe refuses to provide protection … and 12 hours later, Jensen is killed.

   Shot along with him, Cramer reports, was Doyle, the best man at the Cornwall and Mayer agency (hired by Jensen on Archie’s suggestion), but while “not interested, not involved, and not curious,” Wolfe receives an identical clipping. Presuming a connection, he asks Archie to fetch Root’s fiancée, Jane Geer, delaying his trip to Washington to ask General Carpenter to send him overseas; the head of G-2, introduced in “Booby Trap” (1944), he was revealed as Mrs. Boone’s cousin in The Silent Speaker (1946), where Ribeiro’s was first mentioned. Arriving simultaneously is Ben’s son, the handsome Major Emil Jensen, who leaves with Jane when Wolfe suddenly shifts gears and refuses to see either of them.

   His request refused, Archie confers with Colonel Dickey on various cases, and then spots an ad in the New York Star: “WANTED A MAN” of Wolfe’s description, “Temporary. Hazardous.” Fleeing Pentagon red tape, he returns home, where a retired architect, H.H. Hackett, “an unsurpassed nincompoop with the manners of a wart hog,” is impersonating Wolfe, who believes Cramer is wasting his time trying to nail Emil, due to a quarrel upon learning that Ben sued his mother for divorce while he was serving in Europe. No sooner have Jane and the gate-crashing Emil arrived to see “Wolfe” than a shot — fired inside the house — nicks Hackett’s ear, and a revolver wrapped in a handkerchief is found in a vase.

   Giving the gun and a bullet Archie digs out of the wall to Cramer, Wolfe persuades the guests to stay during a ballistics test to see if it killed Ben and Doyle, yet when Cramer shows up with confirmation, Purley Stebbins, and a search warrant, he angrily demands that the latter be torn up before playing ball.

   He suspects Jane and Emil, as the killer had intended, until the absence of a sofa cushion points him in the right direction: Hackett is in fact Thomas Root. Peter’s vengeful father took a job as a doorman at Ben’s apartment house in order to kill him, then fired a separate shot from one of Wolfe’s pistols into the cushion as part of an elaborate ruse to implicate them, nicking his ear with a pocket knife.

   Among a handful of works adapted for the Wolfe TV series starring both William Conrad and Maury Chaykin, “Before I Die” (1/30/81) was directed for the former by Edward Abroms, second only to George McCowan with his contributions.

   Along with The Red Box (1937), “Black Orchids” (1941), The Silent Speaker, and five of Stout’s later works, “Before I Die” was also dramatized on a Russian series that ran for two seasons (2001-2002 and 2005), featuring Donatas Banionis as Wolfe, with Sergey Zhigunov as Archie. The Conrad version was scripted by Alfred Hayes, who had shared Oscar nominations for Teresa (1951) and — with Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini—Paisà (Paisan, 1946).

   Dazy is now Leo Crown, played by Darren McGavin’s fellow Night Stalker alum Ramon Bieri, also seen in The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Sorcerer (1977); surprisingly, Russ Tamblyn turns up as an unidentified police detective. Kidnapped by Eddie Meeker (H.M. Wynant) to end a war between them, Violet (Char Fontane) is released to Leo and Harry Fabian (Eddie Fontaine), then admits her masquerade to Wolfe and Archie (Lee Horsley), fearing for her safety. Angelina is followed there by Leo, who agrees to let her “retire,” and the two shootings — separated by Cramer (Allan Miller) questioning Archie — follow, with no last words for Violet, and Leo survived by his useless bodyguard (Robert Sutton).

   Saul (George Wyner) learns that in Utah, hooker Angelina had a boyfriend, local hustler Harvey Pine, and Cramer tells Eddie — who denies hitting Leo — he’d grabbed the wrong girl; Schwartz, now Arthur Poor (John Ericson), provides the envelope identifying Elaine Page (Tarah Nutter), warning that Harry will dislike the will.

   Archie flies his true colors when inviting Elaine, about to head for Maryland to wed Paul Shane (Kale Browne), chez Wolfe, suggesting that she will learn the truth at last. The dialogue and Nutter’s delivery convey how badly she wants it (“I’ve lived in houses that weren’t mine, with families that weren’t mine”), and how devastated she is at the news that her father was killed that day.

   As in the novella, Wolfe confirms his suspicions of Paul by tripping him up on an arcane legal point at dinner, and having Fritz (George Voskovec) save his “cracked” wine glass, complete with Pine’s fingerprints. A shot through the window of the brownstone later on suggests an attempt on the life of Elaine, kept there for safety, but was only an attempt at misdirection by Paul, who wished to marry into her fortune.

   We are deprived a climactic hail of bullets (with Saul proven to have fired the fatal shot) as a tipped-off Cramer takes Paul away, but Hayes is largely faithful, eliminating the blackmail angle, and ending on a grace note as Theodore Horstmann (Robert Coote) presents Wolfe’s ward with an orchid.

   Both “Before I Die” (6/16/02) and “Help Wanted, Male” (6/23/02) were directed for the Chaykin series by its own runner-up (after star Timothy Hutton), John L’Ecuyer, airing on consecutive weeks in the second season. They were adapted by, respectively, Sharon Elizabeth Doyle (by far the most frequent scenarist, a contributing producer that season) and, in his only contribution, Mark Stein.

   Interestingly, although each episode features a half-dozen of the show’s repertory players, they have none in common, while Dazy Perrit is played by Seymour Cassel, whose collaborations with John Cassavetes include his film debut, Shadows (1958), and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Faces (1968).

   The double-length international version of “Before I Die” is augmented with comedic and Corleonesque scenes created by Doyle in which Archie 2 (Joe Pingue) earns the grudging admiration of Fritz (Colin Fox) by teaching him how to make “gravy” (spaghetti sauce, to us non-Sicilians).

   Michael Small provides a jazzy score befitting this underworld motif, while the opening narration by Archie (Hutton) preserves Rex Stout’s immortal line, “To Nero Wolfe a meal without meat was an insult.” Ostensibly fresh out of St. Louis, Violet (Christine Brubaker) makes her N.Y.C. debut when Dazy introduces her to Fabian (Doug Lennox), Archie 2, and their respective girlfriends (Nicky Guadagni, Angela Maiorano).

   An in-joke has Violet show her friends a designer dress from Saks in a box conspicuously labeled “L’Ecuyer,” while a sexual relationship with Dazy either wasn’t in the novella, or went right over my head (admittedly plausible). Beulah (Lindy Booth) is a social activist focused on health work, who insists she is not a communist, and brings Schane (Matthew Edison) to dinner, where she impresses Wolfe with more dialogue original to Doyle.

   Bill MacDonald returns as Rowcliffe (sic), his role in “Prisoner’s Base” (5/13 & 20/01), while the shooting spree by Fabian, Meeker (Beau Starr), and Saul (Conrad Dunn) is retained as Schwartz (Ken Kramer) witnesses that they fired in self-defense — since Schane shot first.

   In “Help Wanted, Male,” guest star Larry Drake, who won consecutive Supporting Actor Emmy Awards as mentally impaired office worker Benny Stulwicz on L.A. Law, is well cast as “Hackett.” Convinced that Wolfe turned down the job because he thought it was too hot, Cramer (Bill Smitrovich) invades Wolfe’s bedroom during breakfast to detail the deaths of Ben (James Tolkan) and Doyle (Randy Butcher). Jane (Kari Matchett) did have a grudge against Wolfe when she believed Peter (Steve Cumyn) a scapegoat, but revised her opinion of Root; she now fears that the adverse publicity from being a murder suspect will hamper her aspirations to be the first female vice president of her advertising agency.

   Noting the immediate attraction between Jane and Emil (Richard Waugh), Archie makes his abortive trip to Washington, where Carpenter (George Plimpton) states, “Your role as Mr. Wolfe’s assistant is absolutely vital.” Stein interpolates bizarre byplay between him and eyepatched Dickey (Robert Bockstael), and dramatizes Wolfe’s questioning of Root, brought to him from prison, which he merely related to Archie in the novella.

   Trying to maintain the façade, Archie has Fritz hold Jane and Emil at gunpoint so that he can coach Hackett, but Wolfe shortly reveals himself; as Cramer and Purley (R.D. Reid) investigate the shot’s trajectory, Archie and Fritz launch the separate search for the missing cushion.

            — Copyright © 2023 by Matthew R. Bradley.
   

Up next: “Door to Death” [See comment #1.]

    Edition cited:

      Trouble in Triplicate: Bantam (1955)

    Online sources:

[link mislabeled as “Wolfe at the Door”]

THOMAS M. DISCH “Voices of the Kill.” First published in Full Spectrum, edited by Lou Aronica & Shawna McCarthy (Bantam Spectra, paperback original, September 1988). Reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (St. Martin’s Press, trade paperback, 1989). Collected in The Wall of America (Tachyon, softcover, 2008).

   Thomas M. Disch was an author almost as well-known for his poetry as he was for his unique blend of science fiction and fantasy. While “Voices of the Kill” is a fantasy tale through and through, it is poetry as well, and in a way as opaque to me as most poetry is.

   It is the story of a man who, living alone in a cabin along a stream, falls in love (of sorts) with the flowing water, or (perhaps better said) is seduced by the stream, lying at night as he does in its waters and soothing embrace, listening to it talk to him.

   I do not know why Nixie asks him to place a twenty dollar bill under a stone in its (her?) depths. When William’s cousin Barry comes to visit, the overnight stays in the stream must end. When the two travel down it to its outlet into the sea, Nixie is annoyed.

   And what is the significance of the black woman in a pea-green swimsuit who is playing there with her son on the beach? (She does return.)

   In spite of these and other questions I cannot answer, the effect of this story is one I cannot get out of my head. Good poetry (and fantasy) can have an amazing effect on one’s mind. It is no wonder this was the lead story in the Full Spectrum anthology where it first appeared.

TIGHTROPE! “The Chinese Pendant.” Screen Gems / CBS, 29 March 1960 (Season 1, Episode 28). Michael Connors. Guest cast: Ted de Corsia, Mary Castle, Philip Ahn, Lisa Lu, Jeanne Carmen (as Saba Dareaux). Directed by Irving J. Moore.

   Tightrope! the TV series lasted but one season on CBS, but that was back when a season consisted of well over 30 episodes, in this case 37, running throughout the entire 1959-60 season. Mike Connors played an undercover cop in each of the stories, every week getting into scrape after scrape, but managing to escape just in the nick of time at the end.

   He has two problems hanging over him in “The Chinese Pendant.” The first he knows about – trying to get in with a mob boss by posing as a skilled diamond thief – the other he doesn’t – that of a would-be killer whom Connors sent to prison, and who wants revenge.

   Narrating the stories, Connors had a new name in each episode, but apparently he often went by “Nick.” Even though posing as a crook, he was suave enough to catch the eye of some very good-looking women; two, in fact, in this episode. Old time movie fans will recognize the name of Philip Ahn, who plays a fence this time around and whose career lasted some 40 years or more. His daughter, played by Lisa Lu, you may remember as Hey Girl in the Have Gun, Will Travel TV series, and who quite remarkably is still active today.

   There’s a lot of plot in “The Chinese Pendant,” and one could only wish the show was 60 minutes long instead of a very cramped 30 minutes. I enjoyed the series immensely back when it was originally on, and I enjoyed it equally so the other night when I discovered this episode on YouTube. See below, if still there:
   
   
   

WORLDS OF TOMORROW – May 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: [Douglas] Chaffee. Overall rating: ***½.

FRED SABERHAGEN “Stone Man.” Novelette. One planet in the universe is such that time is a variable capable of physical control. The berserkers’ attempt to destroy life there takes them back to the time of the first colonists so that the race can be exterminated at once. Very human story of conflict and life in wartime. (4)

      ADDED UPDATE: Taken from Wikipedia:

DOUGLAS R. MASON “Squared Out with Poplars.” A mad scientist uses human brains for his computers. A strange excuse for a love story. (2)

DAVID A. KYLE “Base Ten.” Novelette. A missing little finger keeps a man marooned in space for eighteen years. A different story of “first contact.” (5)

SIMON TULLY “Whose Brother Is My Sister?” Novelette. Alien scientists combine with those of Earth to prove a theoretical relationship between space and time. Their efforts to stop time do not succeed entirely, as the flow of time is simply reversed. The alien culture is superbly created. (4)

MACK REYNOLDS “The Throwaway Age.” Novelette. A spy who thinks of the enemy as “commies” is assigned to infiltrate a new group concerned with the waste of America’s resource and man-power. Reynolds has good points, but tells a poor story. (3)

   Several long time collectors have been renting a van and driving out from New Jersey to Chicago for at least a dozen years. Ed Hulse has always been the driver, but this year he retired as our chauffeur and decided to fly to the convention. It may be true that we behaved in such an exasperating manner that we drove him to give up his position. It didn’t help that behind his back I often referred to him as “Jim”, which was based on the character in the Major series of pulp stories by Greene. In the series The Major had an assistant named Jim who drove and performed various duties and we also had a Major in the van (E.P. Digges La Touche).

   Anyway, thanks for your years of service, Ed. The new drivers are now Scott Hartshorn and Nick Certo, both of whom have been my friends for close to 50 years. We will see how long they last before giving up this well-paying position.

   Doug Ellis sent me an email saying that this year’s convention set a new all time record of over 600 attendees. The dealers’  room seemed to be always crowded and quite busy/ and the 180 tables were crammed with pulps, books, vintage paperbacks, DVDs, and original artwork. Prices on the vintage paperbacks were not only quite reasonable but insanely low, as I saw thousands cheaply priced at fire sale levels. I saw one table that had a sign stating “Free digests.” Other tables had boxes of vintage paperbacks priced at a buck or two or even less than a dollar each if you bought 15 for 10 dollars, etc.

   On the other hand the auction, which was held Friday and Saturday nights, starting at 8:15 PM, realized some insane prices. The big sellers were issues of Weird Tales. I estimate that close to 150 issues were listed in the estate auction from my old pal Bob Weinberg’s collection. Most of these issues were from the 1920’s and 1930’s and many realized prices of not only a few hundred dollars but some a few thousand and I’m not talking about the large size, hard-to-get bedsheet copies either.

   The infamous “batgirl” Weird Tales went for $13,000. In the last 50 years I’ve had a half dozen copies, and I never considered it that rare. In fact my present copy is bound, and I’m thinking of ripping it out of the binding and shrieking “Hey, here is a batgirl Weird Tales and I’ll take only a few thousand for it, not no $13,000!”

   Another issue in the early 1930’s went for $14,000 and what surprised me was that the winning bidder was a well known dealer whose first name is David and last name Smith. We are in trouble as collectors when pulp dealers start paying these prices. Not just comic dealers buying for investment, but pulp collectors! Dealers quite often pay half or less of a book’s value and a $14,000 figure means the dealer may be thinking of selling for at least double and probably more if he thinks prices are heading into comic book territory.

   Speaking of “comic book territory,” Rusty Hevelin, organizer of the old Pulpcon, used to preach that we had to try and keep the comic book dealers out of pulps, because once they got in, then we could forget about reading the issues and selling to each other for reasonable prices. Because the comic dealers are into it as an investment, and the prices would sky rocket. Guess Rusty was right and he used to ban comic books from Pulpcon. But those days are over.

   I walked through the dealer’s room for four days but didn’t find much to buy. This is not because there was not anything for sale, but simply because I’ve been collecting like forever and I either have it or once did have it and got rid of it. In fact I’ve rebuilt sets of some of my favorites that I disposed of many years ago. I never did have much interest in sport, romance, or aviation pulps but everything else I’ve been interested in.

   Windy City had the usual film program put on by Ed Hulse and two discussions about the hero pulps. There also was the excellent art exhibit, which I always find of interest since I’ve been collecting original art now for over 50 years.

   The Windy City Pulp Stories #22 was full of interesting articles. Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books edited it. An excellent 150 page collection. Blood n Thunder 2023 Special Edition made its debut. Edited by Ed Hulse and over 300 pages. The highlight of the issue is Ed’s 40 page article about the British magazine, The Thriller. It’s an excellent essay covering the authors and history of the magazine, and we still can look forward to a second part in the future.

   Steeger Books also had some new books at the convention. One is a large collection of the complete  “Scientific Sprague” stories, and a second one breaks new ground by reprinting the extremely interesting letter column from Adventure, 1918-1920. It’s titled The Campfire, 1918-1920. It’s full of great accounts from old timers who lived during the great years of the west, 1850-1900. I’ve often thought that the letters would make a great collection, but I never thought I’d see the day. Here’s hoping we see more volumes from the 1920’s. Thank you Matt Moring!

   But this show will go down in my memory for three other reasons. While stopping over in Newton Falls, Ohio, I had the misfortune to eat one of the worst dinners I’ve ever had. It was Sunday night driving back to New Jersey and we were late stopping for dinner. Nothing appeared to be open, and I had to exist on a small bag of salted peanuts and a warm bottle of beer. The next day when the hotel had breakfast starting at 6:30 am, I was first in line.

   But this hotel must have been cursed, because I also slept in what had to be the worst bed I’ve ever encountered. I’m always complaining about my back problems and my leg cramps ,and I met a worthy foe in Newton Falls, room 223, Holiday Inn Express. The desk clerk said he would give me a king size bed at no extra cost. I always ask for two Queen size beds because they are smaller and don’t hurt my back as much. But this time I just wanted to eat my peanuts and guzzle my warm beer. Big mistake. I sat down on the bed and swung my legs up and immediately slid down the slope of the king size mattress until I hit the middle of the hole in the mattress. Some how I managed to claw my way back up the slope in the morning and get out of bed.

   The third event that I’ll never forget happened after turning in the rental van in Trenton, NJ. We hopped into Digges’ car and proceeded to immediately make a left into oncoming traffic, heading the wrong way down a one way street. Fortunately everyone got out of our way and we turned the car around and headed in the right direction, instead of against the traffic.

   Thanks to Paul Herman for the use of several of the photos included in this report. Next up, Pulpfest in August! It’s been 51 years that I’ve been driving to Pulpcon and Pulpfest. Matt Moring will be driving us on this adventure. Will I make it? Stay tuned!

XYY MAN, SERIES 2: THE CONCRETE BOOT. Granada TV, UK, (1997). Four episodes. Stephen Yardley as William “Spider” Scott, Don Henderson as DI Bulman, Vivienne McKee as Maggie Parsons, Dennis Blanch as DC Derek Willis, Mark Digman as Fairfax. Guest: William Squire as Laidlaw. Based on the novel (Hodder, 1971) by Kenneth Royce.

   Tall, slender, and bent by nature, that’s what the extra Y chromosome has done for cat burglar extraordinary “Spider” Scott (Stephen Yardley), a professional criminal whose unique DNA makes him prone to risks, to womanizing, and to trouble legal and otherwise.

   Scott lives with Maggie Parsons (Vivienne Parsons) who loves him despite his wandering ways and lack of traditional moral fiber (Maggie isn’t much better at times) as Spider, in this second four part serial in the series that began in 1976, has gotten his flying license and opened a small service with a friend. Things seem pretty good until “Spider” gets a job involving a charitable group rehabilitating ex cons run by a man named Laidlaw (William Squire) and discovers an old friend of his who worked for them has ended up in the Thames with a concrete boot.

   Soon DI Bulman (Don Henderson), a tough policeman who likes to read Karl Marx, is pretty sure Spider is up to his old ways while Spider finds himself being seduced by Laidlaw’s posh secretary Penny (sexy Fiona Curzon) and running into some dodgy old mates who are working for the almost evangelical Laidlaw.

   Meanwhile Fairfax (Mark Digman, head of a shady Intelligence group that used Spider in the first series based on the debut novel The XYY Man) is keeping an eye on his new agent.

   It’s not long before Spider becomes sure the sinister and charming religious fanatic Laidlaw is twisted and had something to do with the murder of his old friend, but when he thinks he is getting close, a flying job up north for Laidlaw turns out to be a setup, and Spider finds himself framed for a heist at an airport, and his plane blown up, supposedly with him in it.

   Bulman is upset he never nailed Spider, and shocked when Spider shows up alive and surrenders, but hatred aside he believes Spider’s story and gives him a chance to clear himself and nail Laidlaw, which involves recovering the stolen loot and uncovering Laidlaw’s riverside graveyard where he’s been dumping his victims with “concrete boots,” weighing them down Chicago style (Laidlaw used to be an idea man for the Syndicate). Bulman sweeps in, and as usual even when things seem to be looking up for Spider, they aren’t.

   The series is very faithful to the Kenneth Royce books, maintaining the wry humor and slick action, but only managed two seasons and some twelve episodes, the last four not based on a book, but an original story. There was a spin off series with Henderson, Bulman, in which Bulman resigns from the police and becomes a private detective. Spider had moved on.

   Yardley, tall with thinning hair and a fluid body makes a believable Spider, and along the way, as in the books, bits and pieces of his biography are revealed though never getting in the way of narrative or suspense. McKee is attractive, exasperated, and human as Maggie, and Squires is a fine scene-chewing villain, but the series is largely stolen by the sarcastic, hard nosed, fair, and left-leaning Bulman, a set of curious contradictory traits that make you want to know more about him. Obviously the audience felt the same, since he graduated to his own series.

   The Royce series ran to seven novels between 1970 to 1985, with a ten year gap between 1974’s Trap Spider and 1984’s The Crypto Man.

   The complete series is available on YouTube beginning with the episode below. (The same person who who uploaded this one has also provided the others.) I found it an attractive series, with an offbeat hero and faithful to Royce’s complex plots. Comfort food.
   

JOHN LUTZ – The Right to Sing the Blues. Alo Nudger #3. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1986. Tor, paperback, 1988. iBooks, softcover, 2001.

   Alo Nudger is a PI home based in St. Louis, but as a diehard jazz fan, when he gets a chance to take a case in New Orleans, and a potentially lucrative one at that, he jumps at the chance. One of his idols, former clarinetist Fat Jack McGee, now a night club owner, has a problem: his current piano player is making eyes at the young girl now singing for Fat Jack at his club. Problem is, the girl is anonymously the daughter of New Orleans most notorious crime lord.

   Trouble is brewing, and Fat Jack needs Nudger to get him out of it.

   The gimmick in the Alo Nudger stories is that the man has a nervous stomach – a very nervous stomach – and he takes antacids totally non-stop throughout the story. Personally I think as a gimmick, it’s overdone, but you have to admit that it’s also unique.

   John Lutz, who died in 2021, was a very good writer. His prose flows smooth and easily, with every so often an especially nice turn of phrase, and his characters are substantially more than two-dimensional. What bothered me, though, plotwise, is why his investigation annoys so many people, including the cops and a pair of thugs who take utter delight in beating him up every so often.

   It’s all straightened out by the end of the book though, when all of the pieces finally fall into place. All in all, not an epic piece, but an entirely enjoyable one.

   Rating on my trademarked H/B [hard-boiled] scale: 4.8. Too many Tums!
   

      The Alo Nudger series –

1. Buyer Beware (1976)
2. Night Lines (1985)
3. The Right to Sing the Blues (1986)
4. Ride the Lightning (1987)
5. Dancer’s Debt (1988)
6. Time Exposure (1989)
7. Diamond Eyes (1990)
8. Thicker Than Blood (1993)
9. Death by Jury (1995)
10. Oops! (1998)
The Nudger Dilemmas (story collection, 2001)

RANDY WAYNE WHITE – Captiva. Doc Ford #4. Putnam, hardcover, 1996. Berkley, paperback, 1997.

   I read one of the earlier in this series, the second or third, and I didn’t like it nearly as much as most people seemed to. It was okay, but I didn’t see anything at all exceptional about it. Maybe it was my aversion to Florida stories …

   Doc Ford, former government agent, turned marine biologist, is located in the middle of a mess. A ban on net-fishing has been passed by the state government, and partisans on both sides are in an ugly mood. Doc has friends in both camps and tries to keep a low profile, but when a net-fisherman is killed while attempting to do damage with a bomb (which he did, destroying two boats), matters turn really ugly. Doc tries to calm the waters, but there will be more violence and more death before they still.

   The publicity material includes the inevitable comparison to John D. MacDonald, which is of course ridiculous; but maybe not quite as ridiculous as it usually is. White does have a real feel for working-class Florida fishing country, and Doc Ford is an intriguing and not too overdone knight errant. The supporting characters are well-drawn and believable, as well.

   There’s not an overabundance of cowboy action, and what there is doesn’t seem out of place. All told, I didn’t find anything to dislike about this, and considerable to enjoy  Maybe I misjudged old Randy White, you think?

FRANCES BEEDING – The House of Dr. Edwardes. Little Brown, 1926. Filmed as Spellbound (Selznick/UA, 1945) with Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, John Emery, Norman Lloyd, Bill Goodwin, Wallace Ford, Art Baker, and Regis Toomey. Dream sequence based on designs by Salvador Dali. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Angus MacPhail. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

   A pleasant read, a fun movie, and an interesting glimpse into the creative process…..

   The House of Dr. Edwardes is an out-and-out Gothic, set in a remote Castle/Sanitarium staffed by a few professionals and the kind of superstitious villagers who used to populate old horror movies. Into this moody-broody set-piece steps Constance Sedgewick, pretty young thing just out of Medical School and newly hired by Dr. Edwardes, who is conveniently away. Also recently arrived is Dr. Murchison, handsome and slightly sinister in the best Gaslight tradition, who arrived with a mysterious patient in tow, a homicidal maniac who is kept locked away.

   It doesn’t take long to figure out the “surprise” here, but Beeding goes capably through the Gothic motions, with hints of Devil Worship, strange figures skulking about in the moonlight, and Constance following the standard policy of sneaking around the Castle in her nightdress. There’s also a very nice bit (probably what suggested the thing to Hitch in the first place) where an ordinary after-dinner conversation turns eerily menacing… the sort of catchy writing that makes one wish Beeding had provided a more imaginative resolution.

   Looking at the film Spellbound, one is struck first by the tricky visuals -– including the dream sequence by Salvador Dali – and how well they serve the story. One might also note how completely screenwriters Ben Hecht and Angus MacPhail opened out the claustrophobic book with a bit of symbolic progression: as the characters move closer to solving the mystery and overcoming psychosis, the narrative moves from the cramped confines of the mental hospital to the looser framework of a big city, then to the broader vistas of a small town, and finally to the open slopes of a ski lodge (evoked with laughably bad back-projection!)

   But I got the most fun reading Dr. Edwardes and reconstructing the thought processes of the writers as they tried to hammer it into a commercially viable Spellbound: “Okay we’ve got Ingrid Bergman, but no one’s gonna believe she’s just out of Med School; how ‘bout making her a cool-on-the-surface babe who takes off her glasses and her hair falls down around her shoulders? And what about Greg Peck? (WARNING!) Greg can’t be the killer but he can’t spend the whole damn film locked up in a cell, either. Hey, how about if we give it the twist-on-the-twist? He’s crazy, yeah, but the real Doc…

   However it worked out, Edwardes was worked into an undisputed classic movie and required viewing for readers here.