MAX MURRAY —

    ●   The Queen and the Corpse. Farrar Straus, US, hardcover, 1949; Dell #485, mapback edition, no date [1951]. M. Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1960, as No Duty on a Corpse.

    ●   The Right Honorable Corpse. Farrar Straus, US, hardcover, 1951; Unicorn Mystery Book Club, April, 1951. Collier Books, paperback, 1965. M. Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1952.

   In The Queen and the Corpse, on board the luxury liner Queen Alexandra are a group of people with an interest in fellow passenger Leonara Blith, secretary to the late unlamented Felicity Emmabrau. It seems that Blith has with her Emmabrau’s scandalous diary, intended for a New York publisher. But she doesn’t have it long.

   Principal among those preoccupied with Blith is Peter Almsford, horse breeder, steeplechase rider, and who knows what all. It is he who at first reluctantly detects and discovers the murderer, sorting out the many red herrings.

   Murray does well here, providing humor and good characterization, despite the astounding coincidences. The ending, however, is a disappointment, as is Almsford’s and the villain’s belief that a wife can’t testify against her husband.

   Give this one a try anyhow; maybe you’re not the nitpicking type.

   With a moderately interesting lead character, Martin Gilbert, pianist to the elite and spy for the Commonwealth of Australia, The Right Honorable Corpse has its moments. While Gilbert is playing the accompanying music, the Minister for Internal Resources, quite competent but generally loathed and feared, drinks some poisoned tea and expires.

   Although Gilbert is supposed to work under his music cover, he begins giving people — at least the more intelligent ones — the impression that he is not just a handsome face and talented fingers and that underneath his cynicism and apparently blackmailing ways is a chap with the heart of a little boy.

   If you like antiheroes or Australian settings, this novel may appeal. Otherwise, there’s not a great deal here.

   An uneven writer, Murray, or maybe an uneven reader, Deeck. Murray’s The Voice of the Corpse I read with great appreciation. Good Luck to the Corpse and The Neat Little Corpse I couldn’t read at all. Although I finished The Doctor and the Corpse, it was a struggle.

Editorial Comment:   Included in my own review of The Right Honourable Corpse, which I appear to have liked measurably better than did Bill, is a complete listing of Max Murray’s detective novels, plus some small pieces of information about him personally.

LADIES SHOULD LISTEN. Paramount, 1934. Cary Grant, Frances Drake, Edward Everett Horton, Nydia Westman, Rafael Corio, Rosita Moreno, George Barbier, Charles Ray. Frank Tuttle, director; screenplay by Claude Binyon and Frank Butler based on Guy Bolton’s play of the same name, as adapted from the French play La Demoiselle de Passy by Alfred Savoir. Director: Frank Tuttle. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   The ’30s Paramount features are always eagerly awaited, since many of the them are still buried in the vaults of private collections, but in spite of the fine cast, this romantic comedy never really took off.

   Grant, on the verge of major stardom, either had not yet found the style that would characterize his prime years or was uncomfortable with the material, and even dependable Edward Everett Horton was unable to pull this from its frequent doldrums.

   Grant was pursued by Nydia Westman while hotel telephone operator Frances Drake, clearly destined to land Grant at the finale, wandered in and out of the meandering plot, attractive but with little comic spark.

KEITH PETERSON – The Rain. Bantam, paperback original, December 1988. Softcover reprint by “Andrew Klavan writing as Keith Peterson,” Vista, UK, September 1997.

   The third tale about New York reporter John Wells by Keith Peterson takes place exclusively in a sweltering August in New York City. A lowlife acquaintance of Wells’ invites him over and tries to sell him sexually compromising photos of an ostensibly strait-laced senatorial candidate.

   Then the lowlife becomes a non-life, the photos disappear, and Wells’ paper is ignominiously scooped by the other rag in town. John’s popularity with his bosses reaches new lows, and a local mobster also takes a dim view of Wells’ meddling. It’s not clear he can work his way out of this mess even if he dies trying.

   Beautifully plotted and paced.

Editorial Comments:   I do not know whether the name behind the Keith Peterson pseudonym was known when Al wrote this review, but I suspect not, or it seems likely he would have mentioned it. The four “John Wells” books came out in a flurry, three in 1988 and one in 1989, then no more. I bought them all, and even though they looked interesting, I set them aside and almost totally forgot about them until now.   Perhaps I shouldn’t have; see below:

    The John Wells series, by Keith Peterson. —

There Fell a Shadow (n.) Bantam, August 1988.
The Trapdoor (n.) Bantam, 1988.   [Nominated for the Edgar Award, Best Paperback Original.]

The Rain (n.) Bantam, December 1988.   [Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.]
Rough Justice (n.) Bantam October 1989.

YVONNE MONTGOMERY – Scavengers. Arbor House, hardcover, 1987. Avon, paperback, August 1990.

   Many mystery writers grew up reading Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew and Mary Roberts Rinehart, and these roots are apparent in their writing. In Strangled Prose (1986), the first Claire Malloy mystery, Joan Hess often has her heroine compare herself to Drew.

   Finny Aletter, in Yvonne Montgomery’s Scavengers calls herself “Nancy Drew, all grown up.” She is grown up, although still a bit unskilled at detection. She has become a successful Denver stock broker but is now ready to drop out of the business world because she prefers doing restoration carpentry work.

   One of the reasons for her disenchantment is a sexist boss with “a new lease on lust,” and when he is found shot to death, Finny becomes a prime suspect. Ms. Montgomery has a nice knack of describing Denver and using clever lines, e.g., “as obsolete as a church key in a pull-tab world.” Dare we hope for a better puzzle in future books?

Editorial Comments:   Biblio-mystery fans, take note. Although I have not read it, also involved in Finny Aletter’s first appearance is a previously unknown Mark Twain manuscript. And in case you were wondering, her only follow-up case was Obstacle Course (Avon, paperback original, 1990).

STUART KAMINSKY – You Bet Your Life. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1978. Paperback reprints: Charter Book, 1980; Mysterious Press, 1990.

   Hollywood private eye Toby Peters, whose previous clients have included the likes of Errol Flynn and Judy Garland, now heads for Chicago, to settle some gambling debts that Chico Marx strongly protests are not his.

   The inclusion of an aging Al Capone and a youthful Richard Daley in walk-on roles, as well as some other pleasurable surprises, continues to make this series a boisterously welcome romp in nostalgia, but like a good many pulp stories of the same era, the detective story involved relies far too heavily on far too many complications. Not quite hidden is the fact that the plot makes little or no sense at all.

   Next, however, an urgent job for Howard Hughes.

Rating:   C.

[UPDATE] 09-14-11.   This was the third in a series of 24 recorded Toby Peters adventures. There’s no doubting the popularity of the character, and one of the reasons has to be sheer nostalgia. The clients he has and characters he meets while tackling their cases, mostly real-life movie stars but loads of other famous personalities of the 1940s as well, are guaranteed to catch any would-be reader’s eye.

   While I no longer recall the details of this one, the weaknesses of the plots in general are what I do remember. I read a lot of the books in the series, though, so I must not have minded too much!

   Before beginning, you may wish to go back to the first two in this series of articles about one of the more mysterious private eye series in early TV, The Cases of Eddie Drake. Part One is here, and Part Two followed soon thereafter.

   After these two posts appeared, I asked various archives for information about the series. David Bushman of the Paley Center for Media Arts responded they had nine episodes and offered me the chance to watch them. To this old researcher it was like getting a free ticket to Disneyland, but I was unable to go. Mr. Bushman asked me to send in my questions and someone there would watch the episodes and try to find some answers.

   I am amazed by the effort Mr. Bushman and the Paley Center put into answering questions about a show few remember and even fewer care about. If you have any interest in saving old television I can’t think of a better place to support or be a member. Please, check out their website at PaleyCenter.org.

   The episodes were in no condition to view, so techs at the Paley Center have been hard at work making viewable digital copies. This done, Mr. Bushman watched the following episodes: “The Brass Key” (episode one), “Hush, Hush”, “Murder By Proxy”, “Murder in Three-Quarter Time”, “Sleep Well, Angel”, “The Judas Coin”, and “A Hole in the Head” (all with Patricia Morison). He also watched “Murder Ad Lib” and “The Man Who Was Nobody” (with Lynne Roberts).

   With “Shooting The Works” (new link), this leaves only three episodes still missing.

   While the question of when did Eddie Drake first air remains unknown, we have learned more about the series.

   Copyright date on the Patricia Morison’s episodes is 1948. The copyright on the Lynne Roberts’ episodes is 1951. Copyright holder for both is IMPPRO. There is no mention on copyright screen of CBS, DuMont, or NBC.

    “Were there any changes to the standing sets? Was Eddie’s rare 1948 Davis Divan in all episodes?” It is unlikely the sets for a series shelved for three years would have survived.

   Eddie’s rare car was in all the episodes except the first “The Brass Key”. This makes “Shooting the Works” episode two since Eddie mentions he has bought a new car.

   Amazingly, Mr. Bushman took the time out to map Eddie’s office in Morison and Roberts’ episodes. The water cooler, the map, the window with the fake brick wall showing through, the bookshelf, and the rest were the same. The most noticeable change was the set looks better in the Roberts’ episodes.

   There were differences. The theme song and opening credits changed. Roberts’ episodes had a fancier title card featuring a full body silhouette of a man in a suit (drawing) in lower right corner of the screen his shadow cast under the letters of the title.

   Morison’s episodes had her and Haggerty deliver the credits at the end, while Roberts’ episodes credits were graphics upfront.

    “Any changes in the credits?” The chances the exact same people would return after three years is unbelievable.

   The same people but with newly credited help. Jason James wrote all episodes seen, but the Roberts’ two had an additional credit for additional dialog by Robert Lehman. Harlan Thompson and Herbert Strock produced all episodes with Paul Garrison directing, Morison’s episodes had photography by Guy Roe OR Charles Trego. Roberts’ episodes had photography by Guy Roe and Lucien Androit. Strock was credited alone in the Morison’s episodes while he AND Ed Taylor got screen credit in the Roberts’ episodes. Assistant director was Leo Pepin then Leo Peppin (unknown why he added another p to his name) and Chuck Wasserman.

    “Any differences in the two female characters?”

   Both were psychiatrists. There is no mention of Dr. Gayle (Morison) or the book in the two Roberts’ episodes seen. The relationship between Drake and the two remains much the same. Cop Lt. Walsh is played by Theodore von Eltz in all episodes.

   So what have we learned? For one, a major clue in the Producer credits.

   Searching Billboard (at Google books), the August 13, 1949 issue, regarding the Ed Wynn Show for CBS, there was this: “Harlan Thompson named yesterday (6) as show’s associate producer. Thompson is a former veepee of IMPRRO (sic) Inc with film and Broadway musical comedy production experience.”

   IMPPRO was still in production in 1952, but without Harlan Thompson. Herbert L. Strock was now President of the company.

   If IMPPRO, the copyright holder, was still active, why would DuMont need to film the final four episodes? If DuMont did film the final four (as is currently believed), why were the thirteen episodes shown on WENR-TV starting September 7, 1951 when DuMont did not air Eddie Drake until March 6, 1952? If filmed in 1951, why is Harlan Thompson credited as producer when he left the company before August 1949?

   Now what do we know and what can we deduce?

   Billboard magazine from 1948 reported five episodes of Eddie Drake were delivered to CBS, with four more in editing. The filming of the final four episodes was scheduled for November 17, 1948.

   Suddenly, Patricia Morison was offered the lead in Broadway play Kiss Me, Kate. She is gone. Deduction: This is why IMPPRO had to recast the part for the final four episodes to complete the order CBS had paid $300,000 for.

   Current belief says CBS tossed the nine and never aired them. Why? $300,000 in 1948 is a great deal of money to just toss away. And why copyright the episodes in 1948?

   If so many confirmed clues point to the final four being filmed in 1948-49, why are those episodes copyrighted 1951?

   How the Sherlock Holmes do I know? But I can guess.

   The improved look of the series probably came from a sudden increase in the budget. Where did IMPPRO get the money?

   During the delay to recast, did CBS TV Film Sales copyright and shop the nine episodes around? Was the early sales of the first nine episodes where IMPPRO got the money to increase the budget?

   But if the Roberts’ episodes were filmed in 1948-49, why weren’t they copyrighted then?

   Deduction: something went wrong. Perhaps the sales were not good enough for CBS, so it didn’t bother to copyright the final four and shelved the entire series.

   Until 1951 when there was a growing demand for TV Film syndicated series. CBS dusted off Cases of Eddie Drake, copyrighted the Roberts’ episodes, and sold them in syndication.

   I remain convinced Eddie was on the air somewhere in 1949, but until I can prove it:

THE CASES OF EDDIE DRAKE (Syndicated) 1951. Created and written by Jason James. With additional dialog for few episodes by Robert Lehman. Produced by Harlan Thompson and Herbert L. Strock. Directed by Paul Garrison.

ROBERT J. RANDISI – Hard Look. Miles Jacoby #5. Walker, hardcover, May 1993. No paperback edition.

   Miles Jacoby owns a bar, now, after the death of his friend Packy, who willed it to him. He’s still a PI, though, and heads to Florida when a man shows him a postcard with the rear view of a fit and attractive young woman, and says it’s his missing wife.

   The Mets are out of the playoffs, so why not? Then a man he had spotted following him in New York turns up dead in Tampa — in Jacoby’s hotel room. The ops are unhappy, ans so is Jacoby. Obviously, there’s a bit more to the case than a missing wife.

   Randisi is getting better and more assured with his writing in each book. I haven’t liked the Jacoby books as well as the Brooklyn series with Nick Delvecchio, but I enjoyed this one considerably.

   Randisi’s strengths are the likability of his characters and a very smooth narrative flow. The overall plot wasn’t bad, but I wish Randisi — and a number of other PI writers — would quit working cops into their stories in totally unrealistic ways.

   Here, Jacoby and a cute, young, female Deputy hit it off rather well, and she chases around with him the rest of the book, flashing her badge at appropriate times to help him out. Bullshit. It’s just lazy plotting, and he’s better than that.

LAWRENCE BLOCK – Out on the Cutting Edge. William Morrow, hardcover, October 1989. Avon, paperback, October 1990.

   Alcoholic ex-cop and unlicensed private detective Matt Scudder is hired by an Indiana businessman, Warren Hoeldtke, to look for his daughter Paula who came to New York trying to break into show business but hasn’t contacted her family for the past several months.

   Meanwhile, Matt has become friendly with a small time ex-con named Eddie Dunphy, who has been attending A.A. meetings for the past seven months and is mulling over asking Matt to be his “confessor” in Step 5 of the Alcoholics Anonymous program.

   Eddie claims to have something pretty heavy on his mind and when he doesn’t show up at meetings for a few days Matt manages to get into his apartment and discovers Eddie’s body. Eddie, apparently, had strangled himself while experimenting in kinky sex. Matt, naturally, thinks there is something fishy about the death.

   While I fully expected the two cases to connect up, I was somewhat surprised that they did only tangentially. (While looking into one case Matt discovers what happened in the other.) The characterization is excellent: Eddie; the woman who manages Eddie’s building, Willa Rossiter, with whom Scudder begins a sexual relationship; and a West side hood named Mickey Ballou.

   My main quibble with the book is the hurried ending. Having discovered what happened to Paula, Matt does a few hours of telephoning and record checking and suddenly knows who killed Eddie and why.

WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER – Vermilion Drift. Atria Books, hardcover, September 2010; trade paperback, June 2011.

   A year after the death of his wife, Cork O’Connor has started a “confidential investigation and security consulting business.” He is hired by Max Cavanaugh, the owner of the Great North Mining Company, to investigate the disappearance of his sister Lauren.

   At the same time he is looking into who is sending threatening letters to those involved in a government investigation of the company’s shuttered Vermilion One iron mine as a possible place for long term storage of radioactive waste, which many locals violently oppose.

   When Cork is called upon to enter the mine to look at graffiti deep inside with the same threatening message, he figures there must be another entrance to the mine. While exploring a walled out passage that is marked on maps as a collapse, he discovers that it is still a viable passage, and exploring down the passage he stumbles on a side cavern that contains the remains of six victims — one recent and five older.

   The recent victim turns out to be the missing sister, but the others are half a century old, and may be the remains of “the Vanishings” — three Indian girls who disappeared in the summer of 1964, when Cork’s father was sheriff. Further investigation reveals that one of the Indian woman victims has a bullet lodged in her spine, and that the same gun used in that fifty year old killing was used to kill Lauren.

   And what may that have to do with the reoccurring nightmares Cook is having about being responsible for his father’s death? This reminds me a lot of the style of a Ross MacDonald novel — where past violence has led to tragedy in the present. The novel starts rather slowly, but about 100 pages in it turns into a compulsive page turner. Not as good as Heaven’s Keep, the previous novel in the series — this is number ten — but still a satisfying read.

Rating: B.

S. J. ROZAN – On the Line. St. Martin’s, hardcover, September 2010. Trade paperback: August 2011.

Genre:   Private Eye. Leading characters:  Bill Smith & Lydia Chin (10th in series). Setting:   New York City.

First Sentence: Crashing dark chords smothered the cell phone’s impertinent chirp, but the ringtone was “Ride of the Valkyries,” so it penetrated, and I stopped.

   PI Lydia Chin has been kidnapped. Her sometimes partner and friend who wishes he were more, has 12 hours before the kidnapper will kill Lydia. Bill Smith is led on a desperate chase through New York City following obscure clues and being chased by the police who set it up to appear Bill murdered a Chinese prostitute.

   He is also slowed down by the Chinese criminal who believes the same thing. Fortunately, Bill does have the help of Lydia’s techno-whiz cousin, Linus, his girlfriend Trella, and Lydia’s best friend, Detective Mary Kee.

   Let me start by declaring myself to normally being a huge fan of S.J. Rozan. However, I shall admit, this book let me down.

   Those of us who follow the series knew it was Bill’s turn to take the lead and there were some interesting supporting characters, particularly Linus and Trella. One of the most delightful characters of the series was completely missing from the story, however, except in reference.

   However, my biggest issue with the book overall had to do with characters. There was no character development. Once again, an author based the book on the assumption that readers had read previous books in the series, which I feel is such a mistake.

   The entire premise of the story is built on Bill’s search for Lydia yet there is little explanation, beyond the fact they are occasional partners, giving a new reader an understanding of the real depth of the relationships. This is true of all the relationships; what background is given is glancing at best.

   The story is fully plot driven. It starts off high energy and, with a 12-hour clock running, never takes a break. It is exciting and suspenseful but almost too much so. The technological information is fascinating but did seem a bit too easy.

   The very clever use of Twitter and Facebook demonstrates just how powerful and ubiquitous they have become and how hard it can be for those not technology-focused to be left behind the curve. However, the ease and speed at which much of the information Bill and his team were able to obtain did stretch credulity quite a bit.

   Having read all of Ms. Rozan’s books, I know how good her writing can be. I can understand an author wanting to try something new, but this almost had an action comic feel about it. If you’re looking for a non-stop, beat-the-clock, distracting airplane book to leave behind at the end of the trip, this would satisfy that need.

   For me, I shall hope Ms. Rozan returns to the quality of some of her previous books for her next one.

Rating:   Okay.