Super Secret Agent Philis #01 - The Fall Guy

Between 1972 and 1985, Ritchie Perry (born 1942) wrote a 13-book series starring a British Intelligence agent named Philis (a dude) battling international criminals who pose a national security threat to Great Britain. In the U.S., the paperbacks were published by Ballantine, but many of them have been released as ebooks which should save you some time hunting them down. Start with the 1972 opening installment, The Fall Guy.

The British Intelligence arm in the series is SR(2) with the initials standing for “Special Responsibilities.” The group is designed to do things the police are not able to - namely assassinate threats without the blessing of a judge or jury. In this series debut, Scotland Yard wants SR(2)’s help in neutralizing the South American end of a cocaine trafficking operation, while the cops handle the domestic arm in the U.K. After an SR(2) sleeper agent in Brazil goes missing during the investigation of a drug exporter, a new operative is needed in the region. Enter Philis.

The Fall Guy serves as an origin story for Agent Philis - the hero of the 13 book series. When we meet him, he is a small-time British smuggler of booze and cigarettes working a beach town in Brazil. After a lengthy prologue giving the readers a third-person view of the intel agency’s mission and its challenges, the narrative abruptly switches to first person with charming and humorous Philis telling the story.

Philis is a wisecracking playboy who is kidnapped by SR(2) operatives who convince him to search for the missing SR(2) agent in a Brazilian beach town. Nearly the entire paperback takes place on the Brazilian coastline, and the author, who has also written a non-fiction book about Brazil, makes the culture and topography come alive. It’s a great setting for a thrilling adventure. As Philis gets closer to the truth about the missing spy, the author ratchets up the intensity and extreme violence. Consider yourself warned.

Where does the Super Secret Agent Philis series fall among its spy-fiction cohorts? It’s not as dense as a Robert Ludlum novel, but it’s way smarter and better-written than a Nick Carter: Killmaster volume. The cheeky first-person narration reminds me of Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series, and the well-written Britishness of the whole affair recalls Adam Hall’s Quiller books. In any case, it’s a way smarter book than the illustration on the paperback cover would have you believe.

In short, I haven’t been this excited to start a new espionage series in a long time. Hopefully, the later installments keep up the same level of high quality on display in The Fall Guy.

Series Order:

As is often the case, the American publisher renumbered the series differently for the domestic reprints. However, with the exception of the first installment, I’m told that adhering to strict series order is not required. The series order below is the best that the Spy Guys and Gals website could discern given the available data:

1. The Fall Guy (1972)
2. A Hard Man to Kill / Nowhere Man (1973)
3. Ticket to Ride (1973)
4. Holiday with a Vengeance (1974)
5. Your Money and Your Wife (1975)
6. One Good Death Deserves Another (1976)
7. Dead End (1977)
8. Dutch Courage (1978)
9. Bishop’s Pawn (1979)
10. Grand Slam (1980)
11. Fool’s Mate (1981)
12. Foul Up (1982)
13. Kolwezi (1985)

The author also published a 1991 novel called Comeback that many sources list as the 14th book in the Super Secret Agent Philis series. My research shows that the book stars an entirely different lead character who may or may not exist in the same universe. 

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Ex-Con (aka Free are the Dead)

Stuart Friedman (1913-1993) was a multi-genre author of the mid-20th century whose books often promised wild and abandoned sexuality but were, in reality, rather tame affairs. Many of his titles have found new life as modern reprints including his 1954 crime fiction novel, Ex-Con (original title: Free are the Dead), now available as a $3 ebook or $10 paperback from Wildside Press.

As the paperback opens, Charles Garrell is bummed that his devoted wife isn’t there to meet his train upon his arrival home. Charles has spent over three years in prison for a liquor store robbery motivated by extreme poverty, and Nora promised that she’d be there for him upon his release. He walks to their low-rent apartment to find Nora missing, but the table set for a welcome home meal. A thorough search of the place reveals no sign or Nora, but an inconveniently-placed corpse of a man in the bedroom closet. So much for a romantic homecoming.

The cops who locked up Charles for the robbery are hyper-aggressive and don’t take kindly to parolees in their town. As such, turning to the police for help on the missing wife problem or the dead guy in the closet problem is out of the question. Instead, he turns to underworld contacts he met during his stay in prison.

At a crooked casino run by a con-man, Charles runs into his wife’s Neitzsche-loving cousin-in-law, Sylvia. Because this is a Stuart Friedman novel, she’s also an S&M nymphomaniac with an eye on Charles, but he feels nothing but revulsion for her. She claims to know something about Nora’s disappearance, and the price for her help is sex. Meanwhile, Charles feels the need to pursue logical leads to find his missing bride and resolve the small issue of the dead corpse decomposing in his closet at home. The trajectory of the relationship between Charles and Sylvia was bizarre and not completely credible.

Charles also meets a hot little cocktail waitress named Cleo with an eye on Charles. Having been locked up for three years, Charles is understandably starved for a woman, and sweet Cleo is hot to trot. She’s presented as a kindhearted seductress without an agenda - completely the opposite of Sylvia. The quandary of Sexy Cleo vs. Missing Wife was set-up to be the central moral dilemma Charles must navigate while also solving the novel’s vexing mysteries. However, not much came of it. 

The search for Nora and the truth about the murdered man in the closet was pretty satisfying, but the ultimate solution left me cold. Can you enjoy a sexy mystery and dislike the punch line? If so, then you might enjoy Con-Man. It was a nice ride, but the destination just wasn’t to my taste.

Vince Slader #01 - The Long Night

Ovid Demaris (1919-1998) authored a number of crime-fiction novels that were based on his research into real-life organized crime. The author’s most successful books were his non-fiction accounts of actual Mafia operations. As such, it's no surprise that his novels including Hoods Take Over, Candyleg and The Organization revolve around the Syndicate's drug, gambling and prostitution rackets on the American West Coast. While I wasn't fond of Demaris' The Enforcer, I wanted to sample another of his mob novels. I chose The Long Night, originally published in 1959 and recently reprinted as an affordable ebook by NY Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg's Cutting Edge imprint. It's the first of two books starring quasi-private investigator Vince Slader, the other being 1960's The Gold Plated Sewer.

The Long Night features protagonist Vince Slader, a hard-nosed guy who works as a debt collector. Now, Slader isn't a debt collector that sits behind the phones and dials for dollars. Instead, really bad guys call on the really tough Slader to retrieve gambling debts and derogatory installment payments. In Beverly Hills, it's a business that is booming. Armed with an address and a .45, Slader's track record in the debt collection business is very good. He runs the operation under his license of private-investigator, and that business has now become scrutinized by two California Senators who are wise to Slader's violent business practices.

Despite being the target of a committee investigation, Slader takes on a new assignment of tracking down a gambling debtor named Russell. To retrieve him, he starts with questioning Russell's voluptuous wife Cindy. The intense question and answer session eventually leads to Slader getting laid, but it doesn't get him any closer to Russell or his dough. After digging in a little further, Russell is traced to a couple of beefy hit-men who want to protect the man for their own purposes.

The narrative takes an unexpected twist when Cindy dumps Slader on a rural stretch of California highway. It is there that Slader apparently is run over by a car belonging to Russell. But here's the mystery: Slader awakens at the bottom of a ravine behind the wheel of Russell's car. He is in possession of Russell's wallet and driver's license with no idea how he got there. After hearing a radio bulletin about Russell being carjacked, Slader realizes he's been set-up for armed robbery. The book's climactic second-half is a riveting narrative that follows Slader's investigation to clear his own name and find this mysterious Russell character.

My previous experience with Demaris was the soapy, teenage delinquent novel The Enforcer (1960). It was disguised as a gritty crime-fiction novel about a Mafia stranglehold but was really a uninspired episode of Melrose Place. The Long Night is a far more compelling story, one that is legitimately a gritty crime-fiction novel. Demaris inserts loud-mouthed, gambling kingpins into the narrative and saturates the prose with gunplay, fast cars and sexy women. The criminals are edgy, but the hero is a valid, uncompromising tough guy who serves as the perfect crime combatant. While Slader's goal is to recoup the money, the author weaves in a romantic side story as well as an interesting revelation of Slader's ex-wife who became a prostitute.

The Long Night is an enjoyable 1950s crime-fiction novel that retains most of the flavor of the genre's mid-century pioneers. If you are a fan of authors like Frank Kane and Mickey Spillane, The Long Night is sure to please.

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Perfect Pigeon

Richard Wormser (1908-1977) is another one of those authors who transitioned seamlessly from writing fiction for the pulp magazines to authoring page-turning novels at the advent of the paperback originals in the 1950s. Under his own name, crime and mystery was his primary bread-and-butter, but he also wrote Westerns under the pen name Ed Friend. Today, the focus is on his 1963 Fawcett Gold Medal crime novel Perfect Pigeon, which remains available as a $4 ebook - free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

As the novel opens, our narrator Mark Daniels has just completed a six-year stretch in the penitentiary for bank embezzlement. Daniels is a smart guy and the law never recovered the $250,000 he stole from the bank. His nonsense story was that the money was stolen from Mark after he fell asleep on a bus and no one could prove otherwise. Now a free man, Mark could sure use to get his hands on the stash of stolen dough. After all, he served six years for the right to enjoy that money, right? The problem is that Mark promised himself he’d wait three years before tapping into his cache of cash. Let the heat die down. Let the world forget.

Mark meets a hot chick named Columba (it’s Latin for pigeon) and beds her down to get back in the swing of things. He falls hard for her, but she’s gone like Cinderella after their motel date is over. Mark makes plans to find her again once he has some working capital. When she reappears later in the novel, it’s pure gold.

The job prospects for an ex-con are limited, and it’s not like Mark can go back to work as a bank teller. As such, he needs to support himself as a con-artist wracking up enough scores to keep food on the table and a roof over his head until he can access his hidden embezzlement proceeds. If you enjoy con-game stories, you’ll find the grifts in Perfect Pigeon to be quite satisfying.

Mark also falls in with a crew of ex-cons looking to score some cash by orchestrating some low-level scams. The problem is that these guys are hard-cases, and Mark is a white-collar kind of thief. The bigger problem is that the crew - and everyone else - believes that Mark has a quarter-million bucks squirreled away somewhere, and this molds the decisions that people make throughout the novel when interacting with Mark.

I wasn’t expecting Perfect Pigeon to be funny, but Mark - and, I can only assume, the author - are often hilarious. Moreover, Wormser is an all-around excellent writer who plotted this story like a roller coaster ride. The ending was a great twist that I should have seen coming but failed to recognize the clues.

Perfect Pigeon is one of the finest con-man novels I’ve read in ages. There are some slow parts, but it was an overall satisfying read at a nice price. Recommended. 

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Matt Helm #01 - Death of a Citizen

We don’t do by-lines here at Paperback Warrior. Your writers, Eric and Tom, generally speak with one voice in our articles and reviews. We edit each other’s work and rarely read the same books, so there’s little opportunity to disagree on a particular review. 

Until now.

Eric read Death of a Citizen, the first book in the popular Matt Helm series by Donald Hamilton and had an opinion that shocked and appalled Tom. Rather than disbanding the Paperback Warrior Empire or fist -fighting after school near the bike rack, we decided to emerge behind our curtain of anonymity and air our grievances publicly. 

May the best man win.

Non-Spoiler Plot Synopsis:

Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) was a popular mid-20th Century author whose greatest success was in the genre of spy fiction. In the 1940s and 1950s, the author wrote a number of stand-alone crime-fiction novels and westerns. His most prolific work is the successful Matt Helm series of spy-fiction novels that ran 27 published novels from 1960-1993. The series was loosely adapted into four comical films starring Dean Martin in the title role that no one should ever watch because they are awful and bear no resemblance to the book series.  Having enjoyed Hamilton's stand-alone novels, it was time to finally check out Matt Helm's first adventure in Death of a Citizen, the series debut. 

The novel introduces Matt Helm as a suburban husband and father living a quiet life in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1958. Helm has gained a bit of notoriety as a popular author of western novels (paralleling Hamilton's own career). It's at a neighborhood dinner party when Helm sees a fellow guest named Tina, creating the perfect moment for the author to add some backstory into this rather complex character.

Readers learn that Helm was in the U.S. Army during WW2 and was recruited into the government's counter-agent program. Think of an assassin killing enemy assassins, spies killing spies. Helm and Tina were both knee deep in dead enemies for a five-year period in war-torn Europe. As co-workers and lovers, the two went their separate ways after the war - Helm disappeared into everyday citizenship and Tina just disappeared. Until now. 

After a brief exchange with a young, aspiring novelist named Barbara, Helm departs the party only to find Barbara dead in his writing studio the next morning. Seemingly set up as the murderer, Helm is re-introduced to Tina who explains that Helm's atomic-scientist neighbor is the target of some sort of criminal conspiracy or communist nation. Tina and her new partner are in town to stop the would-be assassin – Barbara, the dead girl. Caught up in the crime and the old trade of killing, Helm is thrust back into his former life as ally and partner to Tina.

Eric’s Take:

Despite the novel's immense success and critical acclaim, I found Death of a Citizen to be an average spy-thriller. At 140-pages, nothing substantial happens during the novel's first-half. The narrative is presented as more of a road trip as Helm and Tina drive to Texas and rekindle that loving feeling (note - Helm is happily married to Beth and the father of three small children). With all the mileage, the story never really gains momentum once readers and the hero arrive at their destination. Aside from a few deaths, Helm isn't involved in much gunplay. I was a bit befuddled by the big reveal – the enemy is within – and Helm's dismissal of the most relevant portion of his life in the book's closing pages. 

I would assume the series gains quality with quantity and maybe the Helm character becomes a little more menacing in an international setting. The end result is an average beginning to what is widely considered an enjoyable series of spy-adventures. I'm anxious to read the series' next installment, The Wrecking Crew, to analyze series' improvements. 

Tom’s Take:

I think Eric misses the point in his review of Death of a Citizen, one of my favorite all-time novels that debuts my favorite series ever. 

I will grant that it’s not a balls-out action spectacular like Don Pendleton’s War Against the Mafia. There’s plenty of that to enjoy later in the series. Instead, Hamilton is giving us the story of a man who is an amoral killer by his very nature who can no longer wear the costume of a suburban family man. The circumstances of the novel force Helm’s hand into deciding who he wants to be – a meek husband and father or a trained killer. You can guess which way he swings. Matt Helm is the citizen in Death of a Citizen.

Death of Citizen is a brilliant novel because it explores the nature of a violent man who is done conforming with polite society’s expectations. Helm is a great narrator who presents his acts of violence and his slide back into his old life in an offhand and cavalier fashion. For instance, the most shocking scene in the book happens off-page and is revealed to the reader as an offhand remark in a single sentence. Donald Hamilton was a genius who knew when to throw his punches but also knew when the reader’s imagination could do the job better than his tightly-wound prose.

I hope Eric continues with the series – at least the first dozen books or so. The other paperbacks are more traditional spy-assassin books with more traditional plotting. Book two is called The Wrecking Crew, and I thought it was a masterpiece. The third book in the Matt Helm series, The Removers, ties up the loose ends from Death of a Citizen regarding Matt’s family. The Removers was not amazing, but I suspect that Hamilton needed to resolve the unresolved family issues from the debut.

Bottom line for Eric: Don’t give up on Matt Helm.

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Matthew Scudder #02 - Time to Murder and Create

Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series of crime-fiction novels began in 1976 with the successful The Sins of the Fathers. Over a 44-year span, the author has written 17 novels, a short-story collection and a novella starring the ex-New York City detective. Scudder is a tragically flawed staple of New York's Hell's Kitchen, an alcoholic nice guy performing good deeds for average citizens. Despite being released after 1976's In the Midst of Death, Block considers the 1977 novel Time to Murder and Create as the second installment in the Matthew Scudder series.

The book begins by introducing readers to a charismatic informant named Spinner. During Scudder's career in law-enforcement, Spinner often supplied details closely related to a crime or criminal suspect. Through that relationship, Spinner formed a trust for Scudder that is evident through Block's opening pages. In it, Spinner presents Scudder an envelope with an ominous set of directions to only open the package if Spinner ends up dead. Shortly thereafter, Spinner's corpse is fished out of the river and Scudder opens the envelope.

Skirting around any potential spoilers, Scudder learns that Spinner was collecting monthly installment payments from three individuals. The first is a wealthy, productive architect, the second is the seductive wife of a rich New York elitist and the third is a wealthy entrepreneur developing a political candidacy. What do the three have in common with Spinner and why are they each paying him money? Scudder's role is to determine which of the three debtors murdered Spinner.

Block's narrative is grossly compelling as Scudder learns the identities of each suspect and assumes Spinner's role as payee. By doing so, he purposefully makes himself a target for the killer. With tight-knuckled suspense, the investigation digs into the mortal turpitude of each debtor. As Scudder begins to understand the payments, he questions his own vulnerability. Again, without spoiling it, there's a brilliant complexity to Scudder's relationship with the architect. Scudder's own personal tragedy closely aligns with that portion of the narrative. The end result is another feather in the hat. Lawrence Block's Time to Murder and Create is a riveting, emotional reading experience with no clear-cut heroes or villains. It's an unbiased look at human behavior and the ultimate costs of our failure. Masterful.

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Mike Hammer #02 - My Gun is Quick

Hardboiled crime novels reached a new height of popularity in the late 1940s. Many scholars and fans point to Mickey Spillane as a catalyst for this pop-culture phenomenon. His debut novel, I, the Jury, was published in 1947 and became an instant runaway bestseller. The book introduced the world to the iconic Mike Hammer, a fictional private-investigator who pursues bad guys mostly in New York City. Hammer is known for his physical rough 'n tumble, unorthodox style gained from his U.S. Army experience in WWII. Hammer's closest friend is Pat Chambers, the Captain of Homicide in the NYPD. Hammer also has a continuous, flirtatious affair with his secretary Velda throughout the series. While I struggled to fully enjoy I, the Jury and found it rather flat, I wanted to attempt another Mike Hammer novel to see if it produced a different reading experience. My selection is the second installment, My Gun is Quick.

The novel begins with Mike Hammer having coffee at a neighborhood diner. An attractive, yet homely, woman takes a seat beside Hammer and asks if he’d buy her a coffee. Hammer, never turning away female companionship, obliges despite warnings from the diner's owner. After a brief conversation Hammer learns that the unnamed woman, who Hammer later refers to as Red, was probably in the prostitution game and is in a really bad place. Hammer feels a great deal of compassion for the nice woman and offers her some money to set her life on track. Happily, she thanks Hammer and the two go their separate ways. The next morning, Hammer learns that the woman was struck and killed by a drunk driver.

Hoping to help identify the woman, Hammer meets with Pat to examine the body. After finding some bruises and markings on the woman, Hammer suspects that she was actually murdered. Despite Pat's skepticism, Hammer starts investigating the woman's history and the events leading to her death after their chance meeting. The investigation takes Hammer into New York's call girl racket and a millionaire named Berin-Grotin. After Hammer learns about the girl's connection to one of Berin-Grotin's staff members, the wealthy businessman actually hires Hammer to investigate the murder further. Along the way, Hammer falls in love with a reformed call girl named Lola in some of the narrative's most effective scenes.

The first thing to know is that My Gun is Quick is a far superior novel to I, the Jury. While I'm sure Spillane and Hammer fans will disagree, Hammer is just way more dynamic in this novel. With I, the Jury, Mike Hammer is so deadpan. He's a gruff, loudmouthed detective that just came across as abrasive and crude. Further, in the series debut, Hammer really doesn't solve anything. Instead, the clues are nearly served to him on typewritten notes. Spillane's writing in My Gun is Quick provides so much texture to this character. Hammer is drawn to this unnamed woman with his client's voice is speaking to him from the grave. She's pleading for him to learn her identity and provide retribution for her death. The idea that Hammer may have caused her death by putting her back on the streets is just really clever writing. It's a brilliant, multifaceted narrative that has Hammer's pursuit of the killer as his own, personal attempt at forgiving himself.

My Gun is Quick is one of the best novels I've read of any genre. Mickey Spillane's masterful prose is saturated in gritty realism, emotional stress and a thick-laced, impending sense of doom throughout. If you read nothing else, please read this novel. My Gun is Quick is the quintessential masterpiece of hardboiled crime.

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On the Run

After 13-years of writing stand-alone hardboiled and crime noir novels, MacDonald's love for nautical adventure and the Florida Gulf Coast would logically evolve into a series character. Beginning in 1964, the author would embark on a 21-book series of nautical-crime books starring salvage-consultant Travis McGee. MacDonald's transition into the series mostly halted his stand-alone hardboiled-crime writing. In fact, 1963 proved to be one of the last few years that MacDonald would write multiple stand-alone novels. That year, he wrote a screenplay novelization called I'll Go on Singing and only two crime novels – The Drowner and On the Run. I decided to try out the latter title to determine if the author's crime-noir writing had declined by that point in his career.

On the Run introduces readers to a multimillionaire named Tom. At 90-years old, the feeble man has hired a private-investigator to track down his two estranged grandchildren – George and Sid. In backstory, the author reveals that both were taken from Tom in their early childhood. After their mother died, the two were placed into foster care and ultimately grew up apart from each other and their grandfather. With over $8-million to divvy up, Tom hopes to locate the two of them.

The first few chapters are dedicated to Sid's life as a soldier, used car salesman and husband. After learning that his wife had an affair with a high-level crime-kingpin, Sid assaults the man and leaves him facially scarred. Since the beating, Sid stays one step ahead of the mob and flees from town to town. It's a roadside life filled with deceit, booze and women. After learning Sid's whereabouts, Tom sends his nurse to Texas to summon Sid back home. In doing so, Tom opens the door for a mob assassin to track down Sid's location.

In alternating chapters, there's a backstory on George, a fairly one-dimensional character that's greedy and deceptive. Knowing about Sid's price tag to the mob, George is enthusiastic to meet Sid at their grandfather's house. Hoping to not only cash-in with the mob, George wants to get his hands on Sid's portion of their grandfather's inheritance.

In a rare misstep, John D. MacDonald creates a convoluted mess for the reader to follow. With having to explore both George and Sid's past, the interweaving characters didn't quite meld together as well as the author likely intended. At 140-pages, I could sense that MacDonald had some unused story ideas and just threw them together in an attempt at fluid storytelling. The pacing is off, there's minimum character development and the romantic narrative planned between Tom's nurse Paula and Sid was rushed and didn't feel organic.

On the Run suffers from misdirection, shallow characters and an uneven plot. With so many great MacDonald novels to choose from, your reading efforts would be better spent somewhere else. On the Run is disposable fiction.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 40

Episode 40 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast is our contentious “Women and Minorities” episode. If you can handle the heat, listen to the guys candidly discuss the work of Helen Nielsen, Amber Dean, Joseph Nazel, and Marc Olden. Be warned: This episode is sure to be highly controversial and may spark a worldwide boycott. If you dare, check it out on your favorite podcast app, stream below or download directly HERE:

Listen to "Episode 40: Women and Minorities" on Spreaker.

Carnival of Death

Beginning in 1949, Day Keene (real name Gunard Hjertstedt) wrote over 50 novels. Just four years before his 1969 death, his heist novel Carnival of Death was published by Macfadden-Bartell. It was reprinted in 2012 by Simon and Schuster imprint Prologue Crime as an affordable ebook. Despite my preference for his 1950s work, I found I owned a copy of this book and decided to sample Keene's late career output. Was it a good decision?

A Los Angeles man named Laredo once fought side by side with Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs. Losing a leg in the fight, now Laredo dresses like a clown and runs a trio of children's rides in a shopping plaza's parking lot. After appearing on a radio show hosted by Tom Daly, Laredo's tiny carnival finds itself besieged by bank robbing clowns. Let me explain...

An armored car parks in the shopping plaza to run change into a store. While there, one of the guards decides to grab a quick cup of pink lemonade from Laredo's wife. Within minutes he drops dead from an apparent poisoning. While the guard's co-worker is distracted with the spontaneous death, clowns descend out of nowhere and create a confusing spectacle. One clown shoots Laredo's maintenance man, another shoots a woman while holding a baby. Another hops in the car, retrieves all of the clowns and begins throwing thousands of dollars in cash out of the back door to the money-grabbing hordes. The end result leaves two people fatally shot, one man poisoned and Laredo and his wife accused of murder. And a bunch of carnival attendees rich from surviving this macabre Shooting Gallery.

After the police name Laredo as the chief suspect in the murders and bank heist, Tom Daly emerges as the novel's main character. After Laredo's appearance on Daly's show, the radio host feels that Laredo is too genuine to pull off a caper. He truly feels the man is innocent and teams up with his editor to solve the crime. The book's narrative finds the duo in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and even Big Bear Ski Resort chasing clues and suspects.

I don't think anyone would declare Carnival of Death a good representation of Day Keene's writing. The storyline was a bit flimsy in spots and really disregards the police and their roles in the investigation. I can't imagine that a crime of this size (with press and people swarming) would rely on two radio professionals to do all of the heavy lifting. The narrative was simply unconvincing in that regard. Like his 1952 novel Wake Up to Murder, Carnival of Death still possesses two of Keene's strongest genre tropes – repressed desires and sexual frustration. Aside from those strong points, the author is fairly complacent in drawing up the standard whodunit and inserting rather anonymous protagonists as heroes. You can do so much better than this late career entry from Day Keene.

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Sacketts #04 - Jubal Sackett

Deemed "America's Favorite Frontier Writer", Louis L'Amour's chronicle of the fictional Sackett family was a bestselling series. Beginning in 1960, the 17-book series is still held in high regard with fans of the western genre. While the novels focus on frontier life in the 1800s, the author began envisioning the Sackett family's early origins in England and America. Starting with 1974's "Sackett's Land", L'Amour wrote four novels that showcases the family's humble beginnings in the late 1500s through 1620. The fourth and final of these portfolio installments was "Jubal Sackett", published in 1985.

Both "Sackett's Land" and its successor, "To the Far Blue Mountains", feature Barnabas Sackett's expedition from England to eastern America. In "The Warrior's Path", Barnabas' sons Kin-Ring and Yance are the chief protagonists with much of the action taking place in America and the Caribbean Islands. While Barnabas' son Jubal is mentioned in these books, it is explained to readers that he was a loner and distanced himself from his family. Jubal was obsessed with exploring the far west and walking "where no white-man had ever wandered". It's only fitting that L'Amour dedicated a full-length novel to this fascinating character.

As the book opens, Jubal Sackett is hunting in an area that would later be called Tennessee. After a brief attack by an Indian, Jubal generously welcomes the brave to dine with him. The man introduces himself as Keokotah, a Kickapoo native. After learning Jubal's name, Keokotah informs him that his father Barnabas was killed in battle. The two become friends and decide to journey into the “Far Seeing Lands” west of the Mississippi River. On the journey, the two educate each other on hunting, rituals and their family history. L'Amour centers these exchanges as a focal point for much of the paperback’s first-half.

Later, the two journeymen meet a tribe of Natchee that ask Jubal for a favor. Their tribe's high priestess, Itchakomi, has left the fold and is desired by one of their chief warriors, an arrogant man named Kapata. The Natchee feel that if Jubal is headed further west, he will find Itchakomi and can ask her to return home to marry Kapata. Jubal eventually meets Itchakomi and the two fall in love. The author's second-half portrays Jubal's defense of Itchakomi from Kapata but also warring factions from Spain.

In a lot of ways, this novel's second-half resembles “To the Far Blue Mountains” in the way that Jubal and his allies build and defend a fort. As the waves of attacks descend on Jubal's home, it's reminiscent of the British pirates and warlike tribes that Barnabas fought that will seem a little familiar to the reader.

At 350+ pages, there's an epic feel to the novel as readers experience many seasons with Jubal, including hunting, expanding his circle of friends and allies, and contending with nature's harsh oppression in high altitudes. With exciting hand-to-hand skirmishes with Indians, blade duels with the Spanish and fierce combat with savage animals, “Jubal Sackett” is the quintessential wilderness tale. I highly recommend all four of these early Sackett adventures, but place this one just a little higher than “The Warrior's Path” in terms of epic escapism. In the book's closing notes, L'Amour explained to readers that more early Sackett adventures were to follow, including the family's participation in America's Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Sadly, L'Amour passed away in 1988 and was unable to continue his storytelling. What remains is a powerful testament to America's early exploration and strong independence.

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Enter Without Desire

Enter Without Desire from 1954 was the fourth published novel from Ed Lacy whose real name was Leonard Zinberg (1911-1968). The paperback was originally released by Avon, and has been reprinted several times since then. It remains available today as an ebook for 99 cents from an outfit called Grotto Pulp Fiction. I’ve always enjoyed Lacy’s work and recently came into possession of a dollar. As such, I decided to download the novel into my Kindle and give it a shot.

As the story begins, Marshal Jameson is a failing artistic sculptor who leaves his reclusive Long Island shack and hitchhikes to New York City on New Years Eve looking for some fun and companionship. To get out of the cold drizzle, Marshal joins the studio audience of a radio game show. He’s selected to be a contestant and paired up with a beautiful audience member named Elma to answer questions on the air in exchange for a cash prize. Thankfully, the author shares with the reader that Elma has big breasts.

As paperback “meet-cute” gambits go, this one is pretty good. Together, Marshal and Elma win a pile of cash on the radio show and decide to spend New Year’s Eve together. Having not been around a woman in months, Elma really gets Marshal’s body chemistry bubbling. Flush with winnings, the couple decides to spend New Years Eve together, and Marshal (as well as the author and the reader) falls madly in love with Elma. The majority of the novel is a very mainstream and nice romance story (albeit from a completely male perspective), and only because this is an Ed Lacy book was I certain that things would eventually get seriously dark.

The plot with Elma takes a pause for sizable flashbacks giving the reader a little more history of Marshal the sculptor’s life before he discovered clay back when he was a young ad-man. Fans of the TV show “Mad Men” will enjoy this segment. His service in WW2 and the war’s aftermath is the focus of another long flashback that brings us forward in time to the fateful New Years Eve when Marshal met Elma.

Be forewarned that the paperback’s first two-thirds is almost devoid of any crime, action, or suspense. The author drops a couple hints along the way about where this is heading as Elma mentions her estranged husband. The book’s second half jumps around in time until the full picture becomes clear to the reader. The last third is a rather compelling crime story about a murder and its tricky aftermath.

To be clear, I loved, loved, loved this book. However, I recognize it’s only a crime novel in the broadest sense of the word. The first person narration was really well-done, and the story of Marshal and Elma is fantastic relationship drama. Basically, Enter Without Desire is a mainstream novel that evolves into a compelling crime-story with a twisty, violent climax. As long as you know what you are getting, you’re likely to enjoy this book as much as I did. Recommended. 

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Sacketts #03 - The Warrior's Path

Famed frontier storyteller Louis L'Amour had a successful series of westerns starring various members of the Sackett family. While positioning most of these novels in the 1800s, L'Amour's later installments presented the family's early history. Beginning in 1974, L'Amour released Sackett's Land, chronologically the first Sackett story. Set between 1599-1620, the book introduces readers to Barnabas Sackett and his early exploration into America. Continuing Barnabas' story, To the Far Blue Mountains was released in 1976 and slowly transforms the series emphasis from Barnabas to his sons. In 1980, The Warrior's Path was released with the primary focus on Barnabas' sons Kin-Ring and Yance circa 1630.

The opening chapters find Kin-Ring and Yance in northeastern America. The two have been summoned by a small village to track the whereabouts of two young women. Fearing the girls were kidnapped by Indians, Kin-Ring pairs up with longtime allies, the Catawba tribe, to search for the missing girls. Surprisingly, Kin-Ring discovers that Indians weren't behind the girls' disappearance.

After a skirmish with Joseph Pittingel, the Sacketts learn that he is behind a robust slave-trading enterprise that focuses on kidnapping young white women and then selling them in the Caribbean islands. This portion of the narrative provides an opportunity for L'Amour to revisit the swashbuckling adventure aspect that made the prior books so much fun. After traveling to Jamaica, Kin-Ring embarks on a quest to not only retrieve the girls but to find the buyers. While using swords, knives and black powder, Kin-Ring bravely attempts to stop the slave-trading business at its source.

It is unfair to compare this novel to Sackett's Land or To the Far Blue Mountains. Lightning struck twice for L'Amour as both of those are some of the best literary works you'll find – of any genre. But, that winning formula doesn't quite carry over to The Warrior's Path. 

Kin-Ring is written with the same basic attributes as Barnabas...but something is just missing. I didn't quite grasp a firm connection with the character. Despite the book's sprawling locations, it didn't have the epic feel that the prior books conveyed so well. 

Nevertheless, this is an entertaining adventure novel and would probably be held in higher regard if not for the prior novels. I'm looking forward to reading the fourth and final novel of the Sacketts' early history, Jubal Sackett, in hopes that the author finally places the frontier action west of the Mississippi River. As a fan of wilderness survival tales, I'm hoping that book excels and makes up for my lukewarm reception to The Warrior's Path.

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Counterspy #01 - Apostles of Violence

Beginning in 1955, French author Maurice Gabriel Brault (1912-1984) began writing espionage novels under the pseudonym M.G. Braun starring French Secret Service Agent Al Glenne. The series was wildly popular and went on for around 75 installments over the next 24 years. Between 1962 and 1966, four books from the series were translated into English and released by Berkley as the Counterspy series. So, while 1962’s Apôtres De La Violence is the 25th installment in the French Al Glenne novels, Apostles of Violence is #1 in the English language Counterspy series.

As the novel opens, our hero and narrator, Al Glenne, is in Caracas, Venezuela visiting another French special agent named Theo who is stationed there with sexy Latinas serving his every need. However, this is no vacation. A satellite equipped with a deadly laser weapon belonging to either the Americans or the Russians (the French aren’t certain) has crashed in the Venezuelan jungle. Al and Theo need to recover the space weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Theo sent for Al because if his experience in jungle fighting, and also because Al is the star of the book series.

Theo explains to Al (and the reader) that it’s important for France to find out whether the satellite belongs to the Americans or Russians. Meanwhile, French scientists are 15 years behind in the field of laser technology. If Al and Theo can bring back the laser, the French will be able to catch up within a few short months. The presumption is that the Americans, the Russians, and the Brits are all aware of the fallen satellite’s location, and the race is on to find it first.

After reading a lot of American and British spy novels, it’s interesting to read one in which the hero is looking after the self-interest of a completely other country. The French team of Al and Theo parachute into the jungle, find the
satellite crash site, and begin their dangerous journey back to safety. The gunfire in the distance gives them no sense of comfort that it’s going to be a simple trip. Even scarier, are the Venezuelan Indians living in the woods shooting arrows at everything that moves.

As you might expect, the French team encounters a voluptuous Brazilian girl to be their guide through the jungle to the crash site. As they encounter teams from other countries, it’s the Americans who behave like aggressive jackasses. This may bother some American readers, but I found it very interesting and allowed for the idea that not every American behaves in a righteous and honorable manner at all times. As the multi-national group begins being murdered one-by-one, it’s up to Al to get to the bottom of the situation, so he’ll be alive to star in future series installments.

American readers will be tempted to compare Counterpsy to another long-running, popular French series with limited English paperback reprints: the Malko books by Gerard de Villiers. While Malko books are more cloak and dagger espionage adventures, Braun’s Apostles of Violence is a much simpler jungle combat story with a genuine mystery woven into the plot. The Counterspy books are narrated by Al Glenne, and that first person combat-based mission recalled Peter McCurtin’s Soldier of Fortune series. I’d also favorably compare the series to Edward Aarons’ Assignment series starring Sam Durrell.

At 143 big-font pages, Apostles of Violence wasn’t a heavy lift. It was an action-packed, very straightforward, and linear paperback with very little character development or emotional flab. The translation was so smooth that you’d never know it was originally written in French. The heroes were plenty heroic and the villains were heels, and the novel was a lot of fun to read. Best of all, the paperback had a killer twist ending that no one will ever see coming. Overall, I liked it quite a bit, I intend to acquire and read the three other English reprints in the series. Recommended.

Fun Fact:

The English translations of the Counterspy novels are credited to Ralph Hackett, but this is a pseudonym for the real translator, Lowell Blair. In the middle of the 20th century, Blair was a busy guy translating important works of French literature into English, including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m guessing that he regarded the Counterspy paperbacks as beneath his austere talents, so he performed the translation under a fake name? The actual rationale for this decision is a secret lost to the ages.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to the always excellent Spy Guys and Gals website for providing the background on this series.

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The Key

The fiction of Cleve Adams (1895-1949) first appeared in pulp magazines like Double Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly. Beginning in 1940, Adams launched a seven-book series of private-eye novels starring Rex McBride. He also authored two novels starring private-eye John Shannon as well as a two-book series of mysteries starring Bill Rye (published under the pseudonym John Spain). The author also wrote a handful of stand-alone, hardboiled crime novels and a number of short stories. One of those, "The Key", was featured in the July 1940 issue of Black Mask and collected in the 2010 collection The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories.

"The Key" stars Canavan, a tough-as-nails police lieutenant working the beat in Los Angeles. After bringing a thug into Night Court, Canavan spots an attractive young woman named Hope who seemingly doesn't belong with the night's typical lot of thieves, prostitutes and miscreants. After paying her $8 fine for skipping out of a restaurant tab, Canavan offers to drive Hope back to the hotel where she resides. It's on this drive that Hope confesses to Canavan that she was to meet a man at the diner but he didn't show. Her belongings were apparently stolen from her room, including her meal money. Canavan, feeling pity for the young woman, escorts her to her hotel room only to awaken a few hours later with a knot on his head, his wallet missing and Hope nowhere to be found. Literally.

Canavan believes Hope is attached to something other than just petty theft. After chasing her trail, the police lieutenant runs into a Syndicate goon named Kolinski who may be behind the murder of Hope's brother. After learning that Hope may be on the run from her brother's killer, Canavan defies the law and finds himself as a wanted fugitive. In attempting to find Hope, Canavan hopes to prove his innocence as the corpses pile up.

This was a rather odd whodunit with a number of nonsensical scenes involving Canavan searching for clues. There's Kolinksi's racket of running a protection association for morticians begging them question: were mortuaries frequently robbed and vandalized in the 1940s? The idea of a “key to solve the murder” is an old genre trope that even feels over utilized for the time period. At six chapters, the novella moves briskly and Canavan is a believable hero. Everything else wasn't. Overall, "The Key" was an enjoyable albeit average mystery that left me curious to read more of Cleve Adams' literary work.

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Spenser #03 - Mortal Stakes

Robert B. Parker authored a whopping 40 installments of his Spenser series of private-eye novels. The series was adapted for television in 1985 and consisted of 66 total episodes starring Robert Ulrich as the satirical Boston detective. In 1999, Joe Mantegna played the character in three made-for-television films. In 2020, Netflix released a film version entitled Spenser Confidential. It was based loosely on the 2010 novel written by Ace Atkins, an author that Parker's estate hired to continue the Spenser series. The character was portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, a baffling choice largely panned by critics. After enjoying the series debut, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), and its follow-up God Save the Child (1974), I just knew that the series third installment, Mortal Stakes (1975), would be another fantastic entry.

In Mortal Stakes, the general manager of a fictional Boston Red Sox team, Erskine, hires Spenser to investigate their star pitcher Marty Rabb. Erskine feels that Rabb has been on the take to purposefully lose games. Erskine requests that Spenser go undercover as a sportswriter to investigate Rabb's possible gambling scheme. Once Spenser accepts and spends a few days spectating in the dugout and press box, a ruthless shylock named Doerr warns Spenser to back out of the job. Thankfully, the threat just encourages Spenser to dig deeper.

The investigation leads Spenser into rural Illinois where he discovers Rabb's wife isn't who she claims to be. The two may not even be married. Further, all evidence suggests that Rabb's wife was a former prostitute and performed in an adult movie. After digging up the dirt in Illinois, Spenser dives headfirst into the prostitution racket in New York City while contending with an unlikely enemy – a Red Sox radio announcer named Maynard. How Rabb, his wife, Maynard and Doerr are connected is that paperback’s central story. Like the previous installments, the author counters the suspense and tension with Spenser's condescending, satirical quips. In a lot of ways, Spenser is a far superior improvement to Richard Prather's iconic Shell Scott. Spenser is a smooth, real cool jock whereas Shel Scott is a chuckle-headed, unbelievable farce. Both are enjoyable.

In many ways, Mortal Stakes turns a corner in the series. By the end of this novel, Spenser has become a changed man. More violent, less calm. His patience is replaced with anger. While always fueled to fight, the book's fiery finale thumbs the Zippo and throws it into the fumes. Spenser's violent actions are matched only by his own weighty guilt, a balance that's emotionally sparked during a counseling session with love interest Susan Silverman.

I think the more abrasive evolution is effectively captured in one of the book's scenes. Spenser routinely packs his .38 Special revolver in a shoulder rig. By the book's end, Spenser reaches for a shotgun and rams five shells in. It's this scene that's just as important as the novel's climactic  firefight because it illustrates the evolution of the character. In reading these books in order, I'm curious to see if that same stony intensity prevails in future installments. I'm hopeful. Mortal Stakes was a riveting, explosive chapter in this long-running series. Highly recommended.

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Bullet Proof

Amber Dean (real name Amber Dean Getzin, 1902-1985) was a New York native that authored 17 mystery novels between 1944 and 1973. One of the author's most consistent characters was that of Abbie Harris, a nosy amateur detective that debuted in 1944's Dead Man's Float. The seven-book series features Harris solving mysteries and assisting police in and around Rochester, New York. My first experience with Amber Dean is a stand-alone novel entitled Bullet Proof, published in 1959 by Popular Library.

In the novel's opening chapter, Jac Constable and his wife Betty are talking with New York State Police regarding a possible male voyeur that was spotted in their vineyard. When the police depart after failing to locate the perpetrator, Jac spots the man in a nearby bush. After a confusing sequence of events, Betty calls the police to return to the house. But too little too late. Betty is shot and killed by the lunatic hiding in the bushes.

Next, this opening sequence is replayed again from the perspective of the lunatic in the bushes, a 16-year old named Henry Muslim. Muslim has escaped from a nearby juvenile delinquent facility called Diligence and spent the last two nights sleeping in the basement of an abandoned house. After stealing a .22 rifle, Muslim is driven by the need for attention. He isn't fueled by adolescent rage, sex or money. He simply wants to be chased. In alternating chapters, the book changes perspective from Muslim to various law enforcement officers. But, the book's main character is Jac Constable's sexy secretary Hallie Brown.

The author forces readers to spend a great deal of time in the headspace of Hallie. These sequences are saturated with Hallie's lust for Jac, her flirtation with a local cop and daydream segments where Hallie is embraced by a husky cop and taken to an Alaskan cabin. As a fan of hardboiled, vintage crime-fiction that features tough cops and ruthless killers, the author's lovey-dovey approach to storytelling wasn't exactly the narrative promised by the book's inspiring cover. Eventually (I mean page 80 of 124-pages), Hallie is kidnapped by Muslim but the two never actually engage in dialogue. In fact, Muslim ties her up and leaves. The end.

I'm sure Amber Dean is a fine mystery author and has her share of cozy mystery fans. Based on my experience with Bullet Proof, I'm not one of them. Her method of saddling the storytelling on a number of characters was confusing and took me out of the story. After a shocking opening chapter, the rest of the book just waddles in mediocrity as Muslim peeps on residents, sits at a drive-in movie and tinkers with a car. Hallie is wasted as an overbearing sex goddess that remains tied in a chair for most of the book's hectic finish. The cops are clueless while the author pitches a surprise swerve at the end.

Bullet Proof was a dreadful reading experience and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. If you have to own this book due to its vivid cover, please entertain purchasing a copy of it HERE.

Lou Largo #01 - All I Can Get

Before his untimely death at the age of 38 in 1960, William Ard was on a roll writing popular mystery fiction under his own name as well as the Buchanan westerns under the pseudonym Jonas Ward. Ard’s demise interrupted his Lou Largo series of hardboiled private eye novels, but the character lived on through later installments written by ghost writers Lawrence Block and John Jakes before they became famous. Ard’s first two Lou Largo novels are expensive collector’s items, but they have been reprinted in a single volume by Ramble House Books providing an affordable opportunity to enjoy the 1959 opening installment, All I Can Get.

Largo is a charming and wisecracking Manhattan private investigator with a difficult client: a wealthy media mogul named Milton Weston. Largo is hired to perform a background check on Mr. Weston’s new infatuation - a gold-digging chippy that he intends to make his eighth wife. The tycoon is thoroughly uninterested in hearing the truth about the party girl and refuses to pay Largo’s fee at a time when Largo’s reserve funds are running thin.

Ard begins the Lou Largo debut in a fun, lighthearted style that recalls the Carter Brown mysteries featuring over-the-top, wealthy eccentrics who Largo is forced to endure for business and economic reasons. And then things take a very clever turn. Nothing is as it seems in the opening act of this deceptively simple novel. Through a non-linear storyline with early-novel flashbacks and flash-forwards reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the reader is treated to the story behind the story, and we learn that Largo has a little deception in his heart as well regarding the girl. This early-plot twist catapults All I Can Get from a simple, lighthearted crime novel into something bordering on brilliant. And sexy. 

While never veering into pornography or graphic descriptions of lovemaking, All I Can Get was surprising explicit for a 1959 novel. I couldn’t imagine sex scenes like this in 1952 as the world apparently just wasn’t ready at that point. Seven years later, here we are. The sex scenes work because they have real context and help to explain the decisions the characters make throughout this well-crafted paperback.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the doomed romance between the millionaire and the sexpot is actually the subplot, not the main dish. The real story involves the Cuban syndicate based out of Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood and a newspaper rivalry in a nearby beach town. Lou Largo isn’t even present for a large part of the book’s second act. But sure enough, Ard weaves these threads into the early-novel story of Largo, Mr. Weston and his new fiancé. All of this leads to a genuinely exciting and violent conclusion.

This is a tough book to review because I don’t want to spoil anything for you. If you enjoy crime fiction and can appreciate truly exceptional writing in the genre, you’re bound to be pleased with All I Can Get. It’s as if Ard took a close look at the dumb-but-fun private-eye sub-genre (think Richard Prather’s Shell Scott books) and asked himself “How can I turn this formula on its ear, and make it something that transcends the genre?”

Ard writes in a style popularized by Ed McBain in his 87th Precinct series. Basically, it’s a third-person narration with doses of personality and commentary sprinkled into the action with the omniscient point of view. It makes for a fun read, and Ard’s humorous narrative quips are a delight. It gives the reader the sense that you’re in good hands with Ard as your tour guide on this twisty paperback ride.

The downside is that Ard is considered to be a “collectible” author by the types of people who buy vintage paperbacks, encase them in plastic, and never read a word. Thank heavens Ramble House has compiled the first two books in the series into a single trade paperback volume titled Calling Lou Largo, which you can purchase HERE. However you get your hands on a reading copy of All I Can Get, please do so. It’s something special.

Addendum

Lou Largo Series Order and True Authors:

1. All I Can Get (1959) by William Ard
2. Like Ice She Was (1960) by William Ard
3. Babe in the Woods (1960) by Lawrence Block
4. Make Mine Mavis (1961) by John Jakes
5. And So to Bed (1962) by John Jakes
6. Give Me This Woman (1962) by John Jakes

Johnny Killain #03 - Doom Service

Before his popular Earl Drake series of heist adventures, Dan J. Marlowe authored a five-book series of hotel detective novels. Beginning with the 1959 debut, Doorway to Death, Marlowe introduced Johnny Killain, a brawny WW2 veteran who works nights at the Hotel Duarte in New York City. The author's consistent cast of characters includes Sally, the building's switchboard operator who also serves as Killain's main squeeze. I was thrilled with the series first two installments and I have been anxious to read the third entry, Doom Service (1960).

In the book's opening chapter, Killain receives a call from a bartender at the Rollin' Stone Tavern asking for him to pick up “his boy”. Readers quickly learn that the boy is Sally's brother Charlie, a young and successful boxer. Earlier in the night, Charlie experienced his first loss in a high-profile bout. Many think the match was fixed and that getting knocked-out in the sixth round was actually a high-priced dive. Killain finds Charlie nearly dead drunk at the bar and offers to take him home. However, two armed thugs barge into the bar and Charlie is fatally shot.

Readers follow Killain as he backtracks the events leading up to Charlie's boxing loss. In doing so, Killain stumbles upon the lucrative gambling circuit and a high-roller named Manfredi. Killain learns that Charlie was supposed to lose in the fourth round and that Manfredi had lost a fortune on the fight. Adding to the confusion is Sally's discovery that Charlie was holding over $100K in his bank deposit book. Was this a payout to lose in the fourth or sixth round? Did someone “re-fix” the fight for the sixth round to throw Manfredi? The answer is buried in a cast of boxing characters from referees to fight veterans, from ringside doctors to journalists. By attempting to solve Charlie's murder, Killain exposes the city's core of corruption.

Despite its silly name, Doom Service was an iron-fisted, hardboiled crime novel that should appeal to fans of the “no nonsense” approach of Mickey Spillane. There's crooked guys, shady ladies and a lot of tough guy, knuckle-up negotiations. Marlowe spends a few chapters revealing the intricacies of Sally's inheritance in terms of IRS regulations, estate taxes and monetary penalties. I'm guessing that Marlowe wrote this in the midst of settling his wife's estate – she died in 1957 – or this was simply an exercise to reveal what he learned from the experience. It felt a little out of place, but eventually circles back to the central story and ties in to Charlie's possession of the funds.

Doom Service is on par with the first two Johnny Killain novels although I would be remiss if I didn't criticize the author's setting of the story. I enjoyed the prior books due to Killain working inside of the hotel, not out of it. This novel puts more emphasis on Killain as a private-eye, including romps with a sexy secretary and a lounge act singer. I think I prefer Killain solving mysteries involving dead guests or murder inside the hotel. Nevertheless, Doom Service delivered high-quality goods right to my doorstep.

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Detour to Death

Female authors are rather underrepresented at Paperback Warrior (nothing personal, ladies!), so we put our feelers out for book recommendations of hardboiled vintage crime fiction by women. One name that kept popping up was Helen Nielsen (1918-2002), a popular mystery author of the 1950s and 1960s who also wrote TV episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Perry Mason. My introduction to her work was the 1953 paperback, Detour to Death (also released as just Detour). The novel remains available today as a cheap ebook and audiobook - both free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Danny Ross is an 18 year-old drifter hitchhiking south from Chicago in search of a fresh start. He gets a ride with a kindly physician named Dr. Gaynor who needs to make a quick detour in the small town of Mountain View where the doc has patients among the locals. After a brief visit at the town’s diner, the Doc heads back to his car where Danny finds him minutes later murdered from a blow to a head. All in all, it’s a pretty basic setup for a pretty standard whodunnit.

Because Danny is both a stranger in town and the one who found the bludgeoned doctor, he’s immediately the prime suspect for the murder and detained pending further police investigation (i.e. beatings). Fortunately, two attorneys - one a drunk and the other an accomplished trial lawyer - team up to investigate the matter to learn the truth. This leads to some astonishingly unrealistic scenes of investigative procedures in which the attorney drags along both the sheriff and Danny to examine the crime scene and interview witnesses in a handful of scenes that defy any understanding of basic law enforcement operations.

While Nielsen could craft a decent mystery with solid prose, she introduces way, way too many characters for a 192 page book. I get that it’s a small town and a lot of people are suspects with varying motives, but I needed a Game of Thrones-style org chart to keep track of the townsfolk, their alliances, and their grievances.

Back to the woman-thing, Nielsen made some narrative choices that I think her male contemporaries would have done way differently. For example, the sheriff beats Danny to a bloody pulp to elicit a confession, but this was done off-page. Does anyone think that author Dan J. Marlowe would have passed up the opportunity to chronicle every nose-crushing blow? There were other examples where Nielsen pulled punches - both literally and figuratively - that serve to make the novel rather soft-boiled.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Detour to Death was just a paint-by-numbers mystery whodunnit. Nielsen could clearly write well enough, but her plotting in this one was a real snooze. Seeing the shortcomings of Detour to Death through a gendered prism may not be fair to other female authors, but we also shouldn’t be grading this softball of a novel on a curve just because the writer was a lady. There were certainly plenty of crappy crime novels written by both men and women in the 1950s. I was just hoping for something better given Nielsen’s reputation for quality. 

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