ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION – January 1954. Editor: John W. Campbell, Jr. Cover by H. R. Van Dongen [the magazine’s first specific Christmas cover]. Overall rating: ***

EVERETT B. COLE “Exile.” Short novel. A student of Archaeological Synthesis on an observational trip is stranded on a backward planet. Without means of transportation or communication, his attempts to get home must not disturb the local culture. Terribly muddy and often depending on glibness, the story would have improved tremendously if it had a point to be made. **

FRANK M. ROBINSON “The Lonely Man.” The death of a man living alne in a hotel room is investigated by a policeman who discovers he has blue blood. (3)

H. BEAM PIPER & JOHN J. McGUIRE “The Return.” Novelette. After the Bomb, a group of people with a strange religion is found. Abundant clues to the sacred Books make this a worthy addition to the Holmesian saga. (4)

ALGIS BUDRYS “A.I.D.” Anti-Interrogation Device. An organic servomechanism which satisfies the specification of both sides, but only Earth has it. The ending is a letdown, but is satisfactory upon reconsideration. (3)

RALPH WILLIAMS “Bertha.” Novelette. A somewhat unlikely premise: an undiscovered artificial satellite which welcomes Earth’s first astronauts. Exciting in spite of occasional lapses in scientific background. Hindsight. (4)

TOM MEAD – Death and the Conjurer. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 2022.

   This homage to John Dickson Carr (and co-dedicated to the acknowledged master of the locked room, impossible mystery) takes place in 1930s London, right in the heart of the so-called Golden Age of Detection, and if it doesn’t quite measure up to the best of the mysteries written at the time, it’s an attempt well worthy of your attention.

   If you’re a fan of the form, that is. Aficionados of private eye stories and/or grim noir or more hardboiled fare need not read any further. (Though of course you may.)

   There are in all three impossible crimes in this tale: (1) the death of a noted emigre psychiatrist in his London home office, locked on the inside of course; (2) the theft of a valuable painting during a party during a party where all attendees are searched or closely watched; and (3) the murder of someone in an elevator with no access to it except by a watched door.

   In what follows I won’t go into details. I’ll try to be as general as I can while at the same time describing what I thought were shortcomings, some more serious than others. May I say first, though, that I found the book well-written, with both good characters and even better dialogue. I really wish I could say the same about what’s – dare I say – even more important in a detective story, the plot itself.

   To wit. The first chapter begins at a theater where a new play is about to open. Acting as a consultant is Joseph Spector, an illusionist of some note (part of the play’s apparatus is a trap door which is to be used for especial effect). But. Much of the focus is on an actress who is looking for a missing earring. The actress is mentioned only once more, and the earring never again.

   Much later on, a Challenge to the Reader is provided. (This is a Good Thing.) I failed, but there’s no surprise there. I had no more success at it than I’ve had with any of Ellery Queen’s, to take the most obvious example. But. I found Spector’s followup explanation to be, in a single word, glib. Allow me to explain further. Tom Mead provides footnotes during the lengthy explanation to all three impossible events, each referring to the page where such and such previous observation or factual description was made.

   All very well and good. Excellent, in fact. But. None of the footnotes led to an observation or description was “clueworthy,” a word invented by my brother to describe a fact that yes, it was there, and it came up earlier, but there was no way a detective could take that fact and connect it up to the solution he was in the end expounding upon. He was too glib. Too much “this happened, then this, and he did this.”

   There was not enough explanation as to what his deductions were, where, when and how. I think this important. (It is also extremely difficult to do.)

   Continuing. You cannot in a locked room mystery leave the setting so carefully and yet so vaguely described, both inside the room and out, so as to make impossible to visualize where the killer was where and how. (A map would have been exceedingly useful.)

   Saying more would be boring to those who haven’t yet read the book, and of course I’d be totally at risk of spoiling it completely. For those of you who have, I hope it’s enough so I’m clear as to what I am saying.

   If you’re a fan of Locked Room mysteries, you should still read this one. Few authors even try to write more than the minimum of “fair play” in their detective stories any more. This is far better than that. What I consider shortcomings may not even bother you. It’s a good attempt. If Tom Mead writes another, I will read it, and gladly.

NOTE: Credit where credit is due. Much of this review was shaped by a long conversation my brother Merwin and I had about the book in Michigan together last weekend.

  GONE ARE THE DAYS. Lionsgate, 2018. Lance Henricksen, Tom Berenger, Billy Lush, Meg Steedle, Steve Railsback and Danny Trejo. Written by Gregory M. Tucker. Directed by Mark Landre Gould.

   A metaphysical western. And not bad at all.

   Lance Henricksen, looking appropriately mummified, plays Taylon, a dying — or possibly already dead — outlaw on a journey to Durango, accompanied by a black-clad former cohort who keeps vanishing at odd moments.

   The ostensible reason for the journey is that old chestnut, the One Last Bank Job, but it turns out Taylon has another motive for going, involving another old chestnut, the daughter he hasn’t seen in years.

   This could have turned out very ordinary, but Writer Tucker and director Gould put a unique spin on it all; there are no answers awaiting Taylon, only more mystery. No dignity in death or aging, only fresh indignities, as he finds that it’s certain we can take nothing out of this world when we go.

   All of which contrasts very effectively with Tom Berenger as an aging but robust ex-partner of Taylon’s, an outlaw turned lawman who finds himself up against an old buddy (another stock situation well-handled) and meets it with grim irony.

   Gone Are the Days  dances at the edge of self-importance like a drunk on roller skates, but manages to remain merely thoughtful — and easy to watch.

PAUL E. WALSH – The Murder Room. Paul Damien #1. Avon #767, paperback original, 1957.

   Paul E. Walsh appears to have written only three detective novels, beginning with KKK (Avon, 1956) and ending with Murder in Baracoa   (Avon, 1958).

   The Murder Room is a low-keyed first-person affair featuring private eye Paul Damian, a former insurance investigator now in business for himself with two other operatives. He is hired here by Mrs. Clarence Standish whose brownstone in Brooklyn Heights has witnessed the death of a hood working for racketeer Vincent Manola.

   She expressly wants him to protect her younger daughter Laura who has been keeping some shady company of late, but it’s her older daughter Iris whom Damian finds more interesting. The Standish chauffeur is found dead in short time as well. and. it all looks very much like a mob affair with the Standish clan as innocent bystanders until the locked family beach home becomes the sight for some interesting activity of its own.

   The role of the “murder room” is kept nicely hidden until the denouement even though ghosts from the past are fairly obvious all along. Damian is just a bit too intuitive and the wrap-up a bit too brusque and pat to be completely satisfying, but the author does have a pleasant style and sets an otherwise nice pace.

   Perhaps you will enjoy, as I did, the nice nostalgic glimpse of the changing face of Brooklyn and sections of Long Island in the late 50’s. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate reading the other two novels after this one.

PETER LOVESEY – Swing, Swing Together. Sgt. Cribb & Constable  Thackery #7. Macmillan, UK, hardcover, 1976. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1976. Penguin Books, US, paperback, 1978. TV Adaptation: Cribb, 20 April 1980 (Series 1, Episode 2).

   For some reason, I’ve never until now attempted any of Lovesey’s tales of  mystery taking place Victorian England. I’m not sure why. Too much exotic background to detract from the mystery?  Maybe. At any rate they never tempted me.

   I was wrong, I admit it.

   On a dare, a schoolgirl goes midnight bathing in  the Thames, naked. Not only does she have to be rescued downstream by a policeman, but she is also caught: up in a manhunt for three murderers. Nothing surely to help her reputation!

   But she proves herself a most remarkable heroine in helping Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray solve the case, built incidentally about a certain .Jack the Ripper. Told with happy good humor, slightly naughty at times. Lovesey doesn’t let the mystery detract from the background, b it blends the two into a wholly delightful concoction.

Rating:  A

      The Cribb/Thackeray series —

Wobble to Death. Macmillan 1970.
The Detective Wore Silk Drawers. Macmillan 1971.
Abracadaver. Macmillan 1972.
Mad Hatter’s Holiday. Macmillan 1973.
Invitation to a Dynamite Party. Macmillan 1974.
A Case of Spirits. Macmillan 1975.
Swing, Swing Together. Macmillan 1976.
Waxwork. Macmillan 1978.

W. C. HEINZ – The Professional. Harper & Brothers, hardcover, 1958. Berkley BG-197, paperback, 1959. Reprinted many times.

   A linear, lucid story of a professional boxer as he prepares for a middleweight title match. The prose, spare and clean. The result, wistful.

   Eddie Brown has been preparing for this fight his whole career. He’s 29. He treats his body as the well- honed instrument it is. He eats right. Only drinks hot tea. Only eats dry toast and poached eggs. Runs five miles a day.

   The narrator is a magazine writer commissioned to profile a boxer training for a title match. He embeds himself in camp for a month, all the way up through the fight.

   Eddie’s trainer, Doc Carroll, has been crafting boxers for 43 years. In all this time, he’s only had ten boxers. He takes one at a time, teaches him everything he knows, and brings him up slow. This is his first title fight.

   Doc never wanted a title fight before because as soon as you get the title, the trainer loses the boxer. The boxer loses control of their destiny. Special interests control you. You’re a commodity. You can no longer pick your own fights, make your own schedule, be your own man.

   But with the advent of televised fights, you can’t make it anymore as a professional boxer going town to town. Nobody goes to the fights anymore. Fans can see them for free from the comfort of their home.

   Doc trains his guys to go at the other guy’s strength. To neutralize their punch and go with it. To win on the counter-punch. It takes the will to fight from your opponent when you can take their best and hurt them for trying. You can see it in their eyes, like a stuck bull. But nobody wants to see it. Folks only want to see the windup, the big punch and the knockout.

   The fans only get the hype and flair. The media caters to the fans. And the so-called boxers, the so-called champions of the world — they play to the T.V. And the trainers? They don’t give a crap. They don’t know a damn thing about boxing. They just buy boxers in bulk and play it as it lays.

   Doc’s the last of his breed. And Eddie’s the best boxer he’s ever had. Eddie’s done everything right. Doted on Doc’s every word. And here’s their big chance. Their last, best and only chance to show the world how boxing is supposed to be. The purity of the sport.

   You can guess how it ends.

         —-

   Ernest Hemingway called it ‘the only good novel I’ve ever read about a fighter.’

   The prose is very Hemingway. Which, to me, is a good thing. The story is well told, holds you, and doesn’t let you go. Until the end. And then you’re on your own. Like Eddie Brown, like Doc Carroll. Like the writer of the story that’s no longer of interest to any publisher. Here it is.

I’m leaving within the hour for a long holiday weekend in Michigan, where my sister lives. Joining us will be my brother, plus husbands wives children and various grandchildren (only one, not mine). It will be a full house! Back in this chair on Tuesday.

CLYDE B. CLASON – The Purple Parrot. Theocritus Lucius Westbrough #4. The Crime Club, Doubleday Doran & Co., hardcover, 1937. Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback,  2011.

   There were a large number .of competent practitioners of the fair play detective novel from the late 1920s to the early 1940s who are often ignored, or only vaguely treated, by reference works, yet whose books are eagerly sought by collectors. Among these nearly forgotten writers are Dornford Yates, A. E. Fielding, Darwin L. Teilhet, Clifford Knight, Milton M. Propper, Timothy Fuller, Max Afford, and Clyde B. Clason.  Indeed, almost all of my correspondents have a favorite unknown writer from the period. Surprisingly little investigation has gone on into many of these authors.

   Mike Nevins rescued Milton Fropper from oblivion in a TAD article, and I’m slowly revising my article on Darwin and Hildegarde Teilhet. But — to get to the point of this review — no one.seems to know much about Clyde B. Clason. Bob Adey, who praises Clason’s “memorable” detective Theocritus Lucius Wesborough in Locked Room Murders, remarks that Clason is “unjustly shrouded in obscurity.”

   I must admit that after reading Clason’ s second book, The Death Angel, I was hot persuaded that the obscurity was µnjustified. The Death Angel is not notable for setting, characterization or cleverness of the mystery — which is solved by a device I hate: [WARNING] having most of the crimes and mysterious events committed by different people acting independently. (Other writers during the Golden Age fell into this trap, most notably Anthony Boucher in The Case of the Seven of Calvary, which is otherwise quite well told.)

   My second try at Clason, The Purple Parrot, has made me revise my opinion of his work. The story has many of the elements of the Golden Age: a narrator in love with the heroine, who is a prime suspect; a cruel grandfather, who is murdered just before signing a new will; a shady butler; hints of mysterious people from the victim’s past; an artifact — in this case, the parrot itself — which seems to have no value, yet is stolen; and slow-witted policemen in awe of the. eccentric detective, a professor of Roman history.

   Having all this together makes for .good reading, especially since Clason also provides some eccentric book collectors whose bibliophilia is a possible motive for the crime. Moreover, Clason shows considerable powers of construction and exposition, carefully and steadily developing the plot.

   The crime turns out to have been committed in a locked — or at least guarded — room, and Clason eventually produces two satisfactory explanations of the apparent impossibility. (Oddly enough the rejected explanation is much more ingenious than the eventual solution.)

   In short, except for one whopping coincidence, The Purple Parrot is a fine example of the 1930s detective novel.

HENRY WILSON ALLEN – Genesis Five. William Morrow, hardcover, 1968. Pyramid T-2162, paperback, 1970.

   
   When I realized who Henry Wilson Allen was (and I’ll reveal that as this review progresses for anyone as ignorant as I was) I knew I had to read this 1968 near future Science Fiction/Horror Thriller somewhat in the Michael Crichton tradition, but with far deeper pulp roots.

   I’ll say this, for all its flaws as scientific speculation or true SF, it is delightful barn=burner of a novel full of enough sturm n drang for a dozen longer books, and oddly looks forward to the kind of not quite SF speculative thrillers that often top today’s bestseller lists from James Rollins, Clive Cussler, and Andy McDermott.

   It is well written, playful, and if closer to SF movies or the kind of “Monster” thriller from television thrillers by Nigel Kneale or episodes of Doctor Who, and Outer Limits, it is still for all that great fun. The “monster” here is a good one.

   It is not Helnlein or Asimov and John Campbell wouldn’t recognize it, but it is a slam bang thriller.

   As we are told the book is taken from The Suntar Papers found at the crash site of a Russian ship and recounts in the words of the papers author, Yuri Suntar, the events surrounding the The Siberian Center for Genetic Studies, known by its code name Genesis Five.

   Whether this controversial journal is authentic or the bizarre creation of some deranged hoaxer must remain the subject of another time.

   That rather Victorian disclaimer aside we plunge right in, and there is hardly time to catch a breath beyond that point.

   Yuri Suntar, our narrator, is the half Mongol son of an American spy and a Soviet citizen, a blonde blue eyed Mongol distrusted all his life and always in the shadow of his brother Yang, Olympic athlete, physical giant, and perfect specimen of Mongol manhood. As the novel opens the security services have shown up at Yuri’s doorstep and he is none too sure whether he is under arrest or being offered a job.

   Whisked off across country Yuri is soon introduced to the exotic and beautiful Chandra Maringa, the lilac-eyed daughter of a Chinese woman and a Masai scientist, and the granddaughter of the Soviet Union’s most famous scientist the pure Mandarin genius Dr. Ho Wu Chen.

   Entranced by Chandra (who has little use for him), frightened and impressed by Dr. Ho, and by no means certain of himself Yuri discovers that the doctor runs a vast underground scientific research station beneath Okatrai Island in the Arctic wastes where Yang, his brother, has been given the job of master of the savage wolves used for experiment at the facility. Yang asked for Yuri, and Yang gets what he wants.

   Arriving at the bizarre underground base Yuri soon encounters Yang and his wolves, and they are not the three little pig kind. What they are is what some Cockney in every British horror movie ever made inevitably calls “an ’orror, Guv’nor, It were an ’orror!”

   A hybrid of man and wolf with insect larva that allows Dr. Ho to bind them together they are strong, fast, smart, and murderous of fang claw and fatal stinger.

   In short, “It were an ’orror!”

   Yuri wants out of the madhouse naturally. And to that end he discovers Ho has secrets of his own including having stored Chandra’s father in hyper-sleep and telling her he is dead. With Joseph Maringa’s help, and few allies, and Chandra won over to his cause Yuri sets out to let the world know what Dr. Ho plans, but things don’t go smoothly…

   And thereby hangs a tale, as they used to say.

   
   Shades of Jules Verne.

   You will have noted by now it is a “Yellow Peril” novel in many ways, with Dr. Ho in the Fu Manchu mold, but canny enough to do so with mixed race hero and heroine and a cast of good and bad Chinese and Russians. The author also shows he did his research in his study of Mongol culture and Yuri is both believable and admirable, but then the author has a pretty good history of writing sympathetically about races other than his own with insight and significant research.

   I’ll tease a bit first, because readers of this blog know who Henry Wilson Allen is on multiple levels. First you know him because for ten years he worked at MGM animation studios as a gag man under the name of Hec Allen, and wrote almost all of the classic Tex Avery cartoons between 1944 and 1954 that have become the stuff of animation legend. He’s that Henry Wilson Allen.

   Still, that would not explain his gift for research and writing about other races. He earned those spurs literally writing under two other better known names as my favorite Western writer of all time, Will Henry and Clay Fisher.

   You know, McKenna’s Gold, Who Rides With Wyatt, Yellowstone Kelly, Pillars of the Sky, The Tall Men, Santa Fe Passage, I Tom Horn, From Where the Sun Now Stands, No Survivors, North Star, those Westerns, many of which were also movies.

   I won’t pretend Genesis Five is politically correct in any way, but it is entertaining and well written, and for its time closer to Richard Condon teasing old pulp traditions (the villains in Whisper of the Axe are the PRC sponsoring terrorism and the villain and hero both ethnic minorities) than the last legs of the Sax Rohmer style Yellow Peril threat to the Western White world plots of old.

   In 1968 Nixon had yet to go to China, and China was on the way to replacing the Soviets as the favorite villain of thriller fiction. Its no excuse, but you can see Allen trying to have it both ways, and almost getting away with it by making Yuri and Chandra attractive near superhuman heroes struggling against not just Ho’s madness, but a society and government who would employ him.

   Read in context he succeeded, though not so much from a more modern view.

   Knowing that, accepting its limitations, it makes for an interesting side light on the better known careers of Hec Allen, Will Henry, and Clay Fisher. There are stylistic touches, and moments when he gets in Yuri’s head that will remind you of some of his Western novels, and whatever else it is a rip roaring thriller.

KURT STEEL – Judas, Incorporated. Hank Hyer #6. Little Brown, hardcover, 1936. Dell 244, paperback, mapback edition, 1948.

   Homer Valliant invented a kind of electrical doodad that made him a small fortune by manufacturing it himself via Valliant Electrical Works. He made a factory town out of his hometown in upstate New York.

   When the Depression hit, he refused to cut wages and only laid off the most able bodied and youthful of his employees. He always hated unions — but he was a kindhearted boss. This kind of generosity didn’t sit well with the board of directors — so Valliant ended up losing control of his own company, getting bought out by a conglomerate (Ledco) and demoted to plant manager.

   Ledco was cutthroat towards labor. Wages were sliced, aging long time employees were canned, and working conditions were oppressive. To keep your job you had to work more hours for less pay and act happy about it.

   In reaction to worsening working conditions, the employees at Valliant Electrical decided to unionize. Homer Valliant, who’d always been a staunch opponent of unions, began to soften his stance when his pleas to new ownership went unheard.

   Homer Valliant’s beautiful daughter Madeline is married to the CEO of Ledco, Curtis Tower, and they began getting into vicious arguments about the state of labor strife at Valliant Electrical.

   Then Homer Valliant is shot dead in his office at the factory. The police arrested the two leaders of the union effort, and charged them with the murder.

   Homer Valliant’s daughter Madeline does not believe for a second that these two employees of her father who had worked hand in hand with him for years would murder him. It doesn’t make any sense. But local law enforcement is captured by Ledco interests, so there’s no way to get the police to investigate any other leads.

   This leads Madeline Valliant to the offices of our hero, private detective Henry Hyer of Manhattan. For $10,000 contingent on finding the real killers, Hank Hyer agrees to take the case.

   When Hyer gets to town, he immediately runs into two competing big private detective firms from NYC. One of the firms was hired to keep labor in check. The other was hired by the CEO, Curtis Tower, to keep tabs on the other firm.

   But this contract as the union-busting detective firm is worth an awful lot of dough. So it’s in the interest of each of the detective agencies to make the other look bad. While labor strife would cause one firm to lose their contract, it would cause the other to gain it. A zero sum game. So when Hyer shows up, the other two agencies figure he’s just another dog after the same bone: the big money of union busting.

   It’s all a bit complicated. But in the end of this 287 pager (in the Dell mapback edition), every page is needed as Hank Hyer navigates his way through the rough and rocky waterways of union leaders, labor spies, Pinkertons, and corrupt cops.

   Hyer does an excellent job of pitting all the forces against each other, getting the State Police and out of town media on his side, and doing fairly scientific detective work tracking down the bullet’s source, evaluating the typography of incriminating papers, bribing the right bribees, and punching out the rest with his pugilist fists.

   There’s even a funny bit where Hyer makes fun of the mediocre pulpster Kurt Steel who always exaggerates Hyer’s heroism in his novels. You can’t believe everything you read, he assures a hero-worshipper.

   All turns out well in the end. He gets the bad guys, Madeline Tower and the CEO part ways, and the beautiful, rich divorcee has the hots for Hyer. He’ll let her chase him back to NYC. He’s got no time for Hickville, with or without a beautiful rich divorcee.

   It’s a very enjoyable detective novel. Original, well done, with a likeable detective, some good witty patter, and a captivating story. It ended credibly, the many strings all tied up in a tidy bow. If you’re looking for another good 30’s detective novel after having read all the Hammetts and the Whitfields, you should check it out. Note that Chandler’s Big Sleep was also published in 1939  —  but while that is Marlowe’s first adventure, this appears to be Hyer’s sixth. More on Hank Hyer here at the Thrilling Detective website.
   

      The Hank Hyer series —

Murder of a Dead Man (n.) Bobbs 1935
Murder for What? (n.) Bobbs 1936
Murder Goes to College (n.) Bobbs 1936
Murder in G-Sharp (n.) Bobbs 1937
Crooked Shadow (n.) Little 1939
Judas, Incorporated (n.) Little 1939
Dead of Night (n.) Little 1940
Madman’s Buff (n.) Little 1941
Ambush House (n.) Harcourt 1943