DEBORAH CROMBIE – All Shall Be Well. Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James #2. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1994. Paperback reprints: Berkley, 1995; Avon, 2004.

   I thought that Crombie’s first novel, last year’s A Share in Death [reviewed here ], was one of the better debuts of late; nothing compelling but a well-crafted and enjoyable book.

   Superintendent Duncan Kincaid has a home life, too, and it’s is about to intersect with his profession. The lady upstairs has been dying of cancer, and now he and her companion have found her dead. As she had previously hinted at suicide, an autopsy and inquest were necessary. She died of an overdose of morphine, and while most think it suicide, Kincaid thinks he knew the lady too well and doesn’t believe it.

   That leaves murder as the only alternative, so he and his trusty Sergeant, Gemma James, begin to investigate. Suspects include the companion (who is a major beneficiary of the will) and/or her avaricious lover, a weak and ne’er-do-well brother, and the visiting nurse.

   Once again I think the American Crombie has done a very good job of writing a British mystery. Her leads are likable and realistic, more so even than in the first book. The players in the mystery are also well done, believable and not stock. Crombie tells her story from shifting viewpoints in pleasant, unobtrusive prose, and paces it well.

   Her books haven’t the hard edge of, say, McGown or Fyfield, nor are they filled with the angst-ridden, unlikable people of Rendell or George, but they aren’t particularly cozy, either. They are well written examples of a traditional type, and I like them.

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Paramount Pictures, 1975. Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman, Addison Powell. Screenplay: Lorenzo Semple Jr. & David Rayfiel, based on the novel Six Days of the Condor, by James Grady. Director: Sydney Pollack.

   This is a movie that for some unaccountable reason I’ve missed seeing until now. I regret that. This is a good one. Robert Redford has played a good many roles over the years, but as Joseph Turner, a bookish low-grade employee of the CIA (code name Condor), he is without a doubt a character he was meant to play.

   Outwardly working for an obscure corner of the world called the American Literary Historical Society in downtown Manhattan, he ducks out the back way one rainy lunchtime to get sandwiches for everyone, only to return and find everyone shot and killed at their desks. What to do? Call his superior and ask to be called in, of course.

   This turns out to be more easily said than done. He quickly discovers that whoever was responsible for the slaughter at his normally stodgy workplace wants him dead as well — and he has no idea who that might be. Who can he trust? No one.

   Along the way he carjacks a young woman, Kathy Hale by name and a photographer by trade, at gunpoint. She is played by Faye Dunaway, perhaps one of a handful of actresses at the time who could manage not to be totally outshone om the screen by Redford’s boyishly handsome charisma. Kathy is naturally very reluctant to believe Turner’s story, but as in all movies like this, she gradually comes around.

   I loved the first half of this movie. When it comes to unraveling the secrets of the inner workings of the CIA, I was less enamored, but that like comparing an “A plus” to an “A,” and I am not grading on the curve.

   Cliff Robertson, as Turner’s immediate superior, gets to play Cliff Robertson, which he does very well, as usual. The standout performance in the second half is Max von Sydow, who plays a wonderfully cosmopolitan hitman who plays for whichever side is paying him at the time, at the same time giving young Turner an insider’s look at the world he was quite happily unaware of before.

   The film is beautifully photographed, the story holds together, and the performances are terrific. What more could you ask?

LESLEY EGAN – Motive in Shadow. Jesse Falkenstein #10. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1980. No US paperback edition.

   As a series character, lawyer Jesse Falkenstein has been around for quite a while. He’s not as well-known to mystery fans as Perry Mason, say, at least not yet, and he probably never will be, but the reason I find both their kinds of adventures so enjoyable is undoubtedly because their crime-solving activities both so closely parallel that of a good private eye (L.A. scene, of course.)

   Not for them the seat-numbing sort of drudgery that most legal work must actually be. Unlike the previously mentioned Mr. Mason, however, Falkenstein always seems to be doing his own legwork, and hardly ever does he have to show up n court at all.

   In this case he’s hired to contest a will, that of an old woman who’s disinheriting her own son from his own business. And this is where the legwork comes in. Uprooting the past — a 50-year-old diary proves most illuminating — coming up with blackmail — but for what crime or minor offense against person or state? — and recreating the laughter and sadness of people and secrets long since buried.

   As a mystery novel, this is a warmly nostalgic piece of writing, one surprisingly almost totally non-violent. As a puzzle in detection, here’s one that’s quite genuinely fascinating all the way through.

Bibliographic Notes:   There were in all twelve recorded adventures of Jesse Falkenstein. Lesley Egan was but one of Elizabeth Linington’s pen names, others being Anne Blaisdell, Egan O’Neill and Dell Shannon. Another series character who appeared under the Egan byline was Vic Varallo, described on one website as “a small-town cop who moves to Glendale, California.” Varallo appeared in thirteen novels, one a crossover case with Falkenstein.

Patented by Edison was released on vinyl in 1960:

Bass – Charlie Potter
Drums – Elvin Jones
Piano – Tommy Flanagan
Tenor Saxophone – Jimmy Forrest
Trumpet – Harry “Sweets” Edison

   According to the flyer I have beside me as I type this, the 38th annual gathering of the LA area paperback collectors convention was held today. This isn’t a con report per se, as Jon and I were there for only just over an hour this afternoon, and not very many of the photos I took with my phone turned out to be usable.

   But a couple did, and I thought I’d share them with you, along with a comment or two. The room was packed not only with dealers and their tables showing their wares, but at mid-afternoon the room was filled with would-be buyers, circulating the room, stooped over tables, and schmoozing with each other as they made the rounds one more time.

   My sense was that the show was perhaps double the size of the Manhattan-based shows that Gary Lovisi did for many years, up to a several years ago. A few tables had some pulps for sale, others had hardcovers or movie posters and other memorabilia, but the vast majority of the offerings were old paperbacks, all glossied up in crisp clear baggies. To me the prices asked were high. If I could get these prices, my basement, garage and storage areas would be emptied so fast it would make your head swim. Too bad all my collectibles are 3000 miles away, or I’d be sure to set up here next year.

   According to the flyer, over 60 authors and artists were set up to sign books and other items. While I was there, there may have been 20 or so sitting behind tables along one side of the room, and they all seemed pleased to be there.

   Nobody seemed to have name tags. I probably passed several people I know but have met only infrequently and didn’t recognize them. If you were there and didn’t see me, either, I apologize.

   I did talk to show organizer Tom Lesser for a short time. I haven’t been able to get to either a pulp or paperback show in quite a while, so it may have been a couple of years since I’ve seen him. If I’m not mistaken, he said they had over 500 people show up. I believe it. It was a big affair.

   Here’s a photo of Jonathan and my friend Paul Herman. Paul lives two towns over from me back in CT but he flew all the way to CA just to see us there. That’s Jon on the left.

THE GANG THAT COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT. GM, 1971. Jerry Orbach, Leigh Taylor-Young, Jo Van Fleet, Lionel Stander, Robert De Niro. Based on the novel by Jimmy Breslin. Director: James Goldstone.

   Thanks to director James Goldstone’s frenetic pacing, there’s not a lot of down time in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. In this comedy film, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing. Despite a fairly thin plot, this off-kilter satire of Brooklyn’s mafia wars moves from scene to scene at a rapid clip, not giving the viewer much time to digest what happened. Most of the time, it works well and distracts the viewer from the fact that there’s not whole much depth to the proceedings.

   But who needs much depth when you’ve got Jerry Orbach portraying Kid Sally, a low-rent South Brooklyn enforcer and Robert DeNiro portraying a character named Mario, an Italian bicycle racer turned con man? Both are such fine actors that it’s difficult to not get lost in their respective characters various schemes and machinations.

   Then there’s veteran character actor Lionel Stander, whose career was among the most effected by the Hollywood blacklist. He portrays Baccala, a crude, tough talking mafia don who utilizes his wife to start the ignition on his car. You know. Just in case.

   The plot follows two parallel tracks. Kid Sally’s attempts to rub out Baccala, and Kid Sally’s sister, Angela’s (Leigh Taylor-Young) budding romance with Mario. Eventually these tracks merge in Kid Sally’s hilariously incompetent attempt to kill Baccala in an Italian restaurant. In this scene, as in many others, the humor isn’t exactly subtle. But it’s not childish and infantile, either. The comedic talent on display makes The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight an enjoyable enough movie, but not necessarily one that necessitates a second viewing.

Editorial Note:   As coincidences go, this is a sad one. This review was scheduled yesterday for today. This morning Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jimmy Breslin’s death was reported. He was 88.

MICHAEL F. FLYNN “Nexus.” Lead (and cover) novella in Analog Science Fiction, March-April 2017.

      Nexus: a connection or series of connections linking two or more things.

   This is a time-travel story taking place in the present that packs a series of multiple punches, each centered around one of the several characters involved:

    … a time traveler from the future who is trying to track down where his particular timeline has gone off the track, dooming billions of people; a woman who is immortal and who met the time traveler once before back in the Byzantine times; a member of a hidden alien race on Earth on the track of a possible invader that may have followed them here: a five-legged spider-like creature alone on Earth that hopes to use the time traveler’s machine to repair his/her/its spaceship; a female android who, inadvertently connecting the pieces of the plot together, wonders if the immortal woman could be another of her kind; and a woman with telepathic abilities who overhears a conversation that brings her into the tale as well.

   That all of these players meet at one crucial time in this planet’s history may happen by a series of striking coincidences, perhaps, but then again, perhaps not.

   Michael F. Flynn has been around as a strong proponent of hard science fiction for a while now, but this is the first work of his that I’ve read. This had to have been a difficult story to write, pulling all of the threads together as he does in a clear, concise fashion, with a light touch every so often as it’s needed. I’m impressed, and I’ll see what I can do to find more of his short fiction to read. Long SF novels are pretty much beyond me any more, I’m afraid.

MICHAEL CONNELLY – The Black Echo. Harry Bosch #1. Little Brown, hardcover, 1992. St. Martin’s, paperback, 1993. Reprinted many times since.

   The Black Echo won that year’s Edgar for Best First Novel, and it’s no wonder. It’s a great book, one that will suck you right in, starting with Chapter One, and keep you reading until it’s over. Not that you’re likely to read it in one sitting. It’s over 500 oversized pages of small print in the current premium paperback edition, and it took me almost a week of grabbing it up at bedtime and reading as long as I could keep my eyes open.

   It starts out with Bosch, now working for the Hollywood Station of the LAPD, being called in to check out a dead body found in a concrete pipe near Mulholland Dam, and it doesn’t quit until he’s closed a case involving an attempted break into a security vault in Beverly Hills.

   The connection? Tunnels. Bosch knew the dead man back in Viet Nam, where they were tunnels rats together, days that haunt him memories still. Working with him on the case for most of the book is a comely FBI agent named Eleanor, whose brother never returned from Nam and with whom he finds a certain, shall we say, extracurricular rapport. On his trail and tracking every move he makes are two cops from Internal Affairs named Lewis and Clarke; Bosch is the kind of guy who goes his own way, and his previous big case caused him a lot of problems, including both a suspension and a transfer.

   As I say, this is long book and the story is very involved, and this brief summary doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. There is one long conversation that one villain has with Bosch when the former thinks he has the situation well under control, but doesn’t. Otherwise, for a first time writer, Connelly had very sure hands at the typewriter when he wrote this one. I don’t think there’s anything in it that’s trail breaking, but both the author and the character caught a lot of people’s fancy at the time, and they still do today. You can put my name on the list.

EDMUND CRISPIN “Beware of the Trains.” First published in The (London) Evening Standard, 1949. Lead story in the collection of the same title (Gollancz, UK, 1953; Walker, US, 1962).

   Is it possible to tell to tell an “impossible crime” mystery in ten pages and get away with it? The answer is yes, and “Beware of the Trains” is a fine unadulterated example.

   Crispin’s primary detective character, Gervase Fen, is by profession an Oxford professor, but he has a decided penchant for running into — and solving — all kinds of unusual crimes. In this story he is once again luckily on hand when the engineer of the train he is on mysteriously disappears, even though the police have the small station surrounded, hoping to nab a notorious burglar whom they suspect was on the train, but who is not.

   That the thief may never have been on the train means that the latter part of that previous sentence is not an impossible crime, but where is the driver?

   Fen uses his wits, does some searching, and comes up with the answer, all neatly and tidily done. Another author who specialized in short story impossibilities was Edward D. Hoch, some of whose efforts along these lines have been collected, but not enough of them to suit me.

Carp was a Los Angeles-based country-rock band primarily known today for helping start then singer-drummer Gary Busey’s career. The group released one self-titled album for Epic in 1969 and a couple of singles before disbanding.