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.