LUCY CORES – Corpse de Ballet. Duell Sloan & Pearce, hardcover, 1944. Collier, paperback, 1965 (shown). Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2004.

   The threesome of detectives who work together in this book to solve the murder of a male ballet star on the night of his comeback also appeared in one earlier novel, Painted To Kill (Duell, 1943). The occupations of two of them, however, have changed. Lt. Andrew Torrent is still a homicide detective, but Eric Skeets has become a lieutenant in the army, and Toni Ney is now a newspaper reporter, albeit only a daily exercise columnist who sometimes also covers the world of ballet.

   I am not ordinarily a fan of ballet, but Miss Cores’ depiction of what goes on behind the scenes, either in rehearsal or the actual performances themselves, is fascinating. Jealousy and competitive rivalry being what it is, there is no shortage of suspects in the death of the famed choreographer and dancer Izlomin, and it takes quite a while (over 220 pages) to sort out who was where when and why they might want to see him dead.

   Damping my enthusiasm a tad, though, is the complicated nature of the means, requiring five jam-packed pages for the final full explanation, parts of which require a sizable suspension of disbelief, at least on my part. The attraction of Toni to one of the suspects, seriously threatening her unofficial engagement to Lt. Skeets, also seemed to have been added as an edgy distraction I’m not sure the story really needed.

   It all ends well, however, and thankfully so, as this was our protagonists’ last recorded adventure together.

Monk’s first album for Columbia, 1963. Personnel: Thelonious Monk – piano, Charlie Rouse – tenor sax, John Ore – bass, Frankie Dunlop – drums.

BANK SHOT. United Artists, 1974. George C. Scott (as Walter Upjohn Ballentine), Joanna Cassidy, Sorrell Booke, G. Wood, Clifton James, Bob Balaban, Bibi Osterwald, Frank McRae, Don Calfa. Based on the novel by Donald E. Westlake. Director: Gower Champion.

   The names have been changed to protect … who? In the book the leader of a hapless gang of crooks who try to rob a bank by stealing the whole bank is named John Dortmunder, whose exploits filled the pages of several of Donald Westlake’s comic crime novels, with emphasis on the “comic.”

   Why he becomes Walter Upjohn Ballentine in the movie is a mystery to me, one that I’m hoping that someone reading this will come along and explain.

   And while you’re at it, tell me why someone thought George C. Scott has any business playing Dortmunder. I just don’t see it, even with the bushiest caterpillar eyebrows you’ve ever seen on a big time movie star.

   Let me explain about the bank. It’s only a temporary one — a trailer filled with guards overnight, but just begging to be put on wheels and towed away. The movie was intended to be a comedy, but I found myself very quietly not laughing almost all the way through. I permitted myself a few smiles now and again — Scott is a very good actor, and while I don’t believe he did comedies very often, once in a while the perpetrators of this movie came up with a scene that worked.

   See this for the presence of brassy redhead Joanna Cassidy, whose character is financing the deal and who is (unaccountably) madly in lust with Walter Upjohn Ballentine. The rest of the cast, a motley crew at best, I could easily have done without.

B. J. OLIPHANT – Death and the Delinquent. Shirley McClintock #4. Fawcett, paperback original, 1993.

   I like Sheri Tepper whatever name she writes under. At least I think I do; I haven’t read any of her A. J. Orde books, though I’ve got one waiting. I do like the Shirley McClintock series a lot and think they’re good enough for hard covers.

   Shirley and her foreman/companion vacationing in the mountains of New Mexico after the traumatic events in the last book with her daughter Allison and Allison’s schoolmate April. April isn’t working out too well. She’s nosy, neurotic, and thoroughly obnoxious, and Shirley has decided to send her home when a sharpshooter wounds Shirley’s mule and kills April. Accident? Hard to see how it could be.

   Some strange items are found in April’s belongings, and then a newborn is stolen from a hospital nursery. Of course it all fits together but Shirley-on-crutches is damned if she sees how.

   Tepper/Oliphant/Orde’s strength has always been her characters, whether they’re cat-like aliens or independent Colorado ranch ladies. Shirley McClintock is one of the stronger and more realistic, and an altogether appealing heroine. I haven’t found anything to dislike in this series. The writing is good, the characterization excellent, and the plots haven’t strained my credulity. All of the regulars have become real people, and I look forward to seeing more of them.

       The Shirley McClintock series —

Dead in the Scrub. Gold Medal, 1990.

The Unexpected Corpse. Gold Medal, 1990.
Deservedly Dead. Gold Medal, 1992.
Death and the Delinquent. Gold Medal, 1993.
Death Served Up Cold. Gold Medal, 1994.
A Ceremonial Death. Gold Medal, 1996.
Here’s to the Newly Dead. Gold Medal.

   Sheri S. Tepper also wrote six mysteries as A. J. Orde, the leading character in these being Jason Lynx, an antiques dealer based in Denver CO. Under her own name, however, she was far better known as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, as you can see from her bibliography here. She died last month, on October 22, 2016, at the age of 87.

Marie Queenie Lyons released one excellent LP in 1970 then seemingly disappeared without a trace. Recently re-released on CD, now also very pricey, Soul Fever is considered “one of the rarest and most prized Southern soul albums” ever.

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU. Columbia Pictures, 1957. Gregg Palmer, Allison Hayes, Autumn Russell, Joel Ashley, Morris Ankrum, Marjorie Eaton, Gene Roth. Director: Edward L. Cahn

   Zombies of Mora Tau is best thought of as two distinct movies in one: an enjoyable, if not overly imaginative, B-horror film and a clumsy, downright boring crime drama with supernatural elements thrown into the mix. Directed by Edward Cahn, Zombies of Mora Tau had the potential to be a guilty, campy pleasure. But it just ends up as a rather forgettable low-budget horror movie, one that was churned out for audiences without much thought to either characterization or coherency.

   One thing is for sure. The movie doesn’t waste any time getting to the heart of the matter. The film opens with a scene in which a chauffeur (Gene Roth) is driving the young, beautiful Jan Peters (Autumn Russell) to her grandmother’s house in Africa. Along the way, he runs over a man standing in the middle of the road. But he insists that it’s fine because it wasn’t a really a man. It was a zombie!

   You see, Grandmother Peters (Marjorie Peters) has set up a homestead in Africa to be close to her “deceased” husband, a sailor who is one of the living dead that haunt the region. Jan doesn’t believe her grandmother’s voodoo hokum.

   That is, until a group of conniving diamond thieves show up to retrieve treasure from a sunken vessel – the very same boat that Grandmother Peter’s husband was on. Apparently, there is some curse that keeps the zombie sailors in a state of living death.

   As I mentioned previously, the movie had all the makings of a solid B-movie. After the first act, the movie unfortunately transitions into a third-rate crime film in which the diamond hunters battle both amongst themselves and against the zombies, all for the sake of sunken treasure in a remote corner of Africa. One wonders if the gang would have been better off by robbing a jewelry store back home.

ANTHONY BERKELEY – The Poisoned Chocolates Case. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1929. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1929. Paperback reprints include Pocket #814, US, 1951; Dell/Scene of the Crime #8, US, 1983.

   Anthony Berkeley (a pseudonym for A.B. Cox, who also wrote as Francis Iles) had an excellent ability to characterize, as is demonstrated in this novel in which the members of London’s Crime Club — a carefully chosen group of armchair detectives — match wits to solve the murder of Mrs. Graham Bendix. Mrs. Bendix died after eating poisoned chocolates that were apparently intended for Sir Eustace Pennefather, dissolute member of the aristocracy whom many had reason to kill.

   The police have found no solution to the problem of who sent the chocolates to Sir Eustace (who seems to have innocently passed them on to Mrs. Bendix), and Roger Sheringham, somewhat pompous founder of the Crime Club, has volunteered the assistance of his learned members. Although Detective Inspector Farrar of Scotland Yard appears to think this an idle amusement, nonetheless he agrees to brief the club on the case.

   The members — each characterized in all his or her eccentricities — agree to present their solutions on different nights. And it is no surprise when suspicion falls on one of their number. As theories and evidence pile up, the facts of the case unfold, and the cumulative work of the members — each of whom has his own particular sphere of knowledge, each of whom is certain of the correctness of his solution — leads to the logical but surprising conclusion.

   This is a talky novel, with little action or movement. But it should appeal to those who like the combination of good characterization and armchair detection.

   Other novels featuring the learned Roger Sheringham include The Layton Court Mystery (1929), The Second Shot (1931), Jumping Jenny (1933), and Panic Party (1934).

         ———
   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.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Careless Cupid. William Morrow, hardcover, 1968. Pocket, paperback, November 1969. Ballantine, paperback, 1989.

   Both author Erle Stanley Gardner and character Perry Mason are in fine form in this relatively late entry in the series. (Gardner died in 1970, but as I recall, there were several books written but as yet unpublished at the time of his passing.) It’s a slim book, only 181 pages in the Pocket edition, but there’s still plenty of space for all of the usual ingredients, including a trial in which Hamilton Burger is left dumbfounded (again) and Perry’s client is cleared (again!).

   This time around his client is a widow who would like to marry the man at whose home her husband unfortunately died of food poisoning, or so the death certificate says. There are members of the man’s family, however, who think their chances of receiving their full inheritance if the marriage goes through, and their suggestion that something was fishy about the death is starting to attract the attention of the authorities.

   One way Perry goes about protecting his client in this book is to have her undergo a lie detector test, which gives author Gardner a large opportunity to expound on what a polygraph can or cannot do, and why defense attorneys should use them more often. It helps, though, if the client is innocent. This one reads very quickly.

Subtitled: “The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter.” I thought I knew all of Brubeck’s early LP’s, but I just came across this one for the first time. It’s available on CD only as a Japanese import.

COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE. American International Pictures, 1970. Alternative title: The Loves of Count Iorga, Vampire. Robert Quarry (Count Yorga), Roger Perry, Michael Murphy, Michael Macready, Donna Anders, Judy Lang. Narrator: George Macready. Screenwriter-Director: Bob Kelljan.

   We first meet Count Yorga as he is conducting a seance attended by six couples in modern day (1970s) Los Angeles, as they try to contact the deceased mother of one of the young women in the party. Several of those attending do think it is a party, making jokes and general fun of the proceedings. They shouldn’t have.

   After the seance, one of the couples takes the Count, a recent arrival from Bulgaria, home to what looks like a veritable castle somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. They have trouble leaving and have to stay the night stranded on the castle grounds in their Volkswagen bus, unknowingly allowing a strange visitor enter while they are sleeping.

   Matters progress very well from these, at least from Count Yorga’s perspective. The others investigate, even to the extent of calling in a doctor who is an expert in blood disorders. It slowly dawns on them who (or what) they are dealing with. A direct confrontation is in order, and and from the viewer’s perspective, it proves most amusing as well as chilling.

   And this is the effect of the entire movie, which when it started out was intended to be a soft-core pornography film, a few hints of which still remain. This may be one of the first vampire films to take place in a modern day setting, and in spite of its low budget, it manages to take good advantage of that fact very well. The ending, by the way, is one well worth waiting for.