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.