LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN – The Cat Who Lived High. Jim Qwilleran #11. Putnam, hardcover, 1990. Jove, paperback, 1991.

   For the first two-thirds of this book I thought that this review I was going to write would be positive if not an out-and-out recommendation. Former reporter Jim Qwilleran and his two live-in feline companions, Yum Yum and Koko, have temporarily abandoned their home in Pickax City, up north in Moose County, and have headed for the dangerous wilds of Down Below (for which I have always assumed you could substitute the city of Detroit.)

   Qwilleran has been asked to use some of his new fortune (tied up with the Klingenshoen Fund) to renovate a classic old apartment building,once the home of the rich and famous, but now on the verge of immediate takeover and conversion to new office towers and condos. And to investigate the building’s worthiness, he decided to take the penthouse accommodations for the winter.

   In spite of the many free-spirits still living there, not surprisingly the Casablanca turns out to be a sad picture of urban decay. Yum Yum in particular does not take well to her new surroundings, and Koko’s nose for dirty work soon uncovers the fact that a notorious murder-suicide took place in the very apartment Qwilleran in now staying.

   If Braun’s goal had been to write a humorous book about cats and life in the big city (which in part she has), the book would be a resounding success. It’s the unraveling of the mystery which, well, unravels. When the mystery finally (of necessity) takes center stage, you the reader are forced to realize that solving a murder by intuition (masculine as well as feline), ouija boards, and just plain good wishes is something that simply can’t be done, or at least not well.

   In other words, the last third of the book self-destructs. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. The mystery is wound up so fast that (as far as I can tell) any thread of plot that is finally tied together is purely accidental. On his part, Qwilleran is totally content to head back to Pickax City. In a way, I don’t blame him. On the other hand, he certainly seems to leave a mess behind.

ANDREW MAYNE – Black Coral. Underwater Investigation Unit #2. Thomas Mercer, paperback, February 2021.

First Sentence: Everyone is looking at me funny.

   The Underwater Investigation Unit is called out to a submerged van at Pond 65. The passenger has been recovered; but Detective Sloan McPherson, the team’s top diver, needs to recover the driver. Rather than one, she finds three bodies in the van, and evidence of a fifth person having been involved. The investigation puts McPherson and the UIU on the trail of the serial killer, while also trying to catch a thief stealing millions of electronic equipment off mega-yachts.

   Mayne has a great voice layered with wry humor— “‘If you have any questions, please contact us through our website,'” George concludes. … ‘We have a website?’ I ask in a whisper.” He is a true storyteller who creates wonderful characters that play into one . One wants to share passages of his writing with others. Not every male author writes women well. Mayne is one who truly does, and it is a pleasure to read.

   Slone is fully dimensional. There is a nice injection of the character’s personal life which adds to balance to the story, injecting light into the dark. There is realism in admitting no one is a perfect parent. one provides compelling She is introspective both about the case— “I see two different men in front of me. One is the monster. The other is the victim. The victim didn’t make the monster, but it sure did nurture him.”, and her life as a cop— “…where do I go from here? Catching the New River Bandits was a good thing, but in no way deeply fulfilling.”

   Having Sloan be an archeologist, as well as a diver and cop, brings dimension to the character and opens interesting doors. The plot is very well done and filled with surprises, yet none of them feel contrived. The things one learns are unusual.

   Periodic references to events from the first book, don’t distract from the current story, nor does the crossover reference to Mayne’s Theo Cray series. This book stands nicely on its own merit.

   Of the two cases, one is fairly straight forward, but the second takes one down a surprising, twisty path with some definite “Oh, my” moments. Although the main plot is about a serial killer, the book is far more suspenseful than gory.

   Black Coral is an excellent read full of humor, suspense, wicked good twists, and a very unexpected ending.

Rating: Excellent.

      The Underwater Investigation Unit series —

1. The Girl Beneath the Sea (2020)
2. Black Coral (2021)
3. Sea Storm (2022)

MURDER AT THE WINDMILL. Grand National Pictures, UK, 1949. Released in the US as Murder at the Burlesque by Monogram Pictures (1950). Garry Marsh (Detective Inspector), Jon Pertwee (Detective Sergeant), Jack Livesey, Eliot Makeham, Jimmy Edwards, Diana Decker, Donald Clive. Screenwriter/director: Val Guest.

   The Windmill Theater, that is, a real life performance hall in London, known at one time for a nude girls revue, permitted by the authorities as long as the girls did not move. This being a movie, the closest it comes to anything as risque as that is the inclusion of a fan dancer as one of the acts, with very large feathery fans.

   The movie begins as the theater is closing down for the night, and the cleanup crew finds a dead man sitting in the front row, killed by a bullet shot by someone on the stage, or so the inspector from the Yard quickly deduces.

   His method of finding the killer? Have all of the acts from that night’s program recreated onstage, even if it takes all night.

   And as an immediate result, most of the movie’s 65 odd minutes are taken up by singers, dancers, one lone comedian, complete with trombone, and the aforementioned fan dancer. This is not a bad thing, mind you, as many of the performers on stage are members of the actual singers and dancers at the Windmill at the time of the movie’s making. Finding the killer – for of course this really is a mystery movie – doesn’t happen until the end of the very last repeated number.

   Of some note, perhaps, is seeing Jon Pertwee, a future Doctor Who, as the rather diffident police sergeant on the case, or at least he is in comparison to Garry Marsh as the blustery inspector in charge. It all makes for very light family entertainment, especially resonant to those who still remember the era, now long gone by. You needn’t go out of your way for this one, but on the other hand, it’s easily found on YouTube.

JOHN RHODE & CARTER DICKSON – Fatal Descent. Dr. Horatio Glass & Chief Inspector Hornbeam #1. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1939. Popular Library #87, paperback, 1946. Dover, US, paperback, 1987. Published first in the UK as Drop to His Death (William Heinemann, hardcover, 1939).

   Carter Dickson is of course better known as John Dickson Carr, the most famous locked-room mystery writer of all time, and the locked room in this collaboration with John Rhode, author of many many Dr. Priestley novels, is a doozy. It’s an elevator, and to all practical purposes, a hermetically sealed elevator, into which a man steps in alone at the top floor of a five story office building. When it reaches the bottom floor, he is found dead, shot to death in the head.

   As the elevator passes each floor on its way down, no one is able to stop the car either to get in or get off. Nor could have anyone been able to stand on the roof of the car. He was alone all the way down, but someone managed to kill him anyway. The question is how? And of course, secondarily, why?

   This was the only pairing in print of the two authors and of the two detectives who handle the case. In this instance, it is the professional, Chief Inspector Hornbeam whose technique depends on interpreting facts, while Dr. Glass relies on people, psychology and motive. It is the latter, however, who comes up with more than possible solution, one of which (in my opinion) is as good as the real one, if not better.

   But of course, which checked out, Dr. Glass’s solution does not fit the facts, and that is what finely detailed detective novels depend on. In that regard, this book delivers the goods one hundred percent. Unless uncommonly diligent, the reader will still be fooled every step of the way. My only regret is how complicated the murder plan was, even though the authors do a fine job in trying to explain why the killer had to do it the way he did. (UPDATE: For more on this, please see the comments that follow this review, especially #12.)

   I do not know which author wrote what in this novel, or if one did all of the plotting and the other did the writing. I suspect it was Carr who did the bulk of the work. I recognize his style in detail and humor, but I may be swayed in this regard by having read much more of his work than I have of Rhode’s. Either way, this is a fine example of late 1930s detective fiction writing, and especially if you’re also a fan of locked room mysteries, you should not miss this one.

   
● DAY KEENE – Notorious. Gold Medal #372, paperback original, 1954.

● CHARLES WILLIAMS – Hill Girl. Gold Medal #141, paperback original, 1951.

   In Notorious, Carny boss Ed Ferron finds his show mysteriously shunned by the locals in Bay Bayou on opening day. He’s just coming off two rain-out stands, and a bloomer here will send him into bankruptcy. Keene fills in Ed’s background at this point. He’s an ex-con, having done three years hard labor for killing a man he found in bed with his wife — only to discover at his trial that the unlucky deceased was just one in a long and continuing line of infidelities.

   This has made him leery of cops and women, but when he sees young Marva Miller — returning home after two years in the Big City and a failed career as a nightclub singer — being molested by the station master at the depot, he wades in, decks the masher and offers the lady a ride into town, where they’re both inexplicably harassed by the locals. A trip to Marva’s ol’ homestead finds her drunkard dad recently murdered, money missing, and someone taking shots at them. They call the police, and in another unpleasant surprise, find themselves accused of the murder.

   The story that unfolds is a bit predictable, including the inevitable death of a would-be informer (“Meet me at Nine, and bring money with you. What I know will blow this case wide open!”) and a crucial plot twist strained my credulity a bit too far, but Keene keeps a fast pace, builds tension, and his evocation of carnies and small-town folk (Variously termed Gilhoolies, Puddle-Jumpers, and Thistle-Chins) is vivid if not always quite…..

   Well what’s the word I’m looking for?

   What it comes down to is a tendency of some writers to paint small towns as inherently corrupt, like smaller versions of Chicago, where Day Keene (born Gunard Hjertstedt) grew up in the 1920s. My own experience of small towns, while not extensive, leads me to believe that corruption is harder to get away with in a place where everyone knows your business. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that individuals are like any other commodity: valued more highly where there’s fewer around.

   This folksy attitude comes across colorfully in Charles Williams’ Hill Girl, which starts with Bob Crane returning to his rural home town after two years in college football and a failed career as a boxer. When Bob’s father died, he left his considerable assets to Bob’s brother Lee, but Bob’s grandfather left him the modest farm where he spent his boyhood summers, and he has a yen to get back to it.

   One doesn’t think of Gold Medals as bucolic, but there’s no other description for the feel of getting back to the soil Bob enjoys (and Williams evokes.) He gets along with his nearest neighbor, Sam Harley, contracts with a decent couple to help out on shares, and generally refreshes his soul as he works the land.

   The fly in the ointment, and the crux of the plot, is Bob’s brother Lee, wild, hard-drinking and married but nursing a letch for Sam Harley’s daughter Angelina. Bob sees enough of the relationship to nourish a grudge against the girl, who treats him with heart-felt indifference, but when things boil over and Sam Harley comes gunnin’ after Lee, Bob steps in and tells Sam he was the one Sam saw runnin’ away with his pants down.

   Williams injects a telling note of understanding here. Sam knows Bob is lying, but the lie will save face for all concerned, so he accepts it. All things considered, a live husband is better than a dead philanderer and facing a murder rap.

   So now the story centers on the uneasy relationship between shotgun-wedded Bob and Angelina, and here Williams crafts a nicely readable balance between their finer feelings and the fighting, drinking, and other Manly Stuff essential to any paperback original. And having resolved this, he neatly turns the plot back to Lee, and his passion for his brother’s wife.

   I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that the situation develops with considerable excitement, and includes a magnificent scene that captures the edgy tension of a drunk with a loaded gun.

   No one did this sort of thing better than Gold Medal in those days, and I mourn the passing of this fast, brilliant writing wrapped in gaudy covers at the drugstores of my childhood.

THE WIFE OF MONTE CRISTO. PRC, 1946. John Loder, Lenore Aubert, Fritz Kortman, Charles Dingle, Eduardo Ciannelli, Martin Kosleck, Fritz Feld, Eva Gabor. Screenplay by Dorcas Cochran, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Franz Rosenwalk (Francis Rosenwald) suggested by the novel by Alexandre Dumas. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.

   Almost from the start there were sequels to Alexandre Dumas mega selling The Count of Monte Cristo including The Daughter of Monte Cristo and The Treasure of Monte Cristo by Jules Lermina published orginally as by Dumas himself. The Wife of Monte Cristo is not a sequel, but a retelling, adding a dash of Zorro and casting Haydee, Dantes Indian ward who is a key part of his revenge plot, as the wife of the title.

   The time is 1832, the place France where corrupt government is opposed by the mysterious masked man known as the Avenger. The Prefect of the Police, de Villefort (John Loder) has two reasons to stop the Avenger, one he ruined his father, the other because he is the head of the corrupt elements in the governent backed by the wealthy Danglars (Charles Dingle) and Malliard (Fritz Kortman) who are both part of a plot to sell contaminated medicine during an outbreak of fever.

   De Villefort has set a trap for the Avenger, and it very nearly works when his men ambush the Avenger and his hand is wounded. Now de Villefort is sure he has the man he suspects is the Avenger, the mysterious and wealthy Edmund Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo (Martin Kosleck).

   Monte Cristo manages to outwit de Villefort, going out of town to his hunting lodge and leaving his beautiful wife Haydee (Lenore Aubert) in charge and in contact with the Avengers legion of men.

   But de Villefort still suspects Monte Cristo and the only way to keep him off balance is if the Avenger appears while Monte Cristo is gone so Haydee chooses to don the mask and black costume of the masked hero.

   Meanwhile de Villefort, still certain Monte Cristo is the Avenger, romances Haydee enlisting Mme Malliard (Eva Gabor) in his game to set a trap for the count. But for a time Haydee manages to outwit him, even capturing, putting on trial, and executing Malliard under de Villefort’s nose (in the best sequence of the film shot in smoky dark inns, wine cellars, and on Parisian roof tops), which results in Haydee being arrested, and now it is up to Monte Cristo to return from his hunting lodge and free his wife and avenge his honor as de Villefort has discovered from his spy (Fritz Feld) Monte Cristo is Edmund Dantes.

   All this is standard cloak and dagger, and done on a low budget, but in this case done stylishly by director Edgar G. Ulmer who takes a fairly strong script, an interesting and intelligent heroine in Aubert, who is convincing equally in cape and mask and low cut gown, a dashing and despicable villain in Loder, and a surprisingly dashing and adept hero in Kosleck, who is off screen for much of the film, but returns in time to outwit de Villefort and confront him in his own palace in a well staged duel to the death. Considering Kosleck is best remembered for low budget villainy he is quite good as the swashbuckling mystery man.

   A better than usual supporting cast of Kortman, Dingle, Gabor, Ciannelli, Anthony Warde, and Feld add to the fun while Bruce Lester and Robert J. Wilkie are unbilled in small parts.

   Virginia Christine has a nice bit as a woman who hides Monte Cristo from the soldiers.

   Mostly it is Ulmer who makes this worthwhile. While I don’t quite hold with the auteur theory of Ulmer’s genius, he was capable of making the most of a low budget, poor lighting, inexpensive sets, and a feel for German Expressionism. Here the directors eye and ability to make the most of very little combined with a decent cast and the usual mix of desirable women, flashing swords, swirling cloaks, and masked heroes works better than you might expect.

   This is by no means a great film, but it holds its own with better known and better financed sequels to Monte Cristo like the two Louis Hayward outings The Return of Monte Cristo and The Son of Monte Cristo. Considering those two are well respected among fans of swashbucklers that’s saying quite a bit for this film.

   
WILLIAM R. COX – Hell To Pay. Tom Kincaid #1. Signet #1555, paperback original, 1958.

   William R. Cox started in the pulp field and turned to writing paperback originals in the 1950s. He is probably better known for his westerns and juveniles than for his mysteries, but his contributions to the mystery field should not go unremarked.  In fact, Cox is a very good writer, utilizing sharp characterization and a well-paced narrative, and often providing insightful comments on various topics.

   Hell to Pay is the first in a series of books about Tom Kincaid, a professional gambler. Kincaid functions much like a private eye as he is unwillingly pulled into a gang war between the old members of the Syndicate and a new gang composed of Fifties-style juvenile delinquents. Even Kincaid does not understand his role in this war, but the girlfriend of a man Kincaid has hired is raped and killed, and several attempts are made on Kincaid’s life.

   Along with his other problems, Kincaid has a longtime girl who wants him to leave New York and go west, to Vegas, so that she can work in Hollywood and still be close to him. Before the end of the book, she is involved in the war, too.

   In some ways, reading this book is like reading the old pulps; Cox makes fine use of Fifties slang, and the gambler’s world is depicted with a good sense of realism. All the virtues of pulp fiction are present, with few exceptions. Books like this one make this reviewer wish Cox had done more mysteries.

   Tom Kincaid also appears in two other very good books by Cox: Murder in Vegas (1960) and Death on Location (1962).

     ———
   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.
   

Editorial Comment: I reviewed Death on Location much earlier on this blog. Here’s the link. Be sure to read the comments, where Bill Kelly has recently added a list of all the Tom Kincaid pulp stories.

MILES BURTON – The Man with the Tattooed Face. Inspector Henry Arnold & Desmond Merrion #15. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1937. Previously published in the UK as Murder in Crown Passage (Collins, hardcover, 1937). Albatross Mystery Club #436, paperback, April 1939.

   The face of the dead man found in Crown Passage, a narrow walkway in the small village of Faston Bishop, is indeed marred by tattoos, those of a suspiciously Chinese origin. He had been hit over the head by the proverbial short but very blunt instrument. Unaccustomed to dealing with violent crimes of this nature, the local police force calls for help almost immediately.

   Enter Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard. Even though the dead man worked only at odd jobs as a poor labourer, he never seemed to have been short of money, and he always sat in the more elite section of the local pub. After a few rounds of questioning, Arnold soon has a theory of the case, even down to who done it. This is on page 100 or so of a 280 page novel, so of course we know he’s wrong.

   And so does his friend Desmond Merrion, a former military intelligence officer who often assists Arnold on his various cases, and he doesn’t hesitate in telling the latter so almost as soon as he’s been briefed on the investigation. They do make good pair, though, as they begin looking at the evidence again.

   This is one of those detective mysteries in which almost no action takes place; only a nearly non-stop series of conversations with everyone who is even tangentially involved. Some minor coincidences take place, and I quibble a bit about one aspect of the killer, but no more than that. Modern mystery fans would, I imagine, be bored to tears. But not I, nor probably you, if you have read this far into this review.

   As for me, I loved it. Quiet, polite, and subdued is what I needed when I started this one, and that is exactly I got. And so will you, if you ever manage to find a copy. When last I looked, there were no copies anywhere to be had on the Internet. John Rhode’s books are being reprinted – he’s another of the author’s pen names, the author in question being Cecil John Charles Street – why aren’t Miles Burton’s? There are 61 in all, most of them yet to be published in this country. Help, someone!
   

NOTE: I have read the book once before, and I wrote a review of it back in 1980. It was posted here on this blog in 2013. Here’s the link. I deliberately did not look at this earlier review before writing this later one. I am surprised but pleased to see how similar the two reviews are.

BARRICADE. 20th Century Fox, 1939. Alice Faye, Warner Baxter, Charles Winninger, Arthur Treacher, Keye Luke, Willie Fung, Philip Ahn. Directed by Gregory Ratoff.

   In the midst of war-torn China, an isolated, almost forgotten American consulate is besieged by Mongolian bandits, Trapped inside, among others, are a beautiful American woman (traveling incognito without a passport as the Russian wife of a dead American) and a reporter who is “temporarily” between jobs, fired for having concocted an interview with a Chinese general who (unbeknownst to him) was dead at the time.

   On the surface this is nothing more than a love story, taking place against a background of history’s making, filled with suspense and brave deeds, but once again the real hero is neither of the two leading stars. As the consul who is all but forgotten by his country, Charles Winninger turns in an outstanding performance as a patriot who has not forgotten his country a fraction of an inch. Seemingly bumbling and naive, Winninger shows that his character knows exactly what is going on, and that trampling on the rights of Americans is not an action that should be taken lightly.

   In other words, an old-fashioned movie that’s as timely as last month’s headlines.

CLIVE CUSSLER – Night Probe!  Dirk Pitt #5.  Bantam, hardcover, 1981; paperback, 1982.

   After helping raise the Titanic last time out (*), what could there possibly be for Dirk Pitt to do for an encore? As America’s number one underwater super-agent, even he would seem hard pressed to come up with something to top that one.

   The year is 1989, far enough into the future for the United States to be realistically sinking slowly into bankruptcy, desperately in need of new sources of energy, and yet near enough to avoid being passed off as mere science fiction. Missing are two vitally needed copies of a treaty made with England in 1914, one that would have sold Canada to the United States to help finance the early stages of World War I, but lost to the pages of history by an amazing series of tragic accidents.

   One copy is in an ocean liner now residing at the bottom of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The other is somewhere on a train which met its doom on the very same day, crashing through a bridge crossing the Hudson River.

   Together, their twin disappearances mark one of the greatest vanishing acts of all time. (The treaty was secret. Why is it that hardly anybody remembers either disaster?) The President puts all his faith in Dirk Pitt to produce another miracle.

   Not to be caught napping, Britain calls out of retirement one of the most famous spies the world has ever known, just for the occasion. He is known as “Brian Shaw” in this book, but that won’t fool any of his many fans for. a minute. Reknown as both a ladies’ man and for his even more famous license to kill, “Shaw” proves he has lost none of his touch for either.

   In a word, Clive Cussler’s technical expertise in matters aquanautical is impressive, but if anything his. knack for telling a spell-binder of a story is even more so. Like the old penny-a-word pulpsters, or the directors of the great adventure serials of yesteryear, Cussler is a master of action, intrigue,. and romance (not necessarily in that order), and the pace is never allowed to slacken for a moment.

   If you missed the hardcover (Bantam, 1981), the paperback is now out. You could wait for the movie,  I suppose, but why? (**)

Rating: A

(*) I was incorrect on this. There was another Dirk Pitt adventure between Raising the Titanic! and Night Probe!, that being Vixen 03.

(**) I was incorrect on this as well. There has been no movie made from this book. And surprisingly enough, given the popularity of the Dirk Pitt books, only two of them have been made into films: Raise the Titanic! (1980) and Sahara (2005).