The Knife Slipped by Erle Stanley Gardner

When the wealthy Mrs. Atterby walks into Bertha Cool’s detective agency with her daughter, Mrs. Cunner, to discuss Mrs. Cunner’s wayward husband, Bertha is all ears. Although most detective agencies don’t handle domestic cases, Cool is not above airing someone else’s dirty linen and she’s got just the agent for the case, Donald Lam. Of course, as Lam investigates, he discovers Mr. Cunner is involved in more than just stepping out on his wife…and Lam has the bruises to prove it.

The Knife Slipped, a long lost manuscript (there seem to be a lot of them cropping up nowadays) in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Cool and Lam series, apparently was supposed to be the second book in the series. I forgot that I had read another book in the series and wasn’t overly impressed.

Bertha Cool is a smart talking, obese broad who pretty much has no scruples. Unfortunately, she is way over the top, so if you’re into the believable, you’d be hard pressed to believe any of this.

Donald Lam appears to fall hard and fast for anything in a skirt. He doesn’t have much brain power, but for a skinny guy seems to take his beatings in stride.

*****SPOILER*****

The plot is totally outdated, as it deals with cheating on police and fireman civil service exams, which is not something I’ve heard much about recently.

Gardner was a prolific pulp mystery writer, but he wasn’t one of the best. He created unique characters for the times, but I can’t say that I really like Bertha Cool or Donald Lam. I wouldn’t go out of my way to read more of the series.

Read Full Post »

The Mammoth Book of Movie Detectives and Screen Crimes edited by Peter Haining

The Mammoth Book of Movie Detectives and Screen Crimes is indeed big, but not mammoth when compared to Otto Penzler’s Big Lizard books on pulp mysteries. Also it’s a fast reading book.

Let’s first talk about what this book isn’t, though, because there’s a little misrepresentation here. The back cover states “Here are original stories of crime and detection that were the inspiration behind some of the best-loved screen successes.” By this I thought these stories were actually the bases for TV and movie mysteries. In reality, these stories were written by authors who created TV and movie detectives, but the stories themselves were not necessarily the basis for the movie or series.

Having gotten that out of the way, The Mammoth Book of Movie Detectives and Screen Crimes is an worthwhile book, now that your expectations are set. Peter Haining, who has written much about pulp fiction of all genres knows what he’s doing.

The best story in the book was It Had to be Murder by Cornell Woolrich which was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s Read Window. However, this story has no romantic plot to it; no Grace Kelly blond tending to the wheelchair bound James Stewart. The film basically followed the story and I kept picturing Raymond Burr as the would-be murderer.

The second best story which immediately follows Rear Window is Forbidden Fruit by Edgar Lustgarten and is a James M. Cain-esque story of a man and woman plotting her husband’s murder—think The Postman Always Rings Twice. It has the same darkness to it and a similar ending. Lustgarten introduced the British series, Scotland Yard, but this story was not a part of the series.

Authors included in the anthology count as a partial who’s who of mystery writers: Edgar Wallce, Eric Ambler, George Harmon Coxe, Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain), Erle Stanley Gardner, Georges Simenon and Ruth Rendell. Hunter’s story was the basis for the movie the Blackboard Jungle which certainly is not a detective/mystery story and Rendell’s excellent story has no corresponding TV or movie.

The authors are credited with creating some of the great detective series or movies including Columbo, Little Caesar, Naked City, Perry Mason (although this was not one of the better stories), and Maigret. A lot of the series are British and the dates range from the 1920s to the 1990s. At the beginning of each story is a short bio of the author and an explanation of the series for which he/she is credited.

The Mammoth Book of Movie Detectives and Screen Crimes is not your run of the mill mystery anthology. It contains stories and authors you may not have heard of and mentions series that you may be unfamiliar with. It’s a nice way to broaden your mystery horizons. I think the next mystery author I’m going to tackle is Cornell Woolrich. I’ve read some of his stories but not enough. So move over Hammett and Chandler, I’m going to dig up some Woorich.

I highly recommend this book.

Read Full Post »

History of Mystery by Max Allan Collins

Just like a well designed plate of food enhances the taste of a meal, so too a well designed book cover enhances the reading experience. In the 1700 and 1800s and even into the early 1900s book covers were considered decorations to be viewed. The Golden Age of book covers lasted from the late 1800s into the early 1900s, ending with the advent of book jackets and paperbacks. However, from a mystery book standpoint, the pulp mysteries published in the 1930s to 1950s have some of the best artwork imaginable, in my mind anyway. It may be considered ‘campy’ now, but it added a flavor to the book that would be missing otherwise.

The History of Mystery by Max Allan Collins, a mystery writer in his own right, combines the history of the ‘non-policeman’ detective with plentiful photos of book covers, movie tie-ins, TV show ads, etc. Divided into 10 sections, Collins covers the people who made mystery what it is: A. Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett. He covers female detectives (Kinsey Millhone, VI Warshawski) and TV detectives, reminding me of some of my favorite shows such as Mannix, Spenser for Hire, Honey West, the Rockford Files.

There’s a lot of interesting trivia (I never new there was an Ed McBain detective magazine) and a lot name dropping of many people who might be unfamiliar to mystery readers but were influential in the field, such as Roy Huggins who created a number of wonderful TV shows including 77 Sunset Strip.

Collins must think like me–that the presentation is an important part of the package. The glossy pages, some with a colored background, the full color photos of book covers, the portraits of mystery greats all add up to a great reading experience. The History of Mystery is an easy to read, eye-catching history of one of the great genres.

As I said in the beginning, this book doesn’t cover policemen so don’t expect to see Harry Bosch or the 87th Precinct mentioned here. Maybe that’ll be Collins’ next book…hint, hint.

Read Full Post »

Hard Boiled Detectives

Where else can you read this kind of great description but in pulp mysteries? “I was sitting at my desk, wondering about the office rent, when the door opened and in walked in the most beautiful assemblage of female parts that ever shrugged into a mink coat. She had hair the color of burnished copper and dead white skin and her eyes were as green and as hard as emeralds.” They just don’t write them like that anymore.

Hard Boiled Detectives: 23 Great Stories from Dime Detective Magazine is another wonderful anthology of pulp mysteries by the masters: Erle Stanley Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and more. These stories range from the 1930s to the 1950s. I personally can’t get enough of this stuff.

So, if you’re looking to expand your mystery horizons and you don’t want to tackle Otto Penzler’s 1,100 page anthologies The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps and The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories, then this is a good staring point.

Read Full Post »