MICHAEL CONNELLY – The Poet. Little Brown, hardcover, January 1996. Trade paperback: Warner, July 2002; mass market paperback: Warner Vision, January 1997.

   Jack McEvoy is a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, and Death is his beat; he covers stories in which someone has died, be it by murder, suicide or accident. Now he is in the back seat of a police car on the way to his brother’s house to tell his sister-in-law that her husband is dead.

   His brother Sean was a police detective who apparently drove to a nearby lake and shot himself. Over the past several weeks he had been investigating the murder of Theresa Lofton, a teenage girl whose body was discovered in a park, severed in half.

   The case seemed to have gotten to him so badly that he killed himself, leaving as his only note a line of poetry on his car’s fogged up window: a line from a poem by Poe that’s contained in the story “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

   After a vacation following his brother’s funeral, Jack decides to do a story on the rate of suicides by policemen. While researching it, he comes across an article in the New York Times that mentions the suicide of a Chicago detective who obsessed over the murder of a little boy — a case also unsolved. His suicide note also consisted of a line of poetry from Poe.

   That’s too coincidental for Jack. He’s soon traveling to Washington, D. C. and Baltimore where his investigation comes to the notice of the FBI. The FBI reluctantly agrees to join forces with him (to keep him from writing about it prematurely) as they discover at least six cases of policemen who apparently committed suicide, leaving as their only notes a line from Poe.

   Meanwhile, every third or fourth chapter is not told in the first person by Jack but is in the third person as we follow a pedophile named William Gladdin as he tries to stay in the business of taking shots of unclad children to peddle over the internet.

   Extremely well written, with fine characterization and gripping suspense up to a point, but I felt Connelly may have gone overboard with the twists at the end. It seems to have done well enough, as there has been a sequel, The Narrows, a book in which Harry Bosch appears.

       —
Editorial Comment: Ray recently reviewed The Narrows here on this blog. It’s my error in posting them in the wrong order!

W. R. BURNETT – Dark Hazard. Harper & Brothers, hardcover, 1933. Paperback reprints include: Hillman #20, 1949; Lancer 71-307, no date stated (early 1960s).

Film: First National, 1934 (with Edward G. Robinson, Genevieve Tobin, Glenda Farrell). Also: Warner Bros., 1937, as Wine, Women and Horses (with Barton MacLane, Ann Sheridan).

   When you read a book where the central character starts out with a bit of a gambling problem, you usually end up with a story about a guy with a gambling problem in a drunk tank wondering “is sports betting legal in Florida?” Period.

   But W.R. Burnett wasn’t your usual writer, and Dark Hazard is about a lot more than the standard gambling-addict tribulations: it’s about things like the denizens of a big city hotel moving up and down the social scale; gamblers, gangsters and hangers-on; slick California dog-racing and rustic Ohio babbitry; and finally it’s just about the special bond between a man and his dog, conveyed in prose at once moving and tough as a dime — worth the trouble of seeking out.

Editorial Comment: Some while ago Dan reviewed Romelle here on this blog, also by W. R. Burnett.

   
SUZANNE BLANC – The Green Stone. Carroll & Graf, reprint paperback, 1984. Previous editions: Harper & Brothers, hc, 1961. Detective Book Club, hc, 3-in-1 edition, February 1962. Lancer, pb, 1966.

    “Perhaps it is not prophecy at all but the belief in prophecy that fulfills it…” and destiny that brings certain people together in a given place, at a given time. For Mr. and Mrs. Randall, their destiny is to be murdered on a Mexican highway by bandits. And for Mrs. Randall’s emerald ring to be responsible for the danger and near death of Jessie Prewitt and ruin for Luis Pérez.

    Jessie Prewitt comes to Mexico to flee the painful memories of her broken marriage. Luis Pérez, a tourist guide, hankers after a life of ease and wealth — and feels the possibility brush his fingertips when the beautiful emerald comes into his possession.

    As quickly, police suspicion also brushes against Pérez, and he passes the gem onto Jessie (without her knowledge) when the police come to question him. Pérez intends to reclaim the jewel later — no matter what danger or force results.

    As pressure builds for the police to find the emerald and solve the Randalls’ murder, so does the tension and suspense surrounding Pérez’ determination to regain the gem, and Jessie’s unwitting thwarting of his aim.

    Told from the omniscient viewpoint, Suzanne Blanc creates very human characters, and allows the reader to understand their frustrations, anxieties and pleasures. Like a finely tuned piece of machinery, all the parts of this book work together in unison. The result is an exquisite “gem” of a story — seemingly plain and simple, but full of depth and color when held to the light.

    Don’t neglect this one!

   
Bibliographic Data: [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

        BLANC, SUZANNE. Ca. 1915-1999

    The Green Stone (n.) Harper 1961 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]   Edgar winner: Best First Mystery, 1962.
    The Yellow Villa (n.) Doubleday 1964 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]
    The Rose Window (n.) Doubleday 1967 [Insp. Miguel Menendes]

    The Sea Troll (n.) Doubleday 1969

TOP O’ THE MORNING. Paramount Pictures, 1949. Bing Crosby, Ann Blyth, Barry Fitzgerald, Hume Cronyn, John McIntyre. Screenplay: Edmond Beloin & Richard L. Breen; director: David Miller.

   Trivia experts likely know that William Levinson and Richard Link created the character of Lt. Columbo for Bing Crosby, but they may not realize Bing had played a detective before, and in fact a private detective in this 1949 musical comedy with a touch of noir.

   Music and murder had mixed before — Charlie Chan at the Opera, Murder at the Vanities, The Princess Comes Across, and Lady of Burlesque come to mind, but those were backstage mysteries, and the singing was confined to the stage. This may be the only full blown musical comedy murder mystery ever filmed.

   It begins with a murder and a shocking theft — the Blarney Stone — which bequeaths the gift of gab on anyone who kisses it — has been stolen. The stone is part of ancient Irish lore and it’s theft could well visit disaster on the entire nation. Finding the stolen stone and restoring it and the killer is of vital importance.

   Enter top American insurance investigator Joe Mulqueen (Bing Crosby), a laid back pipe-smoking crooning detective, sent by Inspector Fallon (John McIntyre) to Ireland find the ancient rock and save the company from having to pay off on the priceless relic.

   But that pits Joe against Sergeant Briany MacNaughton of the Irish Garda Civil, and his fiery daughter Conn (Ann Blyth), and further complications ensue because Joe’s arrival seems to fit all too well a prophecy about who the lovely Conn will marry.

   Top o’ the Morning is by its nature schizophrenic. When Bing isn’t crooning familiar tunes or those written for the film by Burke and Van Heusen, romancing the lovely Blyth, doing the usual Irish shtick with Fitzgerald and most of the cast, and exploring the legend of the Blarney Stone, he’s playing detective investigating a brutal murder.

   Toward the end of the film the mood turns dark and even noirish, and the screenplay acknowledges a nod toward G. K. Chesterton and one of Father Brown’s most famous cases, “The Invisible Man,” as Joe and Sgt. MacNaughton close in on the killer.

   Indeed these scenes almost make you wish the film had been played as a straight detective story, and they have a quiet power as well as a dark noirish look, thanks to Miller’s direction.

   Top o’ the Morning is more of a curiosity than a success. You can’t fault the cast or even the screenplay; the two forms just don’t really work that well together.

   Bing does get to show a little steel beneath the crooning in a few scenes, and he’s always worth watching playing off Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, who played almost as many cops and professional Irishmen, gets to exercise both his specialties here, and Blyth is both lovely and convincing. A special nod to Hume Cronyn as Biddy O’Devlin, who gets to shine briefly in an offbeat film.

   Still Top o’ the Morning is well worth catching, and noir fans will recognize some excellent work toward the end of the film. It’s one of those films that you may find you like far more than it really merits.

GIL BREWER – The Squeeze.   Ace Double D-123, paperback original; 1st printing, 1955.   [Paired with this novel, tête-bêche, is Love Me to Death, by Frank Diamond.]

   A fortune in illicit cash, a sinister gambling joint operator, a gorgeous redhead, and enough double-crossing to last a lifetime … these are the building blocks of The Squeeze, a fast-moving novel by Gil Brewer.

   Written in 1955, The Squeeze is centered around Joe Maule, a Chicago transplant to the southwest Gulf Coast of Florida, the site of many Brewer tales. Joe is in debt to the tune of $12,000, a fortune at the time.

   He owes it to Victor Jarnigan, owner of a nearby illegal casino. Jarnigan, who has cheated Joe out of the money, has concocted a plan to allow him to clear his debt. All Joe has to do is get cozy with Caroline Shreves, local femme fatale.

   Caroline lives with her sister and her husband, who has apparently squirreled away $300,000 in cash. She’s eye-popping, and is given to hanging around local cocktail lounges on weeknights. Joe’s instructions are to develop a relationship with her, then get into the house and try to grab the money.

   Well, Joe gets tight with Caroline, all right, according to the plan, but he falls in too deep. As with most Brewer protagonists, he’s blinded by his lust for this alluring woman who knows all the moves. She appears to fall for him, too, and before you can say “Judas kiss,” the two of them are plotting to grab the money for themselves and split town.

   This is the kind of well-written story that made pulp fiction work back in the day. It’s the kind of novel that immediately draws you in, continuing its hold over you with a steadily building story line and no-frills plotting. It’s pure noir: Joe is screwed from the first page, but he’s the only one who doesn’t know it.

   Brewer’s formula of lonely-guy-meets-beautiful-dish works again, thanks to clever variations in his theme. He pushes all the right buttons in this little gem, which unfortunately has been left in the dust of the last half-century.

Steve,

I just ran across a comment from Bill Crider on the rara avis site about Harlequin censoring the six recent mystery vintage paperbacks that they republished. This really annoys me. See this site for more and a link to the Harlequin site where they cheerfully announce the censorship:

I wish I was joking but I’m not.

Best, Walker

Excerpted from the Harlequin blog:

Remember, our intention was to publish the stories in their original form. But once we immersed ourselves in the text, our eyes grew wide. Our jaws dropped. Social behavior—such as hitting a woman—that would be considered totally unacceptable now was quite common sixty years ago. Scenes of near rape would not sit well with a contemporary audience, we were quite convinced. We therefore decided to make small adjustments to the text, only in cases where we felt scenes or phrases would be offensive to a 2009 readership. Also, grammar and spelling standards have changed quite a bit in sixty years. But that did entail a text edit, which we had not anticipated. AND, we had to clear those adjustments with the current copyright holders, if we had been able to locate them.

And of course, the covers: Though we used the original covers, they had to be scanned and touched up.

Here’s the comment I left:

I’m a collector of old vintage paperbacks, and I have been since I bought them new off the circular racks in drugstores and supermarkets when I was growing up.

This business of sheltering our eyes from things you think might offend us now is absolute nonsense. Who do you think we are, a bunch of weak-kneed sissies? Even if it makes us uneasy every once in a while to look at our past, history IS history, and it’s ridiculous to try to cover it up.

Please do us a favor, and keep publishing your X-rated romance novels, and leave the mystery and noir genres well enough alone. You say you’re delighted to have been able to reprint these books. I think you should be ashamed of yourselves, trampling on the work of others, especially when (as far as I can tell) it’s been done without their permission.

[UPDATE] 01-17-10. David Rachels has done us all a great service, and for doing so, I thank him. He’s taken a copy of one the James Hadley Chase books that was one of the six that Harlequin reprinted, and done a line-by-line comparison with the original.

Not too surprisingly, considering Chase’s reputation (which the editors at Harlequin obviously knew nothing about), not only were there words, phrases and the occasional sentence removed, but entire chunks of text.

Needless to say, unless done with really skilled hands, besides the fact that’s tampering with the author’s intentions, it also hardly makes for smooth reading. See David’s blog for full details.

P. G. WODEHOUSE – The Code of the Woosters. Herbert Jenkins, UK, hardcover, 7 October 1938. US First Edition: Doubleday Doran, hc, 1938. Reprinted many times.

TV Adaptation: The book is the basis for the first two episodes of the second season of the ITV series Jeeves and Wooster. “The Silver Jug (or Jeeves Saves the Cow Creamer)” 14 April 1991, and “The Bassetts’ Fancy Dress Ball (or, A Plan for Gussie)” 21 April 1991.

    A rip-roaring novel length yarn in which Bertram Wooster and his faithful manservant end up at the stately Totleigh Towers, where Bertie finds himself deep in the soup trying to help friends and family, and it is up to Jeeves to pull him out.

    It all starts when Aunt Dahlia asks Bertie to procure a silver cow creamer from an antique dealer, and in the process of helping his “old flesh-and-blood,” he crosses paths with Sir Watkyn Bassett who suspects him of larceny. Bertie goes face to face with a hat-stealing curate, a fascist with a secret, and an Aberdeen Terrier with an attitude.

    The book has a few funny literary references. Bertie asks Jeeves about “the cat chap” (Shakespeare for Lady Macbeth’s comment: “Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’ the adage.”)

    The novel ends with Bertie falling asleep as he tries to recall the words of Robert Browning, something with a snail and a wing and all being right with the world. When you finish reading a book like this, you know that the snail is on the wing, and the lark on the thorn, and God is in His heaven, and all is right with the world

K — THE UNKNOWN.   Universal, 1924. Virginia Valli, Percy Marmont, Margarita Fisher, John Roche, Maurice Ryan, Francis Feeny. Screenplay by Louis D. Lighton and Hope Loring, from the novel “K” by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Director: Harry A. Pollard. Shown at Cinecon 40, Hollywood CA, September 2004.

   The credit for Mary Roberts Rinehart took fellow attendee John Apostolou and me by surprise, since neither of us had ever heard of the source novel. The St. James reference guide includes the 1915 publication not with Rinehart’s crime novels, but with her “Other Publications,” although if the screen version is at all faithful to the original novel it is, like much of Rinehart’s work, a romantic suspense drama.

   It draws on Rinehart’s early career as a nurse and her skill at dealing with small-town settings (with no use of “rube” humor as claimed in tile program notes) into which she injects a generous dollop of melodrama that centers around a mysterious stranger (Marmont) who is in love with Sidney (Valli), his landlady’s niece, also the object of affection of two adolescents and a famous doctor, the pride of the local hospital.

   Both the stranger and the doctor have secrets, as does the doctor’s chief assistant (Margarita Fisher), and at least one of them is capable of murder.

   This entertaining film succeeds thanks to its good cast and intelligent direction, and some fine photography that the American Film Index credits attribute to Charles Stumar.

   Stumar would remain at Universal into the 1930s when he would be principal photographer on The Werewolf of London, The Mummy, and The Raven (1935 version).

   Both John and I thought this was a genuine “sleeper.”

Editorial Comment: For what it’s worth, the novel “K” is not included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, not even with a dash. Is this an error? I shall ask and find out.

   Commentary on books I’ve covered in the New York Times Book Review.   [Reprinted from The Armchair Detective, Vol. 1, No. 4, July 1968.]

    Previously on this blog:
Part 1 — Charlotte Armstrong through Jonathan Burke.
Part 2 — Victor Canning through Manning Coles.
Part 3 — Stephen Coulter through Thomas B. Dewey.
Part 4 — Charles Drummond through William Garner.
Part 5 — Richard H. Garvin through E. Richard Johnson.
Part 6 — Henry Kane through Emma Lathen.

NORMAN LEWIS – Every Man’s Brother.   William Morrow, US, hardcover, 1968. UK edition: William Heinemann, hc, 1967. Bron Owen, an epileptic released from a prison sentence served for unremembered crimes, runs unresistingly into a murder charge in this compelling novel set in Wales.

ROBERT MacLEOD – The Iron Sanctuary.   Holt Rinehart & Winston, US, hardcover, 1968. UK edition: John Long, hc, 1966, as Lake of Fury. This is a cut or two above the run-of-the-trenchcoat spy story, featuring Talos Cord’s second peace-keeping mission for the UN, this time in East Africa where rumbles of arms buying have been heard.

A. C. MARIN – The Clash of Distant Thunder.   Harcourt Brace & World, US, hardcover, 1968. Paperback reprint: Pinnacle, 1971. UK edition: Wm. Heinemann, hc, 1969. This is a compelling first novel, a vividly believable search for revenge for an ancient wrong and the resulting encounter with some contemporary Nazis in Europe.

STEPHEN MARLOWE – Come Over, Red Rover.   Macmillan, US, hardcover, 1968. A splendid novel about a double agent, a willful daughter and East German machinations, with the added treat of fine characterizations.

Editorial Comments:   Three cover images out of four this time, and which was the one I was sure was going to be the easiest to find? Right.

    Norman Lewis, no relation, I’m sure, wrote 15 espionage and adventure thrillers between the years 1949 and 1987, five of them listed as marginal in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. He’s a brand new name to me, though, until today.

    Nor had I heard of Robert MacLeod, or so I thought until I looked him up in CFIV. MacLeod is a pen name of the much more well-known (and extremely prolific) Bill Knox, who also wrote as Michael Kirk and Noah Webster. This is the second of six recorded adventures for Talos Cord, out of some 24 mysteries written by Knox under this name.

   Another pseudonym is A. C. Marin, whose real name was Alfred Coppel. After three books as Marin, Coppel had another eight books in CFIV under his own name, all apparently thrillers of one subgenre or another.

   Collectors of vintage Gold Medal paperbacks will certainly recognize Stephen Marlowe‘s name, as he wrote a long list of “Chester Drum” detective and spy novels for them between 1955 and 1968. When paperback series spy fiction showed signs of slowing down, he switched over to hardcover thrillers like this one. A tribute to Stephen Marlowe by Bill Pronzini appeared here on this blog at the time of his death.

PETER RABE – Kill the Boss Good-By. Gold Medal #594, paperback original; 1st printing, August 1956. Reprint edition: Black Lizard, pb, 1988.

   Kill the Boss Good-By is typical of Peter Rabe’ s best work. Fell, boss of the San Pietro rackets, has mysteriously dropped from sight. In his absence, his number two man, Pander, decides to take over and run the show.

   Naturally, Fell returns, but he returns from a place where racket bosses seldom go — a sanatorium where he has been under treatment for manic psychosis.

   The rest of the novel, although it contains the necessary paperback-original action and scenes of sharp, effective violence, is really a psychological study of Fell’s gradual decline into genuine madness.

   As he begins to lose his tenuous hold on reality, becoming more and more confident of success as his mental powers decline, he destroys himself and most of those around him.

   Like many of Rabe’s novels, this one builds to an emotionally shattering climax. Rabe is one writer who always delivers where it matters most — on the last page.

   Notable among Rabe’s other non-series softcover originals are Benny Muscles In (1955), A Shroud for Jesso (1955), Journey into Terror (1957), Mission for Vengeance (1958), Girl in a Big Brass Bed (1965), and Black Mafia (1974).

   Also excellent is his only hardcover, Anatomy of a Killer (1960), a tale of unflagging tension and psychological suspense about a “jinxed” hit man named Sam Jordan.

         ———
   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.