The Gamecock Murders by Frank Gruber (originally published as The Scarlet Feather, 1948; reprinted in paperback as The Gamecock Murders, 1949)
Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg, Frank Gruber's hapless detecting heroes, return in their eleventh full-length outing to join the dangerous world of cock-fighting. The pair are con men -- glib, impetuous Fletcher and stolid mass of muscle Cragg -- whose main source of income is hawking a book on the secrets of Sampson (Sampson being Cragg, who displayed his strength by expanding his chest to break iron chains binding him during a medicine show-like spiel from Fletcher). Because Johnny is so impetuous, the pair often lose what money they make and are currently scraping for rent and food money; somehow they often come across murders which Fletcher is forced to solve, while during every case they make (and lose) vast amounts of cash. As a plot device, the formula is well-worn but extremely workable, making the pair's adventures bright, easy reads.
This time they are in Chicago, broke and about to be kicked out of their rented room and having no money for their last two meals. It's a cold November day, and the pair are walking despondently along the deserted lake front when a nearby car stops. A young woman in a mink coat gets out and walks to the edge of the water. She drops her coat and jumps into the lake, intending to drown herself. Johnny dives in after her. She fights him and Johnny has to knock her out to rescue her. The papers in her care say that she is Lois Tancred and give her address as a tony neighborhood on Lake Shore Drive. Sam bundles her into the car and Johnny drives them to her home, a large mansion. They bring her to her door where she is received by her imperious mother, who ushers her in and slams the door in Johnny and Sam's faces. In the glove compartment of Lois's Cadillac coupe, Johnny finds an envelope containing a cryptic message, Come Tomorrow, and a red feather...
This leads Johnny and Sam to the Midwest Poultry Breeders' Exhibition where prize gamefowl are on display and the body of one of the owners is found underneath his chicken coop. The dead man is the one who sent the mysterious note to Lois, and she shows up, not realizing that he had been killed.
Suddenly Johnny and Sam are in the midst of a violent world of cockfighting where millionaires indulge in the blood sport, and where they come across a wealthy breeder of Jungle Shawls (a prize breed of fighting cocks), a respected doctor who breeds Whiteshackles (another type of fighting cock), a shady publisher of a cheap journal about game birds, an aw-shucks barber from a small town in Iowa who has great confidence in Big Red, his fighting bird, and has a habit of always winning at cards and dice, a big-time Chicago gambler, blackmail, a second murder, and a number of vicious thugs -- all while trying to avoid an arrogant homicide detective and their landlord who wants his rent.
The pace is fast and furious and ends with Johnny trapped with a pair of violent cocks with three-inches of sharp steel gaffs on their feet and a thirst for Johnny's blood...that's right, our hero has to face off against killer chickens in a harrowing climax. Johnny survives and manages to wrap things up in the very last pages, nailing the killer and exposing a large money-making plot.
Over on The Thrilling Detective Website, Kevin Burton Smith quotes one critic who said that Gruber used the plotting of Gardner and the humor of Latimer in his Johnny Fletcher books, especially the humor of Latimer. A pretty good description. Smith went on to write, "[E]very one [of the Fletcher books] one I've read has been a fast-paced, entertaining romp. Not essential, maybe, but fun, fun, fun."
Just a few minor notes. The dentist from Iowa is named Otto Bender; I can't help but wonder is that is a nod to Chicago-born Otto Binder, a fellow pulpster and a comic book writer (he created Supergirl, among many other accomplishments); just a thought I had with nothing to back it up.
The edition I read was the 1949 Signet paperback. On chapter nineteen, the book dropped a complete lie, replacing it with one from three paragraphs later. A minor and confusing irritation, perhaps, but one that grated on me. Publisher should do better.
The last page of the book had a three-quarter's page advertisement of Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury, which Signet had published in paperback a year before. The book, which had modest sales in hardcover, had become a runaway best-seller in the Signet edition. For some reason, this advertisement made me smile.
All of which has nothing to do with Gruber's book itself, which retains a spot very near the top of my "Books I Like" list.
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