Murder in Music - Cary Moran (Edwin Truett Long)

In a career that lasted approximately ten years, from the mid-Thirties until his death in 1945, Edwin Truett Long wrote hundreds of stories under more than a dozen pseudonyms, mostly for the Spicy pulps. Most of them were stand-alones, but he did a few series as well, including eight stories about Jarnegan, a sheriff’s office detective in a mid-sized city who investigates only homicides. Seven of the stories appeared under the name Cary Moran, while one, for no apparent reason, was published under the name Clint Morgan. MURDER IN MUSIC is a Black Dog Books chapbook from 2006 that reprints four of the Jarnegan stories.

Art by H.L. Parkhurst

“Fatal Facial” is from the September 1936 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES. The president of one of the local banks has absconded with a fortune in negotiable bonds, and the town is in a tizzy, of course. Jarnegan doesn’t want to investigate the case because he specializes in murders, but he gets a corpse soon enough and it doesn’t take him long to realize that the man’s body—beaten beyond recognition—is connected to the missing bank president. And of course, since this is a story for SPICY DETECTIVE, there are several beautiful babes in various stages of undress mixed up in the business, too.

Art by Delos Palmer

“Murder in Music” (SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, November 1936) finds Jarnegan investigating the death of a drummer from a jazz band visiting the city. It appears that the man was frightened to death by voodoo. But all is not as it appears, of course, and another band member soon turns up dead, giving Jarnegan two murders to solve.

Art by H.J. Ward

From the January 1937 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, “Murder in the Sheriff’s Office” centers around a beautiful redheaded taxi dancer who manages to get herself bumped off in, you guessed it, the sheriff’s office when she comes there to say that she fears for her life. With good reason, obviously. And soon there’s a second murder for Jarnegan to investigate, as well. Long managed to pack quite a few homicides in these short stories.

Art by H.J. Ward

“Case of the Limber Corpse”, from the May 1937 issue of SPICY DETECTIVE STORIES, is the final story in the Jarnegan series. In this one, Jarnegan’s investigation into the murder of a munitions magnate is complicated by an angry hillbilly father who wants to force Jarnegan into a shotgun wedding with his daughter . . . and then use that shotgun to blow Jarnegan’s head off. As with the other stories, it’s a fairly complex plot that features another murder and various beautiful, semi-dressed women.

These aren’t fair play mystery stories. With the third person objective style, the reader is seldom if ever privy to Jarnegan’s thoughts and Long blatantly conceals some of the clues. Other clues are introduced and then promptly forgotten, probably a result of the speed with which Long wrote these yarns. However, none of that detracts from the snappy patter, the hardboiled characters and plots, and the headlong pace of the action. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and wouldn’t mind reading the rest of the stories in the series. Long was an inconsistent writer, but more often than not, I find his stories to be a lot of fun. In looking up his listing on the Fictionmags Index, I noticed that he passed away in 1945, when he was only 41 years old. I’m curious as to why he died so young, and it’s a shame we lost the stories he might have written if he’d lived.