Evan Hunter has been one of my favorite authors since I was in fifth grade and read one of those Winston science fiction novels called DANGER, DINOSAURS! by Richard Marsten. Of course, at the time I had no idea that Richard Marsten was really Evan Hunter and Ed McBain and Hunt Collins and Curt Cannon. But over the years I read and greatly enjoyed his books under all those names, too.
This book is a collection of early stories, written between 1952 and 1957, most of them originally published in the great crime fiction digest MANHUNT. In his introduction, Hunter reveals that John McCloud, the editor of MANHUNT, was really Scott Meredith, the literary agent for whom Hunter worked at the time. I didn't know that. The introduction is very good, as are the notes that Hunter includes for most of the stories.
The stories themselves, as you might expect, are nearly all excellent. The only real misfire in my opinion is the private eye parody "Kiss Me, Dudley". Hunter is open about not being comfortable writing private eye stories, and with the exception of his Matt Cordell stories (later reprinted by Gold Medal as Curt Cannon stories), it shows. "Kiss Me, Dudley" is, obviously, a parody of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, but it seems to me that Hunter didn't really understand Spillane's work at all and just grossly exaggerated the surface characteristics of the Hammer novels to produce this story. It's not funny. The longest story in the book is also a private eye yarn, "Death Flight", originally published in ARGOSY. It's about a PI investigating a plane crash caused by sabotage, and while it's okay, you can tell that Hunter's heart wasn't really in it.
The rest of this collection is really good, though, especially the stories about cops. Hunter mentions several times that he was a fan of DRAGNET, and it shows in the police procedural stories. Even though the cop-narrators and their partners have different names in every story, they all might as well be Joe Friday and Frank Smith. There are even some of the ironic little taglines of the sort used so effectively by Jack Webb to conclude scenes. Hunter is also known for his stories about juvenile delinquents, and the ones included here are all good. Overall, this is one of the best books I've read so far this year.
1 comment:
James - I once did an article for THE ED McBAIN COMPANION on the science fiction of Ed McBain. In the year before the first 87th Preceinct novel there were 3 science fiction from him. Had the 87th not taken off, he might have become a famous SF writer. Of course, DANGER: DINOSAURS was one of those books (at least as I recall. It has been a while since I wrote that article) which never appeared because the book was cancelled. The stuff was fun, though.
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