The Magician’s Wife – James M. Cain

James M. Cain’s three seminal works of crime: The PostmanAlways Rings Twice (1934), Mildred Pierce (1941), and Double Indemnity (1943) seem to over shadow the majority of his bibliography. One can argue after producing these works that all his other works are superfluous, and that the genre requires no other work. However, like any great crafts-man who continues to shape his or her art their output continues with a body of work that has its own set of highs and lows. Nineteen sixty-five’s The Magician’s Wife doesn’t necessarily have the same punch as Cain’s earlier work, but it does display a master genre writer using his talents to produce an entertaining piece of work.

Clay Lockwood sells meat. He’s a lonely man traveling up the corporate ladder while making the rounds of the major hotel food and beverage restaurants. His life is a bit like his work: cold, organized, and in need of possessions to fill his empty locker of a heart. On a whim, Lockwood flirts with a waitress at one of his stops only to find, embarrassingly, that she is a married woman. That’s where things should have stopped; however, Sally Alexis has an ulterior motive. Sally’s married to the local attraction, the Great Alec Alexis, who performs his magic show in residency at the local hotel’s theater. Once her husband’s on-stage assistant, her boss has now demoted Sally to mom, caregiver, and waitress.

Getting in touch with Clay a few days later, Sally sets up a date and they meet in secret. Instantly a connection is made and a romance blossoms. Sally reveals that her marriage is cold and lifeless and that she is merely biding her time so that her son can inherit her father-in-law’s fortune. Admittedly, her father-in-law’s death of natural causes could take a long time in addition to the fact that any inheritance her son would receive would be set up in a trust fund and unavailable until he’s of legal age.

Clay requests Sally to leave her husband and come marry him and she rejects his numerous proposals. She feels it would not be sensible to remove her child away from his wealthy heritage. Although shocked at the news of her child Clay remains sincere, his new job promotion will provide for them all. However, Sally suggests a work around involving accidents and life insurance with her husband. Clay immediately gets the insinuation and backs off, and by no means does he want to get involved with Sally’s implied workaround. He sends Sally on her way.

True to the melodrama aspect of Cain’s writing, additional wrinkles form in the structure. Sally’s mother, Grace, comes to Clay to encourage him to take her daughter away from her lifeless marriage. Reluctantly, Clay agrees to help Sally, but without the implied work around and will attempt to persuade her again to leave her husband and marry him. Unfortunately, Clay’s repeated attempts to persuade Sally to divorce without violence fail. Sally becomes childish and unpredictable pushing Clay towards a relationship with Grace. As with most good noir, there’s a love triangle.

Things start to cook up when Clay finally steps over the edge to commit murder for Sally. After meeting her husband by a chance at his own office, Clay gets a sense of The Great Alex’s personality: brash, egotistical, and demeaning towards woman. It is enough to make the invisible wires snap for Clay. The plot takes a left turn and becomes sinister. Clay’s torn between the two women and their moral stances on human life. Not only does Sally participate fully in the plans of her husband’s accidental death, her mother is also able to turn the check and ignore the act of murder with her silence.

The murder plan is the most exciting aspect and helps levitate this novel firmly into the crime genre and high above a melodrama love triangle. The meticulous planning of the accidental death involves stalking the Great Alexis’s habits before and after the show, tailing him home sans headlights down a deserted road, and eventually trial runs of the forced car crash that’s about to ensue. Cain’s suspense is terrific and reminiscent of the best filmic sequences of Hitchcock, Jules Dassin, or Jean-Pierre Melville. Admittedly, the set up takes time to formulate using ingredients from each of his greater works in a stew. Once that pot is simmering, the pace doesn’t slow down for the rest of the book.

The real magician of the story is not The Great Alec Alexis, although he performs and takes credit as one. Sally works her magic well manipulating Clay to murder, but never succeeds at pulling off the final act or the Prestige. If the reader wants to know the true magician of the story then he or she need look no further than the author, James M. Cain.  

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye – Horace McCoy

I think I’ve found one of the most hardboiled, violent, and pulp novels of the early 20^th century. Horace McCoy’s 1948 novel,Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, packs a nasty one-two punch and drags the reader through the literary mud. In fact, the novel’s bullet pace contains a healthy body count to keep even the most modern jaded readers interested and these events happen in the first few chapters. More importantly, the crime genre elements hang on parts of McCoy’s story that isn’t written in the text. I’ll explain…

Ralph Cotter, A Phi Beta Kappa scholar, escapes from a prison work farm with the assistance of his Tommy-gun toting lover Holiday. Her incarcerated brother is a part of the escape plan too, but Ralph has to shoot him in cold blood or risk capture. After numerous prison guards and inmates die in pandemonium of the escape, Cotter hides out in town establishing a new identity under the name Paul Murphy with the aid of a local chop shop’s owner and con man named Mason. He plots a new heist to get some travelling and hiding out money only to have the plan go astray with the accidental murder of a milk deliveryman.

Mason’s insulted that Cotter would pull a heist in his own back yard, especially since Mason has the police in his back pocket. He dispatches a pair of dirty cops shake down Cotter and Holiday to retrieve the heist money. Burned and determined to prove his superior intelligence, Cotter devises a plan to blackmail the dirty cops and get the entire town in his pocket while hiding under his new name.

If you think the plot takes a turn here, well, yes. It does! Under the name Paul Murphy, Cotter meets a young woman, Margaret Dobson, attending a cultish church led by a former mob lawyer. Slowly, Cotter’s frame of mind starts to untangle and the reader begins to realize events and discussions happening between the lines and off the page. What we have here is a perfect example of the unreliable narrator. Up until this point in the story, everything has been literally a first person narrative told by Ralph Cotter. The problem is, Ralph is turning on radios that do not work and he hears music.

When Margaret’s prominent father discovers that Paul Murphy and Margaret have married without his consent, he offers Paul a large sum of money to sign annulment papers and to walk away. Not wanting the money to interfere with his crime syndicate, Cotter turns the money down. So begins the tumbling cascade of events that brings forth the downfall of a criminal mastermind. Ralph starts to confuse his own identity with the new identity of Paul Murphy. Acerbated by the complex relationship with Margaret and his crumbling relationship with Holiday the reader starts to see mental cracks through his inability to keep his stories and lies straight.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is a great example of an American 20^th Century novel. Labeling it, merely a crime novel would be, in fact, criminal. Much of this novel takes place inside the mind of the lead character and to have his mind unravel while we are inside of it is quite entertaining and an amazing piece of work. James Cagney stars in the 1950 film adaptation. McCoy is from Pegram, Tennessee not terribly far from where I grew up, so I already feel a kinship to him. His other novel of noted significance is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? published in 1935.

Freezer Burn – Joe R. Lansdale

Bill Roberts is a redneck. He’s as white trash as they come and lives with his dead mother whom he’s wrapped in garbage bags and doused in perfume to mask the putrid smell of decomposed flesh. Life is good. However, Bill runs out of money when he’s unable to forge his mother’s signature for her disability checks. What could possibly be the best plan of action for Bill? Rob a fireworks stand. A brilliant idea that anyone who lives or visits rural, county areas around the Forth of July can imagine would be great premise for a crime story.

Joe R. Lansdale’s 1999 novel takes a rural crime premise and infuses it with a touch of Tod Browning’s Freaks(1939). Lansdale’s works are a fine example of mashing several genres together forging a new genre that’s both refreshing and unpredictable. The scenario described in the opening paragraph is only the first chapter. The heist goes horribly wrong and Bill winds up chased through the swamps by the police. His cohorts have either both been shot and/or bitten by deadly viper snakes in the marsh. Exhausted, Bill passes out on a dry bank only to find his face supper for an infestation of mosquitoes. Rescued by a travelling entourage of carnival freaks, Bill meets the inhabitants that include the bearded lady, Conrad the Wonder dog-boy, the Siamese twins, and a strange white haired commander of the troupe, named Frost, that has an extra hand growing out of his chest. The motley ensemble of freaks chants “one of us, one of us” in a literary tip of the hat to Browning’s Freaks.

Lansdale uses the familiar tropes of the crime genre to build his narrative and then deliberately steers in another direction. With Bill’s face a swollen mess, the freaks are able to relate with him and a bond forms. Bill agrees to work with the troupe until he recovers, but soon finds his place and continues after his recovery, working and driving the trailers for the carnival on its summer tour of the small Texas towns. Frost lets him stay in the refrigerated camper that houses the main attraction of the carnival: the frozen, mummified corpse of a possible Neanderthal man nicknamed “The Ice Man”. Frost later explains that the frozen corpse was a purchase that included a story explaining its reputed biblical origins of the missing body of Christ while hinting at a supernatural curse that comes with the package.

If that doesn’t have your attention, Lansdale introduces the femme fatale of the piece: Frost’s wife. Gidget’s constantly described in various states of revealing daisy dukes, bra-less midriffs, nighties, and nakedness. She’s captured Bill’s attention from the start, by not only her figure, but also her apparent normalcy. She’s the only member of the carnival troupe that’s not disfigured or deformed. She’s been seduced by Frost’s kindness and accepted his hand in marriage even though she’s revolted by his other hand growing out of his chest. She forces him to wear a glove on it during their frequent lovemaking. Gidget has plans to take over the carnival and knows that the Ice Man attraction is her ticket out.

Here comes the powerhouse James M. Cain noir connection and the pivot point for the novel. Now it is ThePostman Always Rings Twice (1934) meets Freaks. Gidget coerces Bill to do her bidding and murder Frost so that she can take over the carnival. Using her body to control Bill’s thoughts, she’s able to lay out a fiendish plot to mask Frost’s murder as an accident while painting on the carnival’s Ferris wheel. Suspense builds by the planning and the execution of this deed; however, it should be no surprise, and without giving anything away, that something will go wrong.

While no pun intended, these brief plot descriptions are just the tip of the iceberg. Lansdale grabs the reader, shakes them up, and spits them out. What really grabs me is the inability to pinpoint the direction the story is supposed to move. This provides an exciting narrative that constantly offers surprise twists with quite familiar story elements that mixes different genres such as horror and crime. I’m not overly familiar with Lansdale’s work. The film adaptation of his novella Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) being the first that comes to mind and proves that Lansdale’s work defies categorization. Also, the recently filmed Cold in July (2014) adaptation is what attracted me to pull Freezer Burn off my shelf and read it for this blog. I was not disappointed.

Burglar – David Goodis

Steeped in an unwritten honorary thieves’ code, DavidGoodis’ Burglar is a prime example of American noir of the 1950’s. Sitting parked in the dead of night, carefully smoking cigarettes, Nathan Harbin and his band of criminals, prepare a course of action that will unwittingly change the course of their life. Harbin, the brains of the operation, is the expert safe cracker that never carries a gun. Gladden, the only female and barely an adult herself, cases the house on the street and works as a temporary maid, getting the details where the valuables are kept in a wall safe. Baylock and Dohmer surround the house on either side with flashlights in hand to signal any disturbance or unusual activity approaching. Together, the team has managed a dozen hits, but something in the air on this particular night presents more tension than the other jobs.

Published in 1957, Burglar’s tension surmounts when a patrolling police car interrupts the heist. Fortunately, Harbin’s fast thinking in conjunction with the gang’s coolness prevents disaster. The cops are convinced of the cover story and leave the scene. In the course of the robbery, we learn the strengths and weaknesses of each of the key players. Harbin learned his trade by necessity. His mentor was none other than Gladden’s father, killed in a heist gone wrong. Since then, Harbin has taken responsibility of Gladden and lives by a code of ethics of this dead man. Gladden follows Harbin’s every move and there is more behind her willingness to follow him all the way to the life of crime. In Goodis’ world, the thieves’ code is predominantly a male oriented. The characters of Baylock and Dohmer represent this male universe resenting Gladden and finding her to be the weakest link in the gang. However, their animosity fades after a job and Gladden presents herself to the gang members as a more useful human being by making sandwiches and doing housework as opposed to an equal member of the gang.

This is where Goodis sets up the reader to go for a ride. Goodis flips the coin and presents two criminals that work as the villains in the piece. A femme fatale that breaks up the male dominated crime scene and is the exact opposite of Gladden’s character. Della uses her body to seduce Harbin and feigns love to get what she wants. Della works closely with Charley who is a crooked cop that’s ready for a shakedown. Together, they want to get their hands on those precious emeralds. The situation caused by the patrolling police that interrupted the heist at the beginning. Both Harbin and Gladden are sexually frustrated individuals. Not only does Della works on Harbin with her physical appearance, Charley works on Gladden with his physicality and feigned sensitivity. There’s a nice parallel happening between the key characters. It’s a mirrored world where two sides of the criminal underworld co-exist and conflict with each other.

The novel’s bleakness builds throughout each chapter and finally erupts into astonishing and brutal violence made even more shocking by Harbin’s ability to handle it with professional aplomb. For example, when a fatal shootout occurs outside of Nathan’s automobile, Nathan is able to keep his wits about him and dispose of weapons, vehicles, and bodies in a professional manner. The novel contains a coolness that reminds me of the films of Jean-Pierre Melville such as Le Samouraï or La Doulos.

Drowning in darkness, Harbin and Gladden find themselves at the end of the novel in the blackness of the ocean, which is an interesting metaphor for the entire novel. There’s no escape and it only gets darker and darker the further down you go. Burglar is quite a piece of noir fiction and I can’t think of any other crime author that paints in words a bleaker vision.

The author, predominantly known for Dark Passage (1946) adapted into a film version starring Humphrey Bogart, sued for copyright infringement over the TV series The Fugitive. Another celebrated French filmmaker, FrançoisTruffaut, adapted his novel Down There (1956) aka Shoot the Piano Player. Re-appraised and reprinted for the first time in fifty years, The Library of America published Five Noir Novels of the 1950’s in 2012 that includes The Burglar, Dark Passage, Nightfall, The Moon in the Gutter, and Street of No Return.

Tricks – Ed McBain

I’ve often cited on this very blog my preference for reading series novels in order of publication. However, I just violated my own rule and picked an 87^th Precinct novel at random. Well, not entirely at random, the premise of Halloween night in the Precinct seemed too tasty to resist browsing over the few McBain titles I own. One reason I felt comfortable jumping into the series is because I’ve always looked at the 87^th Precinct novels as self-standing episodic tales. Like many crime shows on television, it isn’t difficult to start watching in the middle of a season, or for that matter, in the middle of an episode, and picking up the story elements and running with them quickly deciphering what crime has happened and following along with the investigation. 

Master storyteller Ed McBain fills in plot elements with previous tidbits or character development pertaining to the previous 39 installments necessary to the plot without slowing down the action. In fact, it’s straight action all the way through and takes place in a single night in linear fashion. I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the 87^th Precinct having read Ax (1964) and having seen the movie Fuzz (1972) with Burt Reynolds. Again, the characters are easy to get a grasp on and the reader can follow along with the investigation. However, I think my appreciation will grow as I read more 87^th Precinct novels and become more familiar with the team’s interactions and humor. The book is full of humor and great crackling dialogue that at times reads like a screenplay.

True to its title, Tricks (1987) rattles off out of the gate with liquor stores robbery that ends with a manager gunned down by children in costumes. Could children possibly perform such an outrageous act or is someone pulling a Halloween trick? A murderer cuts up prostitutes picked up at the local dive bar in a neighboring precinct and a stakeout becomes organized. Eileen Burke is the plant in the uncover sting operation for the prostitute killer posing as a trick despite recovering from an attack on herself not that long ago. Cotton Hawes takes the call from a lovely magician’s assistant who’s searching for her missing husband, the Great Sabastiani that has mysteriously vanished after an afternoon matinee. Coincidentally, Sabastiani’s apprentice has left town in their van leaving all of their tricks and props scattered across a parking lot. Body parts are turning up in trashcans all over the city and a magician is missing. Do the body parts belong to the missing magician that has performed his very last trick?

Steve Carella, Andy Parker, and Arthur Brown also play major roles in this novel. Carella and Brown plan a stakeout of their own inside a liquor store with disastrous results. Andy Parker responds to the call of Peaches Muldoon, who was the mother of killer, now harassed by an obscene phone caller. Parker is eager to connect and romance Peaches, but stumbles on a little trick by pretending to be dressed as a plain-clothes cop at Halloween costume party and impresses all the guests with his authenticity and very real badge and gun. Strangely enough, a circus performer takes notice of Parker’s charm and Parker quickly has a little female admirer.

I don’t want to give away too many details, but the book’s layers weave into many story elements that intersect at various points of the different investigations. If police procedurals are your cup of tea, then the 87^TH Precinct will fill your kettle. Ed McBain was the pen name for Evan Hunter, who wrote the novel Blackboard Jungle, and most famously, the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. While close to fifty novels in the 87^th Precinct series, Hunter has another fifty novels under various pseudonyms including Evan Hunter and Hunt Collins. Hunter died in 2005 at the age of 78.

Fer-De-Lance – Rex Stout

Rex Stout is another American author with quite a prestigious bibliography. His novels top out in the seventies and span over six decades. His popularity is accounted by simply browsing his numerous titles in used bookstores that crowd the shelves ragged, worn, and dog-eared. Each paperback’s spine cracked in a million places resembling spidery varicose veins. Luckily, I found a copy of Stout’s first Nero Wolfe novel at a Goodwill store several months ago, that has waited patiently on my shelf for discovery.

Like most literary series, it is always best to start at the beginning. However, Fer-De-Lance drops the reader right into Wolfe’s world, as if several novels had already taken place. Already established as a great mind for detective work with several references of past triumphs and adventures, Wolfe is a practically larger than life character that enjoys his agoraphobic state while consuming copious amounts of beer and food. Comically, not only does Wolfe never leave the house he never varies his schedule even when clients come at his request. A designated rule is in place that prohibits entry in the upstairs greenhouse when Wolfe is brooding amongst his true friends, the plants.

Archie Goodwin represents the irritable body to Wolfe’s brain marching out on foot to do the investigating groundwork. Dutifully reporting all findings and feeding them into the brain, Archie comes across at times as a cocky smart ass, but manages to remain humble, respectable, and likable throughout the novel. Archie is at once at awe with Wolfe’s brain prowess and at the same time frustrated at feeling an outsider to his mentor’s working methods.

I found the duo a nice mirror to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson characters. Stout playfully makes Watson the brain and Holmes the documentarian since the novel is entirely from Archie Goodwin’s perspective. However, I can argue that Nero Wolfe is the amalgamation of Holmes and Watson’s brains combined and Goodwin is merely the commentator. The character comparison is a topic that’s well worth exploring in a larger format with ample research of seventy novels to read.

Goodwin, along with a few other tail-men and strong-arm types flex Wolfe’s grip on New York City’s underworld at the tail end of the depression. Although not destitute, money is tight, expenses are cut and extemporaneous help cut back. Goodwin is one of the few hired hands that manage to stay within Wolfe’s employment. When asked by one of Wolfe’s part-time tail-men as a favor to help his wife’s friend find her brother, Carlo Maffei, Wolfe devises a probable turn of events, which leads, of course, to murder stemming from only a brief interview from Maria Maffei. After finding a clue in a picture cut from the daily newspaper of a seemingly separate death by natural causes of a well-respected professor, Wolfe directs Archie to place a $10,000 bet with the District Attorney’s office that the professor died from a poisonous needle shot out of a golf club. Intrigued, but confused, as to how all of these events tie into the disappearance of Carlo Maffei, Archie is game for the work.

And that’s where it get’s good! Archie’s dispatched to interview the medical examiner, the district attorney, the family of the professor, golf caddies, and groundskeepers. A nice assembly of suspects gathers at the house, at his and Archie’s invitation, for interviews only on Wolfe’s designated time-schedule. All of Wolfe’s visitors have their patience tested by his stated genius, but its Archie’s frustration with the pace of genius that occasionally erupts into bickering spats that provide the comic relief of the novel. There is a substantial amount of zingers where I found myself chuckling aloud.

The resolution works well and includes a fiery plane crash. Yes, that $10,000 bet still stands at the end for Nero Wolfe to collect. To combat Wolfe, the suspect plants a surprise when a lethal snake pops out of a drawer, as it seems the best way to attack a man in his own castle. A tremendous amount of excitement for a book about a genius detective that is famous for never leaving his house!

Many authors I have known about peripherally for many years but I never bothered to read and I kick myself after I realize what I’ve been missing out on. It amazes that Rex Stout’s creations continue to live a life of their own almost 80 years after their creation. I will continue to explore Stout’s work as I find it. I don’t believe that reading each work in order is essential, but I will do my best to maintain a sense of continuity.

Wild Town – Jim Thompson

Way out west lives an oilman, Mike Hanlon, who manages prolonged success with a thriving hotel despite a debilitating injury that left him in a wheelchair. However, his aged years and wealthy heritage didn’t prevent him from marrying a trophy wife, twenty years his junior, named Joyce. The Hanlon Hotel resides in the jurisdiction of Sherriff Lou Ford, a questionably wealthy officer of the law who by all appearances lives on the grift. Enter the ex-convict drifter, Bugs McKenna, with an uncanny knack for being unable to stay out of trouble, who the Sheriff convinces to apply for the job of the hotel detective, and in turn, convinces Mike Hanlon to hire him. Bugs suspects the crooked Sheriff is up to no good and using an ex-convict as his patsy. Gather these elements together and you will find that the novel is the perfect recipe for criminal mischief.

Bugs McKenna begins his job as the hotel dick at the Hanlon Hotel trying to second-guess the motivations behind his employment. All signs point to Sheriff Ford and Joyce Hanlon working in conjunction to dispose of Mike Hanlon, so Joyce and Sheriff Ford can profit on Joyce’s inheritance and have a fall guy to take the wrap. Despite the obviousness of Ford’s motivations, Mike Hanlon’s motivations seem quite murky. Why does Mike Hanlon decide to trust McKenna? Does his boss realize that a plot is forming around his demise? It isn’t long before other trouble begins to brew at the hotel when $5000 goes missing from the books. The head accountant encourages Bugs to lean on the new accountant in order to save his own job.

Jim Thompson succeeds in taking the conventions of the crime story such as murder, blackmail, grifting, and double crosses and throws each one for a loop. I believe that Thompson’s goal is to keep the reader guessing at every turn and allow enough evidence to sustain a logical assumption of the direction of the story only to deliberately steer it onto a different track. Thompson’s personal sense of humor also matches the streak of black humor that runs throughout the story. For example, my favorite is the death of the hotel accountant, who’s accused in a subplot of stealing $5000, picks a fight with Bugs McKenna and accidentally flies out a window when Bugs dodges his lunge. Our anti-hero Bugs, is the embodiment of Murphy’s Law, if something can go wrong, it goes wrong and in quite a slapstick sort of way.

If it’s discovered that Bugs was in the accountant’s room, his unsavory reputation will jeopardize his safe position at the hotel. This causes him to panic and destroy evidence only later to realize that he couldn’t have been the only other person in the room. Suicide is ruled but quickly changed to murder as evidence of intoxicants in the accountant’s bloodstream turn up in an autopsy. The accountant would have died anyway, despite falling from the window. The Sheriff suspects a female as the culprit, as drugs, according to the Sheriff, are “a female’s weapon of choice.” Even after Bugs establishes his alibi away from the scene of the crime, a blackmailer emerges and puts the heat on him to pay $5000 or risk exposure as a suspect.

The novel takes another turn into quasi-detective fiction. McKenna, who’s hired as the hotel detective despite having no experience as a detective or in law enforcement, must solve the mystery of who is blackmailing him and, in turn, the murderer. The novel could easily fit into an amateur detective sub-genre, but it continues to morph and change styles. I don’t want give away all the twists and turns, but reading it is like listening to a great progressive rock album that shifts sounds and rhythms at will but always manages to impress at the skill of playing.

Wild Town doesn’t sit easily within any confined description of the crime sub-genres. It is all of those things at once and that’s what makes it so damned entertaining. Published in 1957, Wild Town rests comfortably between the more recognized publications of The Killer Inside Me, After Dark,My Sweet, and later publications such as The Getaway and Pop. 1280. I understand that Thompson’s recognition came only after his death, but it makes me question what the public considered great crime fiction at the time. As I’ve read several of his other works, I’m convinced that Thompson was an author that could always invert the crime genre and revitalize it. 

A Stranger in my Grave – Margaret Millar

I felt it was about time to discover some female authors in the crime genre. My pick was none other than Mrs. Ross MacDonald. I’ve read several Ross MacDonald books and I’ve always enjoyed his stories that centered on fractured families and maintaining an air of normalcy within the ideas of socially acceptable society. Drawn to that subject matter and intrigued by the plot synopsis on the back of the book, I decided Millar’s A Stranger in my Grave would be the perfect introduction to the feminine side of the crime genre.

Originally published in 1960, Stranger in my Grave revolves around housewife Daisy Harker’s vivid dream of visiting her own grave at a quaint seaside cemetery marked with her death dated four years ago. What’s troubling about the dream is that Daisy can’t quite place the significance of the grave or the date. Daisy’s family matters seem to play a crucial role in her lack of happiness and unease. Distanced from her well to do husband, Jim, after the discovery of her inability to bear children and irritated by her meddlesome live-in mother who claims that her dreams are unsubstantiated, Daisy also copes with a mostly absent alcoholic father whose hand perpetually extends for handouts and who literally disappears and reappears as any situation dictates.

After a bail bondsman/private detective, Pinata, contacts Daisy to bail her father out of jail, Daisy hires him to piece together the date from her dream that’s etched onto her tombstone. Together they begin an investigation of Daisy’s past with literally no bank accounts, records, or firm memories of where to start. Is Daisy having a memory? Is Daisy having a premonition or a ghostly flashback? Eventually, the seaside cemetery from the dream offers the pair the first clue to the mystery when they find Daisy’s tombstone marked with the name Carlos Camilla. An elderly man that police records indicate committed suicide on that date. As the story unfolds, Daisy discovers a payoff that her husband has obscured for four years and her father has a connection to a Hispanic woman that Daisy once helped at the clinic where she worked precisely four years ago.

Slowly the story’s plot mechanisms begin to turn and build into a grand crescendo that mixes the fractured family histories into an intriguing crime story. Margaret Millar’s story telling is superb. I felt like the author was using the tropes of the Sentimental novel as a springboard cranking it sideways and stuffing it into a mystery novel. It works very well at a slow burn pace. I will say that the twist ending wraps up all the story threads very nicely. Millar, and her husband, MacDonald, excel at these family stories that feature families that use a façade of happiness or normalcy to mask their misfortunes to society. The crucial piece to understand is that all families have something swept under the carpet or hidden in the closets somewhere.

The Coven – Carter Brown

Here is a book that I picked up for the cover alone. Carter Brown’s The Coven is a tantalizing tale of Los Angeles witchcraft loosely inspired by the Manson murders. Published in America in 1971, The Coven is part of the Rick Holman detective series written by the British author Geoffrey Alan Yates using the pen name Carter Brown. Books under the name of Brown were successful enough to feature a stamp proclaiming over 25 million in print. It’s got to be good, right?

The story has an aging Sean Connery type actor named Hector Melvane that is about to be awarded a Knighthood by the Queen. The trouble is that his two children are quite the troublemakers. Pictures of his naked daughter, Amanda, holding a knife over another naked woman indicate that she’s involved in some type of ritualistic games. Her brother, Kirk, known for his violent temper and public outbursts, is also connected, but Hector wants this outlandish behavior squashed before it can ruin his image and his Knighthood. Coincidentally, Kirk and Amanda used to run with their father’s current trophy wife, Brenda, who split with Kirk after he carved his initial between her breasts with a knife.

So, enters Rick Holman, private eye. Hired by Melvane, Holman must find his elusive children and get to the bottom of the scandalous photos. A murder is uncovered and the suspects belong to Amanda and Kirk’s seemingly harmless coven. A group of tight knit friends having a good time acting out rituals involving virginal sacrifices, animal heads, and painting the body with blood. The novel reads like a 1970’s American International Pictures film complete with ample nudity and violence. A book that actually sounds much more exciting than it actually is and comparing this book to AIP is not an insult, I love AIP films!

This book is fun because its exploitative qualities and its politically incorrect nature run rampant. For example, all three of the female leads throw themselves at Rick Holman by exposing and cupping their breasts to tantalize him. Holman manages to bed two of the three with the third one not quite busty enough for his tastes. The mystery isn’t enticing enough to sustain throughout the novel and the witchcraft element seems hokey even by 1970’s standards. 

I was hoping for a more salacious mix of the supernatural and the detective genres, but aside from the sexual aspects, the book is a routine. Although, I was disappointed with the overall product, I would read another Carter Brown. Now that I know what to expect I can look forward to an entertaining quick read that celebrates its own pulpiness. Carter Brown died in the mid Nineteen Eighties with an output of over 300 novels.

A Taste for Violence – Brett Halliday

Brett Halliday’s Mike Shayne detective series spans across 4 decades. Author Davis Dresser used the Halliday pseudonym until the early fifties eventually handing the reins over to other authors to carry on the character. I’ve been curious about these novels for quite sometime, but I’ve always tried to find the earliest novel before delving straight into the series. Taste for Violence (1949) was the earliest Halliday novel in my collection. Therefore, I finally decided to start there and I’m not convinced it was the best novel to introduce the Shayne character.

Charles Roach, heir to a mining dynasty in Centerville, KY, writes to Miami Detective Michael Shayne requesting his services. On the eve of negotiating a truce with striking miners, Roach feels that his life is in jeopardy and generously writes a $5000 retainer check and mails it. Shayne cashes the check and with his secretary travels to Kentucky only to find Roach already murdered. Obligated to accept the job, Shayne uncovers more than just murder and small town corruption.

For a novel titled Taste for Violence, the action plays out in the distance or off-screen. Shayne and his secretary witness the mine’s private police force brutality attack a motorist from their car. A key character commits murder just outside his office door. Suspects escorted through the police station already have a confession beaten out of them.

Mike Shayne seems to soak all this small town corruption up before taking action. To be honest, I was hoping for more wise cracks. Not being familiar with the earlier novels, I’m uncertain that this is the normal Shayne mystery or an off the beaten path story. I do like the rural Kentucky setting and the set-up motives and suspects develop quite nicely, but as I mentioned above, with the action happening off screen, the novel becomes almost bland. However, when Shayne does finally take action the story kicks into high gear and delivers the goods. It’s particularly good, when Shayne pretends inebriation so that his arrest will allow his interrogation of an incarcerated suspect in Roach’s murder. In addition, Shayne eventually works his magic to become an Interim Sherriff to clean up the town.

Overall, I was hoping a better Shayne mystery to launch my education on Brett Halliday’s work. Halliday died in the late 1970’s. I still have plenty to read by Halliday and apparently, there are many Shayne stories that were ghost written by esteemed crime authors such as Bill Pronzini. I will continue to pick up any copies of his work that I might find. Finally because I couldn’t resist the terrible puns: A Taste of Violence just didn’t satisfy my appetite, but it was a good appetizer.

Forgive Me Killer – Harry Whittington

Harry Whittington’s reputation reigns as one of the proprietors of the paperback originals. As my education continues on vintage crime novels, I can begin to distinguish the shift from the pulps to the affordable paperback novels that exploded in the latter half of the 20^th century. Paperback first edition novels stemmed from publishers such as Fawcett GoldMedal, Signet, Bantam Books, Avon, and Ace. Authors such as John D. McDonald, David Rabe, and most importantly, Harry Whittington carved out a new avenue for the mystery crime genre, not to forget the western, science fiction, romance, or horror genres, to excel. By Whittington’s own account, his prolific output was out of necessity and eventually he was discouraged and quite writing for several years to work for the government, which paid regularly. His output is over 200 novels in various genres including the western. His pseudonyms include Robert Hart-Davis, Harry White, and Hallam Whitney to name a few.

Published in 1956, Forgive Me Killer follows corrupt police officer, Mike Ballard, called to prison to help clear a convicted and sentenced Earl Walker. In desperation, Walker mistakes Ballard’s indifference to his arraignment as compassion and believes that Ballard is a decent human being. Rejecting the plea for help, Ballard returns to work to find himself hit up for a loan by a fellow officer and under investigation with D.A. for his questionably wealthy lifestyle.

Ballard reports to and takes his cut from the local mob boss and club owner, Luxtro, whose hand is in each of the highest city officials’ pocket. Ballard demands that Luxtro pull his strings and have his investigation called off. Luxtro pays Ballard and additional amount of money and promises to look into the investigation, but warns him to lay low and not make any additional waves in the department. An investigation as serious as the one he’s facing is almost impossible to influence.

Meanwhile, convict Earl Walker’s wife, Peggy, pays Ballard a visit in attempt to convince him to clear her husband’s name. Frustrated with his girlfriend, Ballard’s selfish lust for Peggy prompts his agreement to help her imprisoned husband. Knowing that seducing Peggy won’t make a difference if her husband remains in prison, Ballard wants to win Peggy’s trust before he takes her to bed. Unfortunately, the more Ballard looks into Walker’s case the heavier the D.A.’s investigation comes down on him. Despite the hole that Ballard continues to dig, his lust drives him to discover the truth about Earl Walker’s conviction.

Forgive Me Killer’s brevity astonishes me due to the jam-packed story line that the novel tells efficiently. The characters are rich. Despite Ballard’s immoral lifestyle, he is a likeable protagonist that is capable of pulling the narrative through its story arc. Interestingly enough, here is a story that is quite familiar in this day and age of constant Law and Order and C.S.I. spin offs. This novel is still refreshing and tells a good crime story. That’s what’s important to me. My version is a reprint from 1984 published by Black Lizard.

Halo in Brass – Howard Browne

Halo in Brass is the third Paul Pine detective novel from Howard Browne published in 1949. Browne made his living editing pulp magazines before making the pilgrimage to Hollywood. I discovered Browne after reading about him in reference to the work of Raymond Chandler. Browne’s ambition was to create a mystery novel where the killer was the least likely suspect. Naturally, I found this quite intriguing. As I’ve mentioned before in a previous post, the giallo film is what led me by the hand to the crime novel. Gialli, at times, thrive on convoluted twisty turns and sudden “gotcha” out of no-where killer revelations that can be both surprising and disappointingly illogical. Once I discovered that Browne worked to construct his novel in a way that guessing the killer was to be the challenge, I had to see for myself how it compared.

In short, Halo in Brass delivers the goods. Hometown Nebraska girl Laura Freemont has been missing for eight months in the Windy City. Her parents hire detective Paul Pine to track her down. Pine has a penchant for wise cracks and humorous observations while he investigates Laura Freemont’s known associates. Oddly enough, as his investigation unwinds Laura’s contacts start turning up dead and it’s not long before Pine is a suspect.

Browne acknowledges in his introduction to the McMillan Press reprint that his book negatively centers on lesbian themes. He also considers his own beliefs were negative, but changed since the timeframe of the original writing. The novel includes salacious subject matter considering the book came out in the late forties. Comparatively, the novel seems tasteful when stacked up to contemporary films such as Basic Instinct or Jade. However, placing a work in the context of its era adds a specific layer of social observation that’s pertinent at the time written. I think it’s important to know how those themes resonated in the time-period and how they play into the construction of the narrative and the audience’s perceptions.

Most importantly, the novel is good hard-boiled fun. It doesn’t beat around the bush and the plot works in a logical fashion. The one aspect of the story that really pays off is the revelation of the killer. I won’t spoil it, but it does work even despite countless movies and books that I’ve been exposed to using a similar plot mechanism. Browne even uses a Mark Twain reference that helps solve the mystery! I am currently tracking down Browne’s other novels including the other Paul Pine mysteries. Several titles were originally published under the pen name of John Evans. Browne died in 1999.

One Monday We Killed Them All – John D. MacDonald

John MacDonald fits into a select group of crime authors with a long spiraling list of accomplishments. Attempting to digest each of the author’s books is an intimidating task, but promises to be a rewarding one. MacDonald’s best known for his Travis McGee series, which contains over 20 books, and the original novel that the movie Cape Fear was based upon called The Executioners. While I haven’t vowed to read all the Travis McGee series (I’ve only read The Deep Blue Goodbye and I did enjoy it), I’ve been steadily collecting his works as I find them. In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed a handful of MacDonald’s stand-alone crime novels.

One Monday We Killed Them All published in 1961 by GoldMedal starts reminiscently of The Executioners as the release of Dwight McAran from prison. His manslaughter prison sentence has ended after the death of his former girlfriend who has died from injuries sustained from his abuse. Unfortunately, for Lieutenant Fenn Hillyer, Dwight McAran is his brother-in-law who needs a place to stay after his prison term. Convinced to give McAran a place to get back on his feet by his wife, Meg, Hillyer must walk a fine line between duty and devotion, while his house quickly becomes the new roadside attraction for the town.

Meg seems to be the only individual on the face of the planet that believes her brother has had a bum rap. Meg is downright sure that he is capable of turning his life around. She criticizes her husband for being distrustful of McAran, even after he discovers that McAran has assaulted her in front of their child. Meanwhile, Hillyer’s police chief gives orders not to coerce McAran into any actions that would lead to his arrest; after all, McAran has served his time in full. However, Hillyer’s unofficial surveillance on his brother-in-law reveals that McAran is waiting for someone or something that will trigger his long gestating revenge on everyone. Eventually, McAran’s only known associates have incited a riot and escaped from prison.

The writing is tight, precise, and economical. Immediately, MacDonald sets up a multilayered source of conflict and tension that builds throughout the novel. Hillyer is not afraid of McAran, but he is afraid for his family. Likewise, McAran waits patiently and fearlessly for his opportunity to commit revenge. Enraptured by the course of events unfolding throughout the novel, I felt that the characters interacted logically. McDonald is able to paint his scenes with just the right amount of anxiety that when key scenes happen, the reader responds accordingly with the intended emotions. An early scene in the novel with the Hillyer’s family pet and McAran, illustrates this perfectly. Overall, I highly recommend this work as an outstanding example of pacing and suspense. The ending also delivers that high emotional impact that punches you in the gut. I do promise to read more MacDonald this year.

Devil on Two Sticks by Wade Miller

Wade Miller is the pseudonym for co-authors Bob Wade and Bill Miller. The pair first came to my attention by another pen name they used of Whit Masterson. Badge of Evil (1954) by Masterson is the novel that Orson Welles’s film Touch of Evil is based upon. While searching for that novel, I stumbled across the Wade Miller name. Devil on Two Sticks published in 1949 and reprinted in 1950 under the title of Killer’s Choice. The 2008 version I obtained was from Stark House and contained an extra novel by the duo called The Killer (1951).

Beck is a snappy dresser complete with pastel sweaters, tweed suits, and a perfectly tied bow tie. He drives an expensive coupe and parks the car where he can always see it. He moves in an almost mechanical precision for his crime syndicate boss named Pat Garland. On his off time, Beck’s a lady’s man and has a fling with his boss’s wife. Meanwhile, a young woman, named Marcy Everett, which he met right before a raid one of the syndicate’s gambling houses, distracts Beck.

Released from jail with the aid of the syndicate’s new lawyer J.J. Everett, Garland calls Beck into action to expose a mole for the Attorney General that has breached their inner circle. Exposed details of the syndicate’s criminal operations single-out a select group of individuals. Beck gathers the data and inputs his list of suspects into his memory banks to process. As the suspects are investigated, one syndicate member is found dead and another looks highly suspicious. Beck’s intuition fingers Harvey Isham for the mole and Garland orders his elimination; a mistake that causes the Circle’s inner trust to break.

As a lead character, Beck is not exactly amiable. He’s very stiff. He doesn’t quip the wise cracks or flash his gun, in fact, he doesn’t even carry a gun. The majority of his emotions remain internalized and surface only when necessary. Beck is very clean and organized except when something disrupts his everyday patterns. Beck is the Devil on Two Sticks caught between the two sides of his life, which Beck literally demonstrates in the novel at a dinner party with a toy diabolo. However, torn by his professionalism and his emotions for Marcy Everett, Beck soon realizes that either direction will have severe consequences.

Devil on Two Sticks is not action packed, but its not without its share of exciting moments. Particularly, a chase in the dark of a funeral home was well paced and suspenseful. I was expecting a straightforward crime novel, but there’s much more underneath the surface of this existentialist crime novel than I expected. The writing is very mechanical and emotionless. In retrospect, this may have been the author’s intent because the writing style interlocks with Beck’s characteristics too. Everything is logical and precise clockwork, which created a stilted reading experience. In that respect, the ending is unsatisfying but is correct and works for the story. The novel also has a touch of redemption at the end. Beck chooses to walk away without completing his assignment to prove that love can change a person.

Perfidia by James Ellroy

James Ellroy’s Perfidia is quite an undertaking, not only for the reader, but also for its shear scope of Los Angeles history. The first of a new quartet of novels that spans the war years of 1941 to 1946 in America leading up to the events in the original L.A. Quartet that consists of TheBlack Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. The novel also connects with Ellroy’s most recent work, dubbed the Underworld USA Trilogy, consisting of American Tabloid, Blood’s A Rover, and The Cold Six Thousand. Overall his cannon of work unveils a fictitious, dark and hidden history of the Los Angeles police force that works its way into the FBI and finally into the political landscape of the 1960’s and early 70’s.

Admittedly, I was intimidated by tackling such an expansive book coupled with the fact that it’s been many years since I’ve read the original quartet. However, my fears quickly vaporized once I remembered that I was in the hands of a master crime writer. Personally, I think Ellroy is a true successor to Hammett and Chandler in the ways that the authors re-create the hard-boiled criminal underworld with acute vernacular and criminal intent. What is interesting about Ellroy’s style is that it is not merely an imitation of Hammett or Chandler’s work, but an entirely new beast of hard-boiled tough-guy detectives that surpasses Spade, Marlowe, or even the entire Continental Op. This is the next wave of crime writing and it’s exciting because Ellroy is still alive and kicking.

The inciting incident and backdrop of the novel is an investigation into a Japanese family’s ritualistic suicide called seppuku; however, homicide is quickly determined after the investigation reveals key elements that don’t fit in with the ritual. More importantly, this family’s slaying happens on the eve of Pearl Harbor’s bombing which causes resentment, violence, and riots in Los Angeles against Asian minorities. Sadly, the Los Angeles population has trouble distinguishing between the Chinese and Japanese races. Also, in question is whether the murdered family had prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor’s attack due to the presumed suicide note found at the scene of the crime.

Soon after the attack, the L.A.P.D begins to round up questionable Japanese residents into holding cells and work farms. A subplot emerges about farmlands bought for commercial development, but until the war is over, the land becomes Japanese prison camps for monetary gain. A surge of patriotism causes both civilians and the police force to enlist into the armed forces. This action causes a hardship for the Police Department losing many of their best men and potential cadets to the war.

Employed by the L.A.P.D. is police chemist Hideo Ashida, the Department’s sole Japanese employee. Frustrated by being the only Asian minority on the force and hampered by his closet homosexuality, Ashida works hard to keep his position on the force and preventing his family’s detainment in a war camp. Ashida’s commanding officers, Sergeant Dudley Smith and Captain William Parker (Whiskey Bill), quickly recognize his resourcefulness and begin to use him to promote each of their own questionable agendas.

Dudley Smith is both brilliant and sinister. Capable of seducing his prey into unsuspected collaboration and astonishing acts of violence while at the same time manipulating multiple police investigations to his advantage. His acts are incorrigible and, at times, highly intelligent, but motivated by the need for solutions, regardless if they are the correct ones. Before New Year’s Eve, City Hall demands a resolution that the family’s murderer be Japanese, perpetuating a Japanese on Japanese crime that justifies the acts against L.A.’s Japanese population. Therefore, Dudley works to find a Japanese killer. Dudley’s web of deceit is so intricate that the character creates a coded chart in his office so that he can keep track of all his deeds. Meanwhile, Dudley tries to maintain an affair with the one and only Bette Davis.

On the other hand, Whiskey Bill Parker thrives on political career moves that edge him towards the Police Chief’s desk. His hard drinking and public spousal abuse blemish his reputation. Parker entraps a young woman named Kay Lake whose estranged marriage to the department’s Lee Blanchard connects her back with suspected criminal activities within the police force. Her previous testimony has kept Lee Blanchard out of trouble. She and Hideo Ashida also share a mutual affection for a recent police enrollee Bucky Bleichert. Kay willingly partakes in the adventure of a lifetime to oust and infiltrate social-lite communist Claire De Haven’s camp. De Haven, aka The Red Queen and her party are in the process of publishing anti-propaganda tracts against the Los Angeles police department exposing the brutality against the Japanese minorities. Eventually, Parker’s motivation for ousting De Haven becomes confused with his obsession for Kay. Likewise, Dudley’s obsession for Bette Davis causes catastrophic events too.

As different sides of the same coin, Dudley and Parker’s characters clash and complement each other nicely. Similarly, both Kay Lake and Hideo Ashida are pawns in a deadly game where no one is innocent of anything. Every character has something concealed. To whom to swear their allegiance is constantly blurred and continuously shifty. Eventually, every character questions how their role will play out in the bigger picture, which is precisely the point Ellroy makes with Perfidia: don’t sweat the small stuff because in the end it does not matter. When the murder mystery becomes unveiled, the dark manipulations of all the characters and the police force, paired with the declaration of war, manage to place the actual truth on hold. The murderer remains protected by the course of history. To the Mayor’s office and the higher echelons in the department, the true guilty party does not matter as long as the right person burns for the job. History will move on regardless of the outcome. Orchestration of events can happen anyway that you want them to. Which is exactly what Ellroy has done inside his Los Angeles universe mixing true historical characters and events with fictional ones; concocting resolutions that suggest the truths about the Los Angeles police world.

Ellroy’s universe works beautifully. The power of this novel rests in Ellroy’s ability to write economically and efficiently. I don’t want to fool anyone by my meager attempt at summarizing the plot; every cog in this wheel seems meticulously greased. Elloy’s work deserves, or rather demands, consumption.

Compliments of a Fiend by Fredric Brown

First off, my discovery of Fredric Brown stems from the unauthorized adaptation of his 1949 novel The Screaming Mimi. That film was Italian horror maestro Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969). It was an international success and a defining example of the Giallo mystery subgenre. 

The giallo-film is a highly stylized type of murder mystery or crime film that usually places a strong emphasis on the violent and sexual aspects of the story. The giallo-film stems from Italian publisher Mondadori’s set of pulp paperbacks with yellow covers hence the name “giallo”. Since the study of the giallo-film leads to the Italian giallo paperbacks, the Italian paperbacks naturally lead to American crime fiction of the early and mid- 20^th Century. Translated into Italian, many American crime authors had books published in the giallo paperback series. Therefore, my love for the Italian genre film, called the giallo, has metamorphosed into my love of American crime novels.

Anyway, a long story short, I know, too late; I first tried to track down Fredric Brown’s novel The Screaming Mimi. I quickly found out it is out of print along with the majority of Brown’s work. My first copy of the text was a bootleg. I read it and enjoyed it quite a bit. Furthermore, I’ve always kept an eye out for any of Brown’s novels, and just recently, I stumbled onto a private collection sold to Rhino booksellers. Now, after enjoying The Screaming Mimi, I’m digging into the rest of Brown’s work for the first time and in publication order.

Compliments of a Fiend (1950) was the fourth novel in Brown’s detective series featuring Am and Ed Hunter. As stated above, reading the novels in order I am able to see the progression of a much larger story arc that details the establishment of the Hunter and Hunter Detective Agency. In the first novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), Ed Hunter stays under Uncle Ambrose’s guidance after his father is murdered. They work together to solve the crime. Ambrose, who has had experience as a detective, works at a Carny and eventually takes Ed, in the subsequent books The Dead Ringer (1948) and The Bloody Moonlight (1949), into the Carny life until they decide to venture out into the world of private cops. Prior to starting their own agency, the Hunters work for the Starlock Dectective Agency and this is where Compliments of a Fiend begins.

Brown’s premise for this novel, inspired by Charles Fort’s work Wild Talents (1932), surmises that after two notable people named Ambrose, Ambrose Bierce and Ambrose Small, disappear under mysterious circumstances that a strange Ambrose Collector must be at work. Strangely enough, Uncle Ambrose doesn’t return home from a job after a man named “Collector” calls and specifically asks for Uncle Am. So begins, Ed’s adventure retracing his Uncle’s steps with the help of their boss, Starlock, and a former carnival burlesque dancer, Estelle. Along the way, we discover a multitude of suspects including a low rent psychic, an amateur photographer, a low life car skip, a crime boss and his menacing henchman. Only Ed is able to tie all the loose ends together to discover what has really happened to his Uncle (and mentor) Am. Only Ed can figure out if a fiend is actually collecting people with the first name of Ambrose.

Brown’s writing is consistently clean and straightforward with a sense of humor. There are a few suggestions of the supernatural to keep things mysterious and light. As I continue to read his work, I am constantly surprised at how well his stories hold up. I also have quite a few of his novels lined up to read this year, so I will continue to log them into my journal entries. McMillian Press published several collections of Brown’s short fiction a few years back, but sadly, those have gone out of print and are collecting enormous sums on the collector’s market (I guess those puns were intending since the book was about collecting). Also available, an omnibus of the first four Ed and Am Hunter novels, published in 2002, by Stewart Masters Publishing that isn’t too hard to find.

Deliver Me From Dallas – by Charles Willeford

Very few authors seemingly entertain and captivate as effortlessly as Charles Willeford. His hard-boiled style mixes humor and violence while exploring characters and plots that are at once familiar and completely new. My first knowledge of Willeford came about through the film Miami Blues (1988). Hoke Moseley, our protagonist, is a gruff homicide detective that loses his dentures. Naturally, this was right up my alley and appealed to my sense of humor. However, I wasn’t the only one that enjoyed Willeford’s characters. With the popularity of the Hoke Moseley series, Willeford’s career received a twilight boost. Suddenly, all of his older work, including his pulp novels dating back to 1953, became instant hard-to-find expensive collector’s items. Now, I freely admit that I am always late to the game in finding cool authors and great books. I discovered my love of Willeford’s books within the last five years. It wasn’t until I set about tracking down his work on the used bookstore scene, with some luck, that I was able to digest his older works.

The latest addition to my library is Deliver Me From Dallas, originally published under the title The Whip Hand in 1962 by Gold Medal, and under the name W. Franklin Sanders. McMillan Press published this edition in 2001. In the introduction by Jesse Sublett, The Whip Hand was relatively easy to track down on the used market until Willeford’s name connected to it. In fact, Sublett thought that W. Franklin Sanders was a pseudonym, but it turns out that he was an actual person and did indeed provide some input into the construction of the novel. The Gold Medal paperback version fetches $200 or more on the collector’s market and practically impossible to find in good shape, while the McMillan version is hard to find but can be more affordably purchased. There are also subtle differences between the two publications. It appears that McMillan Publication’s version stems from an early draft discovered among Willeford’s personal artifacts after his death in 1988.

The story begins with a Los Angeles police officer, Bill Brown, on the run from his traffic-cop duties blunder involving an assault on a smart-aleck motorist. On the lam in Dallas, Brown stumbles onto a kidnapping scheme gone wrong by a trio of bumbling, violent con men. Determined to right himself with the Los Angeles police force, he sets out to solve the case but manages to get deeper into trouble when it turns out the kidnappers have murdered a child and kept the ransom money. Eventually, justice, served Texas-style, comes with a whip.

What strikes me about the novel is the juxtaposition of humor and violence. A tone that brings to mind the Coen Brothers’ crime films such as Blood Simple, Fargo, and even the zany Raising Arizona. My favorite scene involves a hungry kidnapper scoping out the carnival hot dogs only to find one pugnaciously rammed into his face by Bill Brown. The dopey kidnapper brothers, one named Junior and the other Donald, interact in such hick-comedic ways, the dialect written spot-on, it is hard not to think the novel was a comic caper. However, the tone shifts radically with vicious violence. Junior goads Donald into believing that the parents of their 6-year old kidnap victim will find her safe and then sneaks her into the bathroom and kills her. The kidnapped victim’s father uses a whip to extract his gruesome revenge on Donald who ultimately had little to do with kidnapping scheme or her death. Likewise, Bill Brown has a temper that explodes from the slightest provocation; hence, his speedy departure from his traffic duties in Los Angeles, which, in turn, were punishment from a previous outburst.

I cannot recommend this novel enough and if you are able to track it down on the collector’s market, it is worth it. After reading this novel, I promptly searched for other Willeford titles not in my collection. I found Kiss Your Ass Goodbye, another McMillan Press reprint that sits quietly and awaits for me to pull it off the shelf and open it.

I Wake Up Screaming by Steve Fisher

Steve Fisher’s I Wake Up Screaming (1940 and revised in 1960) is a novel that has been on my shelf for a while. I’ve always looked at it with a curiosity, but never felt compelled to peel it open and digest it. It contains all of my favorite elements in a good crime novel: lust, murder, mystery, and Hollywood. Therefore, the reasons for my disinterest in reading it sooner are a mystery to me! I finally solved that problem when I broke down and read it this year.

The Hollywood scene for a writer was quite different from that of an actor and Fisher’s story opens up the production offices of a Hollywood studio. Our young fresh writer attempts to engage with the lovely secretary, Vicky Lynn, who no one in the office seems able to crack open beyond the cordial work environment. He succeeds by proposing an opportunity to brainstorm on story ideas. In a reasonably short amount of time, he’s able to do the “impossible” when a romantic relationship is established; and gradually, a decision is made to convince his associates at the studio to back Vicky Lynn into becoming a silver-screen starlet. She’s then promptly run through the publicity machine and given a completely new identity including a “public” relationship with a leading man. Everyone seems obsessed with the manufactured Vicky Lynn. Jealously spirals out of control; and soon, she winds up dead in her apartment.

Suddenly, motives for her death start to turn up in the form of investments, insurance policies, rivals, and contemptuousness. Our protagonist avoids suspicion for the murder at first, but it isn’t long before a homicide detective, Ed Cornell, starts twisting the screws in his coffin. Ed Cornell’s obsession with pinning the murder on our narrator, regardless of the evidence, centers on revenge. Cornell demonstrates a very high level of fixation on, not only, solving the case, but on the avengement of Vicky Lynn. His reputation is on the line.

Cornell’s character is engaging enough despite the fact the detective angle plays out in the background. Most importantly, he’s never been wrong on a case. I can feel threads of James Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet universe. For example, The Black Dahlia’s character Bucky Bleichert and his obsession for Elizabeth Short after her death (Black Dahlia is also set in and around Hollywood in the 1940’s) and Captain Dudley Smith’s corrupt law enforcement style that is both wicked and immoral; and yet, manages to maintain a high-ranking position in a public office.

Considered one of the earliest examples of film noir the film version of I Wake Up Screaming (1941) starred Victor Mature. In the novel, written in the first person singular, I was unable to site a reference to the protagonist’s name; but in the movie, Mature plays the lead as Frankie Christopher. The novel’s bleak, downward spiraling plot does offer a point of redemption at the end. I’m not sure that I like the redemption angle, because it feels that a happy-ending tacked on, although, I was completely satisfied as a reader with the resolution of the mystery.