Big Shots Die Young (Manville Moon #5) - Richard Deming

“Big Shots Die Young” is the fifth novella featuring Richard Deming’s one-legged private eye Manville Moon. It was published originally in the July 1949 issue of BLACK MASK and featured on the cover by Norman Saunders, although that cover has nothing to do with Deming’s story.

This novella is a direct sequel to the previous entry in the series, “No Pockets in a Shroud” (BLACK MASK, January 1949). And fair warning, it spoils the mystery of that earlier story, too. But since I’d read that one, I had no problem going right along with this yarn, which finds Moon the target of an old enemy who comes back into the unidentified city where these stories take place intending to take over the local gambling setup. Before you know it, Moon has been framed for murder, arrested by the cops, and has to escape and uncover the real killer to clear his name. All while romancing a beautiful woman at the same time, of course.

Manville Moon is a flat-out great protagonist. He’s tough, funny, just vulnerable enough not to be superhuman, and has become one of my favorite first-person narrators over the course of the five stories about him I’ve read so far. Deming’s prose, as always, is so smooth and polished that it glitters.

Where “Big Shots Die Young” doesn’t quite reach the level of the earlier stories is in the plot, which is rather thin and predictable. Anybody who’s read many private eye yarns will know what’s going on right away. The other stories so far in the series had pretty complex plots, but that’s not the case here.

Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I had a really good time reading “Big Shots Die Young”, and I think anybody who has enjoyed the previous stories will like this one, too. Like the others, it’s available as an inexpensive e-book if you don’t happen to own that particular issue of BLACK MASK. And if you haven’t made the acquaintance of Manville Moon yet, I highly recommend that you do.

A Rough Edges Rerun: Green Ice - Raoul Whitfield

A number of Raoul Whitfield’s stories from BLACK MASK have been reprinted and anthologized over the years. I’ve read quite a few of them and enjoyed them all, going back to one of his Jo Gar stories that was reprinted in the anthology THE HARD-BOILED DICKS, which I bought at The Book Oasis in Seminary South Shopping Center in Fort Worth on a December evening in 1967. (Yes, I remember that. Just don’t ask me what I had for lunch yesterday.)

Anyway, I’d never read any of Whitfield’s novels until now. GREEN ICE was his first novel, published in 1930 and based on a series of five linked novelettes published in BLACK MASK from December 1929 through April 1930 that are put together pretty seamlessly. It’s the story of what happens when ex-con Mal Ourney gets out of Sing Sing after having served a two-year sentence for manslaughter. Mal wasn’t really guilty; he took the rap for his girlfriend at the time, who was really behind the wheel in a fatal car crash. She comes to meet Mal when he’s released, but he’s no longer interested in her and refuses to go with her. A good thing, too, because a short time later, she’s dead, the first of at least a dozen murder victims in this novel.

While in prison, Mal has made friends with several small-time crooks who were drawn into the rackets by the big bosses, the men Mal refers to as the crime breeders. He decides that when he gets out, he’ll go after these big bosses and try to bring them down. Before he can even get started on his crusade, though, he finds himself up to his neck in murder after murder, all of them tied together by some missing emeralds, the green ice of the title. This is one of those early hardboiled novels where the plot gets incredibly complicated, to the point that Whitfield has to stop the action every so often to have his characters explain to each other everything that’s happened so far. He even manages to save one last major twist for the very end.

Plots so complex that they get a little far-fetched are a hallmark of hardboiled fiction from that era, though, as is terse, staccato prose. Whitfield delivers on that score, too. There’s a little snappy patter and considerable tough guy slang, along with plenty of fistfights and tommy-gun massacres, before Mal finally untangles all the various interwoven strands of plot. As you can imagine, I thoroughly enjoyed it, too. These days, GREEN ICE would have to be considered a historical novel, but if you’re interested in the genesis of hardboiled crime novels or just looking for a good yarn, I recommend it.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on April 17, 2009.)

The Price of a Dime: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Ben Shaley - Norbert Davis

The first Norbert Davis story I ever read was “Don’t Give Your Right Name”, a Max Latin yarn included in the iconic anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS. That was the first time I’d heard of Davis, but I loved the story and in the years since have read dozens of other pulp stories by him. They’ve never disappointed me.

Davis is best remembered for stories that were both humorous and hardboiled, but he could do straight tough guy tales, too, which he did early in his career. THE PRICE OF A DIME, a new Davis collection from Black Mask/Steeger Books, features five of those early hardboiled stories, two starring private detective Ben Shaley.

“Red Goose” is the first of the Shaley stories, from the February 1934 issue of BLACK MASK. It was reprinted in Joseph T. Shaw’s THE HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS, so I know I’ve read it before, but I didn’t have any recollection of it when I sat down to read this volume. Not surprisingly, it’s a very entertaining story in which Shaley is hired to recover a valuable painting stolen from a museum. There are a lot of twists and turns in a relatively short story, and it takes some explaining from Shaley at the end to straighten everything out, and even then, Davis has a final twist lined up.

Shaley’s second, and final recorded, case is “The Price of a Dime” (April 1934). This involves a hotel bellhop who receives a dime as a tip, an incident that leads to murder, blackmail, and a shootout on the Western lot at a movie studio. Shaley reminds me a little of Mike Shayne, because his thinking always seems to be two steps ahead of everybody else in the story and three steps ahead of the reader. With its movie studio background, this yarn also reminds me of Robert Leslie Bellem’s Dan Turner series, and it has something in common with one of Fred MacIsaac’s Rambler stories I read recently. A very entertaining tale, all around.

Davis’s first appearance in BLACK MASK was in the June 1932 issue, with a story called “Reform Racket”. This is a pretty straightforward story in which the protagonist returns to his hometown and finds himself in the middle of some dangerous political intrigue involving his sister, gangsters, and a candidate vowing to clean up the town. With its very terse prose, ultra-hardboiled protagonist, and understated but brutal violence, this made me think of some of Paul Cain’s stories. It’s an auspicious beginning for Davis.

“Kansas City Flash” was published in the March 1933 issue of BLACK MASK, and despite the title, it’s another Bellem-like yarn about a Hollywood troubleshooter, a former stuntman named Mark Hull. Given that, it’s also reminiscent of W.T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox stories, which also ran in BLACK MASK. I enjoyed this one, and it would have been fine with me if Davis had written more stories about Mark Hull, but this is the only one.

This volume wraps up with “Hit and Run”, from the April 1935 issue of BLACK MASK. It’s a tale of another one-shot private eye, Jake Tait, who goes in search of a hit-and-run victim and finds himself neck deep in a case involving bank robbery and murder. It’s surprising just how much plot Davis could work into these novelettes. Tait’s another tough but likable protagonist, able to absorb a lot of punishment but dish it out, too.

All these stories are very good and well worth reading if you’re a fan of hardboiled detective fiction. My Norbert Davis streak continues: he’s never disappointed me. I give this collection a high recommendation.

No Pockets in a Shroud - Richard Deming

“No Pockets in a Shroud” is the fourth novella featuring Richard Deming’s private eye character Manville Moon. It was published originally in the January 1949 issue of the iconic pulp BLACK MASK, a magazine long past its glory days by that time but still publishing plenty of good hardboiled detective fiction. “No Pockets in a Shroud” is a fine example of that.

Moon, who operates in an unnamed Midwestern city, is a World War II vet who lost his right leg from the knee down to a shell blast in Europe. He gets around pretty well on an artificial leg, though, and other than not being able to run very fast anymore, his injury doesn’t really hamper him. He’s still plenty tough and smart and still attracts the ladies, even though he describes himself as ugly.

As this case opens, Moon is approached by two competing mobsters, each of them determined to control the city’s gambling. Open warfare between them is looming, and each man wants to hire Moon to be on his side if that happens. Moon isn’t having any of it. The last thing he wants is to get caught in the middle of a gang war. Then one of the mobsters surprises him by trying to hire him in advance to investigate a murder. Whose murder, Moon wants to know? Turns out, the mobster thinks somebody is trying to kill him, and if the would-be murderer succeeds, he wants Moon to bring the killer to justice.

Well, before you know it, there’s a murder, of course . . . but it’s the other mobster who winds up dead, and Moon is up to his neck in the case, anyway. Also, naturally, while trying to sort out the truth, he has to deal with several beautiful women, including the wives and mistresses of the two rival gangsters. There’s also a hopped-up young gunman with an itch to ventilate Moon. All of it is hectic and breathless and a heck of a lot of fun to read for somebody who grew up on this stuff like I did.

As in the previous Manville Moon yarns, the murder is pretty complicated, but Deming puts it all together very well and all the clues are there, leading to a satisfying conclusion. Moon is a very likable protagonist. There’s one bit of business that’s so old it had long white whiskers on it even in 1949, and its stereotypical nature takes away a little from the story, but not enough to cause a real problem. I had a great time reading “No Pockets in a Shroud”, and if you’re a private eye fan, there’s a very good chance you’ll enjoy it, too. There’s an inexpensive e-book version available on Amazon if you don’t have the pulp.

By the way, the title has nothing to do with the story, and I have to wonder if some editor at Popular Publications was responsible for it. They retitled many of the stories published in their Western pulps and I imagine the same was true in their detective pulps. Anyway, it’s a good title, relevant or not, so I’m fine with it.

Classic Private Detective Pulp: A Shot in the Arm (Manville Moon #3) - Richard Deming

It's taken me a while, but I've read the third novella in Richard Deming's series about private detective Manville Moon, who lost his right leg from the knee down fighting in World War II but doesn't let that slow him down when it comes to solving murders and fighting with mobsters and killers. In "A Shot in the Arm", published originally in the July 1948 issue of BLACK MASK, Moon is hired to help a rich, beautiful young woman kick her morphine habit. (Didn't something similar to this happen to the Continental Op in THE DAIN CURSE? It's been a long time since I read that book.)

Unfortunately, there's been a murder before the story even opens, and there's another one soon after, and Moon is left trying to sort out the killings as Deming fills in the background with a lengthy flashback. Sometimes I'm not a fan of that technique, but it works pretty well here and Deming is such a good writer that he keeps things racing along in a swift, smooth manner. The dialogue is good, Moon is a great character, and the mystery is fairly clued and seems to hold together pretty well. I enjoyed this yarn quite a bit. It's available as an inexpensive e-book, if you don't have that issue of BLACK MASK in your collection. 

Classic Hardboiled Pulp: Dead Evidence: The Complete BLACK MASK Cases of Harrigan - Ed Lybeck

Ed Lybeck’s name was vaguely familiar to me, and when I read Will Murray’s excellent introduction to this collection of Lybeck’s stories published in BLACK MASK, I realized why: Joseph T. Shaw included one of Lybeck’s stories in the iconic anthology THE HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS, which I read about fifty years ago. I have no memory of Lybeck’s story in that book, however, and after rereading it in this one, I still have no memory of it from back then. Which proves nothing except that I didn’t always recognize greatness when I came across it, because these yarns are absolutely fantastic.

Lybeck had only four stories published in BLACK MASK, all of them novella or novelette length, and they all feature the same protagonist, tough guy reporter Francis St. Xavier Harrigan, who covers the crime beat for the New York Leader and who, Lybeck implies, was once a crook and a gunman himself. Lybeck doesn’t seem sure whether abandoning gangdom for journalism is a step up or down for Harrigan.

In the first story, “Leaded Ink” (BLACK MASK, December 1931), Harrigan goes after the mobsters who murdered a young reporter who was his protégé. The second story, “Kick-Back” (January 1932) finds him clashing with a corrupt politician running on a reform ticket and the gangster backing the politician. This is the story that appeared in THE HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS. “Dead Evidence” (March 1932) is a direct sequel to “Kick-Back”, with Harrigan framed for a killing and fighting to clear his name. The final Harrigan story, “Silent Heat”, didn’t appear until February 1934. In this one, Harrigan takes on a white slavery ring.

These are all action yarns and don’t have much actual detection in them, but as fast-moving tales of crime-busting, they’re some of the best I’ve ever read. Lybeck’s style is a joy to read, a mixture of tough violence, snappy patter, and unexpectedly breezy humor. I laughed out loud a number of times reading these stories. Harrigan’s a great character, able to absorb a tremendous amount of punishment and still keep slugging away at his enemies. I probably never would have been able to read these stories if Steeger Books hadn’t reprinted them in the new Black Mask line, so I really appreciate the opportunity. Based on only four stories, you can’t put Lybeck in the same rank as Hammett, Chandler, Nebel, and the other giants from BLACK MASK, but he was mighty good anyway and I had a great time reading this collection. If you love hardboiled pulp like I do, it gets my highest recommendation.