Category: Book Review

Book Review: Back on Murder

Editor’s Note: A version of this review was posted in 2013.

For Roland March, it’s pretty simple, either he’s going back (to being homicide detective) or he’s going out (as in completely out of the Houston PD) March made headlines seven years before when he solved a sensational murder, but the high expectations caused by the publicity of the case combined with a personal tragedy led to a decline in his work where he’s on one dead-end assignment after another, most regularly working a sting where police capture stupid wanted felons lured into the open with the promise of winning a free car contest.

March makes some keen observations at scene of the murder of an inner-city drug dealer. March believes that the murder is tied into a nationally covered disappearance of a teenage girl. He goes against orders to look into the angle and gets yanked off the case and on to the task force looking into the disappearance, another dead end. Can March somehow parlay his hunches, uncover the secrets of a group of crooked cops, and stay alive so that his career and life get back on track.

The writing is top notch. March is a fantastic character with his own set of inner demons. March’s narration varies from hard-boiled wry cop sarcasm to poignancy, to vivid and powerful word images that paint as clear a picture of 21st Century Houston as Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe’s stories did of 1940s Los Angeles. The character does change as the story goes on. He becomes more of a team player. At the beginning of the book, his focus is really on him: The quest to get back into Homicide. As his focus shifts to the case at hand, actually getting his man leads to real cooperation.

The mystery is a clever tangled web of intrigue that intersects with crooked cops, with honest efforts to help others, and an old rival of March’s that won’t go away. Really, everything ties together in the end and the clues are solidly laid out.

The last quarter and the last sixth of the book in particular do suffer a bit of a slowdown with more fizzle than sizzle. Bertrand made the dubious decision to fill in a bunch of back story details towards the end of the book as we were closing in on the killers and a hurricane kills not one by two birds for our hero. These are minor issues given how good the rest of the book was.

Overall, I enjoyed the book immensely and will be watching for the next book in the series.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0

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Book Review: The Mountains Bow Down

FBI Agent Raleigh Harmon is on an Atlanta Cruise, officially on-vacation but working as a consultant on a direct to DVD film  It stars a washed up Hollywood actor as an FBI agent. When the actor’s wife commits suicide, Raleigh investigates.

The mystery itself is a solid and well-thought out. The setting of an Alaskan cruise offers some great opportunities for atmosphere. The C-list Hollywood personalities likewise have good angst and conflicts . As usual, writer Sibella Giorello has done some great research that makes the mystery feel intriguing but grounded. There’s some superb misdirection and a solution that’s not immediately discernible.

The book is not without problems. I enjoyed the first three Raleigh Harmon mysteries, but I found this a frustrating read in the early going. Her internal mean girl monologues in the first section of the book seemed way off for Raleigh.

Raleigh did things that did not make sense. She got engaged to her old boyfriend and flew thousands of miles from home despite them having very little chemistry in the first books. In addition, Raleigh’s mother has had mental health problems and Raleigh fears if her mother ever finds out she’s an FBI agent she’ll have a mental breakdown. Thus, it must be kept from her at all costs. So Raleigh brings her on a cruise where she’s working on a project that’s based on her FBI agent. And she also brings along her mom’s sister and her sister’s flaky psychic friend who also know she’s with the FBI. What could go wrong?

Also, the story seems to be setting up a Seattle field agent as her ideal love interest under the theory, if you find someone utterly loathsome, they’re really the one for you. Her language and internal monologue about this agent are over the top. It feels like Giorello has things she wants to do with Raleigh and her supporting cast and is determined to do set these things up no matter what. It’s contrived in a way that I found annoying.

Once the book focuses on the mystery, the book is fine. It’s a good puzzle. However, a less contrived plot would have done it a world of good.
Rating 3.5 out of 5

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Book Review: DC Comics Greatest Detective Stories Ever Told

DC is known as one of the two big Superhero comic book companies in the United States. However, it’s easy to forget “DC” actually stands for “Detective Comics,” which is also the title of the company’s longest-running title. This book collects a selection of DC comics that center on some of the DC universe’s most noted detectives.

Most comic fans associate the title, Detective Comics with Batman. However, Batman didn’t appear in the series until Issue 27. The book opens with a story from Detective Comics #2, “Skyscraper Death” where two-fisted private eye Slam Bradley finds himself implicated in a murder. This 1937 story has a lot of action, compared to modern comics. The story is only 13 pages long but has a lot to it. It feels like a complete B-Movie in comic book form. The transfers on this story are not great, but they’re probably about as good as DC Comics could get given that it’s an obscure 75 year old story.

Next up is, “The Van Leew Emeralds” which finds the Sandman (Wesley Dodds) in a caper involving crooks and a game of getting them in the right place so the right people will be prosecuted by the police for them. It’s a fun bit of running around.  There’s a tough of Leslie Charteris’ Simon Templar (aka: The Saint) mixed a bit with the Green Hornet in the Golden Age presentation of the Sandman.

Then there’s, “The Puzzle of the Purple Pony” featuring Elongated Man (Ralph Dibney.) Elongated Man was a private detective who got stretching superpowers. He fell in love and married a wealthy woman named Sue and they traveled around and he found and solved mysteries. There’s more than a little touch of the Thin Man in the Dibney’s crime-fighting escapades. In this particular story, while out West, Sue becomes curious why a cowboy’s horse is painted purple. While initially, Ralph thinks its none of their business, Sue plunges them headlong into the adventure. The result is a fun Silver Age mystery that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t go over the top into silliness.

“When it Rains, God is Crying” is a much more recent story. It’s a two-issue Lois Lane series mini-series from 1986 in which Lois does her own investigation into a child’s death  As Lois becomes personally involved and answers become scarce, she begins to alienate everyone in her life. This was a relatively long story, the length of many graphic novels of the era, but felt a bit short. The story becomes a more focused on Lois’ emotional state and her alienation from her friend than it does the investigation itself. There are plot details that are incongruous or don’t quite make sense. For example, her sister Luci appears and plans to write something that she’s afraid Lois will be angry about but that could fix things. We never find out what exactly Lucy did, but we kind of see an outcome. There’s a lot of potential, but this could have used more space to develop as a story. I will say that the art is very evocative for the era, and while the ending is unsatisfying, I think that was intentional to the crimes against children at the center of the story.

“The Doomsday Book” is a giant-sized Issue of Detective Comics put out for the book’s 50th Anniversary. It starts with a visit to the office of the aging private eye Slam Bradley that goes wrong and requires help from Batman. The very involved mystery brings in not only Bradley, Batman, and Robin, but even involves an old case of Sherlock Holmes. Detective team-ups are tricky because generally one detective looks far brighter than the other. Here though, every detective is given their due, and it’s just a really fun yarn.

“The Mikado” is a story from the 1980s Question comic series that finds Victor Sage investigated of murders and mutilations by a man who follows the famous line from the Miakdo, “My object all sublime I shall achieve in time— let the punishment fit the crime.’ It’s actually an effective story that is contained within one issue. It’s gritty, but very well-written.

“The Origin of Detective Chimp” is a 1989 story that provides an origin story for Detective Chimp, a super detective introduced in 1952, and then popping up here and there throughout DC history. The story involves aliens, an incident in a jungle, and just weird things happening but also manages to work in a little bit of mystery for our newly minted detective to solve. I’m not the biggest fan of the artwork, but the story is a fun little jaunt.

The book concludes with an excerpt from the “Parallel Lines” part of the “A Lonely Place for Dying” story. Tim Drake shows up wanting to take on the mantle of Robin. He explains to Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth how he figured out Bruce Wayne was Batman and Dick Grayson was the original Robin. It was based on a personal encounter and some information in the newspapers. While this excerpt’s only 11-pages, it’s an incredibly effective bit of storytelling. Drake’s discovery goes a long way towards making him a plausible Robin. His understanding that Batman needs someone to balance him out and bring a bit of lightness to his dark world would be another. This was a very effective and beautifully drawn excerpt.

Overall, while I had issues with the Lois Lane story, this was a really good collection. If you enjoyed detective-themed Comics, this will be a fun read.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

Book Review: The Fortress of Solitude/The Devil Genghis

I’m reviewing a (sadly out of print) copy of Nostalgia Ventures’ /Sanctum Doc Savage novel reprint featuring two Doc Savage Novels, “The Fortress of Solitude” and “The Devil Genghis.” However, for early readers of this review, you might be able to get a copy for something approaching a reasonable price.

While most people associate the “Fortress of Solitude” with Superman. Doc Savage had a Fortress long before the Man of Steel graced the cover of Action Comics #1. Savage’s fortress was also in the Arctic. It was an isolated spot where Doc carried out his experiments and also where he stored all the death machines he found in his adventures.

The Fortress of Solitude was published in October 1938 and Doc Savage had been around for nearly seven years and at that point could use a shake up. And boy did Fortress of Solitude provide it. The unthinkable happened. A mad genius named John Sunlight stumbled upon Doc’s fortress took command of its arsenal and unleashed it upon the world, offering Doc’s unused discoveries as well as his confiscated cache of weapons.

As a plot, this is a real corker. This is tops for telling a different sort of story and pushing the character in a different direction against a foe that has to be Doc’s most menacing. John Sunlight is brilliant, ruthless, and yet enigmatic and strange enough to be Doc’s Moriarty. He’s also the only Doc Savage villain to return for a second encounter, which comes in the Devil Genghis.

The Devil Genghis was published in December 1938 and features a more complex and refined plan for world domination as key people around the world are being driven mad. The plan begins with an effort to kidnap Doc, who is set to use one of his lesser known (and less useful) talents and play a violin recital at Carnegie Hall for charity. The Devil Genghis is another globe trotting adventure but with a wider variety of settings. It also offers a key surprise in what John Sunrise’s endgame

As a collection, this is smashing, and the volume is enriched with some commentary by Will Murray. The one thought I had as I finished The Devil Genghis is that if they’d wanted to have Doc Savage end on a strong note, this would have been a great finale because there’s just no topping it. In addition, the next year, the World would be at war and the World of Doc’s Golden Age would disappear forever while comic books and superheroes would replace him in popular culture. However, magazine publishing was a business and they decided to keep milking the character until he ran dry.

However, this book is Doc near the height of his popularity in a story that takes him to places no other Doc Savage story before or since ever took him. If you’ve enjoyed any Doc Savage story, this one is a must-read. While its out of print, interlibrary loans are a great option to enjoy these stories. They are classics of the pulp adventure genre.

 

Rating: 4.75 out of 5

MyComicshop.com has copies of this reprint available at their website (even though this isn’t a comic book) at a reasonable price. The book is #1 in the Doc Savage Reprints collection from Sanctum. Once it’s gone, ownership of the book will be for collectors only as the cost on most marketplaces I’ve seen is around $30-50

Book Review: The Kennel Murder Case

In the Kennel Murder Case, a wealthy man is found dead upstairs in a locked room with signs that point to murder. His brother is thought to be the prime suspect until he’s found dead downstairs in a closet. A key clue to solving the case is a badly beaten Scottish terrier. Of course, it falls to Philo Vance to unravel the case.

This is the sixth Philo Vance and in my opinion, it’s much better than the first. Vance is far more likable for one. While in the first book, Vance had a thru line arguing physical evidence was so humbug and how he knows better, the smugness is dialed down considerably. And physical evidence is important to him as he investigates and formulates his theory.

It also helps that Vance is a dog-lover and passionate about the Scottish Terrier breed, giving a really impassioned speech on the breed’s virtues. It humanizes his character quite a bit. Although, it should be noted there are some key differences in the way dogs were treated in the 1930s and what we view as best practices today.

In addition, writer S.S. Van Dine also featured some cameos from real people he knew, which gives the book warmth.

The puzzle has a lot of clues, red herrings, and moving parts that boggle the mind and keep the reader engaged. I’m not a huge fan of the solution, due to ridiculous and improbable mistakes and miscues by so many people. If a re-enactment of the murders as portrayed in the book were done on film, it’d be appropriate to play the Benny Hill theme over it.

Another annoyance is that  Sergeant Heath formulates his theories based on racial stereotypes, although these never pan out.  Despite this, this is an enjoyable read. If you love a decent puzzle mystery or are curious about Philo Vance, this is a fun way to experience the character, if you can tolerate the offensive content and the absurd content..

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Book Review: The Benson Murder Case

The Benson Murder Case (1926) is the first Philo Vance novel written by S.S. Van Dine. The series was popular and spawned multiple film and radio versions into the 1950s. In this novel, a wealthy man about town is murdered. Philo Vance is a wealthy dabbler in a variety of topics and a friend of District Attorney Markham. Vance decides to apply his mind and unique theories of crime-solving to the murder case.

The best thing you can say about Philo Vance in this book is that he’s a man of his times. There was an appeal to many in the 1920s for a hero who was utterly cynical, flippant, was better and smarter than anyone else and was not afraid to say so and put down his inferiors. However, I found him rather insufferable through most of this book. This is hurt by author S.S. Van Dine who goes on and on about him and spends much of the first third of the book highlighting every aspect of the personality of what he seems convinced is the most fascinating person on Earth.

He also had a premise that he was seeking to prove: the importance of psychology in solving crime. This actually wasn’t all that uncommon of a notion among golden age literary detectives. This was a response to the way police forces had evolved. When Sherlock Holmes was introduced, the premise was that the police were dull when it came to observing and interpreting due to a lack of imagination and a lack of ability to apply scientific methods to the classification of evidence. The popularity of Holmes’ stories led to an increase in the use of scientific methods and forensic evidence.

In the world of many golden age detectives, the police were no longer dunderheads who couldn’t understand the importance of things like fingerprints and not traipsing through murder scenes, destroying valuable clues. Rather, according to the new theory, police relied too heavily on the physical evidence and would use it to build circumstantial cases against innocent people. Many golden age detectives would find the true guilty party, not through some elaborate or clever method of detection, but through an understanding of the human condition and human tendencies. This understanding often told the detective what happened and then with that knowledge they could find corroborating evidence to prove their theories. To an extent, this idea of using this sort of method was practiced by golden age detectives such as Father Brown and Hercule Poirot.

Whether this was true or not in real life, the masters of the genre made it believable enough that the reader bought it for the purposes of the story. In the case of Philo Vance, though, his advocacy for psychological evidence is made fatuous by his over-the-top argument against physical evidence having any significance at all. That makes watching him solve the case and be  (in some way) proven right a somewhat annoying experience. Reading this book is like watching the most annoying person you can imagine spending hours spouting rubbish and come up with the right answer.

That said, once you plow through the first third of the book, the mystery itself isn’t all that bad. It’s pretty clever and well-plotted once we get past all the preliminaries. But again, there are mysteries just as good with protagonists who are not nearly as aggravating.

This is a book I can only recommend if you’re curious about the origins of a detective that ended up featured in numerous films and radio programs and\or if you’re into unlikable golden-age detectives. It’s worth checking out from the library, but I can’t recommend a buying it. The book enters the public domain in the United States in January and will be free to download from sites such as Project Gutenberg soon thereafter. If you’re curious about the book, there’s really not a good reason to not wait for it to become freely available.

Rating: 2.75 out of.5

Book Review: Pat Savage: Six Scarlet Scorpions

Doc Savage’s cousin Pat travels to Oklahoma along with one of Doc’s lieutenant’s, Monk Mayfair, in order to try her luck in oil speculation. Before she can even get to the field, she has to deal with a ruthless competitor. But that’s nothing compared to the mess she and Monk find themselves in when they stumble into a conspiracy involving a paralyzing poison, an offshot of the Ossage Indian tribes led by the sinister Chief Standing Scorpion, and murder. Pat and Monk find themselves framed for murder, and on the run from the law while pursuing the real culprits. How will they cope with Doc Savage out of the picture at his Fortress of Solitude?

As a bit of pulp fiction potboiler, this a fun read. The adventure itself has a lot of opportunities for derring-do as well as having quite a few mysteries that really keep the reader curious from start to finish, particular the question of who Standing Scorpion is. Admitted a villainous plot that’s essentially, “First Oklahoma…and then the world,” seems a bit unlikely and maybe even silly. But, it definitely works in the context of a pulp adventure set in the 1930s.

While Doc Savage novels tend to have a big cast, often involving many of Doc’s men, Pat and Monk are the sole protagonists of the book, with Monk’s best frenemy Ham being the only other member of Doc’s team to make an appearance. Monk is my favorite character in the Doc Savage world and this book shows how well he can carry the book and he plays very well off of Pat. They make a superb duo. If there’s a downside to this, it’s that Monk plays such a big role in this story that it’s hard to see how an ongoing series with Pat would like, although several sites have labeled this book 1 in the Wild Adventures of Pat Savage. Even though, there’s not  been a second book in five years. Pat does hint towards the end of the book that if she does go on another adventure, she’ll go alone. Six Scarlet Scorpions does enough to make me intrigued to find out what that would like.

The other characters in this story are mostly forgettable, compromising a group of toughs, evil overlords, a damsel and few other supporting characters. However, this is typically true of Doc Savage stories, where the persoanlities of the lead characters really do carry the book.

The book also suffers from the malady that most of the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage tend to. There’s a lot of our heroes being caught and released repeatedly. It’s the biggest source of padding in these books and this novel is no exception.

Still, this is an interesting book that does a great job recreating the world of Doc Savage and giving a couple characters from that world a chance to really shine on their own. It suceeds and if you enjoyed the original Doc Savages books or the other Wild Adventures, this is worth checking out.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Book Review: Silent are the Dead

Silent are the Dead is an original Flash Casey novel by George Herman Coxe. It 1941, it was originally serialized in Black Mask Magazine (where Casey made his debut in 1934) in three parts, and published as a standalone novel in 1942.

In it, ace photographer Flash Casey has to get pictures of a disgraced lawyer after his camera case is stolen and his film exposed. When he goes up to the lawyer’s apartment, he finds the lawyer dead and himself in a case that grows ever more complex.

Flash Casey is an interesting character. He bares little resemblance to the character who’d arrive on radio the next year and less to the hotheaded goofball of the film Here’s Flash Casey. Casey is a decent sort. He’s got a nose for news but he’s neither heartless, nor unethical. He’s got a hard boiled edge to him, but this never goes over the top. He also takes a great deal of pride not just in his own work, but in the profession and its status, which motivates his actions in the final act of the novel.

This is a solidly written mystery novel. The plot is complex and intriguing with twists around every corner. The story is well-plotted, and well-paced. My interest never lagged from start to finish. I appreciated how photography was used in the novel to make this story distinct from the countless tales of private eyes, lawyers, and mystery men that dominated the fiction shelfs of the day. I’ve experienced a few stories from the old Black Mask magazine and compared to them, this book is above average. 

The characterization is not a huge strength. With one exception, the other characters feel mostly functional. They’re not unrealistic, over the top, or badly written, but as individuals, they’re surface level and blend quickly into a sea of newspaper employees, gangsters, damsels/potential femme fatales, and cops without much personality to distinguish them. Still, with Casey being well-written, he’s an anchor that keeps the story interesting.

In terms of quality, I’d consider it similar to the best Michael Shayne books.  It’s not a genre classic by any means, but it is a good example of a pre-War detective novel with hard-boiled flavor. In addition, its photographer hero makes it stand out from most of its mystery peers. It’s also a nice read for those who enjoy the Casey, Crime Photographer radio series and are curious about the hero’s literary origins. 

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Book Review: The Court of Last Resort


The Court of Last Resort tells the story of how Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner established a team of experts who investigated cases of people sent to prison where evidence indicates justice wasn’t done and some of the cases where their investigations helped correct the injustice.

The story begins after Gardner helped to address the case of a wrongful conviction in California. He then formed his team of men who didn’t need either fame or money and the project began as a regular column in the magazine Argosy. 

The secret of the Court of Last Resort’s success was that while the column and the organization of experts were known as the Court of Last Resort, Gardner believed the real court was the average citizen. Through the articles in Argosy, pressure was brought to bare on politicians and parole boards to take a look at the case of individuals that society had forgotten.

The first 70% of the book is dedicated to examining the various cases the court took on, but it’s more than just a rehearsal of cases. Gardner goes into some detail on the challenges this group faced, ranging from the rather mundane (how to make this work in a magazine), to how and why they faced opposition and occasionally  support from local officials.

Gardner is a skilled writer and manages to keep a sensible tone, and a great ability to empathize with his subjects including those who weren’t fans of the Court of Last Resort, and see things from his perspective. He avoids broad-brush allegations of corruption or prejudice, only calling those out when the evidence warrants it. Otherwise to help the readers understand why things go wrong due to challenges faced by everyone from the cops on the beat to prosecutors and prison wardens. He eschewed turning human beings to caricatures.

The book then takes a turn. As Gardner has discussed different problems in criminal law, he turns to prescribing solutions for the last thirty percent of the book. To be fair, he remains honest, even-handed, and examines issues from a variety of perspectives. The problem for modern readers is that this portion of the book is a sixty-eight year-old public policy treatise.

Unless you’re an expert on the minutiae of modern criminal procedure, it can be hard to figure out which, if any, of Gardner’s proposals were ever implemented. Several, I knew for sure, haven’t been. If you think he makes a good case for a particular reform, you may think America made a mistake by not following his advice. While some of his ideas are interesting, I wasn’t expecting this to turn into a policy reform book, so I could probably have done without that section.

Still, the cases that are chronicled are pretty interesting and Gardner is an entertaining writer to read. It’s also fun to learn of the Perry Mason writer’s real passion for justice. Overall, this may be a book you’ll enjoy.if you found the Court of Last Resort TV interesting or you’re a fan of Gardner or of the history of real-life efforts to clear the wrongfully convicted.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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Book Review: The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe

The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe is an anthology of parodies, pastiches, and a few other things that are hard to categorize, all inspired by Rex Stout’s greatest literary creation. I’m going to give a detailed look at everything in the book.

“Red Orchids” by French Author Thomas Narcejac finds Wolfe out from the Brownstone to investigate a case with the promise of a rare, red orchid. This translation by Narcejac does a fair job capturing the Wolfe-Archie relationship, but there’s too much emphasis on Wolfe firing Archie, which wasn’t nearly as much of a thing in the novels. It’s not a bad read at all.

Next, we get an excerpt from Marion Mainwaring’s book Murder by Pastiche. The book contains several pastiches of detective characters solving mysteries. Here we get a flavor for how the Wolfe pastiche works and the author does a great job capturing both Archie and Wolfe. It was well-written and made me want to read the whole book.

I should not like “Archie Hunters” as much as I do as it’s a bit ham-fisted. It involves a parody of Mike Hammer meeting up with Nero Wolfe. Writer Jon L. Breen states he was not a fan of Mike Hammer. This is hardly a necessary statement when he named the parody Mack Himmler. In addition, Breen (through Wolfe) gives us the moral of the story. I think makes it work is the degree to which Mr. Breen commits to it. While he’s having Wolfe make a broadly political (not partisan) point, it’s so in keeping with Wolfe’s voice and something I could actually imagine Wolfe saying.

“The Frightened Man” is a pastiche that uses different character names but is inspired by Wolfe. It’s a solid entry, though a bit short for my tastes.

As to the first Chapter of Murder in E Minor by Robert Goldsborough, I’ve had my issues with Goldsborough’s Wolfe books, but this is the one is good. It does a solid job capturing the feel of Stout’s work. The first chapter is well-written and I wouldn’t mind reading the book again.

“The Purloined Platypus” finds Wolfe and Archie solving the mystery of a museum theft in the present day. It’s a good story, but the mystery is more okay, and the author is fine but not brilliant at capturing the voices and transferring the main characters to the 21st Century. However, I’m a bit prejudiced as its hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of Archie taking pictures with his phone and finding information on the Internet.

“The House on 35th Street” and “The Sidekick Case” are two of the parodies that were run by the Saturday Review. Both are short, but I think this is a case where brevity is the soul of wit. “The House on 35th Street” pokes fun at the conventions of Stout novels, while “The Sidekick Paper” takes on bad word usage in a way that you could believe Wolfe actually would.

“The Case of the Disposable Jalopy” is a parody with Wolfe and Archie in a futuristic world where both have aged (contrary to Stout’s general practice.) Archie no longer has his photographic memory and Wolfe’s mental powers have gone downhill. In addition, due to automation, most jobs have been eliminated with people living on a negative income tax and Fritz forced to buy lower class food on a budget. This is very much a sort of a Saturday Night Live sort of take on Nero Wolfe (from when Saturday Night Live was actually funny) and it’s a solid piece of humor. It’s committed to its premise, and the humor is far more hit than miss, although one of the jokes feels a bit tasteless. Overall, it’s a fairly solid parody.

 “As Dark as Christmas Gets” finds a Nero Wolfe fan who believes Nero Wolfe is real and hopes to gain his favor. Leo Haig is brought in to solve the mystery of a Cornell Woolrich manuscript that disappeared at the Christmas Party. This was a good story with some intelligent dialogue and fairly drawn characters. Haig’s Archie Goodwin character Chip is more vulgar than Archie, but not so much it got in my way of enjoying this short.

Next up is, “Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe” and the lead detective Claudius Lyon is the answer to the question. Lyon, like Haig, believes Wolfe is real, but is afraid of getting sued by him, so his detective work is strictly amateur which also avoids the requirement of a license. This is a fun story about a search for a missing poetry contest winner from several years back. It revolves around word play and as far as a mystery goes, it works. I enjoyed all the little twists that Loren Estleman took on the Nero Wolfe world, starting with Lyon being located in Flatbush.

In “Julius Katz and the Case of the Exploding Wine” writer David Zeltserman takes a few of the ideas from the Wolfe story and adds a whole lot to it. Katz has an Archie, but Archie in this case is an AI in a tie clip that advises Katz who is a wine-drinking gambler with a fifth degree black belt. However, like Wolfe, Katz is lazy and needs prodded to go to work. I enjoyed this and all of the twists and turns. There were characters who had very definitive counterparts in the Wolfe stories (ex: Detective Cramer), but others you have to guess at.

“The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo” is an original short story for this collection that finds a Wolfe-like detective in a state of semi-retirement but tempted to take on one final case. The writer isn’t as immersed in the Wolfe canon as other contributors and it shows but not too much. The story is still an entertaining read with some clever twists. I found the ending uncomfortable, but other than that, this was fine.

The book has a section entitled potpourri, which is a bunch of miscellaneous bits and bobs about Wolfe.

“The Woman Who Read Nero Wolfe” is a delightful short about an intelligent 500 pound circus woman who takes to reading Nero Wolfe and then has to solve the murder of a young woman she’d taken under her wing. Pithy, fun, and has a superb twist. 

“Sam Buried Caesar” is from a series of short stories about a police inspector who named his children after famous detectives. This is the story of ten-year-old Nero Wolfe and the detective agency he founded with his friend and assistant Artie. This originally appeared in Ellery Queen Magazine and a story like this poses a unique challenge because it’s got to be true to being a story about kids, without boring the adults. This story nails it and was just a lot of fun to read.

The book includes Chapter 24 from Rasputin’s Revenge. Writer John Lescroat posited that Nero Wolfe was the illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler and born under the name Auguste Lupa. This chapter appears to be from the end of the mystery where Holmes, Watson, and Lupa are talking. This is fine and features interesting interactions. 

Joseph Goodrich adapted a couple of Nero Wolfe stories to the stage and the first scene of Might as Well Be Dead is included. This is probably as close to seeing the play as most of us are going to get as these haven’t been widely distributed or performed. The play appears to have some good ideas like having Archie as an on the on-stage narrator and really seems to condense the initial client interview from the book so the action can get moving. Other choices I’m less sure of, but they might make sense in the context of the full play. Its hard to evaluate it based on one scene.

The final short story by Robert Lopestri is amusing tale of two grandparents telling their granddaughter what it was like to live next to Nero Wolfe and why they eventually decided to move away. It’s an amusing and clever take.

While I have criticisms of many pieces in this book, I liked them all. If you’re a Wolfe fan, this book is for you. Taken together, the book is a fantastic tribute to Nero Wolfe and shows a bit of how Rex Stout’s work has been inspiring authors with the amazing characters and world he created.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

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Graphic Novel Review: Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive

Dick Tracy made a big arrest and got fired for it. However, the City by the Lake desperately needs cleaning up, so the City by the Lake calls him and he gets to work, and it’s not too long before he’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and hunted by dishonest cops, and needs new allies to clear his name and bust the rackets.

Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive can be a bit jarring. Dick Tracy looks and acts like he always did. Only in a city that despite its retro designs, is chocked full of modern technology. Of course, this may come off as less surprising to fans of the strip which has had to find a way to keep current while maintaining the timeless qualities of Tracy. This book doesn’t do a pretty decent job of it.

The book does a decent job re-imagining some Dick Tracy characters  without going too far or making them unrecognizable. When Tracy is on the run, he’s given his watch, which is introduced as a specially designed device that gets around spying technology.’

If I had a complaint about changes, it’d be with Tess Trueheart. Tess has always been a tough character to do and an easy one to turn into a two dimensional damsel in distress trope. However, this book turns into a more modern trope, that’s just as two dimensional.

The art is fun and very fitting for a Dick Tracy book. The story’s not a masterpiece. But at just over 100 pages, it’s a breezy, fun read that manages to capture the Spirit of Dick Tracy and provide a lot of great, two-fisted action and a few surprises along the way.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Book Review: Before Midnight

Editor’s Note: A version of this review originally appeared 9 years ago.

How annoying can a client or set of clients get? Nero Wolfe finds out in Before Midnight.

After the death of a hotshot advertising executive, his firm hires Wolfe not to find the killer, but to locate the dead man’s wallet which contained the answers to a verse-guessing contest with $800,000 in prizes at stake.

The story plodded along. While some of the suspects were interesting, I couldn’t consider most of them as likely suspects for either the murder or taking the wallet. The focus was on the contestants, four of whom came from out of town. To go to a place you don’t know, commit a homicide, and evade detection by the police is a tough task, and nothing made me believe any of these out-of-towners would do it.

What held the story together was watching Wolfe’s clients from the advertising firm of LBA, who represented the most annoying and foolish clients Wolfe ever had the misfortune of taking on. There was a pleasure of seeing these guys in action that wasn’t unlike watching a trainwreck. Wolfe had been about his leisurely pace of crime solving for 20 years, LBA was in a mode of “hurry up and do something,” even setting a deadline for Wolfe.

Their battles with each other and Wolfe continue for most of the book. Toward the end, just when we’re expecting Wolfe to spend a few chapters and several glasses of beer unraveling the mystery, we’re thrown for a loop with a plot twist that leaves Wolfe reeling, embarrassed, and determined to get a daring soul who committed a murder right in Wolfe’s office.

The twist makes up for the weakness of the book, which was a letdown after the pure brilliance of Murder by the Book. Still with a twist ending and some classically annoying clients, I’ll give it a:

Rating: Satisfactory (4 stars)

Book Review: Dick Tracy: Dailies and Sundays: 1931-33

Dick Tracy is the legendary detective created by Chester Gould whose comic strip adventures continue until this day. Dick Tracy first hit newspapers in 1931 and this book collects his first strips from October 1931 to May 1933.

This collection is notable for what you won’t find: any of Tracy’s garish rogues gallery. No Flattop, Mumbles, or Pruneface. The most prominent villain is Big Boy, but in here he’s a regular mob boss. The colorful villains would come much later for Tracy. This book features Tracy taking on thieves, kidnappers, and racketeers that were typical 1930s villains.

The book opens with the father of Tracy’s fiancée being murdered. Tracy joins the police force in order to catch the killer. The most unrealistic part of this entire collection is when Tracy is so quickly graduated and placed in a leadership position on the force with no explanation. Three months later, he slacks off because of personal problems with Tess and is demoted to uniform duty and complains about how he was demoted despite all he’d done in the three months on the force. 

Once you get past that silliness, the book is good. The crimes aren’t outlandish and Tracy’s methods are pretty solid for a 1930s newspaper strip, featuring some real detective work. The book also did go for some “ripped from the headlines” cases. For example just after the Lindbergh kidnapping, Tracy had to solve a similar baby kidnapping case.

Other than introducing Tracy and Tess Trueheart, the book’s important contribution is introducing Junior, the homeless, seeming orphan who Tracy adopts, or perhaps it may be he adopts Tracy.  He becomes part of the action on several occasions and you can see why he’s often viewed as a precursor of teenage sidekicks like Robin, the Boy Wonder and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky Barnes.

The art in the book starts off looking a bit primitive but as Gould continues to draw, it becomes a lot more polished. The book is mostly in black and white with the exception of the earliest Sunday strips. These strips didn’t follow the daily strip plot, opting instead for a separate mystery or  sometimes just a one-off gag strip. They continued until May 1932.

The book also includes an interview with Gould by his successor on the Tracy comic strip, Max Allan Collins. 

Overall, while the book doesn’t capture Tracy at the peak, it does manage to capture Tracy’s beginnings and also help readers understand how Tracy became so popular in the first place with fun and exciting stories, detective work, and a broad-based appeal to multiple members of the family with character drama and a kid sidekick. Worth a read for both Tracy diehards and those who are curious about the beginnings of this iconic character.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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Book Review: Deathgame

In the Hardy Boys casefile Deathgame, the Hardy’s friend Biff Hooper is big into survival games and decides to go to an exciting survival camp. Biff tells Joe the truth, but tells his parents he’s visiting his cousin.

When Biff doesn’t return as scheduled, the Hardy Boys and his parents go to Florida to look for him, but the camp claims never to have seen him. Biff’s parents insist he must be there as he doesn’t lie (apparently forgetting about the whole cousin visit thing.) The Hardy Boys set out to find their lost friend and face off against dangerous foes.

We get to see a little of the Hardy’s sleuthing but this is most a set up for them and some other teens to get involved in a take on The Most Dangerous Game. It deals a bit more heavily in the adventure/suspense elements than the typical mystery elements.

For what is, the book is fine. It’s a light, breezy 152-page read that has great pacing, featuring short chapters that end on generally solid cliffhangers.

The book is not for everyone. Deathgame was released in 1987 and it shows as the villains and the plot feel very 1980s. The main villain (the aptly named Colonel Hammerlock) reminds me of Karate Kid villain Sensei John Krese. If the A-Team van had rolled in, it would not have been out of place.

In addition, there’s a certain conceit about the entire Case Files series that you have to acknowledge. The books were released as pocket paperbacks (as opposed to the 6″ x 9″ size of many kids books) and had action packed pictures on the front and occasionally dealt with topics like terrorism that made them seem more grown up. At their core though, they were still written for 10-year-olds.

So this is the type of book, you’ll like if you grew up with the Hardy Boys case files, enjoy 1980s mystery adventures, or if you’re a child who likes to read mystery and adventure stories and don’t mind that they were written before they had a cell phone.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Graphic Novel Review: Superman Smashes the Klan

Superman Smashes the Klan is inspired by the 1946 Superman Radio serial: The Clan of the Fiery Cross. 

Teenagers Tommy and Roberta Lee move to Metropolis with their parents after their father gets a job as Metropolis’ chief bacteriologist. Tommy is a good pitcher and gets picked for the Unity House baseball team that Jimmy Olsen is a manager of.  Tommy displaces the team’s existing pitcher, Chuck Riggs, who is kicked off the team due to his bad sportsmanship. Chuck tells his Uncle Matt, who is a leader of the Ku Klux Klan stand-in, the Clan of the Fiery Cross.  The clan burns a cross on the Lee’s front yard and it’s up to Superman to protect the Lees and Unity House and bring the clan to heel.

This is not an exact adaptation of the radio story, but it captures the spirit of it. The book manages to be mostly true to the era the story is set in but also make changes to fit a modern audience. Superman was written as much more of a boy’s adventure story, and Tommy’s sister wasn’t even named.

In the novel, she’s a central character and provides a lot of emotional insight.  She’s sweet but awkward. She reflects that she felt out of place and like she didn’t belong even in China. She’s wonderfully relatable and interesting as a character and she has a superb bond with Superman. 

This also has a good portrayal of Superman, though it took me a while to see what he was doing. For example, in the earlier pages, he had Superman still “leaping tall buildings” rather than flying, even though by 1946, Superman had been flying in both the comics and the radio show. However, as I read the book, I saw exactly what writer Gene Yang was doing.

Yang incorporates more recent ideas about what it was like for Clark Kent growing up when he started to manifest his powers, which led to people becoming afraid of him, and him becoming an outsider, and having to hide who he is and what he can do in order to fit in and have a normal life. 

It’s a different take on Superman that’s still very true to the character. Even many of the writers who write Superman don’t get him and it’s popular for many fans to cast Superman as this distant unrelatable character. However, Yang succeeds in giving Superman a solid character arc.

The basic plot does follow along the lines of the radio serial, though it does try to enhance it. Like many modern Superman stories, the writer wants to have Superman face a real threat, and the thing I least like about that is how they do that. The Atom Man (the most dangerous villain Superman ever faced over radio) is introduced and dispatched in the first section of the novel, but his technology is used as a plot device in the hands of the Klan. It’s a clunky way to raise the threat level, but I can forgive it because I’m satisfied with how the book plays out in the end.

The overall tone is preachy, but keep in mind i’ts based on a radio serial that was far preachier.  This one fleshes out the characters and helps the readers empathize with them in a way that works for modern audiences and it has  good light moments. The art is clean and kid-friendly as well.

The book is great for kids if you want to introduce them them to the story of the 1946 radio series or if you want them to understand the history of the groups like the Klan and how they operated and were ultimately defeated. It’s also a well-done adaptation of a classic Superman radio story that does the original creative team behind the radio story proud.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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