GARLAND LORD – Murder with Love. William Morrow, hardcover, 1943. Detective Book Club, hardcover reprint, 3-in-1 edition. Green #4, digest-sized paperback, circa 1945.

   What I’m going to do first, rather than do the research once again as to who the author of this rather good mystery novel is, or was, is to repeat the first paragraph of my review of their novel, Murder Plain and Fancy, published the same year. The two books were, not my review. Go here to read the complete review, and be sure to follow up by reading the comments as well.

   “Garland Lord was the joint pen name of husband and wife Isabel Garland (1903-1988) and Mindret Lord (1903-1955). They wrote four books together under this name, none with series characters, the first three for Doubleday’s Crime Club imprint. Isabel also wrote one book under her own name, apparently before they decided to team up together.”

   It is difficult to say where this book takes place, geographically, but except for a few pages at a neighbor’s home, all of the action takes place in an old mansion with lots of rooms and servants, with an elderly patriarch in charge. Add wealthy to that brief description, and that sums him up more than adequately, I think.

   And what he has done is call together a conclave of family and friends (including would-be lovers), with an impending announcement involving a new will that he has in mind. This is not a good idea, especially in mystery novels. And so it happens here, although it is not the old man who dies, although the attempt is made.

   Among the guests, the man at the top (not a miserably stingy fellow, by the way) has an estranged daughter who has come, and two adopted daughters, one of whom, named Roncevald, or Roncie for short. It is she who tells the story that follows, which does include two deaths, as well as several strange events, with Roncie the target of an apparent frame-up for the deeds.

   The mystery is a good one, and the true killer may come as a surprise, unless you reading and studying the tale more closely than I was, as the clues are there, sort of. When you think about the title, you also should also not be terribly surprised if I tell you there is almost as much romance in the story as there is detection, of which there is less than you might think.

   Unusual events happen, and while the participants are certainly aware of them, life does go on, as best it can. Garland Lord seems to have had the knack of making that happen, and make it seem natural. I enjoyed this one.

WALTER GIBSON – Norgil the Magician. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1977.

   One of this century’s most prolific writers, Walter Gibson was the author of 282 pulp novels featuring the most famous of all superhero crime fighters, Lamont Cranston, a.k.a. the Shadow. All 282 of those book-length works were produced between 1931 and 1949 and first appeared in The Shadow Magazine under such titles as “The Shadow Laughs,” “The Mobsmen on the Spot,” “The Creeping Death,” “The Voodoo Master,” and “The Shadow, The Hawk, and The Skull.”

   Some forty of these have been reprinted over the years, most in paperback; a few of the shorter ones have appeared in pairs in such Doubleday hardcover titles as The Shadow: The Mask of Mephisto and Murder by Magic (1975) and in the recent Mysterious Press book The Shadow and the Golden Master (1984).

   Gibson also created another series character for the pulps — Norgil the Magician, whose adventures appeared in the magazine Crime Busters in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Norgil is a stage magician: “Like Blackstone or Calvert, both headliners at the time,” Gibson writes in his introduction to Norgil the Magician, the first of two Norgil collections, “he could switch from fifty-minute shows at movie houses to a full evening extravaganza, with an enlarged company.”

   Norgil is an anagram of the conjurer’s real name. Loring; he also can (and does) change it into Ling Ro, a name he uses “when called upon to perform wizardry in Chinese costume.”

   Each of the Norgil stories features a well-known stage illusion as its central plot device — a version of Houdini’s Hindu Needle Trick in “Norgil — Magician”; burial alive in a sealed casket in “The Glass Box”; the rising-card illusion in “Battle of Magic.”

   These eight stories are pulpy, to be sure (the prose almost embarrassingly bad in places), but that shouldn’t spoil most readers· enjoyment of them. The magic in each is authentic and presented with the requisite amount mystery — Gibson was himself a practicing magician — and Norgil’ s melodramatic methods and illusions make for good fun.

   Anyone who has read and enjoyed any of the Shadow novels will certainly want to read this collection, as well its successor, Norgil: More Tales of Prestidigitation ( 1978).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Autumn 2025. Issue #70. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 34 pages (including covers).

   AS usual, Old-Time Detection (OTD) succeeds in keeping classic detective fiction alive and interesting. In this issue diversity is the theme, with coverage of detecfic authors from Conan Doyle to some of the latest practitioners of the genre being highlighted.

   First up is an EQMM interview with Robert Twohy, whose approach to writing is basically character-centric: “I’ve tried to write something to approach it [‘Red-Headed League’], and haven’t yet — but the fun is in the quest.” (See the Fiction selection below for more by this author.)

   J. Randolph Cox talks about Arthur Train, now almost forgotten but once very popular in the first decades of the 20th century.

   Next we have a reprint of Martin Edwards’s introduction to Peter Shaffer’s THE WOMAN IN THE WARDROBE, which Robert Adey later characterized as “the best post-war locked-room mystery . . . [with] a brilliant new solution.”

   Everybody has to start somewhere. Francis M. Nevins exhibits his usual high-quality scholarship in “The Pulp Origins of John D. MacDonald,” highlighting that soon-to-be-popular author’s early days: “MacDonald was the last great American mystery writer to hone his storytelling skills in the action-detective pulps as Hammett and Chandler and Gardner and Woolrich had done before him.”

   Jon L. Breen’s reviews of books (ten of them from the Walker Reprints Series) in “40-Plus Years Ago” take us from familiar mystery fiction old reliables like Pierre Chambrun, to obscure eccentrics like Inspector James and Sergeant Honeybody.

   In Part II of Michael Dirda’s “Mystery Novels So Clever You’ll Read Them Twice,” he points us to modern-day examples of stories that manage to surprise the reader. After all, he says, “A mystery that doesn’t surprise is hardly a mystery at all.”

   Arthur’s Fiction selection is Robert Twohy’s ingenious “A Masterpiece of Crime,” in which a police detective and a detecfic enthusiast solve a murder, with a certain very well-known detective making a cameo appearance.

   In world-class Agatha Christie expert Dr. John Curran’s latest “Christie Corner,” he informs us of the activities pertaining to the latest International Agatha Christie Festival, including a nostalgic look back at the Joan Hickson-Miss Marple TV series from forty years ago and a look forward to an upcoming print adaptation of Miss Marple; another upcoming TV “re-imagining” of Mrs. Christie’s popular married sleuthing duo, Tommy and Tuppence (“Sadly, Christie fans are all too aware of what ‘re-imagining’ means”); and yet another upcoming event next year, characterized as “the biggest exhibition held in the last twenty years to celebrate Christie’s writing,” timed to coincide with the centenary of THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD.

   In “Collecting,” Arthur Vidro recounts the varied experiences of mystery and detecfic book collectors, one of whom undoubtedly speaks for a multitude: “It’s hard to say goodbye to favorites.”

   Next, in “Sherlock Holmes in Comics” Arthur deals on a personal level with the sporadic career of the Sage of Baker Street in that worthy’s four-color mass market exposures.

   Fifty years ago there was a mini-boom in Sherlock Holmes-related fiction and non-fiction paperbacks, and Charles Shibuk summarizes it in “The Sherlockian Revolution.”

   Next Arthur Vidro offers a mini-review of his first John Rhode novel and finds it most satisfactory.

   The readers have their say, especially about how the latest issue of OTD did not neglect the contributors to detective fiction from Fair Albion.

   And finally, Arthur confronts us with a mystery puzzle that anyone who’s been watching prime time crime TV programs for the last fifty years should find a cinch. (Yeah, right.)

   Be honest now. Considering everything you’ve just read, don’t you think that the Autumn ’25 OTD might be worth a look?

Subscription information:

– Published three times a year: Spring, summer, and autumn. – Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else. – One-year U.S, subscription rate increase starting with the next issue: $20.00. – One-year overseas: $45.00. – Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal. Mailing address:

Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743

Web address: vidro@myfairpoint.net

GABRIELLE KRAFT – Bullshot. Jerry Zalman #1. Pocket, paperback original; 1st printing, 1987.

   Jerry Zalman is an updated version of Perry Mason, you might say, a Beverly Hills lawyer with a zest for the good life (California style). He even finds his own bodies when business is slow, but he hot-tubs the girls he meets on the job, which Perry never did.

   Anybody who goes to bed with a blue-velvet sleep mask is not likely to becomes one of my favorite detective heroes. All that kept me reading was that this case involves a monumental collection of rock & roll memorabilia. [Otherwise], insipid. As bad as a made-for-TV movie.

The Jerry Zalman series —

1. Bullshot (1987)
2. Screwdriver (1988)
3. Let’s Rob Roy (1989)
4. Bloody Mary (1990)

THRILLING DETECTIVE. Fall 1952. Overall rating: *½

MARTY HOLLAND “The Sleeping City.” Novel. Plainsclothesman Wade Reed is assigned as undercover job posing as a Chicago gunman in town to help out with a bank robbery, In spite of a fiancee waiting for him, he falls for a monster’s moll and nearly turns criminal. Capture means the girl’s death and Reed’s resignation from the force. The literary symbolism which is included is forced, generally trying too hard (2)

JOE BRENNAN “Dive and Die,” A stunt diver, recently returned from Korea, investigates the death of his former partner. (1)

JEAN LESLIE “Dead Man’s Shoes.” The sad history of a pair of shoes is traced. Almost Woolrichian in tone. (2)

WILLIAM G. BOGART “Death Lies Deep.” Novelet. Almost standard private eye story. Steve Morgan is hired by an old flame to find her husband, whom she has already killed. Guess who would be the fall guy? (1)

AL STORM “Alive by Mistake.” A writer becomes the center of a hurricane of death about him, as he hunts down a narcotics peddler. Bad writing, but has excitement. (1)

PHILIP KETCHUM “Backfire.” A kid is framed fo robbery and murder by his best friend. Mostly miserable. (1)

HARVEY WEINSTEIN “Two-for-One Dame.” Confused and confusing story of a treacherous blonde. (0)

WILLIAM L. JACKSON “Run of Luck.” Escaped killer fouls his own getaway, (2)

   It is a certain time of the year, and a busy time, but I don’t remember as busy as I have been for the past few weeks, and I think the paucity of posts here over the same period of time shows it.

   I have been thinking about this today and have decided to take a week off and recharge myself. Maybe less than a week, but not more. It’s time to have a little more free time again. and a few days off from doing the blog is going to help make sure of it.

   Best wishes for those of you in the US over this Thanksgiving break, and for everyone else around the world as well!

TOO MANY GIRLS. RKO Pictures, 1940. Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Ann Miller, Eddie Bracken, Frances Langford, Desi Arnaz. Director: George Abbott.

   When four football players are hired as bodyguards for a wealthy man’s strong-willed daughter,they all go off to Pottawatomie College, where she meets a secret lover. As the semester goes on, however, she finds herself falling for someone else.

   One of the bodyguards, that is, and it isn’t Desi. Lucille Ball was a delectable long-legged damsel in her early days, and even if she doesn’t do her own singing here. she is still quite an eyeful. She is also the only reason anyone should watch this sappy movie.

BOB McKNIGHT – The Bikini Bombshell. Ace Double D-387. Paperback original; 1st printing, 1959. Published back-to-back with Fare Prey, by Laine Fisher (reviewed here).

   Another story taking place in the days before the fall of Batista in Cuba. Sam Petrie, American owner of a small airline based there, has managed to escape, but only after liberating $25,000 of his own money from Madhouse Manny’s casino.

   Now Manny is looking for him and two beautiful girls are helping him, one of whom, clad in only ski mask and bikini, shot a cop. Petrie’s problem: which one? McKnight’s knack is telling a story that starts on page one and doesn’t let up until it’s over.

DAVE J. GARRITY – Dragon Hunt. PI Peter Braid. Signet, paperback original, 1967.

   Dave Garrity seems unfairly destined to be a footnote in the career of Mickey Spillane. With the phenomenal popularity of Spillane in the 1950s, a group of satellite writers sprang into orbit around him: “buddies” of the Mick’s who solicited cover blurbs and contacts in the writing business to launch their own careers as hard-boiled mystery writers.

   Earle Baskinsky flamed out after two vivid, idiosyncratic novella-length books (The Big Steal and Death Is a Cold, Keen Edge, both 1956), as did Charlie Wells, after two readable, Spillane-imitative books (Let the Night Cry, 1954, and The Last Kill, 1955).

   Only Garrity — who sometimes published under the single-name by line Garrity — carved out a career of his own. His only published private-eye novel to dale (several novels completed shortly before his death in 1984 may see posthumous publication) is Dragon Hunt, in which he unashamedly tapped into the success of Mike Hammer.

   Although Dragon Hunt is one of Garrity’s lesser works, it has been singled out for discussion because it features Mike Hammer as a character, making it of interest to students of Spillane, whose importance is, after all, undeniable.

   With Spillane’s blessing (right down to cover blurb and a photo of the Mick and Garrity on the back cover), the novel that “introduces private eye Peter Braid” ties directly into the world of Mike Hammer in many ways. The title is a reference to “the dragon,” the villain of Spillane’s novel The Girl Hunters> (1961), to which Dragon Hunt is vaguely a hack-door sequel.

   Throughout the novel Braid calls Hammer on the phone for advice and help, perhaps mirroring the Garrity/Spillane relationship. (Spillane claims not to have provided Hammer’s dialogue, but one assumes he at least checked it over.)

   The basic plot — a dying millionaire named Adam hires the PI to protect his granddaughter from a prodigal, psychotic son named Cain — is lifted from the syndicated “Mike Hammer” comic strip in 1954, right down to the names of the characters. Spillane wrote the Sunday pages of the strip and collaborated with artist Ed Robbins on the daily scripts.

   In his entry in Contemporary Authors circa ’63, Garrity mentions as a work in progress a book that is obviously Dragon Hunt — then titled Find the Man Called Cain — to be done in collaboration with Ed Robbins. This would explain the Hammer strip as source material for the novel, but not the lack of Robbins’ name on the by-line. In any case, Dragon Hunt is a minor, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but likable affair, and a must for Spillane enthusiasts.

   Those who wish to see Garrity at his best, however, should seek out his Cordolini series for New American Library. In these four novels (an unpublished fifth one is known to exist), Garrity reveals himself to be an ambitious writer, experimenting with characterization via quirky effective dialogue; using third-person shifting viewpoints boldly; and generally avoiding the schlocky mock”Executioner” approach of similar series of the same period.

   His finest hour is The Plastic Man (1976), which features a narrative trick so deft, so surprising, that the most seasoned mystery reader will have to give Garrity his due.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

BILL KNOX – Seafire. Webb Carrick #6. Long, UK, hardcover, 1970. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1971.

   
   Webb Carrick is normally the first officer on the cruiser Marlin under “stubby bearded Captain James Shannon,” but Carrick has temporarily been assigned to duty as Commander of the research vessel Clavella which he is to meet in the fishing village of Quinnbeg.

   The Clavella is on a fairly standard mission studying plankton to to insure the waters off Scotland’s coast stay healthy and productive, but Carrick is no sooner ashore in Quinnbegg when he meets a hostile and suspicious populace convinced the research vessel is responsible for recent disastrous catches and the scientists aboard are doing more than studying plankton.

   They aren’t far off either. Something is going on that Carrick hasn’t been made privy to, and before he lays this problem to rest, the fishing industry will be threatened, the British economy will face ruin, countless lives will be endangered, and nuclear brinkmanship, Russian sleeper agents, and murder will all raise their ugly head.

   Those unfamiliar with this series might be surprised to discover Bill Knox managed to get some eighteen titles out of the fish police and Webb Carrick, and most of them fast paced intelligent thrillers mixing mystery, seafaring, the lore of the Scottish coast and its rich history and mysterious geography, along with solid detection, suspense, and adventure. You might expect tales of smuggling, illegal fishing, and industrial pollution from such a series, but Knox throws in spies, and even a bit of SF (*) and old fashioned terror of the Deeps into the mix, all as neat as a good Scotch.

   Bill Knox is best known for his long running Scottish procedural series about cops Thane and Moss, but that is only a small part of his prodigious output. In addition to Thane and Moss and Carrick and the Fishery Protective service Knox also wrote the Talos Cord thrillers about a tough UN agent as Robert McLeod, the Jonathan Gaunt “Remembrancer’ series, several books about Andrew Laird marine insurance investigator, and a handful of stand alone books and non-fiction. A journalist from Glasgow Knox learned earned his crime writing skills as a crime reporter, and it shows in a clear concise and well researched style that combines with a vivid imagination.

   His particular gift was mastering the ideal mix of mysterious events, compounding suspense, likable characters, adventure, and an enviable gift for the relentless rousing climax.

   Seafire (a type of plankton causing all the problem here) produces  a typically masterful Knox outing in which little is what it seems and Carrick has his hands full bringing the bad guys to bear and solving a threat that reaches far beyond the small fishing villages where it began.

   If you aren’t familiar with the Webb Carrick series, I highly recommend them. I’ve read at least half of them and never been disappointed. Witchrock, Devilweed, Blacklight, and Stormtide are particular favorites in the long running series.
               ___

    (*) From Conan Doyle on, British thriller writers have never shied from a touch of Science Fiction to color their plots, from William LeQueux and E. Phillips Oppenheim and mysterious electronic eyes that sink battleships. to Edgar Wallace and King Kong, Margery Allingham and Mr. Campion, to John Creasey’s Dr. Palfrey and Ian Fleming and his imitators, SF has often injected itself into the genre, and in recent years become more common with the American breed.