As we roll through January 2021, I offer you Barry’s review of The Clock Strikes Thirteen (1954) by Herbert Brean. The review originally ran in late 2007 and then again in 2012, so it has been quite some time since it saw the light of day in these parts. After you read his review and mosey around here, make sure you ride over to Patti Abbott’s blog as well as Aubrey Nye Hamilton’s Happiness Is A Warm Book blog and see what they suggest today. Be sure to comment here with your own FFB reviews and links.
The
Clock Strikes Thirteen (1954) by Herbert Brean
"When And Then There Were None meets The Satan Bug"--that's the kind of cover blurb this fast-paced whodunit might have received except that, although it post-dates the former, it pre-dates the latter.
Freelance
journalist/photographer Reynold Frame, hero of several other Brean titles, gets
a middle-of-the-night call from a magazine editor telling him to be ready to
board a plane for Maine at 10 a.m. Frame is excited because, although the story
is being written by someone else, he hopes the assignment will enable him to
prove his photographic skills. He's replacing a photographer of Russian descent
who doesn't have the security clearance necessary for the job.
Upon landing in
Portland, Maine, Frame is met by Army Major Harry Geddes and driven to the town
of Pethwick. From there they board a boat manned by elderly lobsterman Jonas
Kilgore, who takes them twenty-four miles offshore to Kilgore Island, a
desolate rock in the Atlantic he used to own.
The island is
presently owned by Dr. North Wayland, a bacteriologist--and skilled surgeon
before a personal tragedy deprived him of the necessary steadiness--who worked
for the government at Fort Detrick in Maryland during WWII. Wayland bought the
island to continue his researches privately, albeit with governmental security
provided by Major Geddes.
Dropped off by
Jonas at Kilgore Island, Frame meets Wayland, his research staff, the magazine
writer, and Wayland's housekeeper and her peculiar son. After dinner, Wayland
takes Frame to visit his laboratory and show him what he'll be photographing.
Everyone's curiosity is aroused because the scientist has been secretive about
some work he's been doing on his own. They know only that it involves a
biological warfare agent.
Leaving Frame in
the lab, Wayland goes off to retrieve something he wants to show the
photographer. A moment later Frame hears some sort of hubbub. When he
investigates, he finds the scientist dead--stabbed--and with broken Petri
dishes and bits of agar scattered around his body. Frame alerts the others, and
Major Geddes decides he's the prime suspect.
What follows is
both detective story and thriller, as Frame tries to determine the identity of
the real murderer and the isolated group on the island try to survive in the
wake of what might be an outbreak of a deadly biological agent set loose during
the murder.
Though it lacks the impossible crimes of Brean's excellent Wilders Walk Away and the eerie atmospheric touches of Hardly A Man Is Now Alive, The Clock Strikes Thirteen is recommended to mystery readers who like their puzzles mixed with action and high-tension suspense.
As always, for more
information on the Golden Age of Mystery and on this review follow the link to
GA Detection Wiki at
http://gadetection.pbwiki.com/The%20Clock%20Strikes%20Thirteen
Barry Ergang © 2007, 2012, 2021
Derringer Award-winner Barry
Ergang’s written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and
electronic. Some of it is available at Amazon and at Smashwords. His website is
http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/ where he is
available for your editing needs.
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