A. A. FAIR – You Can Die Laughing. Donald Lam & Bertha Cool #16. William Morrow, hardcover, 1957. Pocket, paperback; April 1961; reprinted several times.

   I was attracted to read this in part by the cover, which puzzled me. The book was first published in 1957, but the cover of this the 5th Pocket reprinting makes it appear that it takes place in the 1920s. It’s eye catching, all right, but otherwise I have no idea why they thought it was appropriate to use.

   It is also labeled as #2, but that has to do with Pocket’s particular publishing sequence for the series at the time. It had nothing to do with the actual chronological order. (And as an aside in that regard, other than maybe the first two or three, in which the characters of PI’s Donald Lam and Bertha Cool were first fleshed out, the books can be read in any order in which you happen to pick them up.)

   Unfortunately I have little to say that’s positive about the book itself. A would-be client backs out of the case he hires the Cool & Lam agency for, and Donald Lam takes enough offense to continue working on it. He doesn’t tell Bertha, since it’s on the partnership’s dime, not his own, and she is notoriously tight with even pennies.

   There is a lot of rigmarole on Gardner’s part about an isolated property in the middle of nowhere and who it belongs to after the original owner dies. Of some curiosity is a nosy neighbor’s concern that the wife of a couple living next door to her has been murdered, only to have her show up alive and well after Donald brings the police into it, but …

   … that’s it. There’s a lot of busy work on Gardner’s work to make the tale interesting, but the twist or two in it that I was expecting never materialized. You don’t read Gardner for his fleshed-out characters, for there seldom are any. You read Gardner for his intricate, complicated plots. I was disappointed with this one.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Issue #48. Summer 2018. Editor: Arthur Vidro. 36 pages. Published three times a year: Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Sample copy: $6.00 in the U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else.

   The first item in this issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION is J. Randolph Cox’s thorough account of the life and literary times of Arthur B. Reeve, the creator of a sleuth whose renown easily rivaled that of Sherlock Holmes. “The twenty-six books about scientific detective Craig Kennedy,” Cox tells us, “were once among the most popular detective stories by an American writer, with sales of two million copies in the United States alone.” Unlike the Sage of Baker Street, however, Kennedy’s fame proved ephemeral: “The very reason for Reeve’s popularity in the years before World War I, his topicality, dates the stories and makes him a largely forgotten author.”

   When Michael Dirda, in “Going Rogue,” waxes nostalgic about master-thief John Robie, the cat burglar in Hitchcock’s movie TO CATCH A THIEF, it leads him into a discussion of those other successful gentleman thieves who could be regarded as Robie’s “ancestors”: Grant Allen’s Colonel Clay (named Clay “because he appears to possess an india-rubber face, and he can mould it like clay in the hands of the potter”), Guy Boothby’s Simon Carne (whom “no one ever suspects”), E. W. Hornung’s A. J. Raffles (“less a social leveler than a disappointingly unimaginative opportunist”), and Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Lupin (executor of “carefully planned capers”). In Dirda’s view, these rogues represent “a better time when great criminals could be rapscallions rather than mass murderers.”

   Charles Shibuk’s 1970 piece lauds “the continuing and meritorious situation of paperback reprinting of material that is worthy of your attention” (remember, this was long before the Internet appeared) and narrows in on such major and minor masterpieces as TRENT’S LAST CASE (“an epochal novel”), THE RASP (“a good example of [Philip] MacDonald’s variable talent”), THE GREEK COFFIN MYSTERY (“I’ve always thought that 1932 was a momentous year”), A TASTE FOR HONEY (“completely off-trail and unpredictable”), LAURA (“a dazzling masterpiece”), A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED (“one of her [Miss Jane Marple’s] better investigations”), DEATH AND THE JOYFUL WOMAN (“a completely individual piece of work”), DEAD WATER (“a splendid example of [Ngaio] Marsh’s skills in writing”), NERVE (“up to his [Dick Francis’s] usual rigorous standard”), and finally NERO WOLFE OF WEST THIRTY-FIFTH STREET (“a real treat for Nero Wolfe—Archie Goodwin fans”).

   This issue’s fiction selection should be practically unknown to most readers, “The Faulty Stroke” (1953) by Freeman Wills Crofts, a short short story first published in a newspaper and recently “unearthed by Tony Medawar.”

   Following that is an article version of a speech by that selfsame Tony Medawar, “The ABC of A.B.C.,” a scholarly (but not boring) treatment of the careers of not only Anthony Berkeley but also Berkeley’s series sleuth Roger Sheringham (“there is much of Philip Trent about him”), as well as his later “psychological detective stories” published under the “Francis Iles” byline. Medawar’s reading of Berkeley shows how he was determined to “challenge some of the generally accepted tropes of the detective story”: “While other luminaries wrought their magic consistently — Agatha Christie in making the most likely suspect the least likely suspect, and John Dickson Carr in making the impossible possible — Tony Cox delighted in finding different ways to structure the crime story.”

   Jon L. Breen’s farewell “Murder in Print” review column from 1983 is reproduced, emphasizing how much the mystery scene had (and had not) changed over the past decade (“The classical school, allegedly on its last legs for years, has weathered the storm and continues to be strong”).

   In the “Christie Corner,” the world’s foremost living expert on Agatha Christie’s works, Dr. John Curran, reacts to a recent BBC-TV “adaptation” of ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE, blowing it out of the water (“This appalling and illogical travesty would not have been found in Agatha Christie’s wastepaper basket”); the threat of yet another version of THE ABC MURDERS (“already the signs are ominous”); a stage version of THE MIRROR CRACK’D FROM SIDE TO SIDE (more “ominous talk of ‘Miss Marple for a new generation'”); the recent resurfacing of one of Agatha’s earliest stories, “The Wife of Kenite” (“the closing scene will stay with you for a long time”); and Christie Mystery Day, organized by Dr. Curran to make up for the abbreviated Agatha Christie birthday festivities.

   Finally, the Mini-Reviews section includes overviews of Woolrich’s FRIGHT by Trudi Harrov, Hoch’s ALL BUT IMPOSSIBLE by Arthur Vidro, Stern’s BEHIND A MASK—THE UNKNOWN THRILLERS OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT by Amnon Kabatchnik, Kemelman’s ONE FINE DAY THE RABBI BOUGHT A CROSS by Arthur Vidro, and Boucher’s THE CASE OF THE SOLID KEY by Ruth Ordivar.

   Toss in Charles Shibuk’s “101 of the Best Mystery Novels of All Time: A Preliminary List” and the readers’ perceptive comments and you have another fine issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION.

   *** For a subscription to OLD-TIME DETECTION, contact the editor at: Arthur Vidro, Old-Time Detection, 2 Ellery Street, Claremont, New Hampshire 03743 or vidro@myfairpoint.net.

FRANK CASTLE – Murder in Red. Gold Medal #709, paperback original; 1st printing, October 1957.

   “Red” in the sense of Communist infiltration and intrigue, and unexpectedly so, since the blurb on the front cover doesn’t even hint at it — “They gave him only one choice: his girl’s life in exchange for his” — unless you can read something into that that I don’t see.

   It opens with an agent from behind the Iron Curtain — East Berlin, to be precise — making arrangements to cross the border from Mexico into New Mexico. What his mission is, he does not know. That he will learn only when the time comes. What he also was not told before hand is that a female companion will be assigned to him, an American, we learn right along with him, with a grudge against her country.

   Their journey is filled with the inevitable snags and interruptions that occur in books such as this. The stakes are high — something to do with a new project the Americans are working on, possibly involving ICBMs and/or other gadgetry. It’s still not a very exciting story, and truth be told, it’s a very minor one.

   The only thing that will keep most readers going, I think, is that every so often, Curt Weber’s memory starts to play tricks on him — there are things he should remember, he realizes, but can’t. I knew what that meant right away, and you probably already know as well.

Bibliographic Notes:  Frank Castle wrote five other mysteries for Gold Medal between 1954 and 1957. He also wrote a novelization of the Hawaiian Eye TV series for Dell in 1962. He also did a number of westerns for Gold Medal. How many I do not know, but it’s quite possible he wrote more of those than he did mysteries.

SHED NO TEARS. Eagle-Lion, 1948. Wallace Ford, June Vincent, Mark Roberts, Dick Hogan, Elena Verdugo, Johnstone White. Screenplay by Brown Holmes and Virginia Cook, based on the novel by Don Martin. Directed by Jean Yarbrough.

   I gotta find out more about this Don Martin. I first encountered his work as one of the writers of a thoughtful B-Western Arrow in the Dust, and now it seems he was the author of the source novel for this superior B-Noir. But just try Googling “Don Martin” and see if you get any further than I did.

   Tears opens fast, with Wallace Ford faking his own death in a hotel fire, conniving with his young and sexy wife (June Vincent) to disappear until she collects the insurance money,then boarding a bus to DC — whereupon she meets with her boyfriend and starts making plans to skip to Mexico, all this in about ten minutes of a seventy-minute movie.

   The next hour isn’t quite as fast, but it takes some agreeable twists and turns as Wally chomps at the bit waiting to hear from his faithless wife, while his son (Dick Hogan, who would go on to star in the first few seconds of Hitchcock’s Rope later that same year) gets the idea Dad was murdered, and his girlfriend puts him in touch with a Private Eye.

   And it’s here where Shed No Tears gets truly memorable. Johnstone White’s portrayal of PI Huntington Stewart is one of those B-Movie moments when a capable actor finds himself in a great part: venal, effeminate, treacherous and smooth, Stewart is one of the finest characterizations in all of noir, and his machinations as he tries to play both ends for profit make the whole thing unforgettable.

   Mr. White never got a part that good again, and June Vincent, so promising in Black Angel (1946) spent the rest of her career in B-movies and Television. Damn shame. Tears never completely transcends its B-movie roots — Jean Yarbrough’s flat-footed direction and Eagle-Lion’s penurious purse guarantee that — but it has that spark of originality that makes it worth seeing.

MICHAEL AVALLONE – Mannix. Mannix #1. Popular Library, paperback original; 1968.

   From what I have read on the Internet, it was too early for Avallone to have seen any episodes of the TV show Mannix when he wrote this book. It’s an original novel, not based on any of the episodes that aired, but definitely based on the first season’s characters and premise.

   To wit: As an investigator for Intertect Limited, Mannix is the odd man out. Intertect is all about computers, punch cards and efficiency, Mannix is strictly a non-conformist in that regard. He works on instinct and knowing people, and his is the most cluttered desk in the Intertect office.

   This of course leads to a lot of conflict between him and his boss, Lou Wickersham (he was Lew in the series itself). The only reason he keeps his job is that he is Intertect’s best operative, a fact that Mannix keeps reminding Wickersham of.

   The book is only 128 pages long, so the story itself is a throwaway. A young woman, impossibly beautiful and prone to sunbathing in the nude, is also impossibly rich — three billion dollars worth. She is also bored, and when she is offered a chance (she thinks) to work for the CIS, she jumps for it without a second thought.

   Little does she know that her contact works for the other side, and it is up to Mannix to rescue her from the trap she falls into. That she also falls in love with Mannix is a given.

   The four other books in the series (see below) are based, I believe, on actual episodes of the TV series. Under the circumstances, you cannot fault Michael Avallone for not having a very good grasp if the character, only the surface elements.

   And viewers at home must have liked Mannix the character a lot more than the computer world premise, since the latter had been dumped by the time the second season began, and the series went on for a total of eight seasons.

        The remaining Mannix novels —

Mannix #1: The Faces of Murder (1975, by J.T. MacCargo)
Mannix #2: A Fine Day For Dying (1975, by J.T. MacCargo [Peter Rabe])
Mannix #3: A Walk on the Blind Side (1975, by J.T. MacCargo)
Mannix #4: Round Trip to Nowhere (1975, by J.T. MacCargo [Peter Rabe])

ROBERT EVERSZ – The Bottom Line Is Murder. Paul Marston & Angel Cantini #1. Viking, hardcover, 1988. Penguin paperback, 1989.

   Paul Marston is described on the back cover as a “wisecracking free-lance corporate investigator,” which sums him up rather well. Along the way in this, his first recorded adventure, he picks up an assistant, a championship boxer (female) named Angel Cantini. She has no other qualifications for the position other than her asking for the job soon after they first meet, and he agrees.

   The set-up for the case is marred by some awkward first person exposition that’s used to introduce Marston to us as a character, then by a series of events that challenge the laws of probability: that is to say, a small private plane comes down in the hills of Los Angeles County; that Marston is close enough not only to see it, but to walk around the scene of the accident without being challenged; only to find that he had worked for the dead man several years ago as a security consultant for the company he was in charge of.

   It seems that the dead man was about to close a big deal involving that same firm, but not all of the members of the family who own it were in favor. Marston decides to stick his own oar in, and thus this mostly medium-boiled tale begins.

   The writing seems to improve as time goes on, but there is no real chemistry involved in Marston’s relationship with his new partner (things move fast). It’s an all-too-familiar case of telling and not showing. The book is also too long. The pages between 172 and the end of the book (page 272) could almost have been eliminated, save of course the final wrap-up.

   The couple had a second book adventure entitled False Profit (Viking, 1990), but if ever I come across it, I believe I’ll pass.

SUPER-SLEUTH. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937. Jack Oakie, Ann Sothern, Eduardo Ciannelli, Alan Bruce, Edgar Kennedy, Joan Woodbury. Director: Ben Stoloff.

   An insufferably conceited movie star who plays a genius detective on the screen begins to mock the police department’s efforts in catching the perpetrator of a series of “poison pen” murders, and as a result, not surprisingly, ends up being the target of the killer himself.

   Pretty much a ho-hum effort, both as a mystery and as a comedy. Jack Oakie never seemed to catch the public as a comedian, and if you take this film as an example, it’s easy to see why. His portly arrogance and general dimwittedness certainly turned me off.

RICHARD FOSTER – Bier for a Chaser. Pete Draco #1. Gold Medal #899, paperback original; 1st printing, July 1959.

   The only thing I found interesting about this book is its cover. There is little else to it. PI Pete Draco, from Miami Beach, is brash and ballsy but noticeably weaker when it comes to brainpower, and somehow beautiful babe simply flock to his bedroom. I’d be hard pressed to say why.

   A syndicate kingpin has dies, and nearly a million dollars in gunrunning money has disappeared. (This was written back in the day when a guy named Castro was a folk hero.) This is boozy male fantasy fiction at either its worst or its finest — it is hard to say which.

Bibliographic Note: Richard Foster was but one of many pen names of Kendell Foster Crossen, best known perhaps under his M. E. Chaber byline for a long series of books about insurance investigator Milo March. Crossen wrote a total of seven mysteries as Foster, but only one was another Pete Draco adventure, that being Too Late for Mourning (Gold Medal, 1960).

JULIAN SYMONS – Playing Happy Families. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1995; paperback, 1995.

   Though I’ve read a good bit of Julian Symons’ criticism — enough to know that we had quite different tastes and attitudes — to my memory, I haven’t read any of his fiction.

   The Midway family is a happy family. John and Eleanor are celebrating 30 years of marriage, and the family has gathered in their honor. Giles, John’s brother, High Court justice; Eversley, Eleanor’s son by a previous marriage, and his wife and children; son David and his wife; and daughter Jenny.

   This is the last time they will play happy families, though, because in the next week Jenny will vanish. In the aftermath all of them will learn much of themselves, and each other. Detective Superintendent Hilary Catchpole must try to learn where Jenny is, and what happened to her. None of them will enjoy their lessons.

   There is a type of crime novel, not peculiar to British crime-writers but certainly one of their favorites, wherein detection is less, or at least no more, the focus than are the effects if a crime in a group of people. That’s the sort of book this is, and of the type it’s quite well done.

   Symons is a smooth and literate writer, and more than adept at characterization. My problem with it is the same one I have with much of Ruth Rendell’s work. I don’t particularly enjoy looking at an album full of pictures of sad and ugly people, no matter the skill of the photographer.

   Only the lead police detective here is even remotely sympathetic, and one gets the feeling that Symons doesn’t care for him too much. Well done, but to me not very enjoyable.

Bibliographic Note:   Supt. Hilary Catchpole made a second and final appearance in A Sort of Virtue (Macmillan, UK, 1996; no US edition).

RALPH DENNIS – The Buy Back Blues. (Jim) Hardman #12. Popular Library, paperback original; 1st printing, July 1977.

   In this, the last of the Hardman series, he’s hired in Chapter One to find a waitress’s missing husband, Bob, a bartender by trade. The man turns up dead, but Hardman has already made a connection between him and several break-ins and thefts in homes after parties where he’d worked. The insurance company is interested, and Hardman has a new client.

   I may be wrong — it’s been a while since I’ve read any of the earlier books in the series (over forty years) — but many of the rough edges that Hardman had in his earlier adventures have long since worn away. He’s overweight (“pudgy”), white and balding. Assisting him on all of his cases is Hump Evans, who is black, over six feet six inches tall, and a former star football player.

   There is an elephant in the room whenever this series is discussed. Both this series and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books started in 1974, and even though Dennis had the first seven Hardman books published that year, I don’t think Parker read any of them. Or as Ed Gorman once wrote, mixed race detective duos have been around since at least the days of the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

   It has also been noted over the years that Hardman’s appearance (read his description above…) is at some odds with the publisher’s marketing strategy for the series, which makes the books out to be Executioner style men’s adventure paperbacks (…and compare with the cover art in the image provided). Any guy who bought one of them on the basis of the covers had to have been badly disappointed.

   But what Dennis did provide for the series is a drive that keeps the stories constantly moving, even though the stories are otherwise standard enough PI fare, and The Buy Back Blues is no exception. At the end of the book, Hardman and his off-and-on girl friend are back on again, and if the series had to end with Hardman standing at the window of a mountain cabin with Marcy still in bed while he’s watching the mist rising from the valley below, why that’s not a bad conclusion at all.

   The Jim Hardman & Hump Evans series —

Hardman 1: Atlanta Deathwatch (1974)
Hardman 2: The Charleston Knife’s Back In Town (1974)
Hardman 3: The Golden Girl & All (1974)
Hardman 4: Pimp for the Dead (1974)
Hardman 5: Down Among the Jocks (1974)
Hardman 6: Murder’s Not an Odd Job (1974)
Hardman 7: Working for the Man (1974)
Hardman 8: The Deadly Cotton Heart (1976)
Hardman 9: The One-Dollar Rip-Off (1977)
Hardman 10: Hump’s First Case (1977)
Hardman 11: The Last of the Armageddon Wars (1977)
Hardman 12: The Buy Back Blues (1977)