DOUGLAS OF THE WORLD. “The Terrorists.” Armed Forces Radio Service, 1953. Jack Moyles, as world-traveling reporter Brad Douglas, with Peter Leeds, Harry Bartell, Karen Steele, Paul Richards. Available online here.

   Brad Douglas, working as a reporter for the (fictional) New York World has a job that takes him to all of the hot spots of the world, including in this episode, Iran, where he goes to talk to the ordinary people of the country about their view of their new prime minister.   Oil is the big news of the day, and some things have never changed since then.

   But while doing due diligence to this week’s assignment, Brad also has an eye out for a pretty girl (played by Karen Steele), but she has an ulterior motive: her brother, a petroleum engineer has gone missing.  Brad offers to help, of course, and fairly soon all three of them are being held captive in a dark room who knows where. Faced with death at dawn as the only alternative, Brad agrees to write the news article their captors want published, only … he has a plan.

   Brad Douglas was portrayed by Jack Moyles, whom OTR fans remember best as the voice of Rocky Jordan, the American restaurant owner in Cairo whose weekly adventures in that exotic city were filled to overflowing with adventure and intrigue of all kinds.

   In spite of a fine cast, Douglas of World isn’t nearly as good — there’s just not enough juice to it — but perhaps the comparison is unfair. Rocky Jordan was one of the finest adventure shows on radio that wasn’t entitled Escape.  Information on DoW is skimpy, but it may have produced directly for the Armed Forces Radio Service. Perhaps only four or five have survived to this day.

D. R. BENSEN, Editor – The Unknown Five. Pyramid R-962, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1964. Cover art by John Schoenherr.

   A collection of five stories in all, four of them reprinted from the pages of Unknown, plus one by Isaac Asimov which was accepted for publication shortly before that magazine folded, but never actually having appeared in print in it before it did. Strange to say, that one is also the weakest of the five. But even knowing that the other four were chosen from the best of the magazine, the only restriction being the stories never having been published in book form before, Unknown well deserves its reputation among fantasy fans.   Overall rating: ****

ISAAC ASIMOV “Author, Author!” Novelette. In which author Graham Dorn’s famous detective Reginald de Metzter comes to life and demands his say in future plots. Too slaphappy and hectic rather than truly funny.  (2)

CLEVE CARTMILL “The Bargain.” (From Unknown Worlds, August 1942.) Death gives immortality to a woman in exchange for information the world should not have. The “folksy” approach entertains.  (4)

THEODORE STURGEON & JAMES H. BEARD “The Hag Saleen.” (From Unknown Worlds, December 1942). A man and his wife and daughter living in a small cabin in the bayous arouse the anger of a swamp witch. Besides the basic background, the story’s excellence depends on balance between fantasy and the explainable.  (5)

ALFRED BESTER “Hell Is Forever.” (From Unknown Worlds, August 1942,) Short novel. Five degenerate people, in the search for newer and stranger sensations, enter into a bargain giving them their choice of realities. Their new worlds are not what they expect, however:
   An artist can create only in his own distorted image. A woman wishing the strength to kill her husband finds that strength only in an unhappy extension of herself. An imaginative man find truth only in hell, or is it heaven?  A woman without love becomes the Consort of a God. A logical man finds he cannot kill himself — for they are all dead already.
   The meaning of hell is twisted to suit each personality, resulting in a story that should be analyzed more deeply and thoroughly to reveal all its implications.  *****

JANE RICE “The Crest of the Wave.” (From Unknown Fantasy Fiction, June 1941.) A St. Louis gambler is tossed from a bridge, but his drowned body revenges his death. Extremely picturesque language adds to a rather average ghost story. (3)

RICHARD DEMING – Anything But Saintly. Matt Rudd #2.  Permabooks M-4286, paperback original, 1963.

   Richard Deming wrote original mysteries and novelizations of numerous TV series, including two books based on Dragnet. The two Dragnet books appeared in 1958 and 1959 and perhaps led to Deming’s writing his own police procedural series in the early 1960s. Although the series was only three books, it was competently written and entertaining.

   The setting of each of the books is the riverside city of St. Cecelia, and the first-person narrator is Sergeant Matt Rudd (real name Mateusz Rudowski), a member of the city’s Vice Squad.

   In Anything but Saintly, a businessman visiting the city is rolled by a prostitute and robbed of $500. Rudd and his partner, Carl Lincoln, set out to recover the money, only to find that the girl was murdered shortly after returning to her apartment. Being a member of the Vice Squad does not keep Rudd from getting involved in the killing, because an attempt is soon made on his own life.

   What looked at first like a simple case suddenly escalates into something more, with a heavily protected procurer and a big-time politico getting dragged in. The procedural details, including the peculiar workings of the St. Cecelia Police Department, are well done, and the story is terse and fast, with a good depiction of a racket-ridden city and how it is run.

   Matt Rudd appeared previously in Vice Cop   (Belmont, 1961) and again in Death of a Pusher (Pocket, 1964 ). An equally good, but very different, paperback original by Deming is Edge of the Law (Berkley, 1960). He also created a one-armed private detective, Manville Moon, who appears in three novels published in the early 1950s, beginning with The Gallows in My Garden (Rinehart, 1952). Other of his mysteries appeared under the pseudonym Max Franklin, notably Justice Has No Sword (Rinehart, 1953).

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Updated and 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.

YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR. “The King’s Necklace Affair.” CBS, 17 March 1953. John Lund as Johnny Dollar, with Jack Moyles, Howard McNear, Lilian Buyeff, Jack Moyles, Tom Tully. Scriptwriter: Sidney Marshall. Easily found streaming online.

   This is the first episode of Johnny Dollar I remember listening to which has had John Lund in the leading role. He played the part for two seasons, from November 1952 to September 1954, followed by Bob Bailey’s long run beginning in October 1955 and ending in November 1960.

   For most of the time the show was on the air Johnny Dollar, the man with the “action-packed expense account” was a freelance insurance investigator working out of Hartford CT, but traveling all over the country checking out the validity of false claims and the like.

   In “The King’s Necklace Affair,” though, he goes even further, to a small island near Cuba which one man owns in its entirety, complete with a huge mansion and a valuable collection of art objects to go with it. One of these is a necklace worth a small fortune, which he thinks someone is trying to steal. When Johnny gets there, together they open the safe where it should be, only to discover it is only paste.

   When the owner is soon thereafter found dead on a balcony, Johnny finds that he really has a case on his hands. Unfortunately, from the perspective of an armchair detective listening at home, there are less than a handful of suspects, one of which is a sexy-voiced young lady (Lillian Buyeff) one suspects lives there for less than wholesome purposes. Not surprisingly the script does not go in that direction very far at all. Nonetheless, in spite of a paucity of suspects, the scriptwriter (Sidney Marshall) manages to pull off a small trick he had up his sleeve all along, and a well-clued one to boot.

   John Lund had a strong voice for radio, but not a distinctive one. I am speaking for myself, mind you, but if I were listen to another episode in which he was the star, I’m not sure I would recognize it, and for all of the others in the cast, I would.

POKER FACE.“Dead Man’s Hand.” Peacock, 26 January 2023. (Season 1, Episode 1.) Natasha Lyonne (as Charlie Cale, a casino worker who goes on the run), Benjamin Brat (as Cliff LeGrand, the casino head of security, who is on the chase after her), Ron Perlman (as Sterling Frost Sr., the casino owner (voice only in this first episode)). Guest star: Adrien Brody (as Sterling Frost Jr.). Written, created and directed by Rian Johnson.

   The gimmick in this one, a new well-received streaming series that I think qualifies as a solid hit, is that casino cocktail waitress Charlie Cale has the unique ability to know when someone is lying to her face. Until things got too hot for her, she made a lot of money playing poker, where an ability would be hugely helpful.

   And of course knowing who is telling the truth and who is not would come in equally useful in solving crimes, including murder, which she does quite easily in this first episode, the only one I’ve seen so far. Invited in to a high stakes poker game by the manager of the casino where she’s working, she solves the killing of a maid she knows well, but in doing so, gets so far into hot water that by the end of the episode she’s forced to head out of town as fast as she can.

   The show is told in Colombo-type fashion, as we the viewer first she the killing and then flashing back to see exactly where Charlie manages to fit in. And as the last sentence of the previous paragraph suggests, each followup episode is a page out of The Fugitive’s notebook.

   Charlie is a brassy, self-identified “dumb ass” with wild hair type, and Natasha Lyonne is perfect for the part. (I think she had a great deal to do with the creation of the character.) The first season consists of ten episodes, with lots of well-known guest stars, and I’ve read that the series has already been renewed for a second season.

   The only drawback that I can see is that as a superpower, being a human lie detector could easily make solving crimes all too easy. Superman had Kryptonite to keep him in check. What’s Charlie’s Achilles heel?

   It’s too bad you have to sign up for Peacock (a subsidiary of NBC) to see this, but on the basis of this first episode, it’s well worth the money, given that there’s other stuff there to watch as well.

JOHN D. MacDONALD – Deadly Welcome. Dell First Edition B127, paperback original; 1st printing, March 1959. Cover art by Bob McGinnis. Reprinted several times in paperback over the years, eventually by Gold Medal.

   Alexander Doyle is a wanted man. Wanted by the Pentagon to have him transferred from the State Department to do a special assignment for them. It seems that an officer with considerable talents and abilities has had a heart attack, but while recuperating, his wife was murdered, and even though his sister is nursing him now, he feels unable (or is simply unwilling) to come back to work.

   Doyle’s job. Find the killer of Colonel M’Gann’s wife.

   What the Pentagon knows is that Doyle comes from the same small town in Florida, the kind of place that’s wary of strangers, but they believe that Doyle can easily be accepted by the locals, where others would not. What the Pentagon seems not to know is that Doyle left town under a black cloud, accused of a robbery he did not commit, but by agreeing to leave and join the army, everything would be hushed up.

   What the Pentagon definitely does not know is that Doyle had a one-night fling with the dead woman. What Doyle does not know is that the dead woman’s younger sister is all grown up now, and that she has had a crush on him ever since high school.

   Can he go home again? That’s the question. He agrees, but with a pain of reluctance in his gut. Mix in a passel of townsfolk who can’t stop talking as well as a self-important deputy sheriff who is a whiz with a nightstick, and you have the mixings of a story you won’t stop reading once started until you’re done.

   The detective aspect of things is minor. It’s the people who matter in JDM’s story, and the sense of memories that always come back whenever you or someone tries to go home again. That’s the essence of this book, and (I have to mention this) the fact that the dead woman’s sister, the victim of an attempted rape a few years bfore, is someone who needs the same kind of TLC that JDM’s later hero protagonist became famous for — by extending it to the wounded women who came into his life.

ARTHUR J. REES – The Threshold of Fear. Colwin Grey #1. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1925. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover, 1926.

   
   Richard Haldman is a disaffected veteran of the Great War unhappy with what he finds when he returns home to England after the War. Without money, family, fortune, or friend he sees his future as grim, but then things seem to brighten up when he decides to spring for a last decent meal with his last shilling, and in an alcove at his hotel spies a beautiful young woman:

   
   Following this encounter with this strange young woman Haldman runs across a copy of The Times and an ad for a job as a chauffeur-mechanic for a gentleman who requires discretion, and soon enough finds he has been hired, “You are engaged by Colonel Gravenall, of Charmingdene, St. Bree, Cornwall. He desires that the chosen applicant shall be sent at once. Could you go to Cornwall by the ten o’clock train to-night?”

   And it is at Charmingdene where he will meet his employer, Colonel Gravenall, in ancient Cornwall:  Cornwall had known me in other days, and had shown me its cromlehs, logan stones, black cairns, and giants’ caves, Haldman tells us, anxious to begin his new job where “the loneliest and highest place in Cornwall,” the hamlet of St. Bree.

   We are in the realm of the true Gothick thriller with ancient terrors threatening to break through the too thin veneer of civilization and the heavy atmosphere of the supernatural wavering like a white mist on the edge of our hero’s too thin grip on the world he thinks he knows.

   And as you might expect what he finds at Charmingdene is an atmosphere of dread, Gravenall a not particularly prepossessing Anglo-Indian officer Haldman doesn’t warm to who asks probing questions about whether the young man has ever been to South America or Peru, and who seems anxious to keep things hidden.

   There too he will meet the mysterious Dr. Penhryn (a bronzed and bearded man who appeared to me like a giant from the stalwart dimensions of his upper frame. But when he descended, as he immediately did, I observed that he was a much smaller man than I had at first supposed, for his fine, upright body was set upon two dwarfed and twisted legs…); Edward Chesworth, Gravenall’s nephew and Penhryn’s patient (suffering from a most unusual form of nervous disorder, which causes him to shun all society and to shrink from the sight of strangers ) who has another life he led in South America and Peru; and, the mysterious girl from London who is now behaving mysteriously and shadowing Charmindene but refuses to trust Haldman.

   And all that would still add up to very little than a bit of mystery if not for the drum, the mysterious sound of the drum that drives Edward mad, and then a death at Chamingdene.

   For anyone thinking of bailing, this is not a supernatural novel. It was highly praised in its day, 1925 as a top notch psychological thriller, which it is, modern in its details if not its setting. Arthur J. Rees was a popular mystery and thriller writer, an Australian though his thrillers usually are set in Cornwall. This and several of his thrillers are available in PD Ebook form from Internet Archive for anyone wanting to delve before collecting, and this one was reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries as one of its classics of the genre.

   Haldman becomes closer to Edward and learns his strange story. As a young man in Peru Edward stumbled into a strange valley and a lost civilization. After nearly drowning he is resurrected by a witch doctor who told him he was dead for three days before he brought him back and now Edward believes Death has returned for him, the drum his call for Edward to return to his domain.

   Mad, perhaps, but Edward believes it, and there is a drumming that comes from nowhere and is driving Edward to return to the watery grave he once escaped.

   Then too Haldman falls for his mysterious haunted woman, who turns out to be Edward’s sister frightened her brother is going mad and will kill himself in his frenzy when the drum comes too close.

   At this point the book takes yet another turn as Haldman leaves St. Bree for London to consult Colwin Grey, a Sherlockian private detective and ex solicitor who cuts through the fog of the supernatural to unveil a plot of pure evil and with Haldman his Watson, turns the tables on a deadly killer whose motive is pure sadism revealing a portrait of a killer far madder than poor Edward.

   There isn’t much more I can say short of spoilers, other than this is a fine chiller, well written, well plotted, and atmospheric without slapping you in the face with it. I was so impressed by Grey’s short appearance near the end of the book unraveling the darkness surrounding Chamingdene, and the truly evil plot that threatens to destroy Edward, that I went out and found two more of Rees’s thrillers I’m waiting to read.

   The Threshold of Fear won’t let you down as a thriller even if the horrors are human and not supernatural. It holds up really well for a novel written in 1925, and if not a fair play mystery in any sense it is a truly enjoyable thriller that will keep you in your seat.

RICHIE BROCKELMAN, PRIVATE EYE. “A Title on the Door, and a Carpet on the Floor.” NBC, 31 March 1978 (Series 1, Episode 3). Dennis Dugan (Richie Brockelman), Barbara Bosson (Sharon Deterson), Robert Hogan (Sgt. Ted Coopersmith). Guest Cast: Carol Lynley, Charles Siebert, Rene Auberjonois, Jim McKrell. Screenplay: Steven Bochco & Stephen J. Cannell. Director: Arnold Laven. Available on YouTube here.

   Coming in at perhaps exactly the middle of this short-lived private eye series, it is difficult to explain what was the driving force behind it. It started out first a made-for-TV movie, then a two-hour episode of The Rockford Files. Following this it was picked up a short series episodes on NBC, then appearing once again as another two-hour episode of The Rockford Files. (If I have any of this wonrg, please so advise in the comments.)

   Suffice it to say, perhaps, that it was the apparent youthfulness of Richie Brockelman that was intended to be its appeal, at 22 the youngest PI in town, complete with a semi-dorky haircut and a somewhat funny name. Otherwise it was just another PI show taking place in LA with lots of scenes with cars driving from one place to another.

   In this particular episode, both Richie and his secretary are hired by a much bigger outfit to come work for them, even while Richie is still investigating the death of a client’s husband. Does the discerning viewer think that someone at the much bigger outfit has a nefarious reason behind this? The discerning viewer does, and the discerning viewer would be absolutely correct.

   I may have made this sound less interesting than it was, but in all seriousness it was no better nor worse than the standard TV PI fare at the time. In this case, at least, “no worse” was not enough, and the plug was pulled after only the five episodes.

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT – The Bloody Bokhara. Dutton, hardcover, 1952. Dell #746, paperback, 1953.

   Lee Kapralian is twenty-six, second generation Armenian, WWII vet for the red white and blue, all-American in his heart, and handsome as the devil’s twin. His father is of the older generation, and doesn’t want his kids losing their culture mixing romantically with Americans.

   Lee works for his father in a Persian rug store. Persian rugs aren’t as popular as they used to be and it’s a hard way to make a living. Most folks don’t see the difference between hand woven ancient rugs and wall to wall carpeting. They both cover the floor. And carpets are cheaper and brand new.

   Life is okay enough for Lee, if steeped in tepid mediocrity, until Claire walks into the store. She’s gorgeous as Satan’s mistress and twice as dangerous.

   Claire’s got some rugs she’d like appraised. Would Lee come back to her apartment with her to check them out?

   Would I? Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, sure. I’ll take a look at your rugs, lady. And he does. And they are beautiful, rare and fine. Like Claire. But one of the rugs has a bloodstain. A bloody bokhara (which is a type of rug : the bokhara part — not the blood; the blood washes right out like a bloated body upon the shore).

   And the bloodstain bespeaks its provenance. Like Claire.

   And does Lee like Claire! Whoa. He’s gone for her. A Gone Guy. And surprisingly, she for him. I mean — at least that’s what she tells him. And who is he to question beauty. Who gives and gives. And takes.

Lee, the ordinary, extraordinarily handsome guy, leaves his family for the girl and his father’s business for selling these bloody rugs. Giving them a good washing first. Of course. Claire asks if it’s okay if she takes a shower. Of course, Claire. Of course.

   In the end the shocker is there’s really no shocker. It kind of goes the way it should go. But it could’ve plausibly gone in many other ways. And the anticipation is the thing anyway. There’s nothing but anticipation. Fear and hope are never here. They never come. Yet we dwell on them. Til our very last breath.

   It’s a well done book, and notable for being a story of mid-century Armenian family dynamics woven into a fairly typical noir — using Persian rugs as the mcguffin to tie in the dissolution of the Armenian family, the forgetting of history, to the squandering of one’s moral fiber in pursuit of a buck and a beauty. A carpet for a rug. With just the faintest hint of red.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK, Editor – Murderer’s Row. Dell, paperback, first printing, May 1975; reprinted January 1980.

   There perhaps is not a lot to be said for reviewing one of  these anthologies from the Hitchcock magazine. You read and enjoy this kind of story, or you don’t, and the collections seem only to sift out no more than the worst clinkers.

   Nor is there anything outstanding this time either. The best of the lot is “The Artificial Liar,” by William Brittain, on how to program a liar, with the intriguing possibility that it just may work. Fletcher Flora has a good private eye yarn, as Percy Hand proves himself to another client in “For Money Received.” Richard Deming tells a good cop story, “Nice Guy.” Intriguing is Rog Phillips’ “The Hypothetical Arsonist,” which deals with a firm calling itself Justice, Incorporated, but he flubs the story miserably.

   Other stories by the usual AHMM regulars: Frank Sisk, Henry Slesar, Theodore Mathieson, Ed Lacy, Edward D. Hoch, Richard Hardwick, C. B. Gilford,  David A. Heller, Richard O. Lewis, and Arthur Porges. Solid writing. strong openings, endings that don’t surprise quite as much as they should. It is a fine choice to help fill the nooks and crannies of an omnivorous mystery reader’s day.

Overall rating:   C plus.

      Contents:

Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock (ghost written)
Nice Guy by Richard Deming
The Bridge in Briganza by Frank Sisk
Thicker Than Water by Henry Slesar
The Artificial Liar by William Brittain
For Money Received novelette by Fletcher Flora
The Compleat Secretary by Theodore Mathieson
The Hypothetical Arsonist by Rog Phillips
Who Will Miss Arthur? by Ed Lacy
Arbiter of Uncertainties by Edward Hoch
Slow Motion Murder novelette by Richard Hardwick
Never Marry a Witch by C.B. Gilford
The Second Thief by David A. Heller
The Nice Young Man by Richard O. Lewis
A Message for Aunt Lucy by Arthur Porges