Thu 28 Jun 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: Two by HUGH HOLMAN.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
HUGH HOLMAN. Slay the Murderer. M. S. Mill Co., hardcover, 1946. Signet #684, paperback, 1948.
— Another Man’s Poison. M. S. Mill Co., hardcover, 1947; Signet #718, paperback, 1949.
Apparently the third book in the series featuring Sheriff John Macready of Hart County, South Carolina, Slay the Murderer finds the sheriff in something of a bind. Election Day is only two days off, and a prominent citizen is discovered stabbed and poisoned in a locked room.
The killer ought to be obvious, since he, too, is in the locked room, but Macready is considerably more than just a hick sheriff — though he wouldn’t want the voters to know that — and he finds contradictory evidence.
Still, if Macready doesn’t arrest the obvious person or doesn’t find out who did indeed do it and how, his re-election to a fairly cushy job that he usually enjoys is doubtful.
In the later Another Man’s Poison, Macready leaves his county to complain to a politician about the appointment of an inept postmaster. Before he can talk to him, the politician drinks one of his own special cocktails and dies of poison.
Macready is a witness, and there seems to be no way that the drink could have been poisoned by anyone. Also, it can’t be certain that the politician was the target of the poisoner, for he had taken the glass from someone else. Macready is glad it’s someone else’s problem until the murderer attacks him.
Two excellent mysteries with an appealing lead character.
The Sheriff John Macready series —
Trout in the Milk. Mill, 1945.
Up This Crooked Way. Mill, 1946.
Slay the Murderer. Mill, 1946.
Another Man’s Poison. Mill, 1947.
Hugh Holman (1914-1981) was the author of two other mysteries: Death Like Thunder (Phoenix, 1942) and as Clarence Hunt, Small Town Corpse (Phoenix, 1951).
Holman, however, was more than a writer of better than average detective novels, using Bill’s review as a basis for that statement. From http://museum.unc.edu:
“In 1946, he entered graduate school at the University of North Carolina, where he received his doctorate with a dissertation on William Gilmore Simms. He joined the UNC English department and taught there until his retirement. He served as department chair, acting dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, dean of the graduate school, provost, and special assistant to the chancellor. From 1957 to 1973, he served as chair of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina Press. Holman was the recipient of a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1967), the Thomas Jefferson Award (1975), and the Oliver Max Gardner Award (1977). He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a founding editor of the Southern Literary Journal.”
June 28th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Perhaps the classiest author ever published by Phoenix Press? If not, he’s certainly in the running.
June 28th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Evidently, not just a pretty face, that Holman !
The Doc
June 28th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
The Signet paperback cover showing the abstract and avant garde art reminds me that they used some very unusual and eye catching images on their covers. Sometimes the Dell Mapbacks also used abstract art. And then when Signet used a more realistic artist they used James Avanti, one of the very greatest paperback artists!
June 28th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
If you know anything about paperback covers, there is something about that upper one that immediately identifies it as one done for Signet, and almost as quickly, one from the late 40s.
If you just glance at it, without taking it in, it’s nothing special, but once you start looking at it, it really catches your eye, and your mind as well.
Its nicely done.
June 28th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Hugh Holman is one of the classiest writers to be published by Phoenix Press, certainly, but not the only one. There’s also William Targ, co-author of THE CASE OF MR. CASSIDY (1939); he was a well respected editor and publisher at Putnam’s, the man who bought Puzo’s THE GODFATHER among other notable books.