PAUL KEMPRECOS – Neptune’s Eye. Bantam, paperback original, September 1991.

   This is a long book, over 300 pages of small print, and so even at a $4.50 cover price, you’re getting your money’s worth. It’s also a private eye novel, and while I like PI novels almost more than any other kind of detective story, I think that 300 pages of small print is too long. While PI stories might not need to be short, they do need to be snappy, and after 300 pages I found that this one had long since lost its snap.

   It is the second adventure for Aristotle “Soc” Socarides, the first being Cool Blue Tomb, published a few months before, also by Bantam. It begins as a missing daughter caper, but quickly heads off in several directions: first, as a murder mystery; then as an industrial espionage story involving a notorious arms dealer and a large Cape Cod scientific community; as a World War II Nazi novel; and as a deep-sea diving adventure.

   While all this is going on, Socarides must also locate his sister, who has run away from home. In a certain sense, I disapprove of this trend. Hercule Poirot never had to work on a case for his mother. Sam Spade never had to work on a case for his mother. Perry Mason never had to work on a case for his mother. (The list goes on.)

   Or in other words, everything is in here except for the stopper for the kitchen sink. Socarides is also a wise mouth when it comes to cops who have an attitude toward PI’s who have wise mouths and seem to barge in on murder cases where they’re not wanted. I’ve read this before, and so have you.

   There are also times in the tale when Socarides’ actions are also very dumb, and that he is alive to tell the story when it’s over came as quite a surprise to me. The murder mystery has been solved at a point when there are still fifty pages to go, which are then used to clear up all the other loose ends. Neatly enough, I should add, but by that time I’m afraid I just didn’t care enough.

Rating:   C.

       The Aristotle “Soc” Socarides series —

1. Cool Blue Tomb (1991)     [Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel]

2. Neptune’s Eye (1991)
3. Death in Deep Water (1992)

4. Feeding Frenzy (1993)
5. Bluefin Blues (1997)

   Since 1999 Paul Kemprecos has been the co-author of several novels in Clive Cussler’s “NUMA Files” series. At least the first two books of his own series are hard to find, and in nice condition have become rather pricey (in the $20 to $30 range).

DR. NO. United Artists, 1962. Sean Connery, James Bond, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Bernard Lee, Anthony Dawson, Zena Marshall, John Kitzmuller, Eunice Gayson, Lois Maxwell. Director: Terence Young.

   What can I say? This was one of those movies that hit me at an impressionable age and gave me the notion that it might be fun to Fight Crime for a living. Watching it now, in the Wisdom of my advancing years, I tried to figure out just how it got so dated; I mean, here’s the Hero, running around in a button-down suit, with a dumb hat like my Uncle Wayne used to wear, cracking corny jokes and slicking his hair down with Vitalis.

   Then I realized just how long it has been since I was Young and Impressionable.

   Let me try to put it in Historical Context: The Movies learned to talk somewhere around 1930. This film was made in 1962, some 32 years later. How much time has elapsed since the making of Dr. No and the writing of this piece?

   I tell you, it’s enough to make a man think.

   It may be, then, that in not so many more years, Dr. No will seem as charmingly energetic as The Westland Case and The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen. It certainly has a lot going for it, what with fights, car crashes, bad back-projection and the improbably-cantilevered Ursula Andress in her screen debut.

   Maybe so.

FRED DICKENSON – Kill ’Em with Kindness. Bell Publishing, hardcover, 1950. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, July 1950. Bestseller B131, digest paperback, no date.

   Although you couldn’t fault Ronald Tompkins’s physical preference in females, you could definitely criticize his judgment in regard to brides. Six was the number he had reached, with the marriages lasting from 16 hours to six weeks.

   As he is preparing for No. 7, he is planning to hire Mack McGann, former FBI man and now private eye, because he fears for his life.’ While McGann is elsewhere in Tompkins’s house interviewing an inebriated disc jockey who had just brought Tompkins a personal warning, Tompkins is shot dead in his study.

   Dickenson’s only mystery breaks no new ground, indeed doesn’t disturb any of the old ground. The murderer is patent, the characters not all that interesting, and McGann’s FBI training apparently wasn’t up to that outfit’s best. However, the dialogue and McGann’s sense of humor save it from being just a time waster.

   From the introduction:

    “Davis Dresser (1904-1977) was an American writer best known for the Michael Shayne mystery series, written under the pseudonym of Brett Halliday. […]

    “Besides writing the Michael Shayne series, Dresser was also prolific as a western writer [including many of the “Powder Valley” series as Peter Field] and had cut his teeth writing ‘love novels’ for the lending library publishers of the 1930s. […]

    “[This] is an attempt to draw together, in one place, all of Davis Dresser’s books and pseudonyms, in as many editions as possible, and to explicate the attributions of the more obscure pseudonyms.”

   Check it out here:

http://www.philsp.com/homeville/KRJ/Davis_Dresser_Bibliography.pdf

REBECCA JENKINS – Death of a Radical. Quercus, UK, softcover, 2010.

Genre:   Historical Mystery. Leading character:  Frederick Raif Jarrett; 2nd in series. Setting:   England, 1813.

First Sentence:   Ancient walls rose up against an indigo sky.

   It’s 1812 and the beginning of the industrial revolution but not everyone is embracing technology. Luddites and radicals fear these advances will be the end of independent craftspeople.

   In the town of Woolbridge, the Easter fair threatens to erupt in violence. One of the local judges brings in the military as a precaution. Jarrett, agent to the Duke of Penrith, must look to his young, visiting cousin, balance the attentions of two lovely ladies, and find out who murdered a man found laid out neatly in his bed.

   As soon as I began reading Death of a Radical, I was immediately reminded of the reasons why I enjoyed the first book, The Duke’s Agent (1997).

   I value an author’s ability to create a sense of place through written pictures:   “This was land pared down to its primitive bones. …an enchanted land that might flick them off into oblivion with a shiver of its crust.” Now there’s an image that can’t help but stay with you.

   Jenkins brings the place, people, and story to dimensional life for the reader. This is enhanced by the excellent dialogue. The speech is reflective of the period but not labored. The exchanges between the cousins, Raif and Charles, have the natural banter of those who are close. The young cousin, Favian, whom the older cousins refer to as “Grub,” is convincing in idolization of his older cousins while stretching his newly-found independence.

   There are quite a lot of characters in the story, some of whom were more fully developed than others and I occasionally had trouble remembering who was who. I often do wish more publishers would allow for a cast of characters.

   What I did particularly appreciate was that through a tragic story and bits of conversation, we learn much more of Raif’s background and history. Raif and Charles are characters in whom I’ve become invested and about whom I definitely want to know more.

   One element I found interesting was that, to me, the book has a feel of being very much a “man’s” book, similar to the Patrick O’Brian books. This is not, at all, a criticism. The principal characters are all very much male, even with the female characters adding a romantic/sexual element. The series has a definite swashbuckler feel to it, even though it’s on land. It may be due to the period in which it’s set or the strength of the male characters, but I very much liked it.

   The story has a very good plot with good twists, diversions and side threads. There is an excellent buildup of tension and a terrible release from it. The end was at points
both poignant and highly satisfying with the door being left open for more to come.

   I do sincerely hope so although I also hope it’s not another 13 years before we see Jarrett again. Please get writing, Ms. Jenkins, your readers are waiting.

Rating:   Very Good.

LADY ON A TRAIN. Universal Pictures, 1945. Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce, George Coulouris, Allen Jenkins, Dan Duryea, Edward Everett Horton, Jacqueline deWit, Patricia Morison. Original story: Leslie Charteris. Director: Charles David.

   This is a fun little comedy with noir elements, made late in Deanna Durbin’s career when she was trying to escape from the girl next door roles she apparently felt trapped in. After only a few more films she pulled a Garbo and retired from public life. (Durbin later married the film’s director and they retired to live on a farm outside Paris.)

   Debutante Nicki Collins (Durbin) is on a train from San Francisco, on a visit to her aunt. When the train is about to pull into Grand Central Station in New York she glances up from the mystery she is reading and out the window of the train. She sees into the window of the building opposite and watches as a man with his back to her strikes another man in the head with a blunt object.

   When she reaches New York she goes to the police (William Frawley as the desk sergeant) to report a murder but he thinks she is a crank. She contacts Wayne Morgan (David Bruce), the writer of the mystery she was reading, but he doesn’t want to help her either.

   So she decides to investigate on her own. Here she becomes Nancy Drew — she discovers the identity of the victim, and goes to his house, where during the reading of the will she is mistaken for a night club singer who was having an affair with the victim and who also is his major heir.

   She gets to meet the victim’s nutty family and his sinister servants, one of whom may be the killer. This mistake allows her to assume the identity of the singer at the nightclub The Circus and seamlessly sing several numbers including “Night and Day.”

   What is very rare for a movie of the period, she is not the companion of the male writer; she leads the investigation, and shows no fear even when she gets herself into dangerous situations. It doesn’t hurt the story any that she is also very pretty and has a terrific voice.

   The black and white photography is very good, with major noir overtones featuring scenes of dark shadows, unlit rooms, and sections filmed outside at night. About the only drawback to the movie is some very mild racial stereotyping of the writer’s black servant. If you have never seen this before, give it a try.

Rating:   B Plus.

   Just about everyone is familiar with the iconic greats of silent film comedy, but Charley Chase, a multi-talented comedian, a director, writer and actor, also an accomplished musician, who appeared in some of the best silent film two-reelers, is largely forgotten today.

   Not however, by the programmers of film conventions, with Cinevent 40 [Columbus OH, May 2008] taking pride of place for its annual screening of selected comedies. Three of his shorts opened the Sunday evening program,with “Bromo and Juliet” (1926) one of his best, followed closely by the inspired antics of “Forgotten Sweeties” (1927) and “Movie Night” (1929).

   Charlie was an eternal optimist, striving to be successful in love and in business, and usually failing miserably at both. In “Bromo and Juliet,” directed by Leo McCarey, Charley is starring in an amateur production of Shakespeare (and just to see him, with his spindly legs in tights, is enough to justify the price of admission).

   He’s undercut by his fiance’s father, who has a weakness for the bottle, and constantly thwarted by Oliver Hardy as a taxi driver who just wants to get paid for his services. When the hapless Charley finally gets onstage, his histrionics catch the audience’s fancy, and his every misadventure feeds their delighted appreciation.

    “Forgotten Sweeties,” directed by James Parrott (Charley’s younger brother), deals with a classic Chase situation, the husband who’s suspected by his wife of cheating on her with an attractive neighbor.

    It’s all a comedy of misunderstanding, but the misunderstandings result in some perilous marital moments for Charley, before it’s all resolved happily, if messily.

   The final short, “Movie Night,” with a story by Leo McCarey and directed by Lewis Foster and an uncredited James Parrott, has Charley, his wife and two kids (with the older played by the inimitable Spec O’Donnell) set off for an evening at the movies, where chaos eventually ensues.

   This reinforced my long-time conviction that the only place to sit in a movie theater is on the aisle.

   I am reprinting this from Fatal Kiss #13, which was the name that my mystery fanzine was going by at the time, but no matter the name, it was still Mystery*File.

   Forty-three voters participated in all. Each voter was to supply me a listing of his or her top ten television shows of the detective, mystery, crime, or suspense genre. Not everyone did. Some obvious misunderstandings such as votes for Mary Tyler Moore, no matter how well intended, were discarded. I otherwise left it up to the individual voter’s discretion as to how far the limits of the category could be stretched, at least in all situations in which a case of any kind could be made for the marginal show in doubt.

   Point totals were assigned as follows: A show rated as a Number One was given 10 points; shows listed as a Number Two, 9 points; and so on. If a voter did not rank his or her choices, or in cases of ties, the corresponding point totals were split equally.

   If a person voted for 5 or fewer shows, that person’s Number One show was given only 5 points, and so on, on the grounds that someone voting for only one program could thus skew the voting point totals disproportionately. And, I’m sorry, all honorable mentions were likewise honorably ignored.

   Votes for the Sunday Mystery Movie were, rightly or wrongly, split between Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan & Wife, the most well-known and longest-lasting of that multi-part feature. This incorrectly ignores the lesser-known shows that appeared as part of that series, shows such as Hec Ramsey and Amy Prentiss. Sorry, Hec. In the point totals that follow, the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie did receive one first place vote which was not otherwise tabulated.

   Here then, finally, are the results:

SHOW     POINTS     VOTERS     NUMBER OF FIRST PLACE VOTES

COLUMBO     132     23     7
THE ROCKFORD FILES     123.5     23     2
THE AVENGERS (1)     119.5     17     5
ELLERY QUEEN (2)     102    17     2
PETER GUNN     72.5     13     3

      (1) Six voters specified only the version that starred Diana Rigg.
      (2) The version with Jim Hutton was either specified or assumed.

PERRY MASON     71     13     0
DRAGNET (3)     68     10     2
PETER WIMSEY (PBS)     60.5     10     1
THE OUTSIDER     53     7     2
QUINCY     46     9     1

      (3) Four voters specified only the Webb/Alexander version.

McCLOUD     41.5     9     0
POLICE STORY     41.5     7     0
BARNEY MILLER     40.5     7     0
HARRY O     38.5     8     0
THE UNTOUCHABLES     38     6     1

THE SAINT (4)     35     6     0
IRONSIDE     33.5     7     2
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE     30.5     5     0
ALFRED HITCHCOCK     30     5     1
NAKED CITY     30     5     0

       (4) Four voters specified only the version with Roger Moore.

NOTE: Now that we’re out of the top twenty, I will no longer include the number of voters, and the number of First Place votes, if any, will follow the total points in parentheses.

I SPY     29
KOJAK     26
McMILLAN AND WIFE     26 (1)
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.     26 (1)
THE EDDIE CAPRA MYSTERIES     25 (1)

THE DEFENDERS     24.5 (1)
THE PRISONER     23
THE SNOOP SISTERS     23
MYSTERY! (PBS)     22.5
M SQUAD     21

BANACEK     20
T.H.E. CAT     19.5
MANNIX     18
THE ROGUES     18 (1)
DANGER MAN / SECRET AGENT     18

MR. AND MRS. NORTH     17 (1)
BURKE’S LAW     17
KAZ     16.5
THE RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES     15 (1)
MAVERICK     14.5

CITY OF ANGELS     13
HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL     12.5
DIAGNOSIS: UNKNOWN     12
ELLERY QUEEN [with George Nader]     12
THE FUGITIVE     11.5

CHECKMATE     11
HAWAII FIVE-O     11 (1)
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER     11
THE THIN MAN     10
BARETTA     10

HIGHWAY PATROL     10
CHARLIE’S ANGELS     10 (1)
HEC RAMSEY     9
BARNABY JONES     9
COLONEL MARCH OF SCOTLAND YARD     9

KRAFT MYSTERY THEATER     9
THE NAME OF THE GAME     9
77 SUNSET STRIP     8
THE LINEUP     8
MAN AGAINST CRIME     8

TOMA     8
IT TAKES A THIEF     7
HAWK     7
ADAM-12     7
THE BIONIC WOMAN     7

THE BOLD ONES     7
DEAR DETECTIVE     7
THE LONE WOLF     7
MADIGAN     7
STARSKY AND HUTCH     6.5

TENSPEED AND BROWNSHOE     6.5
CANNON     6
DRAGNET [the later version]     6
THRILLER     6
TIGHTROPE     6

MARK SABER     6
DELVECCHIO    5.5
THE MOONSTONE     5.5
WHIRLYBIRDS     5.5
GET SMART     5

RICHARD DIAMOND     5
LOU GRANT     5 (1)
JOHNNY STACCATO     5
MIKE HAMMER     5
MR. LUCKY     5

REX STOUT’S “THE DOORBELL RANG”     5
WILD WILD WEST     5
STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO     4.5
BANYON     4
THE EDGE OF NIGHT     4

FOREIGN INTRIGUE     4
JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN     4
WONDER WOMAN     4
AMY PRENTISS     3
ELLERY QUEEN [with Hugh Marlowe]     3

ESPIONAGE     3
MRS. COLOMBO / KATE LOVES A MYSTERY     3
OWEN MARSHALL     3
THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN     3
THE TWILIGHT ZONE     3

ADAMS OF EAGLE LAKE     2
87TH PRECINCT     2
THE MAN CALLED X     2
THE NBC TUESDAY NIGHT MOVIE     2
NIGHT GALLERY     2

THE PERSUADERS     2
SWITCH     2
YANCY DERRINGER     2
CAIN’S 100     1
McCOY     1

NANCY DREW     1
WHO DONE IT?     1
WIDE WORLD MYSTERY     1

[UPDATE] 10-05-11.   In the original presentation of these poll results, I included the names of all the voters. I’ve decided not to at this later date, but if there’s a consensus that suggests they’d be relevant, then I will.

   Otherwise, you may take this as a small snapshot in time, with an insignificant number of voters, but nonetheless with a number of surprising and interesting results. I hope you agree!

THE DOUBLE TAKE – Roy Huggins. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1946. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, January 1946. Pocket 524, paperback, June 1948; Pocket 2524, 2nd printing, 1959. Basis for the film I Love Trouble, 1947, reviewed here.

   Surprisingly enough, this is the only novel featuring PI Stu Bailey that Roy Huggins wrote. (The 1959 paperback 77 Sunset Strip was made up of three previously published novelettes, and it’s obvious that it came out only after the TV show became a hit.)

   I say “surprisingly” because I didn’t realize it myself until I just looked it up in Hubin’s book. Huggins wrote two other novels, but neither one has Stu Bailey as a character in it. And yet, because of the TV show, Stu Bailey still might be one of the country’s more famous private eyes.

   The book is a retread of Chandler territory, though, while the Stu Bailey in the TV series was a much more “hip” character, light and breezy. The book is a murky, dark and drizzly sort of affair, complete with witty similes, spread like fertilizer, two or three to a page, and the ground it covers is a long way from the glitzy world of Hollywood and Sunset Strip. (Not that any of the above is a bad thing!)

   In the case covered by The Double Take, Bailey is hired to find out what secret lies in the past of the wife of a worried husband, a secret so dangerous she could be blackmailed about it. The deeper he digs, however, the more bewildering the trail becomes. She was a stripper at one time, he finds out, and then she may (or may not) have headed off to Brazil.

   Then when someone who knew her back then dies, then someone who also knew her no longer recognizes her, the trail becomes even more confused. Except to veteran detective story readers, of course, who should be counted on to put two and two together just a little more quickly than Stu Bailey.

   The end result is a book that is interesting, but one that never becomes enthralling. Huggins soon left the world of book fiction, going into TV almost exclusively, writing, producing and directing.

   It’s hard to say he made the wrong choice. Speaking for myself, though, I think it would have been nice if there had been a second full-length appearance by the Stu Bailey who appears in this book. Or more!

Rating: B plus.

[UPDATE] 10-05-11.   If you were to go read the review of the movie I wrote, and you should, of course, you may be amused as much as I was when I said that I thought I’d read the book, but after watching the movie, I decided I hadn’t! Didn’t recognize it at all.

CAMPBELL’S KINGDOM. J. Arthur Rank, UK, 1957. Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Michael Craig, Barbara Murray, James Robertson Justice, Sid James. Based on the novel by Hammond Innes. Director: Ralph Thomas.

   I watched this movie about a week ago, without planning to write up any comments about it. Just too ordinary, I thought. But thinking about it again this afternoon, it occurred to me that calling a film ordinary is a review, of sorts. All I have to do is expand upon it, and so here I am.

   Not knowing enough about British film-making to say for sure, I don’t believe they ever went in for producing westerns. (Western novels are another matter. There are more westerns published in the UK today than there are in the US.) Campbell’s Kingdom is, I think, an exception. It takes place in Canada, though, somewhere in the western Rockies, so maybe it’s an almost-but-not-quite sort of exception.

   Either way, the star of the film, Dirk Bogarde is no Alan Ladd (the closest American equivalent I have come up with) but as Bruce Campbell, the sickly heir who’s comes from Britain to claim his property high up in the mountains, he’s entirely believable. His grandfather died convinced there was oil on the land, and despite plans by the locals to build a dam and flood the property in the process, Bogarde refuses to sell and knuckles down to build a well to prove his grandfather was right.

   Of course there also is crooked business at work, with the number one villain being Stanley Baker, the foreman of the dam building project, so while the plot may be predictable, the going is not easy.

   Bogarde does find a few allies, chief of whom is a girl (Barbara Murray), but with only a few months to live (his doctor’s assessment), romance seems to be all but out of the question.

   The color photography is wonderful, and some the hazards of working in the isolated wilderness are shown to great effect (the outdoors scenes were filmed in the Italian Alps). Back in 1957, some of the closing scenes must have been spectacular to see on the screen. But there’s no “oomph” in the plotting to make me want to tell you that you have to go out and buy the just released DVD of this movie.

   Obviously I remember enough of the film to tell you as much as I have here about the film, but my initial assessment remains the same. Ordinary, just ordinary.