Thu 17 May 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: TALMAGE POWELL – Corpus Delectable.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
TALMAGE POWELL – Corpus Delectable. Pocket, paperback original, October 1964.
Apparently this is the fifth and last case of private investigator Ed Rivers, the agent in charge, though there seem to be no other agents, of the Southeastern Division of the Nationwide Detective Agency.
Two things are happening in Tampa, Florida: The annual Gasparilla Week has begun, “a fun week dedicated to the legendary Jose Gaspar, who roamed these Gulf [of Mexico] waters back when buccaneers were for real,” and Rivers is waiting somewhat impatiently for a possible client who is running late.
The client, a lovely young lady as are all the females in this novel when they aren’t downright beautiful, is shot by a silenced gun in the hall leading to Rivers’ office. She manages an obscure dying message: “Incense.”
Her killer also tries to murder Rivers on this and another occasion. He fails in the latter attempt because, like most professional hit men in private-eye novels, he’d rather narrate what he is going to do than do it. Which is good for the longevity of private eyes, I suppose.
Rivers begins an investigation of his would-be client’s background, which involves the recent death of a rich old woman and some rather unpleasant characters connected with the woman. The reader will be way ahead of Rivers, but then the reader isn’t threatened by a garrulous gunsel or attacked by a chap with a pirate’s sword or encountering females likely to divert one’s mind.
Rivers is an early “sensitive” private eye, and the Florida setting, I believe, was unusual in the 1960s. The novel is rather fun reading.
The Ed Rivers series —
The Killer Is Mine. Pocket, 1959.
The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer. Pocket, 1960.
With a Madman Behind Me. Permabooks, 1961.
Start Screaming Murder. Permabooks, 1962.
Corpus Delectable. Pocket, 1964.
May 17th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
I like the Ed Rivers novels and was looking at my notes in the paperbacks in order to comment. And then I started to get the strong feeling that I’d done all this before.
Sure enough, we had discussed the Ed Rivers series in a review of MAN-KILLER by Talmage Powell about 3 1/2 years ago:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=881
It is an excellent series and deserves to be discussed twice.
May 18th, 2012 at 2:52 am
Walker
Thanks for the link, and to a review on my own blog, too. I’d forgotten all about the discussion we had back then. Maybe I’ve been doing this too long, or I’m getting too old. Either way, I see that I kind of promised myself that I’d read one of the Ed Rivers books, since I hadn’t back then, and I still haven’t.
One of the reasons I made to sure to post this review by Bill Deeck was to give myself another nudge in the right direction. Let’s see if it works this time!
May 18th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Steve-JUST DO IT !
Are those books available as new prints anywhere, or do you know ,whether they are in some pipeline?
The Doc
May 18th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Some day soon, I promise. At least I hope so.
I don’t think Talmage Powell has been reprinted recently in book form, but here in the US, the original paperbacks aren’t terribly difficult to find. He’s also one of the authors that Prologue Books is reprinting in an ebook format, as I reported on here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=15709
Titles:
With a Madman Behind Me
Man Killer
Start Screaming Murder
The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer
The Killer is Mine
The Smasher
Corpus Delectable
May 19th, 2012 at 1:22 am
“The Killer Is Mine” was published in the Série Noire, also “The Smasher” and “The Cage”(1969). In Germany three Ed Rivers novels were published, and twice “The Smasher”. The only original paperback I have in my boxes is “With a Madman Behind Me”. I will have to read it.