Characters Archives - Black Mask

WEST BY SOUTHWEST

Characters, Day Jobs, Stephen Jay Schwartz Comments Off

Aug 242012

I'm on a plane again, heading west, Southwest Airlines, Denver to L.A. Last week it was Phoenix to L.A. The week before that, Salt Lake City. Albuquerque. Minneapolis.

Next week Seattle. Phoenix. Vegas. Portland.

Traveling for the day job. My willingness to travel is what makes me marketable, employable, desirable to the employer who would need an experienced traveller. I know the ins and outs of airports, I'm George Clooney in Up in the Air. I know what to wear and how to pack and what line to choose when entering security and where to find the hand sanitizer when I need it. I know where to look for my books if my books are there to be found and I've even found them, once, on the shelves of a bookstore at San Francisco International, the day before Bouchercon.

I've travelled most of the U.S. and Canada. Sales jobs, running the country or a region, meeting the reps, seeing the sights. I don't let it go to waste, these paid-for trips, these lonely journeys flying alone and away.

I've worked New England three times and each time I force a sales rep to drive me to Lowell, Massachusetts, so I can sit beside Jack Kerouac's grave. When I worked New Hampshire I took a side trip to Thoreau's home where I swam Walden Pond end-to-end. I made my New York rep take me to Niagara Falls so I could call my wife and say, "Happy Anniversary, babe!"

I had an idea to write a short story about turkey hunting, so I called my Alabama rep and set a date to make sales calls during turkey hunting season. We spent a day in the woods above Huntsville and I got all the research I needed. When I worked Oklahoma City I had my rep take me to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building where I walked the memorial and cried like I child. I did the same with my rep in Manhattan, staring at pictures of the lost and dead on a chain-link fence circling the empty pit that had once been the Twin Towers. On another work trip, years before that, I spent three days driving a rental car through Amish farmland in Ohio after the grounding of the planes. It was another world; probably the most peaceful place on Earth at the time.

I worked Nashville, visiting the Grande Ole Opry after hours. I hit the local bars to get a taste of Southern music. I did the same in New Orleans. And in Austin. And in Memphis, where I also visited the home of the King. I worked the Midwest and visited the St. Louis Arch. The Petrified Forest. Fargo, North Dakota. The Mall of America. Navy Pier. Mile High Stadium. The Indianapolis Speedway. Boys Town in Omaha. Georgia O'keefe Museum in Santa Fe. The glaciers of Kalispell. Powell's Bookstore in Portland. Pike Place Market in Seattle. Pikes Peak in Colorado. Alligator Alley in Florida. Pier 39 in San Francisco.

I've seen America on the company dime.

I've been put up in some nice places, too. The Waldorf Hotel in New York City. The Palmer in Chicago. The Peabody in Tennessee. The St. Francis, San Francisco.

And the airports, I've seen them all. LAX and SFO, Bob Hope International (Burbank), Sea-Tac (Seattle), Denver International, Dallas Fort-Worth, Atlanta, Houston, JFK. From the big hubs to the dirt runways. I've sat in just about every plane Boeing makes, from the comfey 777 to the fifteen-seat prop plane that took me from Boise to Butte, riding turbulence all the way.

I keep thinking I'll do some writing in those airports, with all the time I spend waiting. Instead, I stare at the myriad human activity around me. Business men and women sitting cross-legged on the floor, tied to their laptops and iPads, guarding electrical sockets like eggs in the nest. College boys and girls traveling to destinations of youth, their eager, earnest energy cutting a path through the rest of us. Toddlers hop-scotching cracks in the tiles, their effervescent eyes open to everything they see, arms outstretched, hands waving, smiles enlarged with loud sing-song yelps that become screeching tantrums on the floor. Young parents happy and gay then suddenly stressed beyond imagination, tugging at their hair, doing deals with neighboring parents for an extra diaper or a few drops of Benadryl. Babies in their carriages or slings, sleepy eyes blinking, mouths suckling plastic nipples. Tough guys and gals with tattoos on their arms and bluetooths in their ears. Mousey house-wives reading every shade of gray. Elderly couples holding hands, some content, others quietly sparring, using words weighted with years of resentment. Retirees in a group, clutching tubes containing fishing poles for their trips to the Great Lakes or Montana or that small island off the coast of Nova Scotia.

I've found that I can't write in the airports because I'm too busy watching, which, in truth, is a form of writing-to-be. Observation is the author's greatest gift.

I try to write when I'm on the road and at times I've managed it well. But the temptation to sit and listen is often unbearable. I've sat in so many cafes - in Columbus, Ohio, in Boise, Idaho, in Baton Rouge, in Missoula, in Omaha, in Boston, in Tallahassee - and eavesdropped on conversations that held me breathless. I've heard tales of grief and stories of inspiration. I'm determined to write a book called, Overheard in Cafes Across America, a cross between the works of Charles Kuralt and Studs Terkel. Something I'll do on my own time, since my agent already advised me to write something else.

There's no doubt about it, my travels as a salesman have benefitted my work as a writer. It's a strange push-me-pull-you relationship I both love and detest. No matter how hard I try I seem stuck to this life. It's like my writer-self knows that it grounds me. I've spent days in cars with salesmen crossing one end of a state to the other, all the while peeling back the layers of their lives, learning how true human character works, that individuals are messes of irrational thought governed by reflections on personal experience. Everyone comes with baggage and their baggage defines them. Their depth is deep and circular, and infinite. This I learn not from books on how to write good character, but from observing real people in action. Through observation I've learned that the human condition is complicated and universal, that our differences are many, but all can be bridged by attempting to find common ground, somewhere, somehow. And when I bridge that gap, when I see the world through the eyes of someone so different from me, from a turkey hunter, perhaps, then I can write that character from the inside out.

My day job is not for everyone. I'm employed largely because I can hold up under the weight of changing time zones, cancelled flight schedules and car rental conundrums. I can take being thrown under the bus, into the firing squad of emergency sales meetings or a Colosseum of frenzied customers. I manage because it funnels into the molten pit of my writing.

I need the job and the job needs me. We have a symbiotic relationship. I'll bitch and scream about having a day job, but inside I know the truth. It's not the cash. Or the health insurance. Or the expense account. It's the perspective I get when I watch, observe and participate. Life in the air is what grounds me.

Loving "Longmire"

Characters, Police procedurals, TV, Westerns Comments Off

Jun 232012

By
Scott D Parker

Now that Don Draper's gone for another year, I have a new Sunday companion: Walt Longmire.

This new A&E television program follows the cases of Sheriff Walt Longmire in the fictional county of Absaroka, Wyoming. A recent widower, Longmire has a grown daughter, Cady, a staunch deputy in Victoria Moretti (Katie Sackoff), another deputy vying for Longmire's job (Branch Connally), and the "Barney Fife" deputy (The Ferg). To top it off, Lou Diamond Phillips plays Henry Standing Bear, a bartender at a local bar, friend of Longmire, and the diplomat between the sheriff and the folks on the reservation.

Based on the novels by Craig Johnson, I have never read these books, but I'm very much enjoying the new television program. As in nearly every good mystery program, it all boils down to the characters. Longmire, as played by Australian actor Robert Taylor, is exactly who you would think would be the sheriff of the western state. He wears jeans, boots, blue denim shirts, brown jacket, and, of course, the cowboy hat. Mr. Taylor is a striking figure when he is dressed like this, the typical hard, rugged man as any grade-school kid would imagine him. He is the visible embodiment of integrity, according to my wife. His mouth is often set in thin, hard line with his study chin and chiseled jawline. From the looks of him, he's the kind of bad-ass sheriff you want on your side.

But Longmire is different. When he's wearing the hat, you can barely see his eyes. When he removes the hat––always when walking into a building and when talking to the relatives of recent victims––you get to see his eyes. And that is where his soul lives. He may have a hard, gruff exterior, but his eyes are soft, tender, full of empathy because he knows what it's like to lose a loved one. In the first episode, he has to tell a new widow her husband is dead. Instead of the more efficient way of doing this (phone), he insists on driving hours to meet the woman in person. The tears in his eyes as he breaks the bad news, the haunted look is pretty much what sold the entire program for me. Longmire's empathy and sympathy reminds me of CSI: Miami's Horatio Caine, especially as both pilot episodes show a lead protagonist that is as compassionate as he is tough.

The stories themselves are good, especially when you add a brand-new twist at the 45–minute mark as they did last week. As good and compelling as Longmire is as a character, it's the supporting cast that can make a good show more than the sum of its parts. Sackoff's "Vic" Moretti is a former police officer from back east. As the show premieres, Longmire has been in a funk after the death of his wife, with Vic and Branch picking up the slack. In Longmire's absence, the two of them started doing things their own way, something that rubs Branch the wrong way once Longmire returns to the game. Vic has Longmire's back and, lest you think that the older Longmire and the young Victoria are destined to be romantic with each other, nothing can be farther from the truth. They basically have a father–daughter relationship or mentor–student relationship. He trusts her, but often leaves her to do the small-ball work of police work while he goes off and interviews suspects.

Branch Connelly is exactly what you think of with the modern detective in a Western state. He's young, has a military looking persona, and has modern ideas about police work, even if the feelings of the people don't exactly enter into his equations. And, given the fact that he's running for sheriff against Longmire, there's some natural conflict.

As you might expect from a laconic character like Walt Longmire, the show "Longmire" can best be described as unhurried. I'm not saying it's boring, not by any stretch. This show shares the spirit of the good BBC mysteries like "Foyle's War" where there's a lot unsaid and subtle, but, this being the west, gunfights do ensue. That's always fun.

"Longmire" airs Sunday night on A&E. Here's the website. Give it a look and see if there's a better way to spend an hour a week during this summer.

Reviewed by William F. Deeck: LAWRENCE LARIAR – Death Paints the Picture.

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Apr 182012

THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck

LAWRENCE LARIAR

LAWRENCE LARIAR – Death Paints the Picture. Phoenix Press, hardcover, 1943. Crime Novel Selection, nn [#6], digest-sized paperback, as Death Is the Host, no date [1943].

A cartoonist himself, Lariar has as his detective Homer Bull, quite overweight and mastermind of the daily comic strip “True Stories of Crime.” Bull writes the strip while his assistant, Ham MacAndrews, does the cartooning. Ham also narrates Bull’s investigations. “‘Great jumping ginch!’ I blatted” is an example of MacAndrews’s speech which leads one to hope he draws better than he speaks.

LAWRENCE LARIAR

Because his man Shtunk was on a binge, Bull misses the invitation to weekend with Hugh Shipley, famed illustrator for the weekly magazines. It is an ill-assorted group that includes Bull’s ex-wife, a gossip columnist, and a tobacco mogul.

If Bull had attended, he might have been able to prevent Shipley’s alleged suicide, alleged because Bull, who shows up afterwards, is convinced Shipley was murdered, despite the room having been locked with no way for any murderer to have escaped.

Another murder made to look like suicide, though it doesn’t fool Bull, takes place before Bull figures out who and how. Probably because I have perverse tastes, I enjoyed the book.

– From The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES:

The Homer Bull series –

Death Paints the Picture. Phoenix Press, 1943.
He Died Laughing. Phoenix Press, 1943.

The Man with the Lumpy Nose. Dodd Mead, 1944.
The Girl with the Frightened Eyes. Dodd Mead, 1945.

Lawrence Lariar has his own page on Wikipedia. Here’s the first paragraph:

“Lawrence Lariar (December 25, 1908 – October 12, 1981) was an American novelist, cartoonist and cartoon editor, notable for his ‘Best Cartoons of the Year’ series of cartoon collections. He wrote crime novels, sometimes using the pseudonyms Michael Stark, Adam Knight and Marston la France.”

He wrote nine mystery novels under his own name; nine as Adam Knight, including eight adventures of PI Steve Conacher and one with female PI Sugar Shannon; two paperback originals as by Michael Lawrence, both cases for PI Johnny Amsterdam; and one book as by Michael Stark.

If he wrote the one mystery credited to Marston La France, it is news to Al Hubin. (Marston La France was a long-time professor and academic dean at Carleton University in Ottawa. The mystery he authored, Miami Murder-Go-Round, was copyrighted in his name. It features yet another PI, Rick Larkan.)

Archived Review: ROBERT SKINNER – Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting.

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Apr 172012

ROBERT SKINNER – Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting. Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover, 1999; trade paperback, 2000. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition.

At the present time there are six books in Robert Skinner’s series of Wesley Farrell adventures, of which this is the third:

Skin Deep, Blood Red (Kensington, 1997) [Nominated for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel.]

Cat-Eyed Trouble (Kensington, 1998)
Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (Poisoned Pen, 1999)
Blood to Drink (Poisoned Pen, 2000)

Pale Shadow (Poisoned Pen, 2001)
The Righteous Cut (Poisoned Pen, 2002)

Wesley Farrell is a mixed-blood Creole by birth, but at the time of this book, which is 1938, he’d been living in New Orleans as a white man for over 25 years. He’s a legend of a man — a night club owner whom everyone in the city seems to know and will defer to, rather than get on the wrong side of him. Nonetheless (and inevitably) it’s strictly his reputation that gets him into trouble this time.

ROBERT SKINNER Wesley Farrell

There are several threads of the widely rambling plot. The major one centers on the deaths or mysterious disappearances of prominent members of the aforementioned black community. Less important, or so it seems, is the request that Carol Donovan (*), the beautiful black owner of The Original Southport Club, makes of Farrell. She needs his help in fighting a tough thug named Archie Badeaux who has been making threats against her.

A stash of stolen money that has gone missing is also involved, and when Ernie LeDoux gets out of prison and starts looking for it, a brand new series of events is pushed into motion. And there’s more. It takes well over 300 pages of fine action-oriented fiction to cover it all.

Great characters and great atmosphere combine to make Gone A-Hunting very enjoyable reading. Back in 1938, and particularly in the South, there was an entire black community whose activities never made the white newspapers, and they certainly weren’t recorded in the white history books.

A separate black squad of the detectives in the police department, black bankers and real estate agents — an entirely separate (but not equal) citizenry — which you notice most when you are reminded, as Skinner does, that trains, for example, had separate cars for blacks.

ROBERT SKINNER Wesley Farrell

Most of the threads of plot come together at the end, but not all. In all truthfulness they’re spread too thin to have the depth that would make this an absolute knockout of a novel. Sometimes the longer the book, the weaker the punch. The clues which the detection depends upon are suspect as well — what kind of witless killer would vomit at each of his scenes of the crime, and fail to clean up his mess afterward?

But there are more adventures to come, and a couple of priors to catch up with also. I came in at the middle, and now with two different ways to go, I fully intend to.

– September 2003

(*) PostScript: Here’s a quote that here, just now, at the last minute, I decided to leave you with. From page 21:

A beautiful Negro woman of about thirty came through the doors of the Café Tristesse [Farrell's place] like she owned the joint. She was about five-and-a-half feet tall, with skin so pale brown it was no darker than a suntan, shoulder-length black hair, and eyes like obsidian. The only makeup on her fine-featured face was lip rouge the color of ripe plums. Dressed in a pale yellow dress, yellow sling-back pumps, and a yellow hat that was like gold ornamentation on a queen, she was enough to make a Baptist minister drink swamp water, crawl inside a hollow log, and bay at the moon.

Maybe Halle Berry could play the part? I was leaning toward a younger Richard Roundtree as Farrell, back when he played Shaft in the movies. When I mentioned this to another reader of the series (female), she immediately reminded me that Farrell is passing for white, and Roundtree is therefore too dark.

She then suggested Giancarlo Esposito, who appears on some television show I don’t watch. I obviously have to think this over some more.

Archived Review: IRVING WEINMAN – Virgil’s Ghost.

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Apr 102012

IRVING WEINMAN – Virgil’s Ghost. Fawcett Gold Medal, reprint paperback, January 1991. First published by Columbine, hardcover, 1990.

IRVING WEINMAN Lenny Schwartz

Lenny Schwartz, the hero of Weinman’s two previous mystery novels, turns PI in this one. Years of guilt as a homicide policeman have taken their toll. (I haven’t read the first two, so that is all I know, but as you will see, if you read on, neither am I about to.)

Lenny’s wife is upset by this decision for some reason, but maybe mostly because he didn’t tell her. Not, that is, until the night before he is to move into his new office. She kicks him out, saying that he is welcome home only on weekends, the next few of which they spend making love and feeling guilty afterward.

So Lenny’s first case is important to him, more important than he knows. The parents of a mathematician whose mutilated body was recently found in the East River want him to prove that the coroner’s report was wrong, that their son did not die of AIDS. They feel guilty about this, but they are determined to pursue this course of action.

Mixed in with all this guilt is a load of ethic humor (mostly Jewish), and fifty pages was as far as I went. Lenny’s new assistant is named Abrasha Addison (formerly Yarmolinksy), but at one time his real name was Abraham Resnick, and he can get a deal for you. When Lenny’s office/apartment is trashed by a firebomb, Abrasha is on the spot with a suitcase of clothes for Lenny. “What you think? Just your sizes, Lenny. No? Look, is first drawer quality. Bloomie’s Abe Strauss, good stuff, Huh?”

The murder is serious, however. Pornography is hinted at. Snuff films. According to the back cover, perversion, conspiracy, and cover-ups are involved. Seamy sex clubs and drugs. Government agencies. Russkies. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency. Heaven help us. Can’t anyone write a plain old PI story any more?

Anyway, I didn’t read most of this, but eight different newspapers and review services are liberally quoted on both covers, and they all read it and liked it, and you may, too. One of them even suggests that thus “great new literate sleuth” is “the American version of Adam Dalgleish.” I wouldn’t go that far, based on what I read, but I’d have to admit that I no longer read P. D. James either, and a lot of people do.

— Reprinted from Mystery*File 28,
February 1991 (slightly revised).

The Lenny Schwartz series –

Tailor’s Dummy. Atheneum, 1986.

Hampton Heat. Atheneum, 1988.

Virgil’s Ghost. Columbine, 1990.
Easy Way Down. Columbine, 1991.

[UPDATE] 04-09-12. One never knows for sure, but there’s a good possibility I would find something to reverse my opinion of this book, were I to read it now. Something as simple as my mood at the time may be different, or some eleven years later, certain overall ways I view things may have changed. On the other hand, I have not read P. D. James since I wrote this review, so perhaps not.

Reviewed by William F. Deeck: R. L. GOLDMAN – Death Plays Solitaire.

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Apr 082012

THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck

R. L. GOLDMAN – Death Plays Solitaire. Coward-McCann, hardcover, 1939. Green Dragon #10, digest-sized paperback, no date stated [1944], condensed.

R. L. GOLDMAN Rufus Reed

While it will not endear me to the doubtless many fans of Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed, “impulsive redheaded reporter,” I must confess I am glad I read the “condensed” version of this novel since its tediousness is staggering even in the abbreviated version.

For example: “I’m supposed to be a political commentator, and I do a daily column, ‘Round-Up,’ which I sign ‘Rufus Reed’ because that’s my name.”

A former police reporter, Reed has been assigned by Clume, his boss, to cover the execution of Dan Hillyard for murder during a bank robbery from which the money has never been recovered. On his last night Hillyard gives the deck of cards with which he has been playing solitaire to his wife.

In turn, she gives the cards to Hillyard’s lawyer, who is murdered shortly afterwards. He, too, had been playing solitaire, something he had never done before, and the deck of cards has been taken by the murderer. Other deaths follow, and Reed himself faces torture and death. As Reed does the leg work, Clume does the thinking, such as it is.

Not well written even for the times, a very thin plot, an evident but clueless murderer. Still, one waits, not breathlessly, to read The Snatch, in which, according to Green Dragon, “A slipping male movie idol is the victim-and there are more than enough suspects with motives. Irrepressible Rufus Reed, red-haired reporter figures out whodunit just in time for a smashing, surprise ending that’ll leave you worrying about ethics for quite a while.”

– From The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

The Asaph Clume & Rufus Reed series —

The Murder of Harvey Blake. Skeffington, 1931.
Murder Without Motive. Coward, 1938.

Death Plays Solitaire. Coward, 1939.
The Snatch. Coward, 1940.
Murder Behind the Mike. Coward, 1942.

The Purple Shells. Ziff-Davis, 1947.

Editorial Comment: R. L. Goldman also wrote three non-series mysteries not included in the list above. Some biographical information about him can be found in the Ziff-Davis “Fingerprint Mystery” checklist compiled by Victor Berch, Bill Pronzini and myself.

Reviewed by Marv Lachman: FREDRICK D. HUEBNER – Judgment by Fire.

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Apr 062012

IT’S ABOUT CRIME, by Marvin Lachman

FREDRICK D. HUEBNER Judgment by Fire

FREDRICK D. HUEBNER – Judgment by Fire. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback original, 1988.

I was not surprised after reading Fredrick D. Huebner’s Judgment by Fire, a paperback original from Gold Medal, to learn that the author is an attorney.

Even if my son weren’t a lawyer, I would disagree with the character in Shakespeare who said, “First, kill all the lawyers.” Writers in that profession, e.g., Huebner, Healey, Nevins, and Hensley are too good at integrating the law into their mystery plots.

At times, Huebner’s well-described courtroom scenes (even the motions made are suspenseful) threaten to overwhelm his rather meager plot. The book reaches its peak midway with a murder-arson trial and then is anticlimactic.

Still, on balance, this is a worthwhile mystery with a good description of the Seattle area, especially its perennial rain.

– Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

The Matt Riordan mystery series –

1. The Joshua Sequence (1986)
2. The Black Rose (1987)
3. Judgement By Fire (1988)
4. Picture Postcard (1990)
5. Methods of Execution (1994)

Reviewed by Allen J. Hubin: REX BURNS – The Killing Zone.

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Mar 302012

THE ARMCHAIR REVIEWER
Allen J. Hubin

REX BURNS – The Killing Zone. Viking, hardcover, 1988. Penguin, paperback, 1989.

REX BURNS Gabe Wager

Rex Burns’ latest about Denver homicide detective Gabe Wager is The Killing Zone. I’ve muttered before about Wager, a gloomy, morose, irascible chap with a recently acquired payload of guilt to boot.

But this one has a strong contemporary plot, with good suspense and character dynamics, and I was well swept along with the flow. A kid finds the city’s latest corpse in a vacant lot. It’s Horace Green, city councilman, black, hero and defender of the black community. Now wearing a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Racial motives spring to mind, and the city gathers itself for explosion. Wager’s boss wants him to look only in one white place for a killer, for a tension-defusing solution. Wager, who rarely takes orders from anyone and routinely works sixteen-hour days, will look everywhere.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

The Gabe Wager series –

1. The Alvarez Journal (1975)

2. The Farnsworth Score (1977)

3. Speak for the Dead (1978)

4. Angle of Attack (1979)
5. The Avenging Angel (1983)
6. Strip Search (1984)
7. Ground Money (1986)
8. The Killing Zone (1988)
9. Endangered Species (1993)
10. Blood Line (1995)

11. The Leaning Land (1997)

Rex Burns also wrote four books with PI Devlin Kirk as the lead detective. All 15 books have recently been published as ebooks by Mysterious Press.

Reviewed by Marv Lachman: GAYLORD DOLD – Bonepile.

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Mar 242012

IT’S ABOUT CRIME, by Marvin Lachman

GAYLORD DOLD – Bonepile. Ivy, paperback original, 1988.

GAYLORD DOLD Mitch Roberts

Bonepile by Gaylord Dold, the third Mitch Roberts novel, is more ambitious than the Rafferty book by W. Glenn Duncan (reviewed here ) but ultimately less satisfying.

Dold is another writer to be commended for moving the private eyes’ mean streets from New York and Los Angeles to more unusual locales. In this case it is a rural farming community in Kansas where Roberts, on vacation from Wichita (“…the world’s largest small town”), has gone to recuperate. One can feel the heat and wind blowing off the plains, imagine walking through the park in the middle of town, and understand the people, including their worship of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The book is set in 1956, but Roberts in true Lew Archer fashion permits guilt to cause him to try to solve a 1940′s murder. Unfortunately, Dold, like Archer’s creator, suffers from a severe case of a disease I believe I was first to diagnose and name: “metaphoritis.”

Its primary symptom is overwriting, with swelling of metaphors, those necessary usages which transform ordinary into very good writing. When poorly used, as in Bonepile, we get such lines as “Night grew in me like a tumor” and “The tree itself creaked as if its heart were broken.”

Sometimes, in an effort to be imaginative, Dold is merely anatomically unsound as he writes, “Sweat filled my mind and overflowed.” I suspect that the reason for all the overwriting and padding is that this time around he had too slim a plot and, based on the unsatisfactory ending, didn’t know how to conclude his book.

Yet I perceive real writing talent here, and Dr. Lachman suspects this case of metaphoritis will not be fatal.

– Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

The Mitch Roberts series –

Hot Summer, Cold Murder. Avon, pb, 1987.

Snake Eyes. Ivy, pb, 1987.
Bonepile. Ivy, pb, 1988.
Cold Cash. Ivy, pb, 1988.
Muscle and Blood. Ivy, pb, 1989.

Disheveled City. Ivy, pb, 1990.
A Penny for the Old Guy. St. Martin’s, hc, 1991.

Rude Boys. St. Martin’s, hc, 1992.
The World Beat. St. Martin’s, hc, 1993.
Samedi’s Knapsack. St. Martin’s, hc, 2001.

Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS – The Evil Men Do.

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Mar 222012

THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck

CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS – The Evil Men Do. Stokes, hardcover, 1941.

CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS Ethel Waters

Having turned down several lucrative offers to go to Hollywood and do screen writing, mystery writer Ethel Thomas finally accepts as a ploy to help out her niece, an aspiring movie actress.

The niece’s fiance, fighting for her honor, has apparently killed a man. It’s obvious that the “killing” is but a variation of the old badger game, but these two youngsters get themselves involved with a blackmailer who runs a gambling club. Naturally, he is soon bumped off. The niece, the fiance, the niece’s mother, and Thomas are unlikely suspects.

Since the idea should be a winner from the start, there ought to be a law that authors writing about septuagenarian lady mystery writers who also detect produce at least a halfway decent novel. If there were such a law, Fitzsimmons would be given twenty years without the option.

– From The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.

The Ethel Thomas series —

The Whispering Window. Stokes, 1936.
The Moving Finger. Stokes, 1937.

Mystery at Hidden Harbor. Stokes, 1938.
The Evil Men Do. Stokes, 1941.

Editorial Comment: In a crime fiction writing career that extended from 1930 to 1943, Cortland Fitzsimmons wrote or co-authored another thirteen novels, two of which featured Arthur Martinson as the leading character, and two with Percy Peacock. I know nothing about either of the two, but Bill Deeck’s review of the author’s book The Girl in the Cage, displays an equal lack of enthusiasm for his work: “…reading Fitzsimmons is like watching grease congeal.”

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