PETER DICKINSON – A Summer in the Twenties. Pantheon, US, hardcover, 1987. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1981.

   The year is 1926, and the Twenties are Roaring with flappers and social conscience and colliding with the death of the Victorian era and Red scares about rising Bolshevism. That’s the background for Peter Dickinson’s A Summer in the Twenties.

   This one is more a thriller than a detective story though Dickinson was one of the bright lights of the late flowering of the fair play detective story. He and Robert Barnard almost single-handedly revived the genre injecting humor and style as well as real insights into character and action and in many ways extending the traditions begun by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Michael Innes, even as P.D. James and Ruth Rendell were taking the genre in their own directions.

   Dickinson’s best books were those featuring Superintendent Jimmy Pibble, and his Poison Oracle — in which the detection is done by a chimp who has been taught to communicate in a private zoo in the curious palace of a desert sheikdom — was chosen by H.R.F. Keating for his Crime and Mystery Stories The 100 Best Books (reviewed by Marv Lachman here ).

   Thomas (Tom) Hankey is the hero of this one, the son of Lt. General Lord Milford, and a product of the privilege and wealth of the upper classes at a time when that meant more than money. At the novel’s start he is in the South of France pursuing the beautiful Judy Tarrant, another product of the same class.

   But this idyll is cut short when Tom is summoned home by his father. A crisis is brewing in England, one that borders on revolution — the General Strike of 1926.

   For those unfamiliar with the General Strike, it was an attempt by the British working class to shut down transportation and other industry in England to show both their importance to the country’s economy and protest social injustice, triggered by a lockout of coal miners. Instead it inspired paranoia in the upper and middle classes and the government, with memories of the recent Russian Revolution still fresh and the Tory government anxious to break the back of the Trades Unions.

   While there were certainly some radicals on the left with visions of a revolution, that was far from the aims of the mass of strikers — but in this case appearance trumped reality. It became a defining moment in the class war in England and inspired the plots of many a thriller in the Sydney Horler and Sapper class. Dennis Wheatley’s first Gregory Sallust novel Black August was a Wellsian variation inspired by the General Strike.

   And true to the spirit that would carry England through the Blitz, the upper and upper middle class rallied, manning the vital jobs of the working class and keeping the country going. Whatever your politics, it was a splendid effort mindful of WW II when even the then Princess Elizabeth was in uniform driving a staff car.

   That’s why Tom’s father has called him home, to train as a volunteer engineer on the railway:

   His father has more sympathy for the miners than the owners, but the General Strike is anathema to him.

   Tom is quickly dispatched to the slums of Hull, a mining town unlike anything in his life experience. There his wish to do his duty clashes with his innate sympathy for the workers and his sense of decency and fair play. Confronted by bullies and violence on both sides, gangs of hooded men with guns, he finds merely doing the right thing to be a challenge, and his feelings for Judy Tarrant are soon tested when he meets fiery Kate Barnes and a passionate agitator.

   What makes reading Dickinson a pleasure is that the characters are well drawn and above all human. They make mistakes, have prejudices on both sides of the question, and manage to change, grow, and rise to the occasion as needed. Tom, Judy, and Kate all grow. He is also the brightest of writers, capable of real humor and rare intelligence.

   Though there is little mystery element there is a good deal of action some railway lore and the growth of the main characters, especially Tom …

   This being Dickinson there is a killer and a mystery resolved, though a minor one, but as a portrait of a unique time and a picture of good people trying to resolve the differences that divide them, coming together for a common good, and facing the very real class divisions that separate them A Summer in the Twenties is a solid smart read.

   If you don’t know Dickinson, he is well worth meeting. He took up writing at age forty after seventeen years as an editor at Punch. He was successful both as a children’s author and a mystery writer, winning a Gold Dagger from the Crime Writer’s and the Carnegie Medal for his children’s books, and his books, including King and Joker, The Lively Dead, One Foot in the Grave, Walking Dead, The Lizard in the Cup, and Skin Deep are all good examples of his many virtues.

       Previously reviewed on this blog:

The Lively Dead (by Steve Lewis)

ROB KANTNER – The Red, White, and Blues. Harper, paperback original, 1993. Ben Perkins #8.

   As I’ve said before, I don’t understand why Kantner’s stories of the Detroit PI, Ben Perkins, haven’t made it into hard covers. Perkins, a cigar-smoking ex-union enforcer who is now a part-time PI, part-time maintenance manager for an apartment complex, is no threat to the memory of Marlowe or Archer, but there are certainly those around who are less so.

   Ben is trying to adjust to being a father, and to reinvent his relationship with the child’s mother, a lawyer who was once his lover and is still his occasional employer. Now she wants him to look into the disappearance of a child from one of Detroit’s major hospitals.

   The problems from Ben’s point of view are two: it happened a year ago, and the mother is a thoroughly disreputable sort of person whom he neither likes or believes. He agrees to look into it, though he warns his ex-lover not to expect a happy ending.

   He meets with deception or indifference everywhere he looks, but gradually accumulates enough facts to make him believe that something shady is going on. He’s “assisted” in his investigation by a recovering alcoholic from his apartment complex, a lady who presents him with a few problems on her own.

   I like the way Kantner writes, and I like the character he’s created in Perkins. His knightly armor is far from unblemished, and the streets he walks are plenty mean enough. I think Kantner does as good a job as anyone when it comes to writing about Detroit.

   The first person narrative is straightforward and effective, and Kantner has an ear for dialogue and a deft hand at characterization. The plots are the weak link in the series. They tend to degenerate into unlikely cowboy action, and this one is no different. With that caveat, I enjoyed it.

       The Ben Perkins Series —

* The Back Door Man (paperback, 1986)

* The Harder They Hit (paperback, 1987)
* Dirty Work (paperback, 1988)
* Hell’s Only Half Full (paperback, 1989)

* Made in Detroit (paperback, 1990)
* The Thousand Yard Stare (paperback, 1991)
* The Quick and the Dead (paperback, 1992)

* The Red, White and Blues (paperback, 1993)
* Concrete Hero (paperback, 1994)
* Trouble Is What I Do (hardcover, collection, 2005)
* Final Fling (hardcover, 2008)

SARA PARETSKY – Deadlock. The Dial Press, hardcover, 1984. Paperback reprints include: Ballantine, 1984; Dell, 1992.

   I am not a private eye fan, but even so, I like V.I. Warshawski. I like her loyalty to her cousin, ex-hockey player Boom Boom Warshawski, which leads her to investigate his death in spite of there being no one to pay her.

   I like her tenacity, which keeps her going even after she recognizes that she is in danger. I like her intelligence, which enables her to master a field she knows nothing about and find vital clues.

   As usual with P.I. novels, I’m sorry that there are so many deaths, especially those of innocent persons. But I’m happy to be introduced into Vic’s world: her friends, old and new, and her Chicago, a Chicago I never knew in 25 years of living there.

   This is the Chicago of the city dweller, not the suburbanite; the Chicago of the long-time ethnic groups; the Chicago that is a Great Lakes port and headquarters of a substantial shipping industry. Boom Boom apparently falls to his death from a slippery pier, but V.I. discovers that he has been checking into the financial affairs of the grain company he’s working for.

   Her investigation takes her to the Port of Chicago, to a large grain freighter, to the locks on the Soo, to elegant homes in Lake Bluff and a condo on Astor Place. I found out more about the business of shipping than I really wanted to know, but it was in a good cause — an interesting story and a fascinating wrap-up, with a P.I. I will read about again.

Editorial Comments:   I reviewed Deadlock back here a few months ago. I reported on the book at hand, but I think Maryell does a better job here in explaining V. I. Warshawki’s overall appeal, and why she’s been a best-selling character ever since her first appearance, which was Indemnity Only in 1982. Deadlock was her second.

JOHN DUNNING – Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime. Scribner, hardcover, 2001. Paperback reprint: Pocket, 2002.

   In John Dunning’s 2001 thriller, Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime, one of the characters says of radio:

   Radio — dramatic radio — in a sense is one of the characters in the book. One of the main characters, Jordan Ten Eyck, is a writer who discovers the power of dramatic radio writing while he finds himself in the midst of a cracker of a thriller involving Nazi spies, murder and mystery surrounding a fledgling radio station, WHAR, in fictional Regina Beach, New Jersey. The time is 1942.

   Dunning, as most old time radio fans know, is no stranger to radio or old-time radio. He is the author of two encyclopedias of the Golden Age of Radio: Tune in Yesterday and On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio.

   He also was the host of a radio show, Old Time Radio, in Denver for many years. But Dunning also is a writer of mystery thrillers. This Nero Wolfe Award winner is the author of several other suspense stories, among them Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake.

   Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime tells the story of Jack Dulaney, aka Jordan Ten Eyck, and Holly Carnahan. The two were in love years ago but drifted apart after the death of their friend and Jack’s rival, Tom Rooney. Now Jack wants to find Holly again, and with the help of an often-inebriated radio actor friend, Marty Kendall, he begins his trip across America to Pennsylvania, where Tom, Jack, and Holly all lived at one time and was Holly’s last known address.

   But Jack encounters only suspicious characters and death along the way and, eventually, finds himself in Regina Beach, New Jersey at radio station, WHAR, looking for work and Holly’s father, Tom Carnahan. It is there that Jordan begins his career as a radio writer and with the WHAR radio community — Rue, Pauline and Hazel, radio actresses; Livia, a sound artist; and Waldo, creator of the magnificent black program, Freedom Road.

   Woven into the story is Jordan’s journey into the discovery of the power of radio drama:

   Jordan discovers the power of radio and nothing, it seems, can hold back his thirst for creation as scripts and ideas continue to flood out of him. Later, he discovers that he can move beyond even that thirst by directing his own work. Dunning, through Jordan, makes the power of radio drama come alive.

   All the thrill and excitement of the production both as listener as well as participant is explored. Meanwhile, Jordan becomes absorbed in the mystery of what became of Holly’s father, who disappeared from the radio station before their arrival and of one of the radio actor’s, March Flack, who disappeared in 1936. And what about the station’s seemingly ominous owner, Mr. Harford?

   Jordan begins to write powerful and politically explosive scripts to the encouragement of the radio owner and management who hope to return the station to a glorious time before the war. His excitement begins to affect the actors and technicians as production reaches fever pitch.

   Surrounding this is Jordan the detective trying to find out what really happened at the station several years before. Using the power of his radio scripts, he attempts to seek out the truth from those who were there.

   Jordan and Holly both become targets and become wrapped into the intrigue endangering them. The mystery of the German Schroeder boys, George and Peter, the attempts on his life, the mystery around the radio writer, Paul Kruger and his script about the Boer war all need answers for Jordan. The book is full of wonderful characters with stories to tell, who carry their own sense of mystery with them.

   There are a number of writers who have written stories framed around early radio, but if you are both a fan of old time radio as well as a mystery thriller fan, then this book will definitely entertain.

   John Dunning is a superb writer. As a mystery writer, he is new to this reviewer, but he is certainly an author I will seek out again.

Editorial Comment:   Jim Widner has long been involved with Old Time Radio, both as a collector and as a researcher, author and indexer. His web site is devoted to OTR in a historical context at Radio Days. For several years he has also produced a podcast called the Radio Detective Story Hour. Follow the links to each.

JIM BUTCHER – Changes. Roc, hardcover, April 2010; tall paperback: March 2011.

Genre:   Paranormal mystery. Leading character:   Harry Dresden, 12th in series. Setting:   Chicago.

First Sentence:   I answered the phone, and Susan Rodriguez said, “They’ve taken our daughter.”

   Seven years ago, wizard Harry Dresden’s love, Susan Rodriguez left after being turned into a half-vampire. Now she calls to tell him that his daughter Maggie, about whom he’d never known, has been kidnapped by the Duchess of the Red Court.

   Harry learns that Maggie is to be a blood sacrifice in an act that will destroy him and many others. Harry is determined to rescue his daughter.

   I am, primarily, a mystery reader. I picked up Storm Front, the first Harry Dresden book by Jim Butcher thinking it would be interesting to see how he brings mysteries and the paranormal together.

   While the books are far more paranormal/fantasy than mystery, about half-way into that first book, the genre definition no longer mattered. Harry Dresden is not the stuff of fairy tales — at least, not the Disney versions — Grimm was, after all, rather grim — but the stuff of nightmares with a wickedly good sense of humor.

   It is definitely a series to be read in order. And, boy, does Butcher know how to tell a story. He touches every emotion while making us face the monsters in the closet. I thoroughly enjoy the references to movie, television, literature which have become part of our popular culture.

   The world and characters created by Butcher are vividly drawn and often very unpleasant. Much of that is offset by the strong human characters, excellent dialogue and wonderful humor. There is a delightful bit where Harry says firmly, “I don’t do hats.” This is a jab to the fact that the cover of every book shows Harry wearing a hat.

   Dresden is a classic hero. He is tall, attractive, strong, clever, protects the innocent and weak, destroys the bad buys and isn’t overly macho ever. As with each previous book, we continue to learn more of Dresden’s background. We also see the extent to which he is willing to go to protect and save others.

   In Changes, Butcher brings together nearly all the characters of previous books for this pivotal story, and some wonderful characters they are. It’s thanks to his skill and imagination that we have Bob, the intelligent spirit who love trashy romance novels; Molly, Harry’s apprentice; Mouse, the amazing Foo dog; and all the others, human and inhuman.

   The story is non-stop with some breath-catching moments, both in terms of pacing and suspense. It is touching, suspenseful, gruesome, emotional, violent and occasionally funny.

   The book’s ending is as much a shock to us as it is to Harry. I’m one who usually abhors cliff-hanger ending, but then realized Butcher did play fair with us by the lead up to the ending. I am concerned about where the series is going from here, as I know the series is continuing. I’ll just have to trust to Butcher’s wonderful writing and go along for the adventure.

Rating:   Very Good Plus.

SIMON GREEN – Hawk and Fisher. Ace, paperback original; 1st printing, September 1990. Reprinted in Swords of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher, an omnibus edition containing the first three books in the series; see below. Penguin/Roc, July 1999; trade ppbk, June 2006.

   It is quite remarkable how you can come across the most interesting sorts of things when you least expect them. No one looking for the best locked room mystery written in 1990 (I wager to say) would ever in their right mind pick this book up to read — looking as it does as the latest variation of the Conan-based fantasy-action series that clog the science fiction shelves in every Waldenbooks store in the country.

   Hawk and Fisher (male and female, and married to each other) are two captains of the guard in the dark city of Haven, on some unknown world at some unknown time, where magic works, and vampires, werewolves and succubi abound. (He has a patch over one eye, and she wears a shirt that exposes an ample amount of bosom, as well illustrated on the front cover.)

   They are both tough, and even more remarkably, they are both honest, a rarity in Haven.

   After disposing of a particularly bothersome vampire, they are asked to investigate the stabbing of an important reformist councilor in his locked bedroom. The crime could not have been committed by a magical spell, as first suspected, as the dead man wore an amulet about his neck designed especially to ward off such attacks.

   Being a reformist in local politics means that the victim had many enemies, but the only ones who could have killed him are trapped in the house with him. Thus what this resembles, in perverse but strangely believable fashion, is an exceptionally good isolated county manor caper, complete with false trails, red herrings, and fine old-fashioned detective work.

   The solution to the crime, reasonably intricate, is meticulously worked out as well. I can’t see any flaws in the story, which certainly triggered all the right responses in me. I don’t know how easy it will be for you to get your hands on a copy, but since several more in the series have appeared in the meantime, it’s possible Ace may have kept them all in print. Highly recommended.

   And from later on, from the same issue of Mystery*File:

SIMON GREEN – Winner Takes All. Ace, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1991.

   The second in Green’s “Hawk & Fisher” series. The first, Hawk & Fisher, was an extremely pleasant surprise — a well-written locked room mystery taking place in a world of pure fantasy.

   This new adventure of the two married members of the Guards is pure politics, however, as election time is nearing. Lots of swords, lots of evil sorcery, lots of action. Entertaining, but still a disappointment in not living up to expectations.

       The Hawk & Fisher series:

Hawk & Fisher. Ace, September 1990.
Hawk & Fisher: Winner Takes All. Ace, January 1991.
Hawk & Fisher: The God Killer. Ace, June 1991.

Hawk & Fisher: Wolf in the Fold. Ace, September 1991
Hawk & Fisher: Guard Against Dishonor. Ace, December 1991.
Hawk & Fisher: The Bones of Haven. Ace, March 1992.

   The six books were reprinted in two omnibus editions. The first is so mentioned above. The second grouping of three titles was entitled Guards of Haven, Penguin/Roc, ppbk, November 1999; trade ppbk, June 2007.

Editorial Comments:   The artwork is so finely detailed it does not show up well in normal-sized images; hence the blow-up, as you see!

   Also, George Kelley has just reviewed the two omnibus editions of Hawk & Fisher books on his blog. You can read his comments by following this link.

PETER LOVESEY – Skeleton Hill. Soho Press, hardcover, September 2009; trade paperback, September 2010.

   In this novel, the tenth in the Peter Diamond series, the discovery of a headless skeleton and the subsequent disappearance of a university lecturer seem to present Diamond with two cases to manage.

   However, when the missing lecturer turns up dead, Diamond’s always difficult (from his point of view) boss, Assistant Constable Georgina Dallymore, informs him that the case is being transferred to Bristol, where the lecturer was teaching.

   Faced with the prospect of losing what seems to be the more viable case, Diamond convinces Georgina to loan him out to Bristol to head the investigation, while his capable assistant Keith Halliwell takes the lead on the skeleton case.

   Although it’s Diamond’s opinion that the two cases are connected, the evidence doesn’t support that early on. However, when the break does come that confirms the link, Diamond is repositioned as the lead investigator, and the measured pulse of the initial stages of the investigation accelerates with almost unbearable intensity.

   I have thought that, since the murder of his wife, Diamond had been somewhat off his form, but there’s no question of that in this superbly paced addition to the series.

Bibliographic Notes:   Besides the ten books in his Peter Diamond series, Peter Lovesey was also the author of eight adventures of Sergeant Cribb, set in 1880s London, threee books with Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (aka Bertie), and two cases for Inspector Hen Mallin. (Hen is short for Henrietta.) As if this were not enough, he has also written another ten or so non-series books, not all of which may be criminous.

Previously reviewed on this blog —

      Bloodhounds (by L. J. Roberts)

DANA STABENOW – A Cold Day for Murder. Berkley, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1992.

   The first Kate Shugak mystery, she being a former investigator for the DA’s office in Anchorage, here persuaded to check out the disappearance of a Park Ranger six weeks before.

   This is as much about real life in Alaska as it is a mystery, which is OK, but I prefer my detective stories to have more meat to them, and not to be quite so obvious as this.

COMMENT: Stabenow’s book, I have later discovered, won an Edgar as best paperback mystery of the year. Obviously the MWA is looking for social relevance, and they could care less about what I personally read detective fiction for: a solidly plotted story.

[UPDATE] 06-18-10. My views on the objection I put forth in that last paragraph above have changed since I wrote it, back in 1993, but then again, not necessarily all that much. I still look for a detective story first, but if I enjoy the characters and the interaction between them, then a tightly knit puzzle is neither crucial nor first and foremost on my mind.

   I do remember the general story of A Cold Day for Murder, but I don’t recall enough to know if I’d object as much now to the “social relevance” that I found as displeasing as I did back then.

   But I certainly missed the boat on this one, all around. Not only I did have to admit I did not recognize the Edgar-winning quality of her first book, Dana Stabenow has gone on to well-regarded and solidly established writing career.

   There are now 17 books in the Kate Shugak series, another four books with Liam Campbell, and two stand-alones. Liam Campbell is an Alaska State Trooper who, when live backs up on him, takes a post out in an isolated native town far from anywhere. I’ve read one of these also, and while I don’t have handy the review I wrote, I remember feeling the same way about it as I did this first one with Kate Shugak.

   Which is to say, a weak story line, plotwise, and characters I didn’t find myself getting close to. If you were to say I’m all wet about this, I’d just have to grin and bear it.

KINKY FRIEDMAN – Elvis, Jesus & Coca Cola. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1993. Reprint paperback: Bantam, 1996. The Kinkster #6.

   Admit it now: it’s a hell of a title, quintessentially American, and no one but Friedman could — or would — have come up with it. Love him or loathe him, and lots do each, he’s an American original.

   Kinky’s got the blues. One of his best friends has died, and it’s hit him hard. The friend was working on a movie about Elvis impersonators, and his father asks Kinky to see if he can find the working copy of the film, which is missing.

   Kinky doesn’t figure that will be any problem, but something else quickly becomes one — Uptown Judy (to distinguish her from Downtown Judy), one of his occasional ladies, is missing from her apartment and there are bloodstains on the floor.

   Then the dead friend’s assistant who was supposed to have information about the missing film turns up murdered. The Kinkster and his motley crew of assistants go to work trying to make sense of it all.

   I’m always at somewhat of a loss trying to write about Friedman’s books. There’s no way in the world to pass along the flavor, and the flavor is what it’s all about. The plots range from very little to pretty weak, and we aren’t talking in-depth characterization or narrative flow. We’re talking about a unique brand of prose. Sayin’s. Aphorisms.

   A way of writing, and writing about life, that will strike you either as wise and very, very funny, as it does me; or profanely, obscenely, and misogynistically unfunny, as it has others. It’s said too often and is too often untrue, but trust me this time: he’s one of a kind. Sui generis.

   Whether that’s a blessing or a curse is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.

   I think he’s a hoot, myself.

Editorial Comment:   I never met Barry myself. He lived in Texas, I lived in Connecticut. He attended mystery conventions, I seldom did nor have I since. But we were in DAPA-Em together, and we enjoyed each other’s reviews there, and swapped mailing comments there. We were friends, albeit through the mail and through each other’s zines only.

   Barry worked for the Dallas Fire Department until his retirement in 1989, but he didn’t discover mystery fandom for another two years or so. Ah, Sweet Mysteries was the name of the zine that he produced for the apa, each of them running 20 pages or more. Besides his own zine, his reviews began popping up in all of the major, well-known mystery fanzines of the day: The Armchair Detective, CADS, Deadly Pleasures and many others. You name it, he was there.

   Not only was he prolific, but he always managed to put his finger on what made each novel he reviewed work, or (in such cases) why it didn’t. Instinctively and incisively, he seemed to know detective and mystery fiction inside out. He had a critical eye, but he invariably used it softly while cutting immediately to the essence of a story.

   Barry died in 1996 — suddenly, without any warning. George Easter, who still publishes Deadly Pleasures, almost immediately set up the Barry Awards in his name, to honor the Best in Detective and Mystery Fiction on a yearly basis. See George’s website for more information.

   I’m pleased more than I can say that Barry’s wife Ellen has granted me permission to reprint Barry’s reviews from Ah, Sweet Mysteries on this blog. Thank you, Ellen, very much.

ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS. Universal Pictures, 1940. Allan Jones, Nancy Kelly, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Robert Cummings, Mary Boland, Peggy Moran, William Frawley, Leo Carillo. Screenplay: Gertrude Pursell, Charles Grayson, John Grant (uncredited), adapted by Kathryn Scolla & Francis Martin from the novel Love Insurance, by Earl Derr Biggers. Songs by Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein & Dorothy Fields. Director: A. Edward Sutherland

   This was the film debut of Abbott and Costello (Lou Costello had appeared in some silent films in bit parts) and it leaves you wanting more of them and less of almost everything else in the film save for Robert Cummings and Peggy Moran, including the forgettable Kern, Hammerstein, and Fields songs Allan Jones regularly breaks into.

   That to one side, it’s a pretty good screwball romantic comedy that benefits from an expert cast.

   Robert Cummings is Steve Harper, a less than bright playboy who has fallen in love with Cynthia Merrick (Nancy Kelly), but who finds his way to true love opposed on two fronts — first by a series of mishaps with Cynthia’s Aunt Kitty (Mary Boland) and secondly by his ex-girlfriend, Mickey Fitzgerald (Peggy Moran), who isn’t planning on letting him get away.

   Enter Steve’s old pal Lucky Moore (Allan Jones, father of singer Jack Jones). Lucky is an insurance man par excellence, and has a bright idea — he’ll sell Steve a $1 million dollar policy guaranteeing that Steve and Cynthia end up together. It’s a cinch. Love insurance — why didn’t anyone think of it before?

   Lucky’s father isn’t so sure about that so he makes Lucky find an underwriter for the ‘sure thing’ policy — nightclub owner William Frawley, who assigns two lunkheads in his employ to make sure things don’t go wrong — Bud and Lou …

   Obviously just about everyone in the film is suffering from a serious lack of good judgment. It’s one of those plots where if anyone listened or paused to think, the whole facade would crumble. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the characters, no one even thinks about having a rational thought for the span of the film.

   Earl Derr Biggers’ novel was filmed before in 1919 and 1924, like his highly famous Seven Keys to Baldpate and The Agony Column, both highly popular works and filmed multiple times. (Readers here hardly need reminding Biggers was also the creator of Charlie Chan.)

   As Mickey schemes to get Steve back and Steve tries to win over Aunt Kitty, the problems multiply, and bumbling Bud and Lou don’t help. And when Lucky meets Cynthia he falls head over heels for her and she for him.

   Cynthia sails for the Tropics to get away from the mess, and naturally Steve follows with Mickey in tow, Lucky along to sabotage his own best interests, and Bud and Lou dispatched to make sure Steve and Cynthia get together and stay together. Once there Leo Carillo gets thrown in the mix as a Latin Lothario.

   Despite the minor songs, the film is bright and funny, and if you fins yourself wishing for more of Bud and Lou or even Cummings and Moran, Allan Jones and Nancy Kelly are attractive leads, and if they can’t quite compete with the zaniness of the others involved, they handle this extremely well. It’s not their fault that Cummings has a thousand times more screen presence than Jones, or that Peggy Moran has all the best lines other than the boys (Bud and Lou).

   There is an abbreviated version of ‘Who’s On First?’ on hand and several of the boys routines as well as the usual wise cracks and smart lines:

   There is also what may well be the first Humphrey Bogart joke on film:

   One Night in the Tropics is a good minor musical that moves fast and features bright players and crackling dialogue. Other than those they did at MGM, production values were somewhat higher than later Abbott and Costello films, and the cast is excellent.

   That said, you are bound to wish there had been more of the boys and Cummings and Moran and less of Jones and Kelly.

   The boys’ next outing was Buck Privates, and they never took a back seat to anyone again in their own films, though Kathryn Grayson and John Carroll get quite a bit of screen time in Rio Rita where the boys are slipped into an old plot.

   Overall this one is bright and funny, and for once the romantic comedy aspect is good enough to hold your attention when the boys are off screen. But it’s a shame Peggy Moran and Robert Cummings weren’t teamed again. They are almost as much fun as Bud and Lou, which you can’t always say about the romantic leads in this kind of film.

Note: Thanks to the IMDB website for providing the exact wording of the first two sets of quotes.