Mon 16 Feb 2026
FRANK KANE – Ring-a-Ding-Ding. PI Johnny Lindell. Dell 7451, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1963. Cover art: Ron Lesser.
Private eye Johnny Lindell, loosely cooperating with the police, helps them solve the murder of a hatcheck girl who threatened to expose a blackmail racket. Life in the underworld is taken for granted, and its nastiness is revealed without excessive finger pointing.
But author Frank Kane’s prose is often cheap and uninspired. For example, the line: “The bodice of her gown seemed inadequate to contain the fullness of her breasts.” (page 10)
Characters act at the whim of the author, who is omniscient in relating past histories and present thoughts, The credibility of the plot is stretched when, for another example, Liddell tells the police who his client is on page 114 and later groans when he learns that they know on page 153.
Easy surface reading.
Rating: **
February 17th, 2026 at 3:25 pm
I generally like the Johnny Liddell books quite a bit, but I’ve run into a few of them that seem pretty uninspired. This sounds like one of them, although I don’t recall if I’ve read it or not.
February 17th, 2026 at 8:26 pm
To me, this is an author and series that’s much better in memory than it really is and was. It’s not a terrible run of books, but this old review of mind just reminded me how far from the top it was, and I knew that it was, even as I was reading them when they came out. (Some, of course, are better than others.)
February 18th, 2026 at 11:39 am
Back in the 1960s, I read plenty of Private Eye paperbacks including Frank Kane’s Johnny Liddell series. I liked the titles like HEARSE CLASS MALE and Esprit De Corpse. But, as you point out: “this is an author and series that’s much better in memory than it really is and was.” So true…
February 18th, 2026 at 4:56 pm
I hope my previous message didn’t sound too negative. Two stars out of five sounds about right, overall, with some better than others. Quick easy reading, as I said back then, and I still think so now.
But here comes the bad news. We made an attempt to upgrade the security system for the blog, and in the process, we locked ourselves out. Until the problem is fixed, whenever I try to post anything here, all I get is an “no access” error message.
We’ve managed to get it so comments are appearing again, but that’s all.
My son-in-law Mark is the one tinkering with the problem. Me, I know nothing from nothing. I’ll be back online as soon as I can.
February 18th, 2026 at 9:28 pm
As the generic eyes went the Liddell books were harmless fun, A fast forty five minute read perfect before bedtime.
Ironically the early books when Liddell was an agency dick aka the Op had a Hammett like atmosphere.
Kane/Boyd was a fairly prolific writer also doing television at the time (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer).
February 20th, 2026 at 11:06 pm
We’re getting closer to getting this blog fixed, I think. Or maybe not, we’ll see. More time to work on it tomorrow, not that I’m doing any of the hard work myself.
February 27th, 2026 at 7:14 pm
All sympathies with this…having my own computer problems over here.
I will note that this edition of the Kane novel, even with the package-crowding, has a nicely-composed cover by Lesser (any relation to Milton Lesser, I vaguely wonder).
February 27th, 2026 at 10:58 pm
Still having problems, and with the paucity of comments this past week, I was beginning to wonder if anyone was seeing the few posts I did manage to get online. The biggest problem remaining is not being unable to edit a post, once online.
Ron Lesser was a strong contemporary of the much better known Robert McGinnis. The art on the cover of this one is nice but too small here to make much of an impression, I’m afraid.
February 28th, 2026 at 3:47 am
There are two volumes of The Art of Ron Lesser available now.
February 28th, 2026 at 12:31 pm
Thanks, David. I did not know that. Lesser was an artist well worth the honor.