I don’t know about you, but whenever I come home from a book-hunting expedition and start going through my finds and come across an author I’ve never heard of before, I immediately go to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV to see what other mystery fiction he might have done.

   Case in point. George Adams, whose entry in CFIV looks like this:

   ADAMS, GEORGE (1936- )
       * Swindle (Pocket Books, 1989, pb) [Charlie Byrne; New York City, NY]
       * Insider’s Price (Pocket Books, 1993, pb) [Charlie Byrne; New York City, NY]

   The book I bought while on the road was his first one, Swindle, and thanks to the Internet, it wasn’t too difficult to find his other one. Nor was it too expensive. I don’t think the demand is very high, but let’s see if I can’t do something about that. Maybe I’ll succeed, and maybe I won’t, but it’s worth a try.

Swindle. Pocket, paperback original; 1st printing, February 1989.

From the back cover:

         THE CAMERA NEVER LIES …

   Charlie is a high-fashion photographer, part-time bicycle racer and a full-time lover. Manhattan is his playground. But when his sexy stylist loses $50,000 to a phony investment scheme. Charlie makes his first mistake. With the help of an out-of-work actor and a very busy hustler he sets out to scam the scammer – and get the money back. Instead, he finds a money-mad netherworld of insider trading, wiseguys, murder and sex, and there’s no telling the good guys from the bad … A gorgeous woman and a Wall Street wizard are the heavy hitters in a ruthless game to separate New York’s most beautiful people from their money. Charlie Byrne has wandered right into the middle of a nightmare that could only happen in New York – and getting out will be as simple as staying alive.

About the author:

   Like his hero, Charlie Byrne, George Adams is a well-known New York advertising photographer who can be found racing his bike in Central Park on Sundays. Unlike Charlie, he almost always finishes the New York Times crossword puzzle. Adams’ work appears on the front cover of this book.

Review excerpt: [Chicago Sun-Times] “A page turner with lots of twists and turns, flesh-and-blood characterizations, and swift and rhythmic prose. It’s hard to believe Swindle is a first novel.”

Insider’s Price. Pocket, paperback original; 1st printing, September 1993.

From the back cover:

         THE ART OF THE STEAL

   High-fashion photographer Charlie Byrne heads from his humble midtown digs to the Upper East Side when old acquaintance JoJo Cyzeski – now Josephine – hires him to shoot a priceless Aubusson tapestry. The tapestry, and the fabulous co-op, belong to Marc Ransom, megabucks New York real estate developer and legendary ladykiller. But a darker side to the glittering world develops when the shoot is short-circuiited by a blackout and an apparent suicide in the adjoining courtyard. That’s when Charlie meets the gorgeous sister of the dead woman, who leads him into the gilded precincts of real estate royalty, where doing business can be murder….

   From a terrifying Times Square fleabag hotel to a penthouse bought with drop-dead deals, from the homeless woman camped in his doorway to the bevy of beauties in Ransom’s collection, Charlie follows clues to the suspect suicide and lands on the bottom line of the New York real estate game – where monopoly is played for keeps.

From inside the front cover:

       IF THE STAIRWELL WAS A GOOD PLACE TO GET MUGGED, THE ELEVATOR WAS EVEN BETTER …

   I leaned on the button continuously. “Come on,” I pleaded.

   A woman’s scream pierced the ambient sound of TV’s and ghetto blasters. “He’s an old man, leave him alone!” Smack! Then a baby was bawling.

   Tito and I swapped looks. We bolted down the corridor. A spindly black girl, a bawling child on her hip, sobbed into her hand. Four goons were working someone over.

   Tito leveled the Nikon to his eye and fired. They froze like statues. The flash etched them on my retina. One was Angel. The bandaged one was James. The other two were strangers. An old man was lying on the floor.

   “Yo, James, lookee ’ere.” Angel grinned, his vision clearing.

   One of them flicked open a switchblade. The four of them advanced.

   Tito and I began backpedaling. I sighted my camera and let them have a blast of strobe. The flashes took forty seconds to recharge, an eternity. We’d shot our load …

   “Get ’em,” Angel barked …

MICHAEL SHAYNE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE. 20th Century Fox, 1940. Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver, Walter Abel, Elizabeth Patterson, Donald MacBride, Douglas Dumbrille. Based on the novel Dividend on Death, by Brett Halliday. Director: Eugene Ford.

   Some random thoughts that may shape themselves into a review, and maybe not. What you see is what you get. The recently released DVD set of the first few Shayne movies calls them noir. Not so. It’s a good selling point, but when it gets to the point that every black and white movie made in the 1940s with a crime or mystery in it is called noir, the word simply no longer has any meaning.

   The first true noir film may have been The Maltese Falcon; I really haven’t thought about it too much, but it certainly could have been one of the first. I suppose it all depends on your own personal definition of noir.

   MSPD came out a few months before TMF, and it may have been a step in the right direction, but it’s way too light-hearted, and Lloyd Nolan is a little too goofy in the leading role, for the film, based on author Brett Halliday’s Dividend on Death, to be anything close to noir, using anyone’s definition. TMF is played straight, giving audiences the feeling for what a tough mystery film (as opposed to gangster movie) could really be like.

   At least, as I thought for a while, Michael Shayne doesn’t have a stooge for a sidekick in this movie — another step in the right direction — but on the other hand, Chief Painter (Donald MacBride) has a cop as his right hand man who is as dumb as they come, and Shayne does have Aunt Olivia (Elizabeth Patterson), who’s a dedicated fan of Ellery Queen, murder mysteries and The Baffle Book, to give him strong support when it counts.

   Nolan I called goofy, but he’s still immensely enjoyable in the role, as long as you don’t think of him as Brett Halliday’s Michael Shayne. Seeing the repo men moving the furniture out of his office at the beginning of the film, when cases have apparently been tough to come by for him, certainly sets a certain tone. And watching him cover himself with a blanket when Phyllis Brighton (Marjorie Weaver), whom he’s been hired to bodyguard by her rich father, catches him with his pants down, is mildly funny but hardly, I suspect, how the real Michael Shayne might have reacted in the same situation.

   Not that the real Michael Shayne was really truly tough-as-nails hardboiled or one of theose super-sexed PI’s who came along later, but Lloyd Nolan, he wasn’t either.

   Perhaps as the series goes along, given the TMF influence, the humor lessens and the mystery is played straight, but even if it doesn’t, I’m not going to be concerned about it.

   The story has to do with a gambling casino, horse-racing, a murder, a ditched dame, a possible suicide note, the switching of the barrels of two guns, a bottle of ketchup and a piece of jewelry that comes unpinned at the wrong time, perhaps even a couple of times. It really is a complicated case, I grant you that, which is one of the things I had in mind when I called this a possible transition into true noir from detective films that felt they also had to make the audience laugh.

   It’s remarkable, looking back now, how all of the plot is made to fit into a tight 77 minutes, which I have a hunch is a little longer than the average murder mystery movie at the time. I’ve watched it twice now, and there’s not a minute that’s really wasted. It was well worth the time, and if I may say so, probably yours as well.

   Although I’m not sure what the first book was which “novelized” a movie, I know that it’s not a recent innovation, and in fact the idea is even older than that. Even before movies came along, around the turn of last century, what audiences took a good deal of pleasure in watching were plays in live performance, many of them mysteries, and would you believe, these plays were often novelized.

   This is hardly a formal article on the subject. It’s too early for that. Very little has been written about the novelizations of plays, and it’s obvious a much longer piece is needed to say everything there is to say. From what Victor Berch has told me, though, at the end of the 19th century and into the first part of the next, there were three or four publishing houses that specialized in such works of fiction, and there may have been more. The most prolific of these was the J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company, of New York. Street & Smith did some, Victor says, and I. & M. Ottenheimer of Philadelphia did some as well.

   One of the authors who specialized herself in turning plays into novels, usually in softcover form, was the pseudonymous Olive Harper, whose entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, Victor has recently revised and which you’ll see below.

   This information will also show up soon in an upcoming Addenda to the Revised CFIV. Victor has sent me cover images for four of this books, and perhaps – just maybe – the titles themselves will be enough to start you off in a new direction for your mystery collecting activities.

   Warning: The books below are not easily found. While not expensive, generally under $20 each, only a handful of the titles below could be found by taking a quick look on www.abebooks.com. A few of the author’s non-mystery novelizations and translations show up also, but at the present time, only four of them are mysteries (not, as I recall, the same four that are shown below).

HARPER, OLIVE, pseud. of HELEN BURRELL GIBSON D’APERY, 1842-1915
Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl (Ogilvie, 1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer [New York City]. Silent film: Fox Film Corp., 1926 (scw: Gertrude Orr; dir.: Irving Cummings)

The Burglar and the Lady (Ogilvie, 1912, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [Arthur] Langdon McCormick. Silent film: Sun Photoplay, 1915 (scw: [Arthur] Langdon McCormick; dir.:Herbert Blache).

*Caught in Mid-Ocean (Ogilvie, 1911, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Arthur J[ohn] Lamb. [London, ship]

*The Chinatown Trunk Mystery (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis. [New York City]

The Convict’s Sweetheart (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [Colorado]

The Creole Slave’s Revenge (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Walter Lawrence, pseud. of Owen Davis [Louisiana]

*The Desperate Chance (Ogilvie, 1903, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer

Fighting Bill, Sheriff of Silver Creek (Ogilvie, 1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts [California]

The Gambler of the West (Ogilvie, 1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis

It’s Never Too Late to Mend (Ogilvie, 1907, pb) Novelization of the 4-act play It’s Never Too Late to Mend; or, The Wanderer’s Return by Owen Davis [New York City]

Jack Sheppard, the Bandit King; or, From the Cradle to the Grave (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [California]

King of the Bigamists (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Theodore Kremer

The Millionaire and the Policeman’s Wife (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [New York City]

* A Millionaire’s Revenge (Ogilvie, 1906, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck]
Reid [New York City]

On Trial for His Life (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [West]

The Opium Smugglers of Frisco; or, The Crime of a Beautiful Opium Fiend (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [San Francisco]

The Queen of the Outlaw’s Camp (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Edward M. Simonds [Colorado]

The Queen of the Secret Seven (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Ike Swift, pseudonym of Owen Davis [New York City]

The River Pirates (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Walter Lawrence, pseud. of Owen Davis. [New York City]

Sal, the Circus Gal (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by Owen Davis [Chicago]

The Shadow Behind the Throne (Ogilvie, 1908, pb) Novelization of play in 5 acts by Alicia Ramsay and Rudolph de Cordova

The Shoemaker (Ogilvie, 1907, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid [New York City, Wyoming]

A Slave of the Mill (Ogilvie, 1905, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [James] Hal[leck] Reid and Harry Gordon

Tony, the Bootblack (Ogilvie, 1907, pb) Novelization of the 4 act play Tony the Bootblack; or, Tracking the Black Hand Band by Owen Davis [New York City, Italy]

Wanted by the Police (Ogilvie, 1909, pb) Novelization of play in 4 acts by [Arthur ] Langdon McCormick [New York City]

      * Based on true crimes.

   Al Hubin and I are convinced that we have correctly identified the author of Murder in the Medical School (iUniverse/Writer’s Club Press, December 2000), as Dr. James Roy Schofield, who died on May 20th, 2007.

   The reason I’ve phrased that opening paragraph the way I have is on the page where the book is for sale on Amazom.com, the author is said to be Jill R. Schofield, M. D. The latter name is also somehow connected with the ISBN number, since at least half of the sellers on ABE have entered it that way, also referring to the author as Jill. A check on Google uncovers a Dr. Jill Schofield with a practice in Aurora CO.

   On the other hand, and even more convincing, is Dr. James Roy Schofield’s Who’s Who entry, and his book, a mystery novel which just managed to make the end of 2000 deadline for inclusion in Crime Fiction IV, is definitely mentioned, along with some other data about him.

   Born July 12, 1923, Dr. Schofield received his MD from Baylor University in 1947 and a LLD from Queens University in Ontario, Canada, in 1988. As an educator, he was a member of the faculty of the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1947 to 1971, eventually becoming its Academic Dean. After leaving Baylor, he worked for many national medical associations, including the AMA, as a consultant on medical education.

   All of which certainly means that the background for his mystery novel was authentic. Here’s a description of the book, as taken from the back cover:

   Perhaps it was never a bestseller, but more than six years later, Amazon still has copies of Murder in the Medical School in stock. Its sales ranking is #2,521,639, but the number must be put in perspective. Amazon offers well over four million books for sale.

   Vivian (Bernard) Meek came to my attention when one of his books, The Curse of Red Shiva, appeared in the Hillman-Curl line of mysteries, covers of which I’ve been gradually uploading to the Murder at 3 Cents a Day website.

   Mr. Meek was born in 1894 and, as recently discovered by Victor Berch, died in California in 1955. Some short biographical notes online describe him as being an author, engineer and a war correspondent. In the course of these occupations he was also a dedicated world traveler, spending much time in India and the surrounding territory. In addition to his suspense and horror fiction, for which he is probably best known today, he wrote The People of the Leaves (Philip Allan, UK, 1931; Henry Holt, 1931), an anthropological study of an obscure tribe called the Juang located in Orissa, a sizable state along the east coast of the Indian subcontinent.

UPDATE: While waiting for me to complete my commentary on the books themselves, Victor came up with the following additional information on the author:

   Here is some info I picked up from various documents I found, the most informative being the information Meik supplied on his flight to the US for permanent residency here. According to the California Death Index, Meik was born June 21, 1894 and died December 22, 1955. Another database gives his birth date as July 21, 1894, however.

   Supposedly born in Calcutta, India, on the flight information, Meik claims he was born at sea on a British vessel. From another document, his father was a Lorenzo Meik and his mother was Alice Gertrude Thomas Meik. Another document lists his wife’s name as Bernadette Marie Desparadze. Going back to the flight document, the following further information is supplied:

   His flight left Frankfort, Germany June 21, 1947 and arrived in NY on June 22, 1947. His passport was issued June 14, 1947, a week before his 53rd birthday.

      Height: 6 feet
      Complexion: Swarthy
      Last permanent residence: 41 Denman Drive, London
      Occupation: Journalist
      Intention: Permanent residency in US. He was going to stay with an uncle, Francis T. Meik of Salt Lake City, Utah
      Age: 52

   There was no indication that his wife ever joined him. One outstanding feature that he had when he arrived in the US was that he was missing his left eye.

   I’m back. I have not located a usable cover scan for this first book, a collection of horror fiction, but the contents are listed in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, who indicates that some of the stories are also crime-related. Note the slight correction in the title: the apostrophe is correctly after the “s”.

Devils’ Drums (Philip Allan, UK, 1933; Midnight House, US, in preparation, Douglas A. Anderson, editor)

The volume edited by Doug Anderson will contain three additional stories:

   A second book, also published by Philip Allan in that publisher’s “Creeps series,” is a novel rather than a short story collection; it is nonetheless considered to be a sequel to the preceding one:
Veils of Fear (Philip Allan, 1934)

   The book is not presently included in CFIV, but Bill Pronzini says that in addition to featuring a reporter named Neil Martyn, “There are some homicides and suspense elements but they seem to be pretty much connected to the occult horror theme. Settings range from Port Said to the Far East.”

   On this basis, Al Hubin has indicated that the book will appear in an upcoming Addenda installment to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, but with a dash to indicate that it is only marginally criminous.

   Doug Anderson has more to say about the two books: “While Neil Martyn is the main point of view character, the [returning] series characters in Veils of Fear are Geoffrey Aylett and Padre Jan Vaneken. Both appear, along with others (Peter Verrey; one Vereker, no first name given; and Doctor Strang) in Devils’ Drums (and two – Vereker and Strang – are mentioned in the short story ‘The Two Old Women’.”

   The final work of fiction from the pen of Vivian Meik is also the only one which to this date has been published in the US, also a novel:

The Curse of the Red Shiva. (Philip Allan, 1936; Hillman-Curl, 1938.)

Jacket blurb: Taken from the Hillman-Curl edition.

    “You will gasp for mercy for your children as I have cried for mine, and only the striking blade will be the answer. Behold! By Red Shiva I curse you!” A knife gleamed in her hand as it flashed downward and buried itself in her heart.

    More than a century and a half since those words were uttered by a beautiful Indian slave to Peter Trenton, adventurer …

    But now, after five generations, Sir Peter Trenton was found under Westminster Bridge, brutally murdered, a gold mohur tied around his neck.

    Sir Derek Balliol had guessed the significance of the series of murders – but he was killed before he could speak! Only Verrey was left … and against him were pitted the cunning powers behind the newly-awakened race consciousness of the East.

Review excepts: [Isaac Anderson, New York Times] “This is just the book for those who like tall tales of Oriental intrigue and of menaces to the supremacy of the white race.”

   [Saturday Review of Literature]. “Blood and thunder yarn of slinking Eurasians, renegade whites, stranglings, etc., with reasonably good detective trimmings.”

   [Bill Pronzini, earlier on the Mystery*File blog]. “A Sax Rohmerish adventure mystery with a screwball plot.”

Short fiction: [This list, which includes reprint appearances, is probably not complete. Doug Anderson promises that his edition of Devils’ Drums will include a more extensive bibliography as well as additional details of the author’s life, including where and when he lost one eye.]

    * • Chimoro. To be included in the expanded Devils’ Drums. From Doug Anderson: “This is an extract from a chapter of one of his autobiographical volumes, Zambezi Interlude (1932). It reads exactly like one of his stories.”

    * • The Doll of Death. From Devils’ Drums. Reprinted in The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories, Herbert van Thal, editor; Pan, pb, 1965. Televised on Night Gallery, NBC, Sunday, May 20, 1973.

    * • A Honeymoon in Hate. From Devils’ Drums. Reprinted in A Wave of Fear, Hugh Lamb, editor; W. H. Allen, 1973; Taplinger, US, hc, 1974.
      — Mikalongwa, Angoniland. English refugees Blair Taylor and Martin Kemp are bitter rivals for the love of the beautiful Estelle. When she decides to marry Taylor, Kemp turns to black magic and drives him to madness and suicide. Estelle avenges her beloved by marrying his murderer, having first infected herself with the blood of a leper. On their wedding night she performs a macabre striptease …

    * • I Leave It to You. From ?? Included in Another Corner Seat Omnibus, Anonymous, editor; Grafton Publications, March 1945. To be included in the expanded Devils’ Drums.

    * • The Two Old Women. From Monsters, A Collection of Uneasy Tales, Charles Birkin, editor. Philip Allan, 1934. Reprinted in The Fourth Pan Book of Horror Stories, Herbert van Thal, editor; Pan, pb, 1963. To be included in the expanded Devils’ Drums.

AGATHA CHRISTIE – N or M?

Dell 187, reprint paperback: mapback edition; no date stated, but generally accepted as 1947. Hardcover editions: Collins Crime Club (UK), 1941; Dodd, Mead (US), 1941.

   I will not be so foolhardy as to list all of the editions that this book has been published in, nor will I supply more than the front and back cover of this particular mapback edition, especially since the jackets of the respective hardcover editions are so rather plain and unexciting.

   But speaking of mapbacks, what I just realized now, strangely enough, is that not once while reading N or M? did I refer to the back cover. Not until getting an image ready for uploading did I even think of it. And so, looking it just now, I find it utterly remarkable that while I all of the geographical details of the small seaside resort town of Leahampton essentially wrong in my mind, the overall picture in my head was exactly right. (And of course who is there to say that the artist who drew the map had the details right?)

   This is a Tuppence and Tommy (Beresford) book, and if you were to check the date that the book was published (1941), you might immediately gather that this wartime book had something to do with the war, and indeed it does. (It is my impression that relatively few murder mysteries published during the war ever mentioned the war, but this one does, and directly so. Other handedly, my impression could be totally false. It is a subject worthy of further investigation.)

   I have not read the earlier books in the Tuppence and Tommy series in quite some time, so I do not recall in which one of them the twosome were secret agents in World War I, but when this book begins, they are beginning to feel their age, not to mention the pain of their rejection, as sitting on the sidelines is not their idea of how to spend the time they find free on their hands, nor in any way how to make the best use of their abilities.

   A small pause here while I investigate and come back with a short list of the books in which the pair of intrepid adventurers appeared:

      The Secret Adversary, 1922. [This must be the World War I adventure .]

      Partners in Crime, 1929. [A story collection disguised as a novel.]

      N or M?, 1941.

      By the Pricking of My Thumbs, 1968.

      Postern of Fate, 1973.

   That’s quite a range of dates, and the gap between the 3rd and 4th is a huge one, 27 years, but I don’t imagine that it is anywhere near a record — the longest break between appearance of series characters. (A question like this is something else I wish I had more time to look into.)

   But back to the story. Luckily enough Tommy is offered a job by the British equivalent of Homeland Security, so hush-hush, he is advised, that he should not even tell Tuppence. Who, of course, has other ideas, and thus indeed there is a story.

   It seems that a pair of spies for the Germans, N (a man) and M (a woman) are located in the aforementioned seaside resort town of Leahampton, and in particular they may even be living there in a private hotel called Sans Souci. An amateur is precisely what is required, Tommy is told, as a professional would be spotted right away.

   During wartime towns like Leahampton would be populated by (as related on page 14): “old ladies, old colonels, unimpeachable spinsters, dubious customers, fishy customers, a foreigner or two. In fact, a mixed bag.” And the two spies, Tommy again is advised, are among them.

   Now if there are people Agatha Christie could write about more capably than “old ladies, old colonels, unimpeachable spinsters, dubious customers, fishy customers, a foreigner or two,” I don’t know who they would be, nor do I know of any other mystery writer could outdo her in this regard, either.

   What with the number of people staying on at Sans Souci to describe and make distinguishable, it might have been a Herculean task to succeed in doing so, but what Agatha Christie had was a knack of instant characterization for the inhabitants of her stories, and so it is here. And there is more. Christie is often put down for mysteries that focus more on the plots than they do on the writing of them, but such critics are generally wrong, as this book amply demonstrates. It is so smoothly written that 50 pages flash by in what seems to be an instant — gently humorous at times, sometimes (later on) deadly serious, and with a sense that something suspicious is always going on.

   There are a good many suspects at hand, in other words, in an oddly arranged version of the closed manor house type of mystery, but with little of substance to back up this statement, I do not believe that spies and espionage were Ms. Christie’s strongest points. Or in other words, where the book fails, if indeed it does, is in the plotting, which seems forced and unconvincing, concluding with some derring-do and remarkable rescuing that seems entirely fortuitous.

   And that the bring-down-the-curtain revelation at the end was one that I was suspicious about myself several pages earlier — “What’s going on here?” I wondered to myself (you’ll have to take my word for it) — which only goes to reinforce the statement I made in the preceding paragraph. Entirely enjoyable then, is my conclusion, but weakest precisely (and curiously) where you’d expect an Agatha Christie novel not to be.

   Al Hubin is now working on Part 16 of his Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV; if you follow the link, the first 15 are now online. I’m still working on Part 3, adding images, commentary and various links. Here are most of the L’s, which I’ve finished up recently:

LANE, JEREMY Author of six mystery novels listed in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. Two were published in the late twenties, the remaining four from Phoenix Press between 1944 and 1949. The detective in all four of the Phoenix books was Dr. Whitney Wheat, a psychiatrist.
      Kill Him Tonight. Add setting: New York City.

LA PLANTE, LYNDA (née TITCHMARSH) Add maiden name.
      Framed. Novelization of TV movie [2 x 2 hour miniseries]: Anglia/A&E, 1992 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Geoffrey Sax). Also: TV movie: TNT, 2003 (scw & dir: Daniel Petrie, Jr.) [Correct title and delete previous SC identification.]

      Prime Suspect. TV movie [2 x 2 hr miniseries]: Granada, 1991 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Christopher Menaul). SC: DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren)
      Prime Suspect 2. [Add title.] Mandarin pb, 1992; Dell, 1993. TV movie [4-part mini-series] Granada, 1992 (scw: Alan Cubitt; dir: John Strickland). SC: DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren)
      Prime Suspect 3. TV movie [2 x 2 hour miniseries]: Granada, 1993 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: David Drury), SC: DCI Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren)

      Trial and Retribution. [ghost written by Robin Blake, q.v.] Macmillan (London), 1997. TV movie [2 x 2 hour mini-series ]: La Plante, 1997 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Aisling Walsh). SC: Det. Supt. Michael Walker (David Hayman) & Det. Insp. Pat North (Kate Buffery)
      Trial and Retribution II. [ghost written by Robin Blake, q.v.] Macmillan (London), 1998. TV movie [2 x 2 hour mini-series]: La Plante, 1998 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Aisling Walsh). SC: Det. Supt. Michael Walker (David Hayman) & Det. Insp. Pat North (Kate Buffery)
      Trial and Retribution III. [ghost written by Robin Blake, q.v.] Macmillan (London), 1999. TV movie [2 x 2 hour mini-series]: La Plante, 1999 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Jo Johnson). SC: Det. Supt. Michael Walker (David Hayman) & Det. Insp. Pat North (Kate Buffery)
      Trial and Retribution IV. Novelization of TV series by Robin Blake, q.v., based on scripts by Lynda La Plante.
      The Widows. Novelization of TV movie [6-part mini-series]: Euston/Thames, 1983 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Ian Toynton). SC: Dolly Rawlins (Ann Mitchell). Also: TV movie [mini-series]: ABC, 2002 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Geoffrey Sax). SC: Dolly Rawlins (Mercedes Ruehl)
      The Widows II. Novelization of TV movie [6-part mini-series]: Euston/Thames, 1985 (scw: Lynda La Plante; dir: Paul Annett). SC: Dolly Rawlins (Ann Mitchell)

LARSON, GLEN A. Television writer and producer. Nominal co-author (with Roger Hill, q.v.) of five novelizations of the TV series Knight Rider. It is understood that Hill did all of the writing. The remaining four books were also based on individual one- or two-part episodes of the show; follow the preceding link for more information.
      Knight Rider. TV movie: Universal, 1982 (scw: Tom Greene, Glen A. Larson; dir: Daniel Haller). SC: Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff)

LAURENSON, R. M. Author of three books listed in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, two of them from Phoenix Press (1948-1949) with series character Marc Jordan, a railroad attorney. The book below is the first of his two cases.
      The Railroad Murder Case. Add setting: Illinois.

LEWIS, BEATRICE MARY Pseudonym: Lewis Iram, q.v.

LEWIS, MICHAEL (ARTHUR). British author of five detective novels between 1925 and 1931 listed in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. SC: Detective Insp. Anthony Field = AF. [Sergeant Hobbs was previously listed as being a series character in the two books marked *.]
      * The Brand of the Beast. AF
      * The Island of Disaster. AF
      The Three Amateurs. AF

LEWIS, WILLIAM (L.) 1931- . Noted operatic tenor. Add year of birth and middle initial. In his one work of crime fiction included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, listed below, five singers are the targets of a serial killer.
      Gala (Dutton, 1987, hc) [New York City, NY; Theatre]

LOGAN, MALCOLM. Co-author with Carolynne Logan of one mystery novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV; see below. Delete previously stated birth & death dates, both tentative. Leading character: “Former boy prodigy” Justus Drumm.
      One of These Seven. Mystery House, hc, 1946. [New York City, NY]

LONDON, JOAN. 1901-1971. Daughter of well-known author Jack London. Joint pseudonym with her husband Barney Mayes, 1905(?)-1978(?), q.v.: B. J. Maylon, q.v.

LONG, AMELIA REYNOLDS. Add settings for the mystery novels below; the series characters stated are already included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV:
      The Corpse at the Quill Club. SC: Mystery writer Katherine “Peter” Piper; criminal psychologist Edward Trelawney. [Philadelphia]
      Death Has a Will. SC: Attorney Steve Carter. [Pennsylvania]
      The Lady Saw Red. SC: Katherine “Peter” Piper. [Pennsylvania]
      Murder by Magic. SC: Steve Carter. [Pennsylvania]

      Murder Times Three. SC: Edward Trelawney. [Philadelphia]
      Murder to Type. SC: Steve Carter. [Pennsylvania]

LORAC, E. C. R. Pseudonym of Edith Caroline Rivett, (1894-1958); other pseudonym Carol Carnac. Prolific author of over 70 mystery novels under both pen names; her primary detective for the Lorac books is Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald. He is in the book below.
      Murder by Matchlight. Add setting: London.

LORING, EMILIE.  1866-1951.  [See the second comment below.]   Most of this British author’s books were romantic fiction, published between 1922 and 1950; unfinished material discovered after her death was developed into an additional 20 romances (1952-1972). Add the title below.
      Love Came Laughing By. Little, 1949 [Washington D.C.]

LOTTMAN, EILEEN
      Welcome Home, Jaime. TV movie [two-part series pilot for The Bionic Woman]: Universal, 1976, as Welcome Home, Jaime (scw: Kenneth Johnson; dir: Alan Crosland). SC: Jamie Summers (Lindsay Wagner)

LOVELL, B(OYD) E. 1920-1962. Add full first name and year of death. Author of two mystery novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, both with private eye Edge Hannagan.

(Mabel) DANA LYON. See joint pseudonym with (Josephine Hughston, q.v.) Dana Hughston, q.v. Note that Lyon and Hughston also shared a dual byline on the book cited below, previously included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV:
      The Bathtub Murder (U.S.: Williams, 1933, hc)

   It isn’t very difficult to create a “compleat” entry for a mystery writer when the writer has only one mystery novel to his credit, as is the case for Lee Gifford, which is quite possible a pseudonym. But as you can imagine — think about it for a bit — it’s not easy doing a Google search for anyone with a name like this. Screening out all of the unwanted entries produced nothing of interest. I also could not locate any other book, fiction or non-fiction, that I could ascribe to the name.

   The reason I suspect that Gifford is a pen name is that the single book in question is not copyright in the name of the author, but by Fawcett Publications, long time publisher of the well-known (and widely collectible) line of Gold Medal paperbacks. Any further information about the writer would be welcome.

    His entry in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, slightly expanded:

         GIFFORD, LEE
            * Pieces of the Game. Gold Medal s1008, pbo, June 1960. Setting: Far East; WWII.

   From the back cover:

   From the front cover:

    From inside the front cover:

HIGH RISK. 1981. James Brolin, Anthony Quinn, Lindsay Wagner, James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine, Bruce Davison, Cleavon Little, Chick Vennera. Written & directed by Stuart Riffill.

   Some of the people leaving comments on IMDB after viewing this film — and quite a large number of them liked it a lot — felt that the reason it did not do well at the box office at the time of its theatrical release was because of its competition. Soon after High Risk was in the theaters, along came its nemesis — Raiders of the Lost Ark.

   Hmm. On a scale of 100 for Raiders of the Lost Ark, I’d rate High Risk as a 5. No comparison. Raiders was brisk, inventive, innovative and vastly entertaining. In spite of cast of well-known names, Risk is (e) none of the above.

   The pace is sedentary in comparison; the plot rewarmed and stale; and only entertaining enough to keep me watching, which is hardly a recommendation. It does have Lindsay Wagner in it, for whom I have always kept a figurative light on in the window, but it also has Anthony Quinn. When the latter’s usual chewing of the scenery begins, it’s all but lights out for me.

   Plot: Four suburban “mercenaries,” amateurs all, led by James Brolin take a risky trip to an unnamed South American country to relieve a drug warlord (James Coburn) of some misbegotten gains, to the tune of five million dollars. In on the deal are a black (Cleavon Little), a Hispanic (Chick Vennera) and a dork (Bruce Davison), not to mention a small fluffy white dog. (Yes, certainly you may ask.)

   Of course things go wrong, and very quickly. In an adjoining jail cell is a lovely American woman convicted of smuggling drugs (Lindsay Wagner). A gang of revolutionaries turned bandits also on their trail is led by Anthony Quinn, and of course they too want the money. There is an engaging light-hearted tone to the caper until the revolutionaries appear, but once they do, you get the feeling that the people responsible for the story had run out of ideas at just about the same time.

   And lots of gunfire erupts. Lots and lots. To no avail. There’s no Indiana Jones in this bunch. Maybe they should have made Lindsay Wagner’s part larger. They really should have. And yes, I know. I’m not being fair. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest movies of all time, regardless of genre.

PETER RABE – Murder Me for Nickels

Gold Medal 996; paperback original. First printing: May 1960. Trade paperback, paired with Benny Muscles In: Stark House Press, 2004.

   First of all, if you haven’t read it, you might want to take a look at an interview that George Tuttle did with Peter Rabe, shortly before his death in May 1990. It’s on the primary Mystery*File website, complete with cover photos and a bibliography which I compiled for the author, making it unnecessary for one to include one with this review, or at least I won’t need to if you go and come back.

    When I was 16, 17 and 18, Peter Rabe was one of my favorite crime fiction authors, but it’s been several years since I’ve read this particular one, until now. It’s probably been even more than several. The usual trepidation comes into play at times like this. The question at the back of my mind is — and I imagine this happens to everyone, eventually — is he as good as I remember him?

   The answer is yes, but I know I’ve just read this with different eyes and a different mind than when I read it for the first time, having just finished my first year of college in 1960 and plenty wet still behind the ears. You’ll get the present me talking about it now, not the callow youth I was back then.

   My favorite detective writer back at that time was Erle Stanley Gardner, to make a small distinction between styles, and I’ll be catching up with one of his books sometime in the near future. My other favorite mystery writer, noir style, was Cornell Woolrich, who’s still the master of whatever genre of mystery fiction you may care to put him in.

   Reading one of Rabe’s books, though, is like opening a case of dynamite. You do it carefully, and you hold your breath just a little. Jack Saint Louis is the primary character in this one, and the narrator. He’s the right hand man of Walter Lippit, businessman racketeer and owner of the single jukebox supplier for a 30-mile radius around town. I don’t think the town is specified, but it’s not a small town, and it’s not that far from Chicago.

   Jack is tough when he needs to be, but he’s also smart when he needs to be, which is often, as he has a few things on the side, such as Walter’s girl friend Patty and a recording studio of his own. When outsiders begin crowding in on Walter, the intricate balancing act that Jack is doing becomes more and more difficult to maintain.

   Told in an authentic but subdued tough guy vernacular, this is a straightforward gangster novel, not pulp fiction, but an intellectual gangster novel, but a nuts and bolts one, not a literary gangster novel such as The Godfather. Every once in a while, though, Jack’s emotions can’t be held in any longer. When he lets loose, watch out. He’s still tough and terse, don’t let me mislead you. Let’s see if quoting from page 113 will show you what I mean:

   Rabe is a wizard at dialogue, too. One early sexy love scene between Jack and Patty goes on for six pages, for example, and over 80% of it is in dialogue, with just enough narration by Jack to, well, it’s just enough. After reading this, you will be convinced that every other paperback writer goes in for overkill.

   If this is not your kind of book, I think this review will have convinced you of that. If it is your kind of book, I think this review should have convinced you of that also. What more can I tell you?