“South of the Border”, which appeared in the August 1940 issue of RED STAR DETECTIVE, is the third and final novel in Edwin Truett Long’s unfortunately short-lived series of mysteries featuring Dr. Thaddeus C. Harker. Doc Harker, as you may remember, travels around the Southwest with his medicine show, driving a big red car and pulling a trailer from which he peddles the world-famous Chickasha Remedies, but this is actually just a cover for his activities as one of the world’s top criminologists and detectives. His two assistants, beautiful Brenda Sloan and burly, bald-headed former circus strongman Hercules Jones, help out with both the medicine show and battling the various criminal schemes Doc Harker uncovers.
As this yarn opens, the three of them are enjoying a well-earned vacation in Nuevo Laredo and taking in a bullfight at the local bullring. But of course, Doc’s curiosity and nose for trouble gets them involved with a private detective and a couple of beautiful blondes who apparently are mixed up in something shady. Then a bullfighter falls in love with Brenda, a sleazy reporter working for a crusading newspaper publisher sticks his nose in, the blondes and the private detective disappear, a Mexican gangster and his henchmen show up, a murdered bellhop is found in Doc’s hotel room, and off we go at a gallop that never really slows down.
As you can tell, Long was definitely of the “Throw stuff at the wall and see if enough of it sticks” school of plotting. In this one, we get all of the above, plus a gang war over a white slavery ring and a beautiful, mysterious brunette who keeps trying to kill the Mexican gangster. Does it all work? Well, let’s not ask inconvenient questions. Is the story a lot of fun to read with its breakneck pace, snappy banter, and colorful characters? It sure is. “South of the Border” is the best of the three Doc Harker novels, the first half being especially strong before getting a little muddled as Long tries to fit everything together.
It’s a real shame that Long passed away only a few years later after contracting an illness while serving as a codebreaker in Burma during World War II. If he had lived and written longer, I think there’s a good chance he would have developed into a better plotter, and we might have gotten dozens of screwball, action-packed mystery novels from him. As it is, we have a handful of novels and scores of short stories, and I’ve never read one that I didn’t enjoy. “South of the Border” is well worth reading. It was reprinted, along with the other two Doc Harker novels, by Altus Press in DR. THADDEUS C. HARKER: THE COMPLETE TALES, which is available from Amazon in e-book and trade paperback editions.
2 comments:
I really like the Doc Harker series. It's certainly different than most anything else at the time.
Yeah, Long's writing had a distinctive voice. He's buried not that far from where I live, I really ought to go visit his grave sometime.
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