Mon 31 May 2010
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: DAVID GALLOWAY – Lamaar Ransom, Private Eye.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
DAVID GALLOWAY – Lamaar Ransom–Private Eye. Riverrun Press, Dallas, hardcover, 1979; published simultaneously by John Calder, London, hardcover, 1979 .
For a change, something unusual in private eyes. Lamaar Ransom is hard boiled, a frequent daytime drinker with booze in the filing cabinet, extremely interested in females, especially those who have overdeveloped chests, and given to wise cracks at most unseemly times. Ransom’s secretary is crazy about males.
What then, you may ask, is unusual about Ransom? Well, Ransom is a female. Her secretary is Lavender Trevelyan, black, male, gay, and a transvestite. When Ransom wants to borrow some sexy clothes for a disguise, she gets them from Trevelyan.
The director of the Fairfield Academy, dedicated to the training of actresses and models, hires Ransom to find Yvette LaFlamme, no less, who has mysteriously disappeared. The reason Ransom is chosen is because she has tact. Ransom insults her potential client throughout the job interview, forcing one to wonder whether the director knows what tact is.
Perhaps not, since no graduate of the academy has ever been hired as an actress or a model.
Ransom does find the missing LaFlamme, part of her in one suitcase and part of her in another. This leads to additional unpleasantness, even involving Ransom’s lover, a not-very-bright young lady whom Ransom strangely puts in harm’s way by having her enroll at the academy.
A professional’s professional, Ransom, having dyed her hair black — she’s a blonde — in order to impersonate her girlfriend, part Mexican, in a possibly intimate situation, also dyes her pubic hair. It is unlikely that Holmes, Kleek, or Carter, those masters of disguise, were ever that thorough.
The time period of the novel is World War II, and the setting is Hollywood. The ending is deus ex machina, but tolerable.
Aside from wishing that the author had learned how to spell “discreet” and “all right” and had not used “game plan” long before its time, the only anachronism I noticed, my enjoyment of this novel — and whether it is a parody of the private-eye novel I won’t hazard a guess — was considerable.
The cross-talk between Ransom and Trevelyan is alone worth the price of the book. Which, since it has been recently remaindered at $1.98, makes it an even greater bargain.
Editorial Comments: Since Bill wrote this some 22 years ago, you shouldn’t think that you can find a copy very easily at your local remainder outlet, wherever that may be. It is not too difficult to find online, however, and I just purchased a copy myself.
You should not be surprised to know that this is the only book by David Galloway in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV. It has “one shot” written all over it, but then again I’ve been surprised and been wrong the other way, several times over.
The book — and here I was surprised — was reviewed by Newgate Callendar in the New York Times, and favorably, too. The link works for me, but it may require your registering at the Times website if you haven’t already done so.
Was Lamaar Ransom the first lesbian private eye? Kevin Burton Smith, on his Thrilling Detective website, says no, it was Eve Zaremba’s Helen Keremos, who preceded her by a year.
May 31st, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I checked out the Newgate Callendar review, but after reading the hatchet job on the Lester Leith collection his opinion of this one didn’t impress me. Whoever was reviewing as Newgate Callendar didn’t strike me as the swiftest reviewer in the boat and his backhanded review of the book was less than heartening.
Ironically I’ve read the Eve Zaremba novel you mention. It was much better than this sounds, and nothing like it. This sounds like a George Baxt Pharo Love novel that escaped. A Lesbian pi and her black male gay transvestite secretary in WW II era Hollywood? And they complain about Golden Age detective fiction being unreal?
What, Dol Bonner was busy (yes, I know she’s not a lesbian)?
Is there any question as to why this is an only novel? I’m more interested in how much it cost the author to get it published.
Still I can see where this might be fun, in the way an alternate classic is fun, but it doesn’t sound as if it is actually good. Even if it isn’t it sounds like the kind of book you have to pay the publisher to get in print.
And in all fairness I’m just as glad Nick Carter, Hamilton Cleek, and Sherlock Holmes left out the part about ‘collars and cuffs’— some things I just don’t want to or need to know — though most ‘natural’ blondes I’ve known wouldn’t really have had to go that far.
Sounds as if remaindered at $1.98 they were overcharging by about $1.96.
May 31st, 2010 at 8:40 pm
David
You’re right about the hatchet job “Newgate Callendar” did on the Erle Stanley Gardner book, but he makes it sound an easy target.
I’ve read the book myself, though, and the fact that it was an easy target didn’t bother me any. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I’ll reserve judgment on the Lamaar Ransom book, mostly because Bill Deeck seems to have enjoyed it, but also because Riverrun Press seems to have been a legitimate publisher — I looked them up on Google when I saw Bill’s comment about the book being remaindered.
It doesn’t seem to fit in with their usual fare, though — lots of scholarly and/or literary books such as: Nuttall, Jeff: Performance Art Memoirs, 1979; and Berkoff, Steven: Gross Intrusion and Other Stories, 1980.
Plus a few crime fiction novels that appear to be in the espionage/thriller genre, including three by Julian Semyonov.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulian_Semyonov
Who David Galloway is or was, I don’t know. His name’s too common for Google to be of much assistance.
May 31st, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Riverrun was a legitimate publisher, but relatively little popular fiction. Even worse than Vanity Presses are small publishers that delve in a little genre fiction. It really does generally require a publisher familiar enough with the genre to understand what they are dealing with whether a major publisher or niche publisher. This sounds as if it was written by someone who thought they were slumming whether that is true or not.
And I’m not arguing that Gardner was a great stylist. The Leith stories were written for the pulps after all. They are also one of the cleverest and most entertaining series from that era, and I found the review to be a snide dismissal of Gardner by a critic who never seemed to me to learn the genre or appreciate it, the type critic more interested in impressing his literary friends at the TIMES by dissing Gardner than writing an honest review (and this is far from the only review by Callendar I felt this way about).
As a long time reader of the TIMES and lover of the BOOK REVIEW their value in regards to popular fiction has been virtually nil since Anthony Boucher left. Though it is typical of the TIMES and Callendar for them to review something this obscure and give it a pass. Nothing in that review made me want to read this. It’s only in recent years I’ve begun to read the crime column in the TIMES again, and even now the snide attitude to popular fiction shows through all too often.
And I’m not suggesting this may not be fun to read — bad books can be great fun, but I’d be a lot more likely to trust Bill’s review than Newgate Callendar’s, and neither review suggests to me this is one you would enjoy the way you do a good book, or even something really off the wall like the Pharo Love books I mentioned.
The fact that Riverrun was located in Dallas should tell you a good deal about their role as a publisher. I lived in Dallas in 1978, it wasn’t a hot bed of major publishers. I actually considered submitting a book to Riverrun, but decided in the long run to stick with the majors or at least small publishers who were familiar with the genre. Not that publishers like Riverrun never find a good book (I’ve read many from small publishers that were fine works), but even when they do they tend to lack the contacts to promote it, particularly a genre novel.
If Julian Semyonov is their best known crime fiction discovery that probably tells us something right there.
Getting into print is only half the trick. Then you have to get noticed.
And even rereading Bill’s review this one sounds like $1.98 remaindered was overcharging.
May 31st, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Yes, the fact that Riverrun Press is (was) based in Dallas caught my eye too. I’ll probably never read a book by Semyonov either. I mentioned him primarily as an example of what kind of literary suspense fiction they published.
One of the references to the Lamaar Ransom book I found online suggests that it was a Roman à clef of some sort. To my mind, and this is what’s been puzzling me, is how it happened to get published, by a one-shot writer by a reputable publisher, even as a parody, as Bill semi-suggests, when nothing else the publisher put out seems to resemble it in any shape or fashion
In any case, I’ve ordered a copy online. Can’t keep curiosity at bay forever.
As for Lester Leith book reviewed by Callendar, I understated my opinion of it when I said I enjoyed it thoroughly, and you’re right. Reviews like this one only made me think less of Callendar than it did of Gardner.
— Steve
May 31st, 2010 at 10:26 pm
This is embarrassing. I was trying to remember where I saw the roman à clef reference, and it finally dawned on me. It was the Newgate Callendar review. Right under my nose.