The Girl in the Trunk

Bruce Cassiday (1920-2005) wrote books in nearly every genre, but it’s his crime and mystery fiction that have stood the test of time and inspired reprints from modern publishers. Case in point: the Bold Venture Press re-release of his 1973 police procedural, The Girl in the Trunk.

The entire paperback takes place over about 12 hours in Honolulu, Hawaii. Jim Egan is a brutal but effective white Honolulu Police detective who’s always ready to bruise his knuckles on a mugger’s jaw. For Egan, it’s less about his professional duty and more about revenge. Years ago, his wife was raped and knifed in front of his house in Waikiki. Since then, the detective has never been the same and finds himself in a perpetual Dirty Harry mode.

Meanwhile, Ki Auna is a young and handsome undercover Hawaiian cop with a personal charm, high IQ, and ability to build rapport that makes him successful. He’s also terrified of the ocean, which presents a real life obstacle when you live on an island surrounded by the churning sea. When Egan and Ki are paired up to investigate a major embezzlement from a local import-export company, we find ourselves in a typical buddy-cop story where two opposite personalities work towards a logical solution with plenty of cultural tension in the mix.

At the paperback’s outset, an undersea earthquake in Chile triggers a set of tsunami waves working their way west across the Pacific Ocean headed for Hawaii (Reviewer Note: This happens frequently in real life. Most of the time, it’s a false alarm. In 1960, it was deadly). The killer tidal wave headed for Hawaii gives Cassiday the opportunity to ratchet up the tension with an impending doomsday scenario humming in the background among the police procedural stuff.

But what about the girl in the trunk? The cover promised a naked blonde corpse in the back of a sedan. What gives? Well, that happens as well, but it takes a few chapters for the financial crime caper to evolve into a dead naked lady story. Is the embezzler also a lady killer? Or is something more sinister afoot? It’s up to Egan and Ki to solve the crime and catch the bad guy before Oahu is washed away by a tidal wave.

The author throws a variety of subplots including one involving the chief of detectives whose daughter embraces the counter-culture of Hawaiian sovereignty and the hippie grifters fronting the movement. Meanwhile, Egan’s brutal treatment of Waikiki muggers is stirring up controversy with the local newspaper that the department doesn’t need. The ensemble cast assembled reminded me of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct meets Hawaii Five-O.

To his credit, Cassiday gets Honolulu culture and topography pretty accurate with all the right landmarks in all the right places. He also does a commendable job of profiling the mixed-plate of various ethnicities comprising Hawaii’s local populous. Honolulu’s real urban problems - muggings, poverty and racial unrest - were spot-on, and the paperback never falls into the trap of overplaying the focus on beach culture with cartoonish Hawaiian characters. Somehow, Cassiday grasped local culture with great accuracy.

A few years ago, I read and reviewed a 1957 Bruce Cassiday paperback called The Buried Motive that I felt was sub-par. I’m glad I gave the author another shot as The Girl in the Trunk is a far superior novel in every way. It’s a well-written murder mystery, police procedural, tropical island adventure, and disaster novel rolled into 189 pages. What’s not to like?

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Girl on the Beach

We've covered two prior novels by Bruce Cassiday, one stand-alone book, The Girl in the Trunk, and The Buried Motive, the first of two Cash Madigan novels featuring a Manhattan bonding investigator. Cassiday was a versatile writer that transitioned from the pulps to writing paperback originals in crime-noir, science-fiction, and gothics. I discovered a sleaze novel titled Girl on the Beach that Cassiday authored using the pseudonym of Max Day. The book was published by Beacon in 1960 and remains out of print at the time of this writing. 

The novel is set on the shores of fictional Seahaven, Connecticut (probably based on West Haven), specifically a makeshift two-story studio house brooding over Long Island Sound. Artist Shad Crispin makes a mediocre living selling his paintings to the local art community and trusts his business affairs to a sneaky agent. Shad is in a relationship with Cynthia, an independently wealthy woman who met him at his easel in Central Park and quickly installed him in Seahaven as her boy-toy. He lives and sleeps at the studio and Cynthia lives at her Village apartment. It works.

One frosty foggy night Shad sees a golden-haired girl laying on the beach and runs out to help her. After the thawing out, the gorgeous girl introduces herself as Lissa Cloud from the Iowa cornfields. Her explanation of swimming in the cold ocean at night is sketchy at best, but Shad goes with it. Obviously, there's a temptation here to jump little Lissa's bones, but Shad does the respectable thing and places her in the guest bedroom. Through the paper-thin wall, Cassiday enticingly describes Lissa's sexy unclothing to readers. Soon Shad awakens from the brink of sleep to find the vixen in his bed, confessing she is a virgin, and begging for love. Shad pisses himself off by throwing her in the guest bed and locking the door. 

The next morning Shad awakens to find that his sea nymph has disappeared. But, she took the opportunity to destroy his portfolio of nude paintings. Shad wants to know who the girl is and begins making a mini-investigation into her history. This is where things get interesting – Lissa may be a figment of Shad's imagination. Unable to corroborate his story, both his agent and lover believe that Shad made the whole thing up due to mental exhaustion. Instead of finding a detective, they begin searching for a psychiatrist. But, Shad later experiences another run-in with Lissa and begins to think she could be real.

I liked this crafty cozy mystery and enjoyed Cassiday's ability to transition nicely from a very tepid romance into a full-fledged crime-noir. Granted, there isn't a lot of locales trekked through the narrative, but I never became bored with the confined studio and tight atmosphere. The narrative's positioning in this small dwelling made the mystery aspect feel intimate. I also found Lissa – or the idea of Lissa – just sexy as Hell. 

Girl on the Beach isn't going to be anyone's literary mantle piece, but you could do a lot worse. Read the book for free HERE.

Cash Madigan #01 - The Buried Motive

Bruce Cassiday was one of those authors who transitioned nicely from the pulp magazines to paperback original novels in the 1950s. He wrote a few Flash Gordon books in the 1970s and a host of other genre novels under an army of pseudonyms. He also wrote a biographies of Dinah Shore and Betty Ford, if that’s your bag. For awhile, he served as the fiction editor for Argosy Magazine and the brains behind many of their “book bonus” features.

Cassiday also authored two crime novels in the “Cash Madigan” series (if two books can even be called a series) - both released in 1957. One was half of an Ace Double titled “The Buried Motive” and the other was “While Murder Waits,” published by Graphic Books. The intended series order probably doesn’t matter, so I am hereby declaring “The Buried Motive” as Cash Madigan #1.

Cash is a Manhattan “bonding investigator,” a career that surprisingly doesn’t require a leather vest or a ball gag. Instead, he investigates employee embezzlements for a big company that insures employers against such losses. Cash’s job is to chase down the embezzler and recover enough stolen money to make his employer whole after the claim is paid. He’s basically a collection agent for an insurance company.

“The Buried Motive” assignment brings him to the small farming town of Gotham, Missouri to meet with an informant. The stool pigeon has info to provide Cash regarding the whereabouts of an embezzler who disappeared with $200,000 in payroll funds from a New York manufacturing company insured by Cash’s employer.

Upon Cash’s arrival in town, he reports to the trailer of his informant only to find that someone has butchered him with a carving knife. Although the logical suspect is the missing embezzler, Cash is quickly arrested for the stoolie’s murder. A baloney alibi from the town cutie springs him from police custody, but Cash remains in town to solve the murder, find the embezzler, and recover the missing dough.

Cash is a stereotypical wisecracking, tough-guy private eye in the mold of Shell Scott or Mike Hammer. The first-person narration is easy to read and follow, and Cassiday’s plotting is solid, if unremarkable. The mystery was pretty basic and nothing you haven’t read before. There’s murder and blackmail and deceit and missing money and if you haven’t read a warehouse of private eye paperbacks already, “The Buried Motive” will seem fresh and interesting. However, if you read a lot of these types of books, you’ll probably find this one to be just an average outing.

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Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 71

It’s time for the Paperback Warrior Podcast Holiday Shopping Guide Episode! We discuss the dilemma of giving and receiving vintage paperbacks along with many suggestions to get you through the season.  Also: reviews of novels by Bruce Cassiday and George Gillman. Download on your favorite podcast app or paperbackwarrior.com or download directly HERE

Listen to "Episode 71: Holiday Buyer's Guide" on Spreaker.