FORGOTTEN BOOK: KILL NOW, PAY LATER

 Kill Now, Pay Later by Robert Terrall (original published under the pseudonym "Robert Kyle, 1960; reprinted under the author's name by Hard Case Crime, 2007)

Ben Gates was one of the more effective fictional private eyes in the late 50s and early 60s.  He was tough but not too tough.  He was attractive to the ladies, although he did not really seek them out.  He valued his reputation.  He would follow case wherever it led.  He sometimes had quirky associates.  He smoked cigars.  Several have noted that Ben Gates was the perfect in-between detective, nestled snuggly between Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Richard Prather's Shell Scott.  He appeared in five novels; Kill Now, Pay Later was the third.

Gates is hired to stand watch over wedding presents at a ritzy mansion.  It's an easy gig and the guests are pretty well lubricated.  Among those lubricated is one of the bridesmaids who comes in to gawk at the presents.  She picks up a diamond bracelet and puts it on.  Gates is keeping a close eye on her.  She tries to get Gates to drink some champagne; all he's had was some coffee that a maid had brought up earlier.  He takes a sip of champagne and passes out.

When he wakes up, all hell has broken loose.  The mother of the bride had gone to her room and frightened a thief who had begun to ransack the room.  She had a weak ticker and dropped dead from the shock.  When the burglar tried to escape, he was shot dead by one of Gates's fellow detectives.  Everything was recovered except for the diamond bracelet... Well, may not everything.  We learn later that the bride's father said there was $75,000 missing from the safe in the dead woman's room -- the missing money was not reported to the police because the old man had been trying to pull a scam on the IRS.

Gates is fired and the insurance company that hired hi to guard the wedding gifts has vowed to blackball him throughout the industry.  In addition, the local police chief is accusing Gates of stealing the diamond necklace himself.  All pretty cut and dried so far.  But Terrall is an expert of mixing thing up and adding complication to complication to his plots.  (The author had a hand-drawn sign at his desk which was given to him  to remind him of his tendency to overplot; the sign read SIMPLIFY -- of course the sign was printed in the most ornate fashion possible.)  So there's arson, blackmail, pornographic pictures, nubile and willing ladies, corrupt politicians, and another dead body to consider.

Can Gates untwist all the plot complications, solve all the mysteries, and save his job/  Of course he can, but getting there is where all the fun is.

Terrall (1914-2009) published at least 53 books under his own name and as "Robert Kyle," "J. D. Gonzales," and as "Brett Halliday" -- he took over the Mike Shayne series of detective novels from Davis Dresser after Dresser hit a writer's block, writing at least 20 books in the series.  In addition to the Ben gates books, Terrall also authored the Harry Horne series as Gonzales, as well as a number of stand-alones.  One book that was ahead of its time was 1950's A Killer Is Loose Among Us. is an early novel dealing with biological threat (and one that really deserves reprinting).  Virtually forgotten today, Terrall was much admired by his contemporaries and his work in the 50s and 60s influenced many later writers.  Terrall died at age 94 and had gone for 23 years without publishing a book.