Each One Was Alone -- Donald Barr Chidsey

Several years ago I read a bunch of pulp stories and novels by Donald Barr Chidsey. Chidsey was a regular in ARGOSY during the mid- to late-Thirties, contributing hardboiled crime stories (his series of linked novelettes about insurance investigator Nick Fisher and jewel thief Eddie Savoy is excellent), Musketeer-style swashbucklers, pirate yarns (some of which he expanded into paperback novels in the Fifties), and South Seas adventure yarns. He also wrote a long-running series in DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY about Miami cops Morton and MacGreevey. I haven’t sampled any of those yet, but I will sooner or later. After the decline and eventual demise of the pulps, Chidsey concentrated on big historical novels and works of historical non-fiction.

EACH ONE WAS ALONE is an early Chidsey novel, from 1938, and while it’s set in the South Seas, it’s no adventure yarn. Rather, it’s a Grand Hotel-style soap opera, as a handful of tourists is stuck in a run-down hotel on an isolated island waiting for the arrival of a French steamer that’s been idled by a shipping strike. Naturally, all sorts of melodramatic complications ensue, most of them involving lust, greed, murder, and robbery. Chidsey provides back-stories for all the passengers and the islanders with whom they interact. It’s all told in slick, well-paced prose, but as far as I’m concerned this is one of Chidsey’s rare misfires. All the characters are fairly unpleasant, and I never really cared much about them. He does a fine job with the tropical atmosphere, though.

You may have noticed that I’ve been reading quite a bit of South Seas stuff lately. There’s a reason for that, and I’ll elaborate on it when I can. In the meantime, while EACH ONE WAS ALONE isn’t a terrible book, I don’t really recommend it, either. There are plenty of Donald Barr Chidsey novels that are better.