TANGIER ASSIGNMENT. Rock Pictures, 1955. Filmed and originally released in Spain as Billete para Tánger. Robert Simmons, June Powell, Fernando Rey. Director: Ted Leversuch.

   Everyone else in the cast appears to be Spanish, and as such, all of them are unknown to me. Even of the three of those above in leading roles, the only one I might have seen in a movie before is Fernando Rey.

   I’ll take that back. Bob Simmons, who plays an international undercover agent named Valentine in this film, I have seen many times before and so have you.

   He was mostly a stunt man over his lengthy movie-making career (1939-1985), including long stints doubling for Sean Connery in many of the James Bond films. He was, in fact, the figure you saw in opening gun-barrel sequences of the first three of them.

   Tangier Assignment (to use the English title) was filmed on location, either in Tangiers or outlying areas of Morocco, which means that (A) the settings are authentic, and (B) it really ought to have filmed in color. So far all to the good, but let’s put it this way. I am trying to say something positive about the story, but … it’s not easy.

   Not that it’s terrible, exactly, and I’ll get back to that, but the story itself is awfully ordinary if not outright dull. Valentine is in Tangiers on the trail of some smugglers, but when he enters the small apartment of the man he is to contact there, he finds him dead on the floor, with a knife in his back. You might think that as far as the next step is concerned, calling the police, he is going to be in trouble, but (and this I concede is a surprise) the local police inspector (Fernando Rey) is amiable, friendly and understanding.

   Which means he takes the killing on his turf totally in stride, even when (no surprise) they go back to the apartment to find … no dead body on the floor.

   June Powell, who made one other movie besides this one (and one episode of one British TV show, is a nightclub singer who attracts Valentine’s attention and seems to tag along on some of his forays along the coast to find spots (caves) the smugglers might be using as a base of operations – the obligatory female role, you might say, and you might be right.

   According to IMDB, and here is where a big problem with the story may lie, the film is supposed to be some 80 minutes long. The copy I have, on a collector-to-collector DVD, barely makes it much over 60. This may explain why, even with a brief burst of action at the end, the primary bad guy is a guy we’ve barely seen before.

   I think some intervening material may have gotten chopped out, perhaps to fit a time slot at some time or another on TV. And if so, and this is pure supposition, of course, I’d rather they had cut some of the early musical numbers, of which there are more than one, rather than story.

   But to get back to the good, though, and I’ve been sitting here at the keyboard long enough to remember to tell you this, Bob Simmons is a wonder. He is one of most active undercover agents I have ever seen. He leapfrogs over his opponents, literally, jumps out windows, makes flying leaps over walls, vaults fences, jumps down terraces, then two at a time, somersaulting as he falls before dashing off, with none of the large cast of villains able to follow, totally winded if not seriously injured in their endeavors. Marvelous!

LESLIE ALLEN [HORACE BROWN] – Murder in the Rough. Five Star Mystery #45, paperback original, digest-sized, 1946.

   In Napoleon B. (which may stand for “Buttercup,” but probably doesn’t) Smith’s only case, he apparently kills a slightly dotty old lady during a golf game when one of his drives, as is the fate of most of them, hooks into what is known as Hell’s Half Acre. Only sometime later does Smith conclude that he was not really responsible and that a murderer was on the course that day.

   A sort of active and crass Nero Wolfe, Smith is a former policeman who uses his weight and bad manners as aids in his investigations. However, he also employs brains, which are not puny, and a literary background that is unexpected. Leslie Allen, Smith’s Watson [or Archie], reluctantly takes care of the dogsbody work.

   It is to be hoped that Leslie Allen the character and alleged writer is a better stylist than Leslie Allen the author. Still, the creation of Smith is something of an accomplishment.

Bibliographic Data:   Under his own name Horace Brown was the author of two other crime novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

BROWN, HORACE.   1908-??

       Whispering City. Streamline, 1947.
       The Penthouse Killings. Newsstand Library #17A, 1950; reprinted as The Corpse Was a Blonde, Boardman, UK, 1950.

   Whispering City was a novelization of the Canadian film of the same name starring Paul Lukas, Mary Anderson and Helmut Dantine. It was released in the US as Crime City (1947).

BRAD SOLOMON – The Open Shadow. Summit Books, hardcover, 1978. Avon, paperback, 1980.

   The private eye team of Thieringer and McGuane is as quietly competent as they come, most of the time. The only difference is that while Thieringer’s name is Fritz, McGuane’s is Maggie. They’re also both as tough as they come, so how’s anyone going to convince her that detective work is no job for a lady, if no one has by now?

   Besides having to convince a reluctant client to hire them to protect himself from a kid with threats and a gun, Thieringer finds himself nursing along a youthful new assistant who may or may not work out. It’s a rough business.

   As a specimen of the hard-boiled school, this is closer to Hammett than Chandler, the added plus being some refreshing humor that stays just this side of parody. Promising.

Bibliographic Comments:   In spite of the promise I saw in the Thieringer and McGuane team-up, there never was a followup case for the PI twosome. Brad Solomon, in fact, wrote only three detective or crime fiction novels in the late 1970s, then seemingly disappeared from our field for good. From the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

SOLOMON, (Neal) BRAD(ley).

    The Gone Man (n.) Random 1977.

    The Open Shadow (n.) Summit 1978.
    Jake & Katie (n.) Dial 1979.

   The hero of record in The Gone Man was Charlie Quinlan, an actor who turns to PI work to make a living. Bill Crider reviewed the book here on his blog, where there’s also a link to Ed Gorman’s blog, where Dick Lochte posted a list of his “Top 20 PI Novels,” which includes The Open Shadow. The company’s not bad there, either, what with Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, Parker, Ellin and Estleman among the competition.

   Bill also reviewed Shadow on his blog. Look for it here.

   As for Jake & Katie, I don’t believe it did very well. There are only 10 copies offered for sale on ABE, for example, compared to 80 of The Gone Man and 60 of The Open Shadow. It’s described as a novel on the cover, but one seller calls it a “Hollywood mystery.” Yet another goes into considerable detail:

   There is the briefest amount of biographical data on Brad Solomon in Contemporary Authors, and nothing to suggest why these three books were all there were.

AARON ELKINS – Old Scores. Chris Norgren #3. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1993. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback, 1994.

   One thing about Elkins, he picks widely varying specialties for his series characters. Though he’s best known for his “bone doctor” series about Gideon Oliver, the Norgren books seem to be picking up speed. Chris Norgren is curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and who’d have thought the world of acquisitions would be so hazardous?

   A famous French collector wants to give the museum a Rembrandt — great, hein? Well, maybe. There are a couple of catches: the painting has no provenance, and no scientific tests will be allowed.

   Chris’s director wants him to go to France and make an accept/reject decision. Chris wants to reject it out of hand, but goes anyway, at the cost of some discombobulation to his already shaky love life.

   Things are even weirder than expected in France, the situation turns nasty, and murder is done. Well, hell, what did you expect?

   I don’t believe for a minute that any museum would even consider accepting a master painting without provenance and/or testing, but what do I know about museums? Aside from that, this is the kind of entertaining tale I’ve come to expect from Elkins.

   I like Norgren as a character, and find the artistic background interesting and edifying. Elkins tells a good story, and creates a good set of supporting characters. His stories fall somewhere between cozy and hard-edged, and while I don’t think anyone would call them memorable, they provide an entertaining read.

Editorial Comments:   In spite of Barry’s feeling that Elkins’ Chris Norgren series was catching on, this was the third and last of his recorded adventures.

       The Chris Norgren series —

1. A Deceptive Clarity (1987)
2. A Glancing Light (1991)
3. Old Scores (1993)

   As of this month’s publication of The Worst Thing, there are seventeen Gideon Oliver books. Aaron Elkins’ wife Charlotte has been his co-author with five books in their Lee Ofsted series. The latter is a lady professional golfer; her first appearance was in A Wicked Slice (1989).

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

Genre:   Private eye. Leading character:  Cork O’Connor; 10th in series. Setting:   Minnesota.

First Sentence:   Some nights, Corcoran O’Connor dreams his father’s death.

   Max Cavanagh owns several mines, one of which is being studied by the Department of Energy as a possible site to store nuclear waste. In addition to protests causing Cavanagh worry, his sister, Lauren, has gone missing.

   Cork, hired to find her, does so but she is not alone. He locates her body in, what had been a closed off section of the mine, among five skeletons. The five skeletons are those of women known as “The Vanishings” who had disappeared decades ago, and two of the bodies contain bullets fired from the gun of Cork’s late father.

   I was recently involved in a discussion of prologues and how many of us are either annoyed by them or ignore them completely. It takes a writer as skilled as Krueger to write a prologue which contains an important thread which runs through the story. The one in Vermilion Drift is not a prologue to ignore.

   Krueger has become one of my favorite authors. His skill with description take what could be a fairly ordinary scene, but instead comes alive with clear, visual images. We are able to go where the author takes us and be a part of that which is described to us.

   Even from those scenes where we might prefer to look away, we can’t. That doesn’t mean he is graphically violent; he’s not. It is more that we feel the emotion of the scene and, thereby, understand it.

   Because I read first for character is another reason why Krueger’s writing appeals to me. He creates dimensional, interesting, relatable characters. I’ll admit I wasn’t particularly happy with the events of the previous book, Heaven’s Keep, but the transition to this book has been very effectively and tastefully handled and I now understand the purpose of those events.

   Cork’s heritage is half Irish, responsible for his impatience and occasional anger, and half Ojibwa, which connects him to the people on the reservation, Indian history, and my favorite character Henry Meloux. It also provides the link to the mystical element in each book.

   Before you walk away saying “I don’t like woo-woo,” wait. Mysticism and the spirit world are part of the Indian culture. They are also part — along with several other themes including that of what do we really know of our parents and the definition of evil — of what takes this book, and this series, beyond the normal and elevates it into something that makes you stop, think and consider.

   Krueger is a very fine author who knows how to create characters, write dialogue, set a scene and, most of all, develop a plot. The story continually builds upon itself. It’s a twisty road filled complete with suspense, emotion and startling revelations.

   I despise the cliché of “If you’ve not read this author yet, read him now,” yet that is the way I feel. Even if you don’t, be assured I shall be reading his next book as soon as it comes out.

Rating:   Excellent.

      The Cork O’Connor series —

1. Iron Lake (1998)

2. Boundary Waters (1999)
3. Purgatory Ridge (2001)
4. Blood Hollow (2004)     Anthony award, Best novel, 2005.
5. Mercy Falls (2005)     Anthony award, Best novel, 2006.

6. Copper River (2006)
7. Thunder Bay (2007)     Anthony nominee, Best novel, 2008.
8. Red Knife (2008)     Barry & Anthony nominee, Best novel, 2009.
9. Heaven’s Keep (2009)

10. Vermilion Drift (2010)
11. Northwest Angle (2011)

THE DESPERADOES. Columbia Pictures, 1943. Randolph Scott, Claire Trevor, Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, Edgar Buchanan, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Raymond Walburn, Porter Hall. Based on an original story by Max Brand. Director: Charles Vidor.

   Randolph Scott and Claire Trevor were the bigger names at the time, and they’re listed first in the credits, but neither of the two contributes nearly as much to this western extravaganza as do stars number three and four, Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes.

   Glenn Ford, who plays Cheyenne Rogers in the film, was being groomed as a star at the time. The same path was envisioned for Evelyn Keyes, who was married then to director Charles Vidor, but as pretty and talented as she was, most of her films were of the B-variety. On the other hand, Glenn Ford, who was a very young 27 in 1943 – and looks it – did go on to many bigger and better things.

   Cheyenne is a gunfighter hired by Evelyn Keyes’ Uncle Willie (Edgar Buchanan) to rob the local bank – unknown to her, of course – while Randolph Scott is the local sheriff who has a fatherly interest in Keyes. Maybe more, but he steps aside without a fuss if he did when Cheyenne comes along – the latter is a friend of his, as it turns out, even though they are on opposite sides of the law.

   As for Claire Trevor, she’s the owner of the local gambling palace – and a very sumptuous one, as far as the usual standards of small western towns are concerned. They may be more going on in the back rooms than could be let on in a movie made in 1943. She’s also in on the plot to rob the bank, but if her part hadn’t been written into the screenplay, nobody would have noticed.

   There is a lot of action in The Desperadoes, including one of the wildest wild horse stampedes I have ever seen in a movie, clear through Red Valley [Utah]. Of course some fool decides he has to run across the street from one sidewalk to the another just before the horses run through, but I guess every town has fools like that. (He makes it.)

   Personally, I’d have liked to have seen more of Randolph Scott than Glenn Ford, who seems too young (see above) to be a wanted man with a reputation, even if wrongly accused, and awfully unsure of himself as an actor. Evelyn Keyes, though, is very pretty in either a calico dress or a western shirt and blue jeans. Even so, I’m afraid I’d have to agree that she doesn’t have the onscreen catch-your-eyes-and-hold-them type of personality she needed, as much as I’d like to say otherwise.

   I mentioned a lot of action, but I haven’t mentioned (so far) the beautiful outdoor scenery, as befits a western film shot in color. (In fact, The Desperadoes was the first movie by Columbia to be released in color, a more than incidental fact that’s worthy of note.)

   Incongruously, though, there is more comedy in this film than seems appropriate; that is to say, the presence of Edgar Buchanan and Big Boy Williams, not to mention the saloon fight that all but destroys the place. It is also difficult to reconcile Edgar Buchanan’s crooked and outwardly befuddled Uncle Willy with the innocence of Evelyn Keyes’ character; they simply don’t mesh.

OUTLAWS OF THE ORIENT. Columbia, 1937. Jack Holt, Mae Clarke, Harold Huber, Ray Walker, James Bush, Joseph Crehan, Harry Worth, Bernice (Beatrice) Roberts). Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   The program annotator was surprised to find Schoedsack directing this post-Kong quickie (only 61 minutes long). However, whatever its length and place in the hierarchy of Columbia’s releases in 1937, it proved to be an entertaining action film with engineer Holt, reluctantly returning to China to oversee drilling operations for oil, dealing with his problem-ridden brother (ostensibly in charge of the project) and attacks by a desert Warlord (Harold Huber), in the pay of a rival company.

   When I was a wee lad, nobody was better than Jack Holt at projecting iron-jawed determination and bringing off what appears to be an impossible job. The movie zings along, anchored by his solid performance, a screening well-worth staying up for past my usual bedtime.

   The notes claim that the film never made it to television syndication, so this was thought to be its first screening in some 71 years. Lucky Cinecon attendees.

MURRAY LEINSTER – Operation Terror. Berkley F694, paperback original, 1962. Cover art: Richard Powers.

   Next up, Operation Terror by that veteran boshmeister Murray Leinster. It’s easy to dismiss Leinster as a competent hack from the 60s, but there were all too few who could hack words so proficiently.

   Operation starts off as Earth (or more precisely, Boulder Lake) is invaded by beings from another world, complete with flying saucer and paralyzer-beam, monitored helplessly by one of those competent, thoughtful, quick-thinking scientific type that we readers of sci-fi all imagined ourselves to be.

   But as our hero sets about rescuing a distressed damsel and escaping the aliens, the invasion starts to seem more and more hokey, a development that steps up the suspense as he tries to counteract the alien rays, get to safety, warn the authorities, protect the girl and save the planet, all in the space of about a hundred-sixty tightly-packed pages.

   These days when Sci-Fi has been replaced by multi-volumed tomes of “speculative fiction” we can but look back and admire the terse economy of writing like this.

VIRGINIA RATH – An Excellent Night for a Murder. Doubleday, Doran & Co. / Crime Club, hardcover, 1937.

   All things being equal, I’m willing to bet that if I weren’t here to tell you otherwise, you’d have identified Rocky Allan as one of those rough-and-tumble cowboy stars who starred in a long list of those well-remembered B-western moving pictures of a generation or so back.

   And while he’s actually the detective hero in a series of mystery novels written by author Virginia Rath, to tell the truth, you’d still not be so very far from being wrong.

   In this book he’s the sheriff of a small country town called Brookdale, which I gather is somewhere in California. Even though this is his fifth recorded adventure, I seem also to have gotten the impression that he’s not been the sheriff there for very long. I don’t know why I’m not sure of these things, but it’s obvious that some research into his earlier cases seems warranted. I’ll have to report in with more information on this later.

   As the story opens, a stranger to Brookdale is taken in by the Graydons, the biggest name in that part of the country, but he’s quickly thrown out, and on one of the rainiest nights of the year. He makes his way into town on foot, and he wakes up dead the next morning in his hotel bedroom. He was a blackmailer, as you might have guessed by now, and a very cooperative one at that, leaving so many victims behind like this to serve as murder suspects.

   The murder investigation is a fairly predictable one, but Rath does a surprisingly fine job in utilizing the folksy, small-town way of living both as background and as a general atmosphere. Surprisingly, for when was the last time you heard the name Virginia Rath mentioned in conversation, even with a fellow aficionado?

   Facts are realistically uncovered in haphazard fashion, too often in the wrong order, and there’s a good twist or two hidden in the end, somewhere midst the clutter caused by having a few too many characters on hand.

   Don’t get the idea that Rath writes only of a hick sheriff in a one-horse town, however. Rocky Allan is still a young guy, and he’s sharper than that. And while his meeting with Pearl in a San Francisco hotel room is downplayed, it’s quite definitely a highlight of the book.

      Bio-Bibliographic Data:

   A biographic profile of Virgina Rath can be found on the Ziff-Davis “Fingerprint Mystery” page of the primary Mystery*File website (follow the link and scroll down).

   From the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

RATH, VIRGINIA (Anne McVay), 1905-1950. Pseudonym: Theo Durrant.

* Death at Dayton’s Folly (n.) Doubleday 1935 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* Ferryman, Carry Him Across! (n.) Doubleday 1936 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California; Academia]

* Murder on the Day of Judgment (n.) Doubleday 1936 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* The Anger of the Bells (n.) Doubleday 1937 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]

* An Excellent Night for Murder (n.) Doubleday 1937 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; California]
* The Dark Cavalier (n.) Doubleday 1938 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]

* Murder with a Theme Song (n.) Doubleday 1939 [Sheriff Rocky Allan; Michael Dundas; California]
* Death of a Lucky Lady (n.) Doubleday 1940 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* Death Breaks the Ring (n.) Doubleday 1941 [Michael Dundas; California]
* Epitaph for Lydia (n.) Doubleday 1942 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* Posted for Murder (n.) Doubleday 1942 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]

* A Dirge for Her (n.) Ziff-Davis 1947 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]
* A Shroud for Rowena (n.) Ziff-Davis 1947 [Michael Dundas; San Francisco, CA]

DURRANT, THEO. Pseudonym of William A. P. White, Terry Adler, Eunice Mays Boyd, Florence Ostern Faulkner, Allen Hymson, Cary Lucas, Dana Lyon, Lenore Glen Offord, Virginia Rath, Richard Shattuck, Darwin L. Teilhet & William Worley.

      * The Marble Forest (n.) Knopf 1951 [California]

      * The Big Fear (n.) Popular Library 1953. See: The Marble Forest (Knopf 1951)

        #3. ARTY BEELE, by Ruth & Alexander Wilson.

   The Arty Beele stories by Ruth and Alexander Wilson were a short series of at least sixteen stories (some short stories and some novelette length) published in Detective Fiction Weekly from 1928 to 1932. There could be more.

   The character’s full name is Arthur Welliver Beele. The series involves the exploits of a hardboiled newspaper crime reporter in the Prohibition era. The stories are a bit hardboiled, too; an early example of this type of story.

   Beele is not afraid of gangsters and racketeers; he associated with them considerably and they gave him good stories. This doesn’t mean that all criminals liked him. Beele would without any compunction insult a known criminal and act unafraid of the consequences.

   Beele could often acquire information about goings on with the police and underworld. On one occasion “It had come to Arty Beele’s attention, by one of those devious routes that were at once the despair and the astonishment of his city editor…” (The Fragrant Alibi)

   In a number of the stories, John Ryan, captain of the homicide squad, leads the investigations and somewhat disapproves of Beele, but lets him ask many questions. Harrington, the Telegraph newspaper’s city editor, is a friend of his.

   The descriptions given of Beele are sketchy, but one statement about Beele is “a tall, untidy figure crowned with a disreputable Stetson…” (A Pain in the Neck) He also has a beaky, hawk nose. Beele does not let himself get involved with women, “he distrusted and detested women.” (Strike Three!)

   In the first story in the series, “Killers Have Blue Eyes” (December 15, 1928) Beele tells Hymie Jacobs, a known gunman, that he is yellow. He also notes that killers always have blue eyes, and Jacobs doesn’t. The story is a simple one where Jacobs’ enemy, another gunman, is killed. Beele knows that Jacobs didn’t kill him, and suspects who did. But Beele convinces Jacobs to confess to the killing.

   â€œThe Silent Witness” details the aftermath of a killing of Brady, a gangland leader, supposedly by his girl friend Floss Jordan. But Arty Beele sees something that others don’t see, and believes she is innocent. He plays this up in his newspaper writings, and gets a lawyer friend of his to represent the accused woman. Part of the story is a relation of the court trial, and its results.

   â€œA Ride in the Park” does not involve a mystery, but does involve a murder. When gangster Tony Costello arrives back in town, Arty Beele expects that he will be killed by enemies. When a killing does take place at the train station, Beele jumps to the conclusion it was Costello and writes up an article about it.

   The piece was not complimentary to Costello, and he it turns out was not killed. Costello waylays Beele and takes him for a ride, intending to kill him. Beele manages to wreck to the car and kill Costello. A very close call for Arty Beele.

   â€œDeath in the Dark” is a longer story than many others in the series, being of novelette length. It is a better story, as it enables the author to spend more time on details and the characters. Beele is sent by Harrington, his editor, to the house of a rich man who has been mysteriously shot while a police patrolman was not too far away.

   The only witness is too drunk to tell anyone anything, and there seems to be no place that the murderer could have gone after the crime. The crime was a complicated scheme to provide an alibi for the murderer, and it takes Arty Beele to see through it. He had the cooperation of Captain Ryan here.

   â€œThis Way Out” doesn’t involve a mystery, although someone is murdered in it. One of Arty Beele’s gangster friends named Al Donner is in trouble with the law for a murder. Beele doesn’t believe he did it, although he knows that Donner did murder someone else a short time before. So Beele gets Donner a lawyer to defend him in court, and backs up Donner. Beele feels an obligation to Donner because Donner saved his life once. This is another novelette length story.

   â€œA Pain in the Neck” is a murder mystery where Arty Beele is involved with the police in solving the case of a fight manager who has been strangled. The obvious suspect is the manager’s boxer, but Beele sees clues the others have missed and points out the correct killer.

   â€œA Swell Funeral” involves the murder of a racketeer leader at his recently opened nightclub, the Club Seville. Arty Beele is a friend of the racketeer, Dan O’Malley, and happens to be in the club at the time that he was killed. Strangely, no one saw the shooting at the front door where O’Malley fell dead.

   Captain Ryan is soon on the scene, and Beele insists on being a part of the investigation. Various other men, some of them racketeers also, come under suspicion. As usual, Beele comes up with the solution, with the cooperation of the police.

   â€œSpecial Delivery” is of novelette length, and is a story of gangsters and the newspaper. Scarron, the local liquor racketeer, has told Arty Beele that he will retire from bootlegging and move to a foreign country. However, a fellow newspaperman of Beele’s named Slim Stengel was shot supposedly by gangsters near Scarron’s home. Considering that Stengel idolized Arty Beele, Beele feels obligated to do something about the matter.

   â€œThe Murder of the Seven-Year Itch” involves another gangland killing. Al Toriano visits Arty Beele in the newspaper newsroom and gives him some stock certificates to cash in and dole out the money to a beneficiary. Toriano says that he will probably be killed by other gangsters shortly.

   When both Toriano and his beneficiary are found shot in suspicious circumstances – it looks like they killed each other – Beele stirs Captain Ryan to investigate the matter more thoroughly. Beele of course helps the investigation, and coincidentally comes across the two killers a short time later.

   â€œThe Picture of a Crime” involves Arty Beele in the murder investigation of a rich man in his mistresses’ apartment. In this story, Harrington, the Telegraph newspaper’s city editor, assigns the news coverage to him and a photographer.

   Once on the scene, Beele begins acting like one of the investigating police, asking questions of the suspects and others. There is no real mystery about the murderer, since there are only three suspects.

   â€œLive Bait” is different than other stories in the series. The story opens with Beele getting a tip-off from an underworld connection that he is going to be the target of a local crime lord, who means to kill him. Beele heads to Captain Ryan’s office to tell him the news, and together they come up with a plan to trap Orsini the crime lord. No mystery or murder to solve in this story.

   â€œStrike Three!” is a novelette length story that involves Arty Beele in the planned killing of one liquor gangster by another. One of the gangsters tips off Beele that he will kill an unnamed gangster, and Beele tries to figure out who the victim is to be. He winds up at the Club Chanticleer investigating.

   He is asked by Mike O’Mara (the intended victim), to sit in on a meeting between him and Repetti. “It was no new role for him to act as arbiter at a gangster conference.” When O’Mara and Repetti are both murdered, it is Beele who straightens out the confusion as to who killed whom.

   â€œDevil’s Brew” is something of a mystery combined with gangdom interactions. Beele is called in by two of the local liquor barons to help arbiter a problem between the three local liquor barons. Captain Ryan interferes with this work, and all of a sudden one of the barons is mysteriously shot and another disappears. Arty Beele investigates, and puts his life in danger in order to solve the problem.

   â€œThe Fragrant Alibi” is another story where Beele assists the police in the solution of a crime. No Captain Ryan here, though. Beele is in a nightclub when a gangland murder takes place, and is involved in the story before the killing takes place. As often is the case, a small clue points out the solution of the crime to Beele.

   â€œCheap at the Price” has Arty Beele investigating another gangland killing, and he is also under threat from the gangster suspected in a number of other killings. Another novelette length story.

   â€œTwenty Grand” is the last story found in the series, and is a good one. There is no murder mystery here; the culprit is known from the beginning. Blacky Frey, a gangster, has killed two people with his .22 rifle. One of these was a policeman, for which he was tried and acquitted due to lack of evidence(the police couldn’t find the rifle). However, Arty Beele thinks up a scheme to have the police catch Frey red-handed with the rifle committing a crime.

   This is an average series, with some very good stories, but mostly average or slightly above that. The best stories are the novelette length ones, because they have more scope for description and action and complexity.

   There is no element of humor in the stories, and the hardboiled nature of the stories denies any lightness to them. This series about a crime reporter does not measure up to the later crime reporter series that Richard Sale wrote about Daffy Dill. Daffy Dill was a longer running series and much more popular than many other series in DFW.

      The Arty Beele series by Ruth & Alexander Wilson:

Killers Have Blue Eyes     December 15, 1928
The Silent Witness     April 13, 1929
A Ride in the Park     August 24, 1929
Death in the Dark     April 5, 1930
This Way Out     May 10, 1930
A Pain in the Neck     September 27, 1930
A Swell Funeral     October 18, 1930
Special Delivery     January 10, 1931
The Murder of the Seven-Year Itch     January 31, 1931
The Picture of a Crime     March 7, 1931
Live Bait     March 21, 1931
Strike Three!     May 2, 1931
Devil’s Brew     August 1, 1931
The Fragrant Alibi     August 22, 1931
Cheap at the Price     November 7, 1931
Twenty Grand     January 16, 1932

NOTE:   Thanks to Phil Stephensen-Payne for helping put together this checklist of story titles. The cover images also came from his Galactic Central website. Please visit!