From a Q&A newsletter called Quora that comes into my email inbox a few times a week, a question was asked, “What do you think are the four best noir films of all time, ones you would use to introduce the genre to, say, teenagers today?”

   The answer as given, in order:

1. Double Indemnity
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. Laura
4. Detour

   Not a bad list, but what do you think? If you were add a number 5, what would it be?

   “The Market Basing Mystery” (The Sketch, October 17, 1923; The Blue Book Magazine, May 1925) was collected in the U.S. in The Under Dog and Other Stories (1951), and in the U.K. first in Thirteen for Luck! (1966), a catch-all volume for young readers, and then in Poirot’s Early Cases (1974). It was expanded into the title novella (aka “Mystery of the Dressing Case”) of Murder in the Mews and Other Stories (truncated as Dead Man’s Mirror; 1937), which debuted in Redbook Magazine (September & October 1936). With his formidable “little gray cells,” Agatha Christie’s Belgian super-sleuth, Hercule Poirot, perhaps found the mystery itself less baffling than that barrage of appearances and titles!

   First mentioned here, and thought to be based upon Basingstoke and/or Christie’s future home of Wallingford, Market Basing would be the setting for stories and novels featuring Jane Marple, Superintendent Battle, and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford; Poirot himself returned there in Dumb Witness (aka Poirot Loses a Client; 1937). Inspector Japp, while off duty “an ardent botanist,” suggests a weekend with Poirot and Hastings in that “little country town,” where he craves anonymity: “Nobody knows us, and we know nobody.” But Constable Pollard, transferred from a nearby village where he’d met Japp through “a case of arsenical poisoning,” interrupts them over an English breakfast at the local inn.

   He summons them to “rambling, dilapidated” Leigh House, rented eight years ago by the virtual recluse Walter Protheroe, shot through the head; the locked door, bolted windows, and pistol in his hand suggest suicide, but per Dr. Giles, the bullet entered behind his left ear — yet the gun was in his right hand, the fingers not closed over it. There is no obvious motive, with the only apparent suspects his devoted housekeeper of 14 years, Miss Clegg, and his recently arrived guests from London, Mr. and Mrs. Parker. Examining the scene, Poirot focuses on two aspects: the smell — or lack thereof, inconsistent with Protheroe’s being a heavy smoker — and the handkerchief he had carried in his right-hand coat sleeve.

   The former suggests that the window had been open all night, and the latter indicates that he was left-handed; a broken cuff-link found by the body is identified as Parker’s by Miss Clegg, who says they were neither expected nor welcome. A tramp who often slept in an unlocked shed reports overhearing Parker attempting to blackmail Protheroe, revealed as an alias for Wendover, a Naval lieutenant who “had been concerned in the blowing up of the first-class cruiser Merrythought, in 1910.” Put on trial, Parker is cleared by Poirot, who gets Miss Clegg to admit that having found Protheroe a suicide, she blamed Parker, implicating him by repositioning the gun, bolting the window, and planting the cuff-link.

   Almost six times as long as the original, “Murder in the Mews” was adapted in 1989 with David Suchet on Britain’s ITV in Agatha Christie’s Poirot, which unsurprisingly omitted “Market Basing.” The third-person novella features Japp (now a Chief Inspector) but not Hastings, while Pollard and Giles have been supplanted by Divisional Inspector Jameson and Dr. Brett, respectively. This marks Jameson’s only literary appearance; played, as he was in “Mews,” by John Cording, he was interpolated into their 1990 adaptation of “The Lost Mine” (The Sketch, November 21, 1923; The Blue Book Magazine, April 1925) from the collections Poirot Investigates (1925) — here in the States — and Poirot’s Early Cases.

   Taking a shortcut through Bardsley Gardens Mews to Poirot’s flat on Guy Fawkes Night, he and Japp remark that it would be perfect for a murder, since the fireworks marking the plot to blow up Parliament would hide the sound of a shot. The next morning, Japp asks Poirot to accompany him back there when summoned by Jameson to the scene of what at first seemed a suicide; he and Brett, who forced open the door, show them the body.

   The set-up, with the misaligned wound and gun, is the same, but Christie rings her changes on the victim — young widow Barbara Allen, who lives with her friend Jane Plenderleith and is engaged to Charles Laverton-West, “M.P. for someplace in Hampshire” — and suspects.

   Charles, with no apparent motive yet a flimsy alibi, resents being questioned, due less to guilt than to being, says Japp, a “[b]it of a stuffed fish. And a boiled owl!”; housekeeper Mrs. Pierce merely provides a torrent of chatter. Blackmailer Major Eustace met Barbara years ago in India and knew that “having borne an illegitimate child who died at three” she invented a fictitious late husband, a revelation she feared would damage Charles’s career.

   Carried over are the clues of the smokeless room (Poirot invokes Conan Doyle’s “curious incident of the dog in the nighttime,” which did nothing) and cuff link, with a wristwatch replacing the handkerchief, supported by a writing table that has the pen tray on the left.

   Eustace admits visiting Barbara, ostensibly to offer investment advice, but the neighbors report his saying goodbye to her at 10:20; his subsequent movements are accounted for, yet when it is realized that nobody actually saw or heard her half of the conversation from inside the doorway, he is arrested. Confronted with the truth, Jane reluctantly agrees that she cannot let Eustace — already facing a long prison sentence for an unrelated swindle — take the blame for Barbara’s death. Jane admits finding her body and suicide note, which she burned, and restaging the scene to frame Eustace, so despite its title, the case remains, as Japp puts it, “Not murder disguised as suicide, but suicide made to look like murder!”

   Among her clever recombining and expanding of elements, Christie adds one that nicely shows the ingenuity of Jane, who professes first perplexity at the possibility and method of Barbara’s suicide, and then outrage at the notion of murder. Visibly discomfited when asked to unlock a cupboard full of umbrellas, golf clubs, and tennis racquets, she displays anxiety over an attache case containing old magazines and other trivia. She is later seen throwing it into the lake by the golf course, whence it is retrieved, now empty, but this is a superb piece of misdirection: she had diverted their attention to the case when her real concern was Barbara’s left-handed clubs, tossed into the undergrowth along the course.

         — Copyright © 2023 by Matthew R. Bradley.
   

Up next: “Dead Man’s Mirror.”

Edition cited —

      “The Market Basing Mystery” and “Murder in the Mews” in Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories: William Morrow (2013)

   Even though Kevin Burton Smith says that I assisted him in putting this list of one-and-done PI novels together, it must have been done a while ago, since I don’t remember doing so. I just came across it again this afternoon while scouting around for something else, as one does while wasting Googling away an hour or so online.

   As far as I know for sure, I’ve read only seven of these. What about you? Everyone reading this has read the first three, right? Of the others, which ones have you read that you can recommend? Have any suggestions as to good ones Kevin may have missed?

   Here’s the link: https://thrillingdetective.com/2020/02/13/one-and-done/  Do take a look. Lots of cover images to go with it.

Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930)*
Ben Jardinn in Death in a Bowl by Raoul Whitfield (1931)
Karl Craven in Solomon’s Vineyard by Jonathan Latimer (1941)
John J. Shannon in The Private Eye by Cleve F. Adams (1942)
Walter James in Deadly Weapon by Wade Miller (1946)
Steve Lawson in Hard and Fast by U.S. Andersen (1956)
Murray Kirk in The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin (1958)
Max Raven in Cain’s Woman by O.G. Benson (1960)
Neal Fargo in Interface by Joe Gores (1974)
The Eye in The Eye by Marc Behm (1980)
Cody in Texas Wind by James Reasoner (1980)
Ralph Poteet in Peeper by Loren Estleman (1989)
Bernardo Thomas in Tropical Murder by Louis Williams
Fritz Brown in Brown’s Requiem by James Ellroy (1981)
“Peekaboo” Frankie Fagan in Bohemian Heart by James Dalessandro (1993)
Ernest DeWalt in An Ocasional Hell by Randall Silvis (1993)
Reno Sloan in The Asylum by John Edward Ames (1994)
George Webb in The Light of Day by Graham Swift (2003)

CHINA SMITH “Devil-in-the-Godown.” Syndicated, 16 September 1952 (Season 1, Episode 6). Dan Duryea as China Smith, Douglass Dumbrille as Inspector Hobson, Myrna Dell as “Empress” Shira, Guest star: Marjorie Lord. Written by Robert C. Dennis. Director: Edward Mann. Currently streaming online here

   According to Wikipedia, the episode itself being of minimal use in this regard, China Smith was a “a soldier of fortune, an opportunistic con artist and sometimes private eye who sought adventure.” His base of action is Singapore, and this particular episode opens scene a man (later identified as a newspaper reporter) is unceremoniously dumped off a dock into the water below.

   Smith is hired to investigate, by whom is not clear, and after using a league of assassins to help finds himself tackling a gang of warehouse arsonists. Marjorie Lord plays a reporter, perhaps for the same newspaper as the dead man.

   This is all I know. The whole story is a horrible mess. You get the gist of it, and maybe that’s all you need. Perhaps if you were to watch it, you could fill me in on some of the details I missed.

   The players are more or less fine. I watched this mostly for the star, Dan Duryea, one of my all time favorite bad guys. I can tell you that he can also play a shifty kind of good guy too, and of course, either way he is his usual insouciant self. That might be all you need to know to give this one a try yourself, but keep in mind I warned you.
   

NICK CARTER – The Golden Serpent. Nick Carter #20. Award A216F, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1967.

   A golden serpent is the symbol of a Mexican political party seeking the return of the southwestern US. Chinese Communists are actually in control of the organization, as well as behind a plot to flood the US with counterfeit money.

   The CIA calls in the help of Nick Carter, the Killmaster, and he uncovers a mess of Chinese, neo-Nazis, Mexican bandits, and a Russian spy – all centered about the castle of a cosmetics heiress who has the strangest sex habits.

   Sex and sadism at its worst – or best. Maybe one likable character, some unpalatable action, mostly hack writing in spite of the abundance of promising plot lines. A few clumsy mistakes that might be overlooked in the pace, including information pieced out only when necessary. Reflections of the [real] CIA? Not really.

Rating: **

Bibliographic Update: The man behind the “Nick Carter” alias this time was Manning Lee Stokes.

FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE. “Search in the Night.”. CBS, 05 Nov 1953 (Season 2, Episode 7). Frank Lovejoy (Randy Stone), Frances Rafferty, James Millican, Rhys Williams, Vic Perrin, Colleen Miller. Directed by Christian Nyby. Current streaming on YouTube (see below).

   â€œSearch in the Night” features a reporter for the Chicago Star whose nightly beat takes him through the streets of that city after the sun goes down, looking for human interest stories to tell his reading audience in his next morning’s daily column. On this particular night, he comes a across a small crowd of people watching a man in a deep sea diver’s suit and helmet look for something off a short pier.

   What is he looking for? Who us the woman who hired him? At the rate of $50 per dive, it must be something important. But … a woman’s purse? Randy Stone is puzzled, until the purse is opened. In it is $5000 in a small wad of bills. Also in the purse … a gun. Then the diver reveals something else. The body of man is also down there, caught in the pilings of the pier. Now Randy Stone has his story. But how does it develop from there? And more to the point, how does it end?

   Old time radio fans will have recognized what is going on, almost immediately, I’m sure. This was an effort to transfer a highly successful radio show to TV. Night Beat was an NBC radio drama that was on the air  from February 6, 1950 to September 25, 1952

   Quoting from its Wikipedi page, “Frank Lovejoy starred as Randy Stone, a reporter who covered the night beat for the Chicago Star, encountering criminals, eccentrics, and troubled souls. Listeners were invited to join Stone as he ‘searches through the city for the strange stories waiting for him in the darkness.’”

   This “backdoor pilot” is a good one, filled with just the right amount of mystery and characters who are terrified about what comes next (some of them), while others feel safe as they go about go about their day-by-job, while revealing to Stone what led up to the events he wandered into in the middle of.

   As a pilot, this really ought to have been picked up. On radio, Frank Lovejoy’ gruff but yet kindly voice was perfect for the role. On TV, his square-jawed visual persona fit the role to a tee, and his interactions with the people he encounters and talks to are also finely tuned. (And not all of them are essential to the plot. His encounter with Colleen Miller’s character as a floozie in a bar, for example, lasts no more than a minute or so, but the conversation they have is solid gold.)

BARRY NORMAN – The Butterfly Tattoo. Bobby Lennox #2, St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1996. Published in the UK under the title The Mickey Mouse Affair (Orion, 1995).

   If I read the first in this series, The Birddog Tape, I’ve forgotten it. The author hosts a popular film review program for the BBC, and has written a number of other books both fiction and non-.

   Bobby Lennox is an ex-boxer of not quite first rank who was fortunate enough to get out of the game with his face and wits intact He’s used those wits to become a successful businessman and investor, but still has ties to the rougher world he used to inhabit.

   An old friend from that world, a top underworld figure who has almost become legitimatized, calls him and asks a favor: a London politician who may be in line for a Ministership and who is “helpful” to him is being blackmailed, and the crime figure wants Lennox to help make it go away. He does, and it does, but not before a lot of blood and tears are spilled.

   This was a pleasant surprise. It’s not a major book —  and not intended to be- — but one with more than competent first-person narration, well-drawn characters, and an interesting plot.

   In essence it’s a hardboiled private eye tale, though Lennox doesn’t have a license. In general I don’t think British authors have fared particularly well with this type of novel, but Norman seems to have the moves down pretty well.

Bio-Biographical Update (the first paragraph coming from the author’s Fantastic Fiction webpage) —

    “Barry Norman, 1933 – 2017, CBE, was a British film critic, journalist and television presenter. He presented Film… on BBC One from 1972 to 1998 and was the programme’s longest-running host. He also wrote many novels and non-fiction books, including books on film and cricket.”

   This and the one earlier one that Barry G. mentioned in this review constitute the entirety of Barry N.’s Bobby Lennox series.

DOUGLAS FAIRBAIRN – Street 8. Delacorte, hardcover 1977. Reprint paperback: Dell, 1978.

   Street 8 is Calle Ocho in Miami. Anti-Castro Cubans are everywhere. The white dudes are a dying breed. To keep his used car lot going, former Marine Bobby Mead hires a Cuban salesman to sell cars to the locals.

   One of the all time great first lines sets the scenario: “Afterwards, Bobby Mead kept thinking that he had known all along that Oscar Perez was going to get his head blown off.” Try to stop reading after that. I dare you.

   So, anyway, Bobby owns a used car lot. Has owned it for years. But now he’s barely making it, making the hire of Oscar Perez all the more necessary.

   Oscar starts out really well, very motivated, selling a ton. But then Oscar’s buddy gets rubbed out by the local Cuban “Death Squad”. The Death Squad gets rid of anybody who opposes Ramon Pache — a local politician who hopes to unite the Cuban vote behind him and take over Miami politics.

   Pache was a major right-wing political opponent of Castro in Cuba, and has used this past to leverage his political future in Miami. Pache has no interest in returning to Cuba and challenging Castro. But he uses anti-Castro sentiment as a tool to unify his political power. And anyone Pache’s Death Squad liquidates is automatically deemed to be a Castro-spy who deserved to die.

   When Oscar’s buddy gets killed, Oscar just can’t get over it. So Oscar starts shouting at all the customers, at all the passers by: “Pache! I hate you! I hate you!… I shit on your image! I will destroy you!”

   So, yeah. Hence the first line of the story.

   But if you think you know where it’s going from there, you’ve got another think coming (it’s never been ‘another thing coming’ — you just think it’s ‘another thing coming’ because of a Judas Priest song).

   Bobby Mead is a mess. He hasn’t given a shit about life ever since he screwed his 14 year old daughter. You read that right. Yup. Incest.

   Oh but don’t worry. His daughter’s 17 now, stars in amateur pornos, is a runaway, a prostitute, and a flower girl. And she tells him it’s fine. She wanted him to. It was the best sex she ever had. And for him too. He’s in love with her and doesn’t want anyone else.

   Yeah. Disgusting and disturbing. But Bobby Mead agrees with you. He hates himself. He agrees that he’s disgusting and disturbing.

   Bobby tries his hardest to drink himself to death. But it doesn’t seem to be happening quick enough.

   So when Pache makes an offer Bobby can’t refuse, converting Bobby’s garage into a bomb factory, Bobby agrees. But he doesn’t just say yes. He makes friends with the Death Squad guys (lead by another former Marine): True believers in the overthrow of Castro.

   But when the Death Squad discovers that Pache has no intention of overthrowing Castro — that he’s just leveraging anti-Castro sentiment for his own gains in money and power, they decide to go after Pache themselves. With Bobby leading the charge.

   The book is trey bizarro. Not in prose — the prose is straight and tight and hard and clear. But the story itself is literally incredible, as in not credible. But incredibly not credible, if that makes any sense. It’s not simply unbelievable. It pushes believability beyond a limit that somehow moves beyond its own unbelievability into a world where its lack of credibility hardly matters.

   To have incest in your novel is bad enough. But to have unrepentant incest, where the victim assures you that it’s okay, where the protagonist’s psychiatrist girlfriend, nonplussed, says ‘oh — no worries — it happens all the time’: that is simply astounding. Astoundingly tone deaf. But like a set of ginsu knives: Wait! There’s more! The incest isn’t even part of the story! It’s a side issue that’s never resolved. It’s just acknowledged that he fucked his daughter, years later they both look fondly upon the incident, and let’s move on to the story about the Cuban Death Squads.

   But I guess I can forgive it — because the incest thing I guess serves as a barely subconscious sublimation into alcohol fueled self-destruction as white American ex-Marine Bobby Mead leads an Anti-Castro Death Squad hunting hypocrites to the cause.

   Golly Jeepers, man. Whew.

   So I can’t recommend the thing. I can’t recommend anything that puts the incest taboo into question. Sorry. But I will say this. Douglas Fairbairn could really write.

   One example I’ll leave you with — and another side-track completely irrelevant to the story. But illustrative of just how talented this writer was. He can encapsulate a life in a sentence. A life sentence, you might say:

   
   So, yeah. Anybody that can write sentences like that ain’t all bad. He’s damn good, even. But the incest just killed me. I couldn’t handle it. Maybe you can handle it better than I. If you can, it’s a memorable book. Kind of Charles Willeford meets James Crumley. With some incest thrown in just for the fun of it.

   Another review here: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1762

Out of all the records that Light In The Attic has helped the world discover, none are shrouded in as much mystery as Lewis L’Amour. The Lewis journey began when a collector picked up the LP for a dollar at an Edmonton, Alberta flea market. The album’s minimal compositions, somber synth and piano, and ethereal vocals inspired the curious collector to share his unexpected discovery with a fellow vinyl fanatic. If you’re an independent artist who’s planning to release an album, you may seek music distribution services from Tunecore.

From there, news of the album began to spread online. Light In The Attic became interested in reissuing the record and the search for Lewis began. They reached out to photographer Edward Colver, who was credited with shooting the eye-catching cover image. The man Colver worked with back in the early ’80s was named Randall Wulff. Although he stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel and drove a white Mercedes convertible, the check he wrote Colver bounced and Lewis quickly became untraceable. With Lewis’ real name as their best lead, Light In The Attic searched for a few more years before deciding to reissue the record and place the proceeds in an escrow account until Lewis surfaced. Lewis eventually turned up, turned down the money, and answered interview questions as vaguely as possible. He may have gained quite a few new fans, but the mystery of Lewis lives on.