Old Time Radio collector and historian Randy Riddle has come up with another interesting program on his podcast/blog. It’s an Armed Forces rebroadcast episode of Hollywood Startime from 31 March 1946 entitled “Strange Triangle,” an adaptation of the noir film of the same name.

   It stars two of the three original leading players, Signe Hasso (as a truly seductive femme fatale) and John Shepperd. Replacing Preston Foster as the narrator and leading protagonist, though, is Lloyd Nolan, a fellow still known for a long list of B-movie mystery roles. Also in the radio cast is Lurene Tuttle, whose voice OTR fans will immediately recognize as that of Effie from The Adventures of Sam Spade radio program.

   The radio version of Strange Triangle suffers from being cut down in time from a 65 minute movie to only 25 minutes actual air time, but it’s still good entertainment. Give it a listen (click on the link above).

ROBERT B. PARKER – Hundred-Dollar Baby. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover; First Edition, October 2006. Reprint paperback: Berkley, September 2007.

   It was the ending of Ceremony (1982), that was quite controversial at the time, as I recall. A young teen-aged prostitute named April Kyle running from her pimp was able to win Spenser over to her side, and at the end, unable to come up with a better solution, he set her up as a call girl with a madam in Manhattan named Patricia Utley.

   April Kyle was also in Taming a Sea Horse (1986), or so I’ve been told, but if I’ve read that one, I don’t remember it, or I have the ending of the previous book mixed up between the two. (If I don’t take notes, an example of which you’re reading right now, then I tend to mis-remember things.) In any case, in Million-Dollar Baby both Parker and his alter ego, the wise-cracking Boston PI named Spenser, revisit that decision.

   Well. That may be all the plot you need to know. Naturally Spenser needs Susan Silverman right about here as the partner in a lengthy discussion about commercial sex and its pluses and minuses, the effect on society as well on the effect on the women taking an active part in the world’s oldest profession. To coin a phrase.

   This is not as deadly as it sounds, but either you enjoy the relationship between Susan Silverman and Spenser, or you don’t. If you don’t, you probably aren’t reading this review anyway. But as it so happens, I do. I also enjoy it when Spenser needs some muscle, which means calling on the author’s other alter ego, Hawk.

   Manly talk is what goes on then, rather than the domestic talk between Spenser and Susan Silverman, but I have to be honest with you, they are all part and parcel of Robert B. Parker’s fictional world, one of his own creation and one he allowed us to visit once or twice a year while he was alive, and even though he’s gone now, we still have the books.

   In any case, April has branched off from Patricia Utley and has set up shop in Boston, where things went well for a while, but she has now been receiving threats from a gangster and she needs Spenser to cool things down. Which means Spenser needs Hawk. (See above.)

   There are complications, of course, and the fact that everyone is telling lies makes things even more difficult. Some quotes, if I may. From page 19. Spenser is telling Susan about his new case:

   And from pages 209-210. Spenser is talking with one of the suburban housewives who have been working for April in her new venture:

   Make no doubt about it, though. Spenser is one tough character, and the ending of Hundred-Dollar Baby proves it.

WALLENDER. TV4, Sweden. Season 1 (13 episodes), 2005-2006. Krister Henriksson (Kurt Wallander), Fredrik Gunnarsson, Mats Bergman, Stina Ekblad, Marianne Mörck, Douglas Johansson, Johanna Sällström (Linda Wallander). Based on the characters created by Henning Mankell. (Shown with subtitles on BBC4.)

   The most enjoyable programme of the last few months, imho, has been Wallender, not the waffly Kenneth Branagh version but the Swedish version with Krister Henriksson in the title role.

   As I understand it the first in this series was originally made for cinemas, based on Hanning Mankell’s book about Kurt Wallender’s daughter Linda, Before the Frost (Innan frosten), in which the Inspector had only a secondary role. The rest of the 13 part series were made between 2005-2006 and based on plots provided by Mankell but turned into film by other scriptwriters.

   The BBC in their wisdom showed numbers 1 and 6 at the time of the Branagh adaptations and only later started to show the rest of the series. They are a refreshing change with excellent actors who manage to portray their characters as colleagues who go about their work in a natural way.

   The stories are strong and the programmes have been excellent. There has been much praise for the series in the press here, but for some reason the BBC temporarily stopped at number 10, with the final three shown later on.

Editorial Comment: Reports are that Season Two of the Swedish version will be broadcast on BBC4 sometime this coming spring, but without the late Johanna Sällström as Wallender’s daughter Linda.

JAMES MELVILLE – The Wages of Zen. Martin Secker & Warburg, Ltd., UK. hardcover, 1979. Methuen, US, hc, 1981. Reprint paperback: Ballantine/Fawcett Crest, paperback, 1985.

   In this first novel, Melville gives us a very human and very Japanese superintendent of police, Tetsuo Otani, in a case involving foreign students at a small Zen temple. Its priest, Okamoto, is a mysterious person who leads his students in za-zen by day and entertains prostitutes by night.

   The students are a mixed bag: male, female, old, young, Irish, English, American, Danish, hippie, conservative. Otani is called in first when it seems that drugs are being used or sold; next there is a murder.

   In the course of the investigation we are introduced to Otani’s wife, Hanae, and their happy home life, and to his associates in the police and even an Ambassador. The depiction of everyday Japanese life is interesting, and Otani’s thought processes as he attempts to deal with these foreigners and their strange ways are enlightening. Seeing our Western ways through Eastern eyes is quite an experience.

   An enjoyable book.

The Superintendent Tetsuo Otani series  [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

       The Wages of Zen (n.) Secker 1979
       The Chrysanthemum Chain (n.) Secker 1980
       A Sort of Samurai (n.) Secker 1981

       The Ninth Netsuke (n.) Secker 1982

       Sayonara, Sweet Amaryllis (n.) Secker 1983
       Death of a Daimyo (n.) Secker 1984
       The Death Ceremony (n.) Secker 1985
       Go Gently, Gaijin (n.) Secker 1986
       Kimono for a Corpse (n.) Secker 1987
       The Reluctant Ronin (n.) Headline 1988
       A Haiku for Hanae (n.) Headline 1989

       The Bogus Buddha (n.) Headline 1990
       The Body Wore Brocade (n.) Little Brown 1992

A. A. FAIR [Erle Stanley Gardner] – Crows Can’t Count.

William Morrow, hardcover, 1946. Paperback reprints include: Dell 472, mapback edition, 1950; Dell D373, McGinnis cover art, September 1960 (shown); Dell 1625, September 1972.

   Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, two of the best-named characters in American crime fiction, are hired by the trustee of an estate to find out why an emerald necklace belonging to the estate has gone missing. Complications ensue when the other trustee is murdered, leaving behind a pet crow whose behavior is the key to the title.

   This is as irritating a well-crafted book as one might encounter. The plot is convoluted, with the motives and behavior of several completely offstage characters playing important roles. A portion of the book takes place in Colombia, and south-of-the-border stereotypes are pervasive. Bertha Cool comes across as completely useless.

   As an example of craft, here’s how Lam describes a meal:

   Gardner is worth reading, but this one is for completists.

Previously reviewed on this blog:

      Crows Can’t Count (by Steve Lewis)
      Owls Don’t Blink (by Marcia Muller)
      Kept Women Can’t Quit (by Steve Lewis)

REGINALD HILL – Midnight Fugue. HarperCollins, US, hardcover, October 2009. British edition: HarperCollins, hc, 2009.

   Supt. Andy Dalziel has just spent his first week on the job since recovering from injuries he received in Death Comes for the Fat Man. He heads out one Sunday morning, thinking it was Monday, as his telephone was ringing, and winds up in Church where he is approached by Gina Wolfe, who was following him. Unbeknownst to them both, she was being followed by the sister and brother team of Fleur and Vince Delay.

   Gina has come to Yorkshire to ask Andy about her husband Alex, an Inspector at the Met who disappeared almost seven years ago. This was shortly after their daughter had died from leukemia and while he was under suspicion of having relayed information to a black man under investigation named Goldie Gidman. Gidman’s son Dean is now a Tory Member of Parliament and a rising young star of the party (a British Obama since his mother is white) expecting to one day be Prime Minister.

   Now Gina is about to have her husband declared legally dead when she receives a photo in the mail showing Alex in a crowd of onlookers during a visit to Yorkshire by a minor Royal. Gina wants Andy’s unofficial help in finding out if Alex is still alive, while the Delays, in the employ of Goldie Gidman, are also after Alex to silence him permanently.

   It’s always a pleasure to read another Dalziel and Pascoe novel by Mr. Hill, my favorite living crime novelist. Outstanding characterization and clever plotting are in abundance here, and he out-does 24 in that all the action takes place in 18 hours of the same day. Here is also a wonderful ending with Andy restored, in the eyes of his subordinates, back at the top of the Yorkshire Police, and a surprising coda that supplies the justice the law can’t provide.

Previously reviewed on this blog:

   Ruling Passion (by Steve Lewis)

“Crimson Witness.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 3, Episode 12). First air date: 4 January 1965. Peter Lawford, Martha Hyer, Roger C. Carmel, Julie London, Joanna Moore, Alan Baxter, Paul Comi, Larry Thor. Teleplay: Morton S. Fine and David Friedkin. Story: Nigel Elliston. Director: David Friedkin.

   If anybody ever had a strong motivation to commit murder, it’s Ernie Mullett (Peter Lawford), the plant manager of a large firm.

   Ernie’s brother Farnum (Roger C. Carmel) has practically replaced him in everyone’s estimation. His boss (Alan Baxter) has demoted Ernie from manager, putting Farnum in his stead. Ernie’s wife Judith (or Judy — note that name, it’ll prove to be important — played by Martha Hyer) has fallen for Farnum. Even Ernie’s gorgeous secretary and mistress Barbara (Julie London) finds Farnum irresistible. It’s enough to drive a body mad with jealousy, and that’s just what it does.

   Exactly how Ernie deals with this intolerable situation constitutes the remaining three fourths of the play — but I would urge you to pay close attention to the flowers that thread in and out of the story because ultimately they will prove fateful ….

   And you can see Ernie exact revenge on Hulu.

   Even more so than “See the Monkey Dance” (reviewed here ) this episode features a script that sparkles with wit, and all the performers seem to work to achieve it. Morton Fine wrote many episodes for I Spy, The Most Deadly Game, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco, and one for Banacek (“The Vanishing Chalice”). He often teamed with David Friedkin on their TV projects.

   Peter Lawford has the distinction of playing Ellery Queen in the ’70s pilot for a new series (Ellery Queen: Don’t Look Behind You); he also featured in the original Ocean’s Eleven (1960), as well as playing Nick Charles in 72 episodes of The Thin Man TV series (1957-59).

   Roger C. Carmel was good at playing scoundrels; he was “that insufferable, unprincipled kulak” Harry Mudd in three Star Trek episodes. Beautiful Julie London was in The Fat Man (1951) and Crime Against Joe (1956, and reviewed here ), as well as enjoying a long run on the Emergency TV series.

   And we previously talked about Joanna Moore’s appearance in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “Who Needs an Enemy?”

HELEN WEST. British TV mini-series: 3 x 90m, ITV1. Episode One: “Deep Sleep” 6 May 2002. Amanda Burton (Helen West), Conor Mullen (Chief Supt. Bailey); with Annabelle Apsion, Dermot Crowley, Harry Eden, Ian Puleston-Davies. Based on the novel by Frances Fyfield.

   In Frances Fyfields’s mystery novels — there are six of them in which Superintendent Bailey teams up with prosecuting attorney Helen West as a top notch crime solving team — his first name is Geoffrey, but I’m not sure whether came up in the TV show or not.

   The three episodes are available in the US as a boxed set entitled The Helen West Casebook. The other two in the set are also based on Ms. Fyfield’s novels:

       1. 06 May 2002. Deep Sleep
       2. 13 May 2002. Shadow Play.
       3. 20 May 2003. A Clear Conscience

   An earlier book was also adapted for television: Trial by Fire (1999); in this one Juliet Stevenson and Jim Carter played the two leading roles. This unaccountably leaves the first book in the series (A Question of Guilt) and the last (Without Consent) as never having been filmed.

   What all this means is that in “Deep Sleep,” based on the third of the novels, we (the viewers) are plunged straight into the series without much introduction, with Helen West undergoing and recovering from surgery and straight into the arms of her lover, Superintendent Bailey. (As a side comment, I cannot see any conflict of interest there, but their public smooching sometimes borders on the unprofessional.)

   I was going to say that maybe they do things differently in England, but I can’t, since maybe they do in this country also, and I just haven’t been paying attention. Dead in this one, though, is the wife of a well-loved pharmacist. Her passing is all but considered to be of natural causes, but a noticeable amount of chloroform in her blood keeps Helen from closing the case.

   Making the story a little more complicated is the fact that the pharmacist’s assistant, whom he seems to have eyes for, is the former wife of one of the officers under Bailey’s command == and the officer in question is not reconciled with the separation, not at all.

   There is also the matter of a kidnapped child, the suspicious death of a neighborhood junkie, and an unexploded bomb discovered while tearing down a row of worn-out tenement buildings.

   It all adds up to a lot of story, as perhaps you can tell. While Helen West takes a rather small role, surprisingly enough, when all is said and done, all of the activity in it certainly revolves about her. Even though this particular episode is far more a crime thriller than it is a work of detective fiction, I enjoyed it anyway. I’ve not watched the other two films in this set, but I shall, and quickly too.

RICHARD SALE – Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep.   Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1936. Paperback reprints: Armed Services Edition #S-7, 1940s. Popular Library 247, 1950.

Strange Cargo. MGM, 1940.   Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Ian Hunter, Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas, Albert Dekker, J. Edward Bromberg, Eduardo Ciannelli. Screenplay: Lawrence Hazard, based on the novel Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep, by Richard Sale. Director: Frank Borzage.

   I’m a deeply spiritual person, in my own shallow, materialistic way, so as the Holidays drew near, I elected to read/ watch something morally uplifting and settled on Richard Sale’s Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep and the movie made from it, Strange Cargo.

   Sale’s book is a taut, gritty, down-and-dirty parable of redemption, dealing Fate to ten convicts trying to escape from a tropical prison hell, written in spare, evocative prose, and filled with action and suspense that somehow doesn’t cheapen the story. It’s also populated with a colorful cast of well-wrought characters, some of whom surprised me from time to time.

   Unlike most parables, Narrow doesn’t shirk from things that were considered shocking in its time, like homosexuality, and pedophilia (still pretty shocking today, but no longer taboo in literature). In short, this is a one-of-a-kind thing, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good read a little off the beaten path.

   A few years after it was published, Narrow got the MGM treatment, released as Strange Cargo, and should have been an unmitigated disaster, what with Joan Crawford written into the story (by Anita Loos, no less) to redo her Sadie Thompson bit, Clark Gable as an unrepentant and very virile heel, plus a cast of familiar character actors including Albert Dekker, Peter Lorre, Eduardo Cianelli, J. Edward Bromberg and Ian Hunter as the mysterious figure who somehow dominates the action despite Gable and Crawford.

   In fact, this is surprisingly a very effective film, thanks mostly to director Frank Borzage, who steers it deftly between schmaltz and pretentiousness, getting powerful performances from the stars but never letting them run away with the story. And there’s a fine bit from Paul Lukas as a satanic convict not in the book. The scene where he parts company with Hunter and the rest of the group, like an angel cast out of heaven, is one of those creepy, unforgettable movie moments that carry real dramatic weight.

   As a footnote, I might add that despite some cheap sops to the censors, this film was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, I think because it depicts God as a nice guy who tries to help out when he can.

   I agree wholeheartedly with the review Steve Lewis recently did of Goldsmith’s Detour. It’s every bit as fine as the much-lauded film version (which follows the novel’s progression fairly closely), and unputdownable once begun.

   It so happens I have a copy of Double Jeopardy, which I’ve read and which is excellent if not quite as good as Detour. I thought everyone might like to see a scan of the jacket of the earlier book; it’s included here, as is one of the first edition of Detour. Both books were published by Macaulay.

   Here’s the dust jacket blurb for Double Jeopardy, in its entirety:

   Amen to that last line.

   Goldsmith’s third and final novel, Shadows at Noon (Ziff-Davis, 1943), is a dark wartime fantasy that examines what might have happened to a disparate group of ordinary citizens if Nazi bombers had actually penetrated U.S. air space and dumped their payloads on a large American city. Interesting, but not nearly as good as his two crime novels.

   Goldsmith spent some twenty years in Hollywood, beginning in the mid 40s, where one of his first film scripts was for the film version of Detour. He later scripted several other B films and wrote for episodic TV. Another of his films was The Narrow Margin, the well-regarded 1952 version; he also wrote an episode of The Twilight Zone. His other claim to fame is that he was married to Anthony Quinn’s sister.