FFB Review: The Bughouse Affair by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini Reviewed by Barry Ergang

From the massively magnificent archive...

 

The year is 1894, the city is San Francisco, and Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon, owners and operators of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, have been partnered for over three years. “When they had met by chance in Silver City, Idaho, he had been an operative of the United States Secret Service investigating a counterfeiting operation, and she had been a Pink Rose, one of the select handful of women employed as investigators by the Pinkerton International Detective Agency, at the time working undercover to expose a pyramid swindle involving mining company stock. Circumstances had led them to join forces to mutually satisfactory conclusions, and resulted in an alliance that had prompted Quincannon” to suggest the business partnership—an equal one—to which Sabina agreed.

 

In the case under consideration, Sabina has just been hired by the owner of the Haight Street Chutes Amusement Park to find and stop the activities of a pickpocket who has been plaguing the site’s customers. Quincannon, meanwhile, has been hired by the Great Western Insurance Company to find and stop the activities of a burglar who has already robbed the homes of three “prominent citizens,” all of whom are policy-holders. The company suspects that at least three other such citizens are targets.

 

When the detectives manage to identify the objects of their separate pursuits as pickpocket Clara Wilds and burglar “Dodger” Brown, they wonder if their cases have somehow converged because Clara and Dodger are known to be—or to have been—a romantic pairing. But then Sabina finds Clara dead, murdered, and Dodger immediately becomes a prime suspect.

 

Complicating the detectives’ lives, Quincannon’s in particular, is an Englishman who claims to be Sherlock Holmes. Ambrose Bierce has already surmised in his newspaper column that the man is an impostor because it is well known that Holmes died three years earlier in a plummet from a Swiss waterfall. Whether Holmes or not, he insinuates himself into Quincannon’s investigation, which becomes much more than the pursuit of Dodger Brown. It evolves into the investigation of an impossible crime when an attorney, Andrew Costain, requests a meeting with Quincannon at his home. The latter observes someone breaking into the home: “Up and over the railing there, briefly silhouetted: the same small figure dressed in dark cap and clothing. Across to the door, and at work there for just a few seconds. The door opened, closed again behind the burglar.” When Quincannon and Holmes, the Englishman having watched the house from a different direction, enter, they find Andrew Costain dead—both stabbed and shot—in a study whose doors and windows are locked from the inside. The two of them had previously taken precautions to effectively seal the house against exit or entry, yet their quarry managed to evade capture and vanish.

 

As Holmes, or pseudo-Holmes, sums up the conundrum to Quincannon: “…You are adept at solving seemingly impossible crimes. How then did the pannyman manage a double escape? Why was Andrew Costain shot as well as stabbed? Why was the pistol left in the locked study and the bloody stiletto taken away? And why was the study door bolted in the first place? A pretty puzzle, eh, Quincannon? One to challenge the deductive skills of even the cleverest sleuth.”

 

Count this reader as one who easily nailed down the identity of the murderer upon spotting a particular clue, but who did not come close to solving the locked room/sealed house aspects of the puzzle. The first in a series about the Carpenter/Quincannon partnership, this well-paced novel melds an enticing puzzle plot with humor, picturesque characters, and colorful descriptions, based on the authors’ research, of the San Francisco of the 1900s.

 

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini are Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award-winners. The only other married couple to achieve that distinction was Margaret Millar and Ross Macdonald. As much as I recommend The Bughouse Affair, the meaning of whose title will become evident not long after one gets into the book, the authors’ reputations, separate and combined, recommend it far more.

 

 

Barry Ergang ©2016, 2022

Among his other works, Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s locked-room novelette, The Play of Light and Shadow, can be found in e-book formats at Smashwords.com and Amazon.com

FFB Review: MASTERS OF NOIR: Volume Four (2010) Reviewed by Barry Ergang

 

From the massive archive…

  

MASTERS OF NOIR: Volume Four (2010)

 

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

 

This is the fourth and—to date, at least, as far as I can tell—final e-anthology of stories collected from pulp digests from the 1950s and ’60s: Manhunt, Trapped Detective Story Magazine, and Murder.

 

Mickey Spillane opens the anthology with “The Pickpocket,” the story of Willie, a reformed criminal whose manual dexterity serves him well after he witnesses a shooting. As I mentioned regarding his story in Volume One in this series, it’s fascinating to read Spillane outside of his Mike Hammer mode, and in the third-person, no less. This story is slightly more hardboiled than that in the first volume, but a far cry from what you get in the novels.

 

In Volume Two of the series we had a story by Charles Jackson called “I Don’t Fool Around.” Here we have one with the same title by Lawrence Block in which a no-nonsense homicide detective is partnered with a “college cop” he can’t stand, and determined to finally take down professional killer Frank Calder, no matter what it takes. 

 

Prison is a bad place for a convicted cop. Macalay knows that, but also knew after a meeting with Inspector Strane that “[H]e’d had a choice to make—which of two eight balls he’d get behind,” prison or a death sentence. So prison it was, and now he has to watch out for a “Man With a Shiv” as well as worry that he’ll become one himself as he struggles toward a kind of redemption in Richard Wormser’s sometimes brutal novelette. Note: parts of the story allude to prison homosexuality in a politically incorrect manner, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that it was originally published in 1956. But readers who find this sort of thing offensive should stay away, while others should take the era and context into account. 

“The Floater” is identified as nineteen-year-old Lucille Taylor, and her death is neither suicidal or accidental; it’s a definite homicide. Detectives Jim Coren and Paul Brader investigate in this novelette by Jonathan Craig, who specialized in police procedurals.

The procedural routines might or might not be accurate—the story was published in 1955, so things may be vastly different today, and in any event I’m not qualified to say either way—but the storytelling has a too-routine, by-the-numbers feel to it, and the result is overlong, plodding, and not at all exciting. Characterization is flat (save for Mrs.  Carpenter’s). A person Brader calls “a cold fish” doesn’t come across that way; he’s just a name on the page. The attempts at light banter between the police partners are forced and lame.

 

Harry Whittington admirably makes up for this with the next fast-moving story. Celia Carmic’s wealthy and successful husband Curt “had crashed in his private plane on an Everglades hunting trip. After a week of intensive searching, the Coast Guard had abandoned him as dead.” Celia has come to Jim Norton, a farmer and helicopter pilot to ask for his help in searching for Curt, who she can’t believe is dead. She’s willing to pay Norton a thousand dollars plus expenses for his help. In hock to his hairline and in desperate need of money, Norton agrees and the “Swamp Search” begins, as does his growing desire for Celia despite a suspicion that she’s not leveling with him about the situation, a suspicion that increases as days go by and things happen.

 

The serial killer known as The Butcher has brutally murdered five women. Lester Ferguson, husband of the latest victim, is the only person to have seen the “Face of Evil” and is Homicide Lieutenant Romano’s only hope of finally identifying the psychopath. But Ferguson has been hospitalized following a minor stroke, and is a man with a heart condition in a good, if somewhat predictable, story by David Alexander.

 

I’m frankly uncertain as to whether “Take Care of Yourself” by William Campbell Gault is just slightly offbeat and ends without the kind of resolution one expects from a detective story, or whether whoever transcribed it into e-book format forgot to finish the job. Private detective Joe Puma is hired by the wealthy Mr. Ladugo to keep a protective eye on his beautiful daughter Angela, who has a penchant for drinking in low-rent bars and for getting involved with lower-life men like Jean Hartley. I’d like to think the story as published herein is complete. In any event, it’s well-written, intriguing, and its open-ended quality doesn’t detract and, methinks, adds a little resonance.

 

When big, angry Rudy Ferris bursts into Chuck’s hotel room with an automatic in his hand and a burning urge to pull the trigger, Chuck has to feed him “The Fast Line” to try to prevent his brains from ending up on the wall. Rudy’s angry because his girlfriend Ella, restless and desirous of stirring things up in Leadsville, told him what she and Chuck did in her father’s barn. Art Crockett’s story is brief, fast, and furious.

 

Invited by a friend to a Hawaiian-themed Malibu beach party on a Sunday for lots of  frolicking and rollicking, a private eye doesn’t expect to encounter a particularly grisly “Crime of Passion,” but amidst the potent sips of punch and lava-hot hulas, that’s exactly what he gets. As detective stories go, this one is on the thin side, but it was written by Richard S. Prather and stars Shell Scott, so you can be sure it’s entertaining.

 

Widower Andrew Barton lives alone in the big main house on his farm, fighting the prurient urges Deena May’s “Lust Song” arouse in him, and which prompt him to frequently spy on her. She’s the fourteen-year-old child bride of Hugh, Barton’s twenty-one-year-old hired hand. The couple live in a smaller house on the property, but Deena May would love to live in the big one, and suggests to Barton a way to make that happen. Stuart Friedman’s story, with its vivid characterizations, gives the anthology a strong finish.

 

With the reservations noted, I can recommend this collection, as I did with its predecessors, to crime fiction fans who enjoy a more hardboiled approach to the genre.

 

Barry Ergang © 2015, 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/.

 

FFB Review: TAILING RAYMOND CHANDLER (2010) by Brian Thomas Olson Reviewed by Barry Ergang

For this Friday in August, I am running Barry Ergang’s 2015 review of Tailing Raymond Chandler by Brian  Thomas Olson. After you read the review, make sure you head over to Patti Abbott’s blog and see what she recommends as well as Happiness Is A Warm Book where Aubrey Nye Hamilton has her own selection. Have a good weekend! 

                             

TAILING RAYMOND CHANDLER (2010) by Brian Thomas Olson

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Los Angeles private detective John Lash is hired by Violet Merill to recover a screenplay that is missing from the major motion picture studio Ultramount, a screenplay that may have been pilfered by an employee who was working on it when it disappeared. The employee? Raymond Chandler.

Lash recognizes the name, says he’s aware Chandler has written two books, and that he’s read some of the author’s stories in Black Hand Mystery Magazine. (Why Brian Thomas Olson didn’t use the actual name, Black Mask, is beyond me.) Violet Merill points out that Chandler’s a heavy drinker, “is in some financial difficulty,” and that he at one time had an affair with an Ultramount secretary.

Lash isn’t on the case long before he realizes Violet Merill isn’t who and what she claims to be, or before another woman named Violet is murdered. When a second murder occurs, the victim being a former cop turned private detective who was heavily involved in a probe of corruption in the city government, Lash is the prime suspect. Lash must also contend with Josiah Curmon, an easily-manipulated city commissioner, and the powerful local gangster, Delvin Beasley, while dodging the police, trying to determine what’s so important about the missing screenplay, nailing the real killer, and saving the lives of Raymond Chandler and his wife Cissy.

How do I criticize thee? Oh, let me count the ways! Reluctantly, I should add, because I dislike writing negative reviews. Unfortunately, Tailing Raymond Chandler, despite being decently written, for the most part, and offering an intriguing story even if it does contain its share of clichéd private eye story tropes, teems with problems.

The book, as far as I can tell, is only available in a Kindle edition. The first problem concerns the formatting. The sample on Amazon’s website contains slightly indented paragraphs. They do not appear as such on my Kindle; there’s no indentation at all. I have no explanation as to why this is.

The other problems include punctuation, capitalization, and usage errors; misspellings; and clumsy, sometimes ungrammatical sentences. It’s no big spoiler to reveal that Violet Merill’s real name is Joey Wareng—the reader learns that fairly early. But long before that revelation, there are a couple of passages calling her Joey Merill when Violet is the intended name. These and some other mistakes suggest that the author failed to catch and correct them during the process of revising his final draft. He really needs a good proofreader.

He also needs to do his homework if he’s going to write about some real people from an older era because the novel’s biggest problems are anachronistic. A squib on the book’s Amazon page says the time of the story is 1939 when it’s actually 1938. I know this because the novel mentions that actress Thelma Todd died three years earlier. She died in 1935. What bearing does this have on the story? When Violet Merill first mentions Raymond Chandler to John Lash, Lash says that Chandler has written two books. The fact is, Chandler’s first two novels, The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, were published in 1939 and 1940, respectively. Moreover, he went to work for Paramount Pictures as a screenwriter in 1943. In 1938, he was only writing for the pulps.

There’s also a very oblique reference to the James Cagney film White Heat, which didn’t come out until 1949. A film studio called American International is mentioned. I suspect Brian Thomas Olson thought he was making up a fictitious name, but in fact there was an actual American International Pictures. It began in 1954. 

The author describes Chandler as “in his late 40s, just under six feet in height, medium build, slightly balding, wearing round tortoise-shell eyeglasses and smoking a pipe.” I’ve never seen a photo of Chandler that indicates he was balding.  

The author has Chandler say he was once in Naval Intelligence. I’ve never read anything that substantiates that claim. When World War I broke out—I’m quoting the curriculum vitae from Raymond Chandler Speaking, edited by Dorothy Gardiner and Katherine Sorley Walker (Houghton Mifflin, 1962)—Chandler “Enlisted with the Canadian Gordon Highlanders. Served in France with the First Division of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. In 1918 joined the Royal Flying Corps (R.A.F.). Demobilised [sic] in England in 1919.”

A brief biographical note at the book’s end says of Olson and his wife: “Both are avid Raymond Chandler fans.” That being the case, you’d think Mr. Olson would present his subject more accurately.

© 2015, 2020 Barry Ergang

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/. 

FFB Review: 15 SECONDS (2012) by Andrew Gross Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Barry Ergang is back this week with another all new review. For the full list of reading suggestions, check out Todd Mason’s Sweet Freedom blog.

15 SECONDS (2012) by Andrew Gross

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

The premise is intriguing: successful plastic surgeon Dr. Henry Steadman (who, we eventually learn, has his share of emotional baggage) is pulled over by a cop for a minor traffic violation, a cop who refuses to listen to Steadman's side of events. Steadman has flown from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Jacksonville to attend a medical conference and play a round of golf with a friend. The cop treats him like a criminal rather than one guilty of a traffic offense, even to the point of arresting and cuffing him and putting him into the back of a police car. Several other police vehicles arrive and Steadman is questioned about the whereabouts of his wife. When he explains that he doesn't know because he's divorced, he's told he was seen driving around with a woman in his car an hour earlier.

The police persist in questioning him, making additional accusations, and denying his protests of innocence of their various charges until they finally cease and depart—all except the one who initially pulled him over. This one tells him, "I'm going to write you up a warning...Just take a seat back in your car." Steadman complies, and a moment later another car pulls up alongside the police vehicle. Steadman hears two loud pops, after which the car takes off. When he gets out and looks into the police vehicle, he sees that the cop is dead from gunshot wounds.

When he recovers from the shock of both the cop's murder and the realization that he'll be the prime suspect, Steadman sets off after the murderer's car and kicks the rest of the novel into play. Besides Steadman, whose narrative is in the first person, we follow those in the third person of a "plucky" female cop (one with baggage), and the villain of the piece (who also has baggage—are you sensing a trend yet?).

In addition to trying to save himself and prove his innocence, Steadman must also save the greatest love of his life in what turns out to be a "sinister scheme" with him as the primary target.

Yes, it's all quite formulaic, and written and structured in a manner calculated to generate page-turning suspense. The problem—for this reader, at least—was the delivery, particularly the author's predilection for depicting his characters' emotional reactions to events via impossible bodily responses. When he discovers the cop has been murdered, Steadman tells us, "My heart surged into fifth gear." When circumstances put him close to one of the cops who interrogated him, he says, "My heart almost clawed its way up my throat as I vividly recalled what he had warned me of if our paths ever crossed again." Three paragraphs later: "My heart clawed its way up my throat."

Several chapters later: "I felt the sweats come over me and my insides slowly clawed their way up my throat." A good deal further on: "Carrie closed her eyes and let out a breath she'd been holding in for hours."

Carrie, poor oxygen-bereft baby, suffers still further: "She saw whom the bill was made out to, and her stomach fell like a ten-ton weight hurled off a cliff." Four paragraphs later: "Her breath felt cut in half." Somewhere along the way we also learn, "Her heart sputtered."

One of the most unintentionally comical moments, due to poor editing, occurs when Steadman comes upon a shed in a wooded area and gives us this: "My heart started to pound. It had a slanted roof and one window and what looked like a storage hut attached to it...."

Hmm...Did it make storing gardening tools and a lawn mower among the aorta and valves vexatious?

As you have doubtlessly surmised by now, 15 Seconds is not, in my estimation, a stellar example of a thriller. Yes, it will keep many readers turning the pages, but they'll have to forgive a predictable and formulaic approach while doing so, along with tolerating a great many lame passages that can render the intended drama fatuous. I've read books aimed at children and young adults whose prose is far more artful and evocative.

If the silliness described isn't a turnoff for some readers, the use of raw street language might be.

© 2019 Barry Ergang

Some of Derringer winner Barry Ergang's work can be found at Amazon and Smashwords.

FFB Review: THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS (1940) by Anthony Boucher Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Todd Mason on his Sweet Freedom blog. FFB today in these parts is Barry Ergang’s 2013 review of The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars by Anthony Boucher.

THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS (1940) by Anthony Boucher

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Mystery lovers who haven't read it will probably find The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars by Anthony Boucher a lot of fun. It combines bizarre situations, action, humor, lively and intelligent prose, and the advancement of several plausible solutions before the actual one is revealed.

Stephen Worth, ex-private detective turned hardboiled mystery novelist and sometime screenwriter under contract to Metropolis Pictures, is supposed to write a screen adaptation of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” which will be produced by F.X. Weinberg. When word of this makes the newspapers, Weinberg starts receiving irate letters from the Baker Street Irregulars. The want the screenplay entrusted to someone who reveres the Canon as they do, not a “rat,” as they refer to Worth, who writes hardboiled fare. For his part, Worth contemptuously dismisses the BSI as a bunch of “deductionists.” The studio's publicity director, Maureen O'Breen, who has no liking for Worth, a heavy-drinking lecher and prankster, suggests that Weinberg simply take him off the film and assign another writer. When Weinberg tries to persuade Worth to work on a different project, Worth balks at the idea and points to a contractual clause that effectively prevents him from being replaced involuntarily. From his position between rock and hard place, Weinberg hits on a solution and sends letters to each of the five Irregulars who have written to him, inviting them to Hollywood at his expense to serve as advisors on the film. When they agree, the studio provides a house for them at 221B Romualdo Drive, complete with a housekeeper named Mrs. Hudson.

To help tout the film, Maureen plans a party for the press. On the afternoon of the party, Maureen, trying to coordinate the preparations at 221B, is besieged by mysterious callers, messages, and telephone calls. Once things are under way, Stephen Worth makes a drunken, belligerent appearance. When he tries to hit one of the Irregulars, his wild swing hits instead one of the guests, Lieutenant Jackson of the police department. Jackson knocks him cold and he and some others carry Worth to a room upstairs to sleep it off. That ends the party. Later on, Maureen goes upstairs and finds a still drunk and abusive Worth standing in the doorway of the room. Moments later she hears a shot, blood blossoms under the hand Worth claps to his heart, and he falls back into the darkened room. When she bends to help him, something strikes the back of her head, rendering her unconscious. One of the Sherlockians carries her downstairs. When she revives and reports what's happened, Lieutenant Jackson goes to investigate.

There's a lot of blood in the room. There are other significant things there, too. There just isn't any corpse. The next day, each of the Irregulars has a peculiar, sometimes frightening adventure. Each adventure has its roots in a Holmes story, and each elicits information about another Irregular which he'd prefer not be revealed. The police and the Sherlockians thus have their hands full trying to unravel codes and ciphers, interpret the meaning of the adventures, and discover the whereabouts of Worth's body and the means by which it was removed from the house. There's a cover blurb from the New York Times Book Review on the paperback edition I have which reads, “Delightful...offers a surprise on nearly every page.”

This brings me to the only complaint I have about the book—the edition. Mine was published by Carroll & Graf. I'm not sure about the number of pages containing surprises, but this particular book must have been proofread by someone whose idea of intellectual activity is dwarf-tossing. Even by C&G standards, which generally seem to be abysmal in the typographical error department, this one qualifies for the Guinness Book of World Records. By all means read the book. Just avoid the Carroll & Graf edition if you have options.

Barry Ergang © 2013, 2019

Among other works, Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang's own impossible crime novelette, The Play of Light and Shadow, is available at Amazon and Smashwords as is his recently released book of poetry, Farrago, and other entertaining reads. For more on Barry’s books as well as his editing services, check out Barry’s website.

FFB Review: DROWNED HOPES (1990) by Donald E. Westlake Reviewed by Barry Ergang

We roll into May 2019 with another classic review from Barry. Make sure you check out the full list over at Todd Mason’s blog.

DROWNED HOPES (1990) by Donald E. Westlake

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Hardback

Using the pseudonym Richard Stark, the late Donald E. Westlake wrote a superb series of hardboiled novels which starred the completely amoral and uncompromising thief named Parker. A number of films adapted from Parker titles have been made, but the best, in my opinion, remains the 1967 “Point Blank” based on The Hunter, the first book in the series, and which starred Lee Marvin, renamed Walker for whatever nebulous reason the screenwriters decided made sense to them.

In 1970’s The Hot Rock, a novel published under his own name, Westlake introduced John Archibald Dortmunder, a (usually) hapless and frequently inept professional thief—Parker’s polar opposite—and his idiosyncratic crew of cronies. It was the first in a series of comic crime novels about Dortmunder of which Drowned Hopes is the seventh.

The novel opens when Dortmunder, disgruntled over a failed burglary, comes home to the New York City apartment he shares with his girlfriend May Bellamy and discovers that an old cellmate, Tom Jimson, has shown up at their door and awaited his return. Jimson is not and never was a friend. He is, in fact, as cold, untrustworthy, and ruthless a specimen as any who has ever trod earth, and who should be and would be still in prison—he’s an admitted lifer—if governmental budget cuts hadn’t resulted in the release of a multitude of inmates. He has sought out Dortmunder to enlist his help in recovering money he stole in an armored car robbery (with a pair of partners he betrayed) in upstate New York many years earlier: seven hundred thousand dollars, to be exact. Ditching said partners, he went to a town called Putkin’s Corners, obtained a casket into which he put the money, and buried the casket behind the town library, intending to recover it after the heat died down. Unluckily for him, a state decision made while he was in prison resulted in the building of a dam to flood the valley and create a reservoir, thus submerging Putkin’s Corners and his treasure.

Paperback 

Seventy years old now, Jimson intends to dynamite the dam to uncover the ground and dig up the stolen loot so he can spend the remainder of his life living lavishly in Mexico, and wants Dortmunder’s help in effecting the project. He claims to be willing to split the money evenly, with Dortmunder using his half to pay off whoever he must for their assistance. The problem? Dynamiting the dam would result in a flood that would drown the hundreds of people who live in the areas adjacent to the reservoir, and Dortmunder isn’t about to be a party to mass murder. Consequently, he must devise a method by which they can recover the money without hurting anyone. If he doesn’t, Jimson assures him he’ll use dynamite and, if necessary, find another partner or partners to aid in the scheme.

Of course, nothing goes as planned and situations become progressively more complicated, resulting in considerable frustration for Dortmunder and company, and considerable hilarity for the reader.

Dortmunder’s crew is a quirky bunch: Stan Murch, the driver; Tiny Bulcher, the strongman; and Andy Kelp, who is fond of “borrowing” for jobs cars with MD license plates. Brought into this particular caper for their expertise are young computer nerd Wally Knurr and pretty-boy scuba-diving instructor Doug Berry. The cast also includes several people who have connections, not necessarily of the amicable sort, to Tom Jimson. And then there’s Murch’s Mom, cab-driving Gladys who misses swearing at New York City drivers while she’s out in the placid countryside.

Drowned Hopes contains more than a few laugh-out-loud moments, the author being a master at tickling risibilities. On several occasions, I had to wipe tears out of my eyes from laughing hard so I could continue reading. With the sole caveat that there are some instances of raw street language some readers might find objectionable, this is a fast, funny, cleverly-plotted crime novel loaded with memorable moments I can and do unhesitatingly recommend.

© 2015, 2019  Barry Ergang

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/.

Barry Ergang Reviews: ONLY TO SLEEP: A Philip Marlowe Novel (2018) by Lawrence Osborne

ONLY TO SLEEP: A Philip Marlowe Novel (2018) by Lawrence Osborne

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

The time of the story is 1988 and its first-person narrator is a seventy-two-year-old retired private investigator living in a house he bought in 1984 “a few miles north of Ensenada in Baja.” His name happens to be—at least for the sake of the book and this review, if not necessarily by recognized literary standards—Philip Marlowe. The extremely flimsy plot consists of the elderly detective being hired by a pair of representatives from the Pacific Mutual insurance company to look into the drowning death of the supposedly well-to-do—but “profligate” and thus bankrupt and corrupt—seventy-two-year-old real estate developer Donald Zinn, sometimes referred to as “El Donaldo.” (Does Zinn remind anyone of a real-life personage of dubious character who is [unfortunately] active at the time of this review? Did Lawrence Osborne intend it? If yes, it’s one positive I can cite.)  

The retiree agrees to the job. What ensues, far from being the kind of hardboiled detective story one might reasonably expect, reads more like a travelogue of Mexico and many of its lesser-known cities, towns and locales, as the detective trails the Zinns hither and thither throughout the country, in the process meeting and becoming smitten with the thirtyish and very attractive Dolores Araya Zinn. His travels result in relatively little more than encountering a somewhat menacing character who likes to spin tops on the bars or tables he’s seated at, and an eventual violent tangle with same. No worries, though, because as he explains early on: “I also carried the cane that has been my constant servant since I broke a foot in 1977, and inside which slept a Japanese blade that a master smith had custom-made for me in Tokyo.”

Seriously? You forgot you legally owned at least one handgun before and after your retirement? More seriously, does like this sound like the Philip Marlowe any reader has ever heard of?

Hardcore fans of the genuine Marlowe novels know that you read Raymond Chandler far more for style, tone and characterization than for plot, the latter element being often rather difficult to make sense of depending on the particular novel. In the confusing ones—i.e., most of them—you simply coast along for the colorful, absorbing, and entertaining ride. But you needn’t concern yourself about a tumultuous journey through Only to Sleep. The ride is sluggish and largely uneventful. Lawrence Osborne reads stylistically and tonally like Chandler about as much as Ernest Hemingway sounds like Geoffrey Chaucer. The plot is practically non-existent, not at all a mystery, and the characterizations are very superficial. The protagonist could as well have been named Tooraloora Birnbaum, considering how little he resembles Philip Marlowe.     

What we have here is a considerable distance from the kind of hardboiled private detective novel one expects from a pulp pioneer/master of the genre, let alone most writers’ modern take on the form. Osborne’s is a self-consciously literary approach that includes more extended, descriptive, and philosophical moments than the kinds of crackling scenes and intriguing, well-delineated characters found in the works of Chandler, his finest predecessors and legitimate successors. It reinforces what I said in my review of Benjamin Black’s The Black-Eyed Blonde: authors’ estates and their publishers should stop trying to cash in on inferior products about classic characters from imitators who should stick to their own creations.

One thing is certain: the title of this one is unquestionably appropriate. The Big Snooze would have worked, too, because I truly yawned and fought to stay awake while plodding through its verbal Ambien.

© 2019 Barry Ergang

Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s mystery novelette, along with some of his other works, is available at Amazon and Smashwords. One such work is “Nocturne,” included in Dances of the Disaffected, in case anyone wants to call him out about his take on Marlowe, and the publication of which had nothing to do with a major publisher or Chandler’s estate.

FFB Review: SKYLAR (1995) by Gregory McDonald Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Barry is back for this final Friday in January with another FFB Review. Make sure  your check  out the full list over at Patti Abbott’s blog.

SKYLAR (1995) by Gregory McDonald

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Skylar Whitfield, now in his late teens, has spent his living and working life on his family’s farm at Greendowns (pronounced “Grendons”) County, Tennessee. A strong and good-looking young man who was a straight-A school student with no athletic inclinations, he has no further academic ambitions. He’s quite content to stay where he is, have sex with Tandy McJane, and carouse with his pal Dufus.

When the novel opens, Skylar and Tandy are going at it instead of being where they ought to be: at the party Skylar’s parents Dan and Monica have thrown for friends and neighbors to celebrate the arrival from Boston of their nephew Jonathan, a Harvard student who is recovering from a bout of mononucleosis. Uncomfortable in the southern atmosphere with which he’s as unfamiliar as the partiers would be up north, Jonathan nevertheless tries to mingle with other guests, among them Mary Lou Simes, a popular local girl known for entering and winning beauty contests and Skylar’s former girlfriend.

Eventually Skylar gets to the party and finally meets his cousin for the first time. Their relationship is somewhat edgy from the outset, but along with Dufus, the two ultimately wind up at a favorite local roadhouse called the Holler. Shortly thereafter, Mary Lou Simes comes in with three of the party-goers from Whitfield Farm. Later on, Skylar and others observe her leave the place alone.

The next day, Sheriff Culpepper (a.k.a. Pepp) is notified that disabled veteran Tommy Barker has discovered what appear to be human remains in the woods, remains that are later identified as Mary Lou’s. Not far from her body is a Swiss Army knife, one identified as Skylar’s. Jailed as the prime suspect, Skylar is subsequently broken out of his cell by friends so he can try to find out what actually happened. When Mary Lou’s brother Jack who, with some friends, beat up Skylar, is also found dead, Skylar’s troubles deepen.

It’s been a very long time since I read the late author’s novels about newsman Fletch (the character for whom he’s probably best known) and detective Flynn, as well as a standalone called Running Scared, and I no longer own copies of those novels to consult. But with the possible exception of the standalone, I don’t remember any of them having characters as colorful, well-delineated and complex as there are in Skylar, which is absolutely as much a novel of character as it is a mystery story, and in which McDonald skillfully modulates humor with solemnity. And in which surprises abound.

Strongly recommended to readers who don’t object to some explicit sexuality and occasional raw street language.

© 2019 Barry Ergang

Some of Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s work can be found at Smashwords (some freebies here) and Amazon.

FFB Review: MISCHIEF IN MAGGODY (1988) by Joan Hess Reviewed by Barry Ergang

For the full list of reading suggestions today, make sure you head over to Patti’s blog.

MISCHIEF IN MAGGODY (1988) by Joan Hess

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

The second novel in Joan Hess’s comical mystery series, Mischief in Maggody is primarily but not exclusively concerned with the disappearance and eventual murder of Robin Buchanon, one of many of the Buchanon clan inhabitants of Maggody, Arkansas, population 755: “There are hundreds of them sprinkled across Stump County, worse than hogweed. Incest and inbreeding are their favorite hobbies…They aren’t strong on intelligence; the most they can aspire to is animal cunning. An anthropologist from Farber College once tried to sort out the genealogy, although nobody ever figured out why anybody’d want to do that. Rumor has it she tried to kill herself at the county line, and ranted in the ambulance about third cousins twice removed and fathers who were also uncles and half-brothers. Her family hushed it up with some story about a diesel truck, but everybody in Maggody knew better.”

 Ariel “Arly” Hanks, who was raised here but eventually married, moved to Manhattan, ultimately divorced, and moved back to Maggody where she has become Chief of Police, has quite a number of problems to contend with, not the least of which in her current case, is the well-being of loose-morals moonshiner Robin Buchanon’s five children, one of whom is an infant.  

Arly and/or the reader will also encounter—via first- and third-person viewpoints—in no particular order—Madame Celeste, a psychic who may or  may  not be phony; Celeste’s brother, obliging Mason Dickerson; Brother Verber, preacher at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall; school counselor David Allen Wainwright; Arly’s mother Ruby Bee and  Ruby’s friend Estelle Oppers; the consummately inept Kevin Buchanon and his lady love, Dahlia O’Neill; student Carol Alice Plummer and her “best friend in the whole world,” Heather Riley; and the new hippie owners of the Emporium: Nate, Rainbow, Zachery and Poppy, the latter being very pregnant. Extremely memorable is Maggody’s mayoral wife and devout Christian known throughout as “Mrs. Jim Bob,” and occasionally as Mizzoner,her  husband Mayor Jim Bob being off in a conference in Hot Springs.

A modern take on the screwball comedy mystery that Craig Rice might have loved—albeit with some implied sexuality and blatant  raw street language—the novel is one I can recommend to non-squeamish readers of entertaining whodunits.

© 2019 Barry Ergang

As regular readers of this blog know, some of Derringer-winner Barry Ergang’s work is available at Amazon and Smashwords. His free e-book Criminalities includes the essay “Impossible Pleasures,” about impossible crime fiction.

FFB Review: SINS FOR FATHER KNOX (1973) by Josef Skvorecky Reviewed by Barry Ergang

After recently reviewing the short story mystery collection, People Behaving Badly, Barry is back today with another all new review. After you check out his work below, head on over to Patti’s blog and see what else is recommended. Make sure you get your books now as winter is coming.

SINS FOR FATHER KNOX (1973) by Josef Skvorecky

Father Ronald A. Knox, aside from being a clergyman, was one of the early exponents of what has become the “Golden Age” mystery story: the formal, fairly-clued whodunit and—in some cases— howdunit. Among hardcore history-of-mystery buffs, Knox is probably best remembered for his Ten Commandments for writing a detective story. In 1973, Czechoslovakian author Josef Skvorecky wrote the novel Sins for Father Knox, a chapter of which (“chapter” here loosely defined because each is actually an individual short story with an occasional reference to one of its predecessors) violates one of Knox’s commandments. Chapter descriptions—no spoilers!—follow.

Lieutenant Boruvka has his doubts about the guilt of Eve Adam, who has been convicted of and imprisoned for the murder of film director Rudolf Weyr. Despite being married and a parent, Boruvka can’t help finding Eve attractive as he interviews her at the Czechoslovakian women’s prison, listening to her story and remembering vital testimonies from her trial. Apart from finally being able to solve the case and exonerate Eve, he finds that investigation, like film-making, can be “An Intimate Business.” 

Performing as a lounge singer at the Moulin Rouge in Sweden and sharing an apartment with a stripper named Zuzka, Eve while breakfasting one morning is approached by a large American who calls himself MacMac. He presumes to know who she is because each has a book with the word Thursday in the title. He assures her that her problem will be taken care of that day, and not to worry. Unnerved but fascinated, Eve doesn’t correct his “Mistake in Hitsungsee,” but instead plays along, thus getting herself caught up in a locked-room murder.

In “The Man Eve Didn’t Know from Adam,” Eve is in Rimini, Italy, performing, visiting, and picnicking with Czech girlfriend Lubomira, now known as Laura. The two observe, from a considerable distance, a young woman hitchhiker enter a raspberry-red sports car, and later discover that she’s been murdered. The police, led by the arrogant Hercule Potarot (yes, I spelled his surname correctly), have stopped five raspberry-red sports cars of different makes. Eve must help him determine, putting it charitably, which driver is the “sex-murderer” responsible.  

At the bar in the Majestic Hotel in Sweden, where she’s performing, Eve meets and shares a drink and a cigarette with the inebriated Mr. Jensen. He tells her “Order anything you want, as much as you want. I’m picking up the tab. Because tonight, I’m going to be murdered.” In a story complicated by time elements and multiple characters’ activities, Jensen is indeed murdered. Investigating is Detective Niels C. Kölln, whom Eve met in Hitsungsee, and who is now married to Zuzka. Amid some of the Köllns’ amusing domestic conflicts, Eve delves into “A Question of Alibis” to solve the case.  

Now performing at The Pink Jungle in New York City, Eve makes time with—and correctly identifies—McGrogan as a private detective. While they schmooze, the pair also observes the attractive—and married—Connie Starrett being attentive to a number of prospective lovers. When Connie and a man named Leary are murdered, as well as three private detectives—all Irish, McGrogan among them—Eve and a cop named O’Raglan spend a lot of time  trying to geometrically puzzle out the answer to “Why So Many Shamuses?” I personally tried to puzzle out why it’s such an overlong and tedious story.

In “Miscarriage of Justice,” Eve is visiting American relatives in a small town in upstate New York. They’re gathered at the airport to see Bob Cornhill off to Buffalo when, from the waiting room window, they see that a house in town is on fire. Cornhill’s daughter thinks it’s their house, and shortly thereafter, an announcer over the public address system confirms it, advising Cornhill to return home. When he does, police Sergeant O’Mackey tells him the fire wasn’t set, that someone planted a bomb, and that he suspects Ben Turpin, who has done work for Cornhill in the past, because Turpin is African-American and Cornhill once testified against an underground—and vengeful—black organization. What ensues eventually pits O’Mackey against Eve.

Now singing at a San Francisco bar called The Sailor’s Dream, and after chatting with him there but not learning his name, Eve is invited to the Berkeley home of Marcus Twisten, one of several of “The Mathematicians of Grizzly Drive.” As a result of their burgeoning relationship, she becomes involved in trying to solve the kidnapping of his niece in a 39-page story that was about 30 pages too long for yours truly. I was a disaster at math in school, have managed to reach the age of 71 without ever needing algebra, and was thus bored out of my socks as I skimmed 10 wearisome pages of what allegedly (you couldn’t prove it by me and I don’t care) explains the solution to the mystery. 

Eve is a passenger in tourist-class aboard a transatlantic liner bound from New York to Europe in “An Atlantic Romance.” Here she makes the acquaintance of several fellow passengers, some of whose recollections and personal histories go back to World War II, and one who has a dubious history when it comes to the amorous intentions he displays toward her. When one of the passengers is murdered, Eve has to grapple with matters of right, wrong, and a kind of nosiness, as well as the solution.

“Just Between Us Girls” has Eve’s girlfriend Zuzka recounting to two young men, Georgie and Brucie, an incident involving what amounts to a girls’ night out and the resultant murder of one of them. Why she was slain and by whom was—for this reader—another tedious tale that necessitated skimming just to reach its end even though it was mercifully briefer than some of its predecessors. Overloaded with characters that are only names on the page—as are many in other chapters—I didn’t care who the murderer was.

“The Third Tip of the Triangle” concludes where everything began: in Prague, and with the usually saturnine Lieutenant Boruvka feeling even gloomier upon learning his teenage daughter is pregnant. Complicating his professional life is a phone call summoning him to the scene of the death of electrical engineer Ludvik Arnold. His investigation includes a number of suspects, one of whom is his daughter’s age who happens to be the offspring of a friend. He is also reunited him with Eve Adam, who helps solve this, another case I couldn’t wait to reach the end of.

 Although I’ve known of it, and have seen his Ten Commandments previously, I’ve never read any of Father Knox’s fiction. In each chapter of Sins for Father Knox, and in homage to the mysteries posed in the early Ellery Queen novels, there is a challenge to the reader about solving the crime and identifying the commandment violated. I think its concept is clever, some of the violations neatly subtle, but the overall execution too often tedious and thus disappointing.

© 2018 Barry Ergang

Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s mystery novelette, “The Play of Light and Shadow,” is available at Amazon and Smashwords, along with some of his other work.