BERKELEY GRAY – Miss Dynamite.  Norman Conquest #3. Collins, UK, hardcover, 1939. Collins White Circle Pocket Novel #85. paperback, 1945. No US edition.

   â€œNorman Conquest Again!”, proclaims the blurb inside the title page and then proceeds to give away the entire plot about as blatantly as you can:

   
   Talk about giving the game away.

   To be fair, no one picking this book up could imagine Norman Conquest wouldn’t get the best of any villain and collect the boodle.

   Berkeley Gray’s first entry in the Conquest series just missed winning a thousand pound prize for best new thriller. John Creasey won the contest with Meet The Baron.

   Still, Gray got a contract.

   Miss Dynamite was the third entry in Berkeley Gray (E.S. Brooks) long running (1938-1968) series about Norman Conquest, 1066, the Gay Desperado (Mister Mortimer Gets the Jitters and Vultures Ltd., also 1938, proceeded this one) who made his debut in the pages of the Thriller magazine that had given birth to Leslie Charteris the Saint, John Creasey’s the Toff, Barry Perowne’s Raffles revival, and many more of the gentlemen adventurers gracing British popular fiction of the era.

   Six foot of gray-eyed nitro, Conquest was the Saint or the Toff in high drive, his adventures driven by his creator, who was one of Fleetway’s chief staff writers in penning the adventures of Sexton Blake, Nelson Lee, and Gray’s own popular creation Waldo the Wonderman (very much a forerunner of Conquest). Hitting the ground running is hardly adequate to describe Conquest.

   For sheer enthusiasm, high spirits (no one enjoyed cornering a bad guy and explaining how he had outsmarted them more than Conquest), gadgets (his cigarette lighter was a likely to blow down a wall as light a cigarette), and gusto, even the Saint might seem melancholy. Norman Conquest loved being a desperado. He practically reaches off the page and grabs the reader by the lapels he’s so eager to drag us into the action.

   The Saint and the Toff were primarily urban crime fighters with forays to criminal hideouts in the country, but Norman is often found traveling to a rural or village setting where he uncovers danger. He gets abroad more often in that era than most of his competitors.

   Unlike most gentleman adventurers Conquest had a steady girl from the start, Joy Everard, aka Pixie, eventually Mrs. Norman Conquest (another variation from the other nom de guerre boys). True, the Saint had Patrica Holm, but she wasn’t around that long, and Simon, while faithful, eventually just forgot about her. Joy was there from the start and stayed there for the entire run of the series.

   And Joy, unlike say Phyllis Drummond or Felicity Dawlish, wasn’t just there to be kidnapped. More likely Joy would show up and pull Conquest’s ashes from the flames before he was terminally singed, because when it came to women Norman Conquest was more a mooning schoolboy than Gay Desperado.

   He never met a blonde he didn’t like.

   Primrose Trevor is certainly near the top of that group (Says Joy: “Primrose my foot! Her name’s Poison Ivy!”).

   It is hard to imagine Simon Templar, Richard Rollinson, or John Mannering (the Baron) being led down the garden path as often or as near fatally as Conquest. Granted Richard Verrill, Blackshirt, had the mysterious voice of the woman on the phone blackmailing him enticingly to turn his criminal activities to crime fighting, but he recognized a bad girl when he saw her. For Norman Conquest every blonde was a goddess even if she turned out to be a she devil like Primrose Trevor.

   
   That’s all it takes and even Norman is wondering why he is spinning tales to her about writing thrillers and doing research when what he is there to do is relieve her crooked father, Sir Hastings of his ill gotten gains with his gang of international jewel thieves in the fine tradition of not quite outlaw gentlemen adventurers everywhere. But when she “presses her quivering body against Norman and gave him the works,” our boy was lost.

   Conquest practically cornered the market on femme fatales in this sub-genre, and fell for every one of them.

   Not that Norman still isn’t the most ruthless of the desperadoes of the era. He is closer to James Bond in that and his penchant for gadgets. Conquest even faces death by pore suffocation by being painted gold in one adventure.

   Edwy Searles Brooks was fifty years old in 1938 when Fleetway Publications decided they needed new blood. After some six million estimated words over a career that lasted back to 1918, some 20,000 words a week for twenty years, Brooks was out of gainful employment, sidelined as too old for his schoolboy audience.

   There was a flame that burned in Brooks chest though, and with hardly a moment to breathe he turned to a new pseudonym, and a new character, Berkeley Gray and Norman Conquest, and had an instant hit. Then just to prove he could do it again he began writing as Victor Gunn about Inspector Bill “Ironsides” Cromwell and again struck black gold, the ink and not the petroleum kind.

   Popular over most of the English speaking world (they never really cracked the American market, but then Creasey didn’t until the Sixties successfully), the books were reprinted in multiple languages, there was a Norman Conquest movie (with Tom Conway) and in Germany an Ironsides krimi film.

   Neither series reads as if it was written by a washed up tired fifty year old man who had burned out after writing six million words for boys.

   As always, the long suffering Pixie stands by her man though the “Hullo Pixie Hullo Desperado” business is a bit more curtailed than usual in this one. Even when Conquest is fooling around with blondes, Joy remains his partner, but she doesn’t have to like it with or without the wedding ring..

   How shocked would poor Conquest be to hear his lovely Primrose talking to her father when he fears Conquest is onto the gang: “You cringing, weak kneed, spine-less rabbit!”

   Sweet William, Inspector Williams of the Yard is on hand too, Conquest’s long suffering friendly rival at the Yard, ten steps behind his man, with a few nips at his heel for suspense before getting dust in his eye once more as the Gay Desperado laughs himself out of trouble. The gentlemen adventurers were a cheerful lot, which must have been doubly annoying to the Sweet Williams, Bill Grice’s, and Claude Eustace Teal’s left in their wake.

   It should be made clear the Conquest stories are as different from Charteris and the Saint as Creasey’s Toff stories are. Norman, of the “Laughing Conquests”, is his own man with his own unique voice.

   All the flaws of this literature in this era apply, readers need to understand that going in. Even Charteris slips in a place or two. John Creasey is possibly the only thriller writer of the era who mostly avoided the kind of easy assumptions that mar popular literature for modern readers. That said, in this one its more the class conscious assumptions than anything else that might bother a modern reader.

   Norman ties it all up with a little help from Mandeville Livingstone, the poacher he supped with in the above blurb (“… an honest-to-goodness, dyed-in-the-wool buccaneer…”), and with Joy and he both taking a bullet, “…his eyes, at this minute, were blinded with tears.” A little lead is nothing though compared with returning millions in stolen jewelry to Scotland Yard, realizing Joy is the true love of his life (again), and lifting £100,000 in the bad guys cash.

   â€œHullo Desperado,” indeed.

EDWARD D. HOCH – City of Brass (Leisure, paperback original, 1971) and The Judges of Hades (Leisure, paperback original, 1971).

   Edward D. Hoch is certainly the most prolific short-story writer in the mystery business today. He specializes in the challenge-to-the-reader story based on trickery and ingenuity, and he has become the current master of the impossible crime. All this is, of course, well known to anyone who has even glanced at EQMM or AHMM.

   What is less known is how accomplished Hoch was in his very first stories, published in the middle 1950s in such now defunct journals as Famous Detective Stories and Double Action Detective & Mystery. The two paperbacks under review contain a selection of Hoch’s earliest works about his mysterious detective Simon Ark.

   It says much for the young Hoch’s confidence in his ability (or, perhaps, his bravado) that he first tried his hand at creating an occult detective. I have stated my contention elsewhere that the occult detective story is the most difficult sub-genre of mystery fiction. (I believe that only Agatha Christie and Edward Hoch have been successful in combining supernatural powers with fair play detection. Both authors emphasize the mysterious nature of the crimes, but they provide natural and human solutions.)

   Simon Ark claims to have lived 2000 years searching for evil in all its aspects, and the crimes he solves in these two books include devil’s hoof prints, impossible self-conflagrations, and the suicide of an entire town — something that no longer sounds quite so unlikely to us, based on our recent exposure with cult leaders. The Simon Ark tales, like the best of Hoch’s later stories, are not only ingenious; much of their charm lies in Hoch’s knowledge of mysterious, occult, or (at the very least) unusual lore.

   His early stories introduce theories of witchcraft and legends of Satan; his current ones search for mermaids, investigate the Mary Celeste tragedy, and explain in detail even such apparently mundane subjects as dog-racing. It’s this mastery of background which make Hoch’s puzzles more than chess problems.

   Thus these two books, Hoch’s first collections of short stories, are important as well as entertaining volumes. It’s unfortunate that they are difficult to find. Leisure Books merged with Tower shortly after these books appeared, and apparently never had good distribution. Consequently Poisoned Penners should locate The Judges of Hades and City of Brass before dealers discover their scarcity and significance.

FOUR FAST GUNS. Phoenix/Universal, 1960,  James Craig, Martha Vickers, Edgar Buchanan, Brett Halsey, Paul Richards, Richard Martin, and Blu Wright. Written by James Edmiston & Dallas Gaultois. Directed by William J. Hole Jr.

   There ain’t much to it, but what there is works pretty well.

   James Craig, looking a bit dissipated since his days battling Satan at RKO, stars as Tom Sabin, a gunfighter kicked out of Abilene by a town-taming marshal. When they both head off to the distant town of Purgatory  – the marshal to take on a new job, Sabin just to get along  —  they meet by chance and Sabin guns down the town-tamer in a fair fight.

   In one of those coincidences reserved for pulp fiction and B-movies, Sabin arrives in Purgatory, is mistaken for the town-taming marshal, and decides to take the job. Whereupon the local dress-heavy (Paul Richards) summons three fast-gun dog-heavies to end Sabin’s career before it starts.

(PARENTHETICAL NOTE: “Dress Heavy” is a term used by Western fans to describe the bad guy in a Western who wears a fancy vest, runs a bank or a saloon, tries to buy the heroine’s ranch or swindle the locals, and says “Have the boys meet me at the hideout.” to nearby underlings. This as opposed to the “Dog Heavy” who does the grunt work and can usually be spotted somewhere on the trail, hiding in the rocks with a view to ambushing somebody. Dog Heavies look mean, but rarely win fist-fights and show remarkably poor aim when shooting from behind rocks.)

   Getting back to the movie, Sabin encounters the three adversaries separately, and writers Edmiston & Galtois do a fine job differentiating them, investing each potential killer with a distinct personality, subtly expressed by the actors themselves. It’s a lot more care than is normally taken with Dog-Heavies, and I found it pleasantly surprising.

   The result is a low-budget Western with plenty of action, and a bit of thoughtfulness – of Humanity, if you will – that goes down easily and stays on the mind longer than most.

SCOTT PHILLIPS – The Ice Harvest. Dennis McMillan, hardcover, 1999. Ballantine, paperback, 2001. Film: Bona Fide/Focus, 2005 (with John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton).

   Charlie Arglist runs some strip clubs and massage parlors in Wichita for some mobsters. He and his buddy Vic have been skimming off the top for a few years now, selling coke on the side, and have timed it so that right before the banks close on Christmas eve, they’ll empty out the operating accounts of the businesses and fly to Europe with a quarter million bucks.

   Unfortunately for hapless Charlie, everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. And were it not for the ultraviolence, we’d be looking at a Dortmunder-esque bumble.

   But this ain’t Dortmunder. It is extraordinarily violent. And the bodies pile up in what would be a disturbing affair — were it not for the karmic just deserts that befall each and every asshole. And they’re all assholes.

   It’s a dark dark comedy. The blackest of comedies. For the joke is on the greedy vicious perps. And that’s everybody. It’s not a comedy in the classic sense that the protagonist gets what they want. It’s a slapstick comedy where the protagonist and his cohorts get what they deserve. Which is nothing but pain, humiliation and eternal damnation.

   If you’re into schadenfreude, it’s a load of laughs. Read this quote. If it makes you laugh out loud, check the thing out. If not, not:

   â€œYou’ll rue the day you decided you could pull this kind of shit on me, you toothless old whore. I promise you will regret the day you were fucking born.” He slammed the receiver down, then picked it back up and screamed into it at the top of his lungs, then slammed it down into its cradle again and again, until finally, breathing hard, he looked up at Charlie…..”Sorry. That was my mom; she wants me to pick up my kids tonight instead of tomorrow. She and her shitbag husband decided they wanna head for Garden of the fucking Gods at six a.m. on Christmas morning.”

   
CYNTHIA HARROLD-EAGLES – Dying Fall. DCI Bill Slider #23. Severn House, hardcover, February 2022.

First Sentence: ‘I thought after all this time I’d know everywhere in Shepherd’s Bush,’ said Slider.

   An anonymous call leads the police to a house where a woman lays dead at the bottom of the stairs. First glance indicates a suicide. Police Constable (PC) D’Arblay disagrees, and Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Bill Slider agrees. Without an initial identity of the victim, witnesses, or motive, it’s a hard case for the Shephard’s Bush homicide team to solve. The more they learn, the more complex the case becomes and the harder it is to prove.

   From the first chapter heading, one is treated to Harrod-Eagles’ skill with words. Her unique descriptions— “Shepherd’s Bush Green was littered with sun worshippers, the men stripped to the waist – the glare off their blue-white bodies could have brought a plane down.” —and her humor. The description of characters is unique yet brings a visual image immediately to mind. Phrases such as– “Atherton moved like a cat, except that he did not spray the furniture as he passed.” —make her writing is such a pleasure to read. And who but Bill Slider would quote Tennyson at a murder scene.

   Bill Slider’s family is an element in the series. Their involvement is realistic without overshadowing the plot. Slider’s wife, Joanna, is in a position common to many women, a mother with her own career. The family adds dimension to Slider and contrast to his second in command, confirmed bachelor and ladies’ man, Detective Sergeant Inspector  Atherton.

   One of the best things about the book is that it is a true mystery with an ensemble cast. Each member of Slider’s team is fully developed and plays an important role. Also appreciated is the loyalty Slider’s boss, Detective Superintendent shows for his men.

   The case is unusual and interesting. Clues are tracked down from learning the victim’s identity, piecing together her associates, bit-by-bit learning the motive, eliminating suspect, and to finally identifying the killer. A young man plays a significant role in the plot line and Slider’s interactions with him are both sensitive and extremely well done. There are excellent twists when the team uncovers a second, and possibly a third death, which were also thought to be suicides. This forces the team to go back and investigate the past.

   Dying Fall is a first-rate police procedural/mystery based on a murder and what is needed to solve the crime. There are no car chases or gun fights, just a hard, nose-down investigation with twists, humor, and an excellent cast of characters.

Rating: VG Plus.

IF SCIENCE FICTION – January 1954. Editor: James L. Quinn. Cover art: Ken Fagg. Overall rating: **½ stars.

EVAN HUNTER “Malice in Wonderland.” Short novel. The world of the future is bizarrely (and accurately?) portrayed as the arena of conflict between the Vikes, or vicarious pleasure-seekers, and the Rees, or realists. Van Brant, agent of authors of pabacks and sensos, is caught in that conflict as the Ree reaction takes over. The ending comes a bit too fast, and the background seems a little shallow, but a very good effort. (4)

ALAN E. NOURSE “Letter of the Law.” A planet of logical liars comes up against the expected paradox. (1)

HARRY HARRISON “Navy Day.” The Navy, about to be abolished, fights back. (0)

JAMES E. GUNN “A Word for Freedom.” An analogy is made between narrowness of language and encroachments upon individual freedoms. (2)

RICHARD WILSON “Double Take.” A young man has difficulty separating reality from filmed fantasy. (2)

DAMON KNIGHT “Anachron.” A time-machine enables a man to steal treasures from the future but becomes too ambitious. (3)

MACK REYNOLDS “Off Course.” A collector for the Carthis zoo is mistaken for an envoy. (1)

STEPHANIE BARRON – Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. Jane Austen #1, Bantam, hardcover, 1996; paperback, 1996.

   Barron is a pseudonym for Francine Matthews, whose first book I disliked considerably and whose later ones I haven’t read.

   Jane Austen has just done reneging on a marriage proposal she had accepted only a day earlier, and is getting away from it all by visiting a young, beautiful friend at Scargrave Manor. The friend recently married  an older Earl, seemingly happily; but shortly after Jane arrives the Earl dies from a mysterious malady, and her friend and the Earl’s nephew are accused of murdering him. Jane can’t believe it, and begins to poke and pry into everyone’s affairs-and finds herself in danger as a result.

   I’ve been told that this is written in a style very similar to Jane Austen’s; I read Austen so long ago I have only the vaguest recollection, but I’m inclined to accept the assertions. At any rate, the narrative style was very different from what I’m used to, and it took me a while to get accustomed to it. Once I did, I found the book enjoyable in a mild, very non-spectacular sort of way.

   I liked this considerably more than Matthews’ first book under her own name, though I did think some aspects of the denouement came a little out of  left field. The characterizations were decent if a bit broad, and on the whole it was good enough of its kind — which really isn’t mine.

      The Jane Austen Mysteries —

1. Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (1996)
2. Jane and the Man of the Cloth (1997)
3. Jane and the Wandering Eye (1998)
4. Jane and the Genius of the Place (1999)
5. Jane and the Stillroom Maid (2000)
6. Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House (2001)
7. Jane and the Ghosts of Netley (2003)
8. Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy (2005)
9. Jane and the Barque of Frailty (2006)
10. Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron (2010)
11. Jane and the Canterbury Tale (2011)
12. Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (2014)
13. Jane and the Waterloo Map (2016)
14. Jane and the Year without a Summer (2022)

     This should be easy:

Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Jim Backus, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, Alan Carney, Chick Chandler, Barrie Chase, Lloyd Corrigan, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Selma Diamond, Peter Falk, Norman Fell, Paul Ford, Stan Freberg, Louise Glenn, Leo Gorcey, Sterling Holloway, Marvin Kaplan, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Charles Lane, Mike Mazurki, Charles McGraw, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Madlyn Rhue, Roy Roberts, Arnold Stang, Nick Stewart, Sammee Tong, Jesse White, Jimmy Durante, Jack Benny, Stanley Clements, Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Nicholas Georgiade, Stacy Harris, Tom Kennedy, Ben Lessy, Bobo Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Rosson, Eddie Ryder, Jean Sewell, Doodles Weaver and Lennie Weinrib.

SIMON BRETT – Cast, in Order of Disappearance. Charles Paris #1. Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1975. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hardcover, 1975. Berkley, US, paperback, 1979.  Dell, US, paperback, 1986.

   The British entertainment industry is the target of some rather pointed jabs  as a new sleuth makes his debut. He’s actor Charles. Paris, now 47, and relegated to BBC radio productions and third-rate horror movies , with a tendency toward  drink and dalliance. Without quite knowing how, he finds himself in a [mystery] affair of dirty pictures and the pretty young widow of an aging producer.

   His actor’s voice and disguises do come in handy, but this is   not a whodµnit,  the questions are [rather] how and why, built precariously on coincidence  and second-hand clues. Veddy British, but with undeniable charm and humor. Paris is an engaging fellow, in spite of his faults,. and hints are that he’ll soon return.

Rating: B

RAOUL WHITFIELD – Green Ice. Knopf, hardcover, 1930. Also published as The Green Ice Murders. Avon Murder Mystery Monthly #46, paperback, 1947. Avon Classic Crime, paperback, 1971. Gregg Press, hardcover, 1980. Quill, paperback, 1986. Comprised of the following oulp magazine short stories:

         Outside, Black Mask December 1929
         Red Smoke, Black Mask January 1930
         Green Ice, Black Mask February 1930
         Oval Face, Black Mask March 1930
         Killer’s Show, Black Mask April 1930

   Mal (short for Malcolm) Ourney just got out of Sing Sing in Ossining. Like literally just walked out.

   He’d served two years on a vehicular manslaughter rap he took for his lush girlfriend, Dot Ellis. He’s a gallant kind of fellah and figured since Dot got drunk on his liquor, and was driving his car with him in it, it was kinda his own fault anyway. So he plucked her out of the driver’s seat, and sat in there himself.

   While in stir, Mal and Dot go their separate ways. Dot’s the road to perdition.

   Dot’s always gonna glom onto some guy, and trade her wares for bed, board and booze. That was really no surprise to Mal and he wasn’t too heartbroken over it.

   Dot hooks up with a rising hood who hoodwinks a Colombian playboy out of five emeralds, cut like coffins, worth 50 grand a piece. The hood lets Dot hold onto them, for now. And forever, since when the big fish find out the small one is getting ideas and planning to cut out the bosses, they teach him a lesson he won’t forget. With a bullet.

   Meantime Mal spends his time in ‘Sing Song’ getting sick of the broken record. The big bastards using the small time hoods to do their all their dirty work, then framing them and sending them up the river (literally up the Hudson River), or giving them a dose of lead poisoning.

   Mal decides when he gets out he’s gonna get some revenge on the big bastards that are puppeteering all the little hoods like marionettes. The cops are worthless as they’re bought and paid for by the big guys.

   So he figures it’s up to him to start using the little guys to go after the big guys. To get them to wake up to the fact that they’re being played. Because though the lumpen-proles do all the dirty work they get stuck with the shitty end of the stick with all the coin rolling uphill while the shit rolls down.

   But guess who’s at the gates to meet Mal when he gets out? It’s his long lost gal: Dot. And Dot has some green ice she’s ready to share. She needs a bit of protection now that her man is under ground.

   But Mal isn’t having any. He won’t even let Dot get a word in. He doesn’t wanna hear it. It’s not that he’s mad at her or anything. It’d be like getting mad at a piranha for being a piranha. He’s just onto his life’s work. The work of a freelance reformer, kicking against pricks. And Dot’s not exactly good company. Pricks never being something she’d kick at.

   So Mal goes his way and Dot goes hers. But her long ride’s cut short. By more bullets.

   But somewhere along the way the emeralds have been lost. Maybe not lost, but passed around like whatever the opposite of hot potatoes are. Cold green potatoes. Everybody wants ’em. But nobody can keep them for long and keep breathing.

   Since Dot had ’em and went up to see Mal, everybody figures Mal’s got ’em. Mal knows he hasn’t got ’em. And all he wants is to clean up graft.

   He tells everyone that will listen that all he wants to do is to clean up graft. But nobody will listen. Everybody just figures he’s joking or using it as a cover for nefarious, green, and sparkling ends.

   Mal doesn’t carry a gun. And, if I’m counting right, he accounts for zero deaths in the entire novel. He’s no pacifist and is a decent puncher. But he’s got no use for gats. Or emeralds. He just wants justice.

   Yet everywhere Mal goes and everyone Mal sees ends up shot dead or trying to kill him. Or both.

   All for emeralds. That turn out to be as fake as a Maltese falcon.

   And though Mal’s quixotic quest for justice was damned from the start, at the end he turns Pollyanna. He figures all the dead bodies of all the dead hoods killed at least a few that might be classified as kind of ‘big’. So, hey! Like Dubya said about the middle east: Mission Accomplished!

   Like Bogie ad libbed from old Billy Shakespeare: It’s the stuff that dreams are made of. Hardboiled dreams of small fry crooks and reformers. All fun house horizons and shattered glass.

   It’s tightly written with tight staccato prose. Words like bullets from a tommy gun.

   It’s good. It’s not Red Harvest , but it’s on the same planet, with similar characters and similar taut precision. Written by a guy that’s maybe not Hammett but no small shakes in his own right.

   There are eight million stories in the naked city. This is one of them.