Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Isaac Asimov not only wrote science fiction, not only wrote science fact, but also wrote mysteries. This particular bit is one such, and it’s one that includes Isaac Asimov as a character. The first person POV focuses on Darius Just, a literary author whose protege is murdered at the American Booksellers Association conference in New York. Just finds the body and determines that, although staged to look like an accident, his tempermental and sexually deviant, uh, protege (I already called him that, but other nouns are not forthcoming) was murdered. Just has, uh, only four days to find the murder. And if he does, he’ll let Isaac Asimov write the book.

Asimov has fun with the book and with using himself, going so far as to have footnote back-and-forth with Darius Just. Along the way, it’s a whodunit sort of mystery where you could figure it out, sort of, if you looked in the right places. Me, I don’t puzzle the book out that way, so it’s not ordinarily my cup of tea. But I enjoyed it.

As a side note, I’m actually re-reading this book. I first read it in high school, lo those many years ago. I liked it enough to pick it up for a buck, and all I remembered was the gimmick of having Asimov in it.

This book is one of the last of the series, and quite frankly, it’s not of McBain’s best. I mean, you’ve got the 87th Precinct guys looking into a kidnapping, working around the FBI who would use Carella, their liason, as a gopher. Actually, that’s it. One crime from multiple points of view. Still, I figured it out awfully early and hoped for a twist that never came. Also, sometime this century, McBain started knocking president by name (Bush). I’ve mentioned that before, but he brings it out here again as a couple of asides. I could understand a sort of disgust with the Powers That Be in some of his previous books, but now that he’s naming names for especial vituperation, I’m saddened and slightly put off.

Also, he probably works to hard to get the title thing working.

Even with those knocks, the book doesn’t fall to below the Fair or Slightly Good rating. Better than any Pearson or Randisi novel I’ve read.

This book comes from early in McBain’s career, and it’s not even really a McBain book. Instead, it’s McBain finishing a book started by another author. However, unlike Robert B. Parker taking over a Raymond Chandler novel, McBain’s mannerisms and stock characterizations don’t appear. Maybe it’s too early in his career and he didn’t develop the stock. That said, this is a Craig Rice book that Ed McBain worked on.

It’s a little pulpy bit about two New York street photographers (who have had other capers in previous books) who decide to move to Hollywood to get rich and famous. Bingo, the brains of the outfit, almost thinks he has control of the situations and is atop things, but he’s not. Handsome, the athletic and good-looking part of the duo, seems to follow Bingo’s every word, but he has a tendency to go above and beyond his instructions in a beneficial way. Ergo, the characters have a sort of double-effect to them. On one hand, they seem buffoonish, but might only seem buffoonish on the surface.

In a series of events, they’re sold a mansion by a con man whose receipt carries the actual signature of the presumed murdered former owner. Then, the housekeeper and caretaker is actually killed in the house. As the duo run through their cash reserves hiring attorneys and whatnot, while trying to figure out who killed the previous owner, who killed the housekeeper, and whatever happened to April Robin, the starlet who first owned the house.

An amusing little book. I enjoyed it and wouldn’t mind reading the straight-up Craig Rice books in the series.

This is a Perry Mason novel. It clocks in at like 140 pages. I understand Gardner dictated two of these a month or something. As such, you should expect it’s a formulaic read, albeit one that’s pleasing.

This one details a plot where an heiress’s double approaches Mason to make sure she’s not getting chosen to be a patsy in something. She’s got an odd story to tell, and when a man appears dead in her apartment during her apparent kidnapping, Mason has to determine if his client is in on it.

On a side note, the 1960s technology that doesn’t appear so dated for this novel: the speaker phone. When Della hooks it up, it reads just like the speaker phone in the conference room where I used to work. 45 years later, it doesn’t read like they’re playing eight track tapes.

And an odd note about the edition I have: it’s a Walter J. Black edition, but mine has a dustjacket. This is the first of the Walter J. Black editions I have of anything that has a dustjacket. Did someone slip a dustjacket for the same title over this one, or what?