FORGOTTEN BOOK: DAMES, DANGER, DEATH

 Dames, Danger, Death edited by Leo Margulies (1960)

A paperback original with "Eight tough private eyes in their most sensational cases!"  Well, not quite.  five are private eyes, two are cops, and one is professional poker player.  But each case involves a "dame," sometimes living, sometimes dead, sometimes deadly, always lovely.

• "Now Die in It" by "Curt Cannon" (Evan Hunter).  First published in Manhunt, May 1953, featuring Matt Cordell, whose name was later changed to Curt Cannon; the Cannon name was also used as a pseudonym when the Cordell stories were published in book form as I'm Cannon -- For Hire (1958; later revised and republished as The Gutter and the Grave by "Ed McBain," 2011).  This time around, Cordell is called Cannon, a once respectable person who hit the bottle after discovering his wife's infidelity, beat her lover, and lost his detective's license.  A former friend's 17-year-old sister-in-law, Betty, is unmarried and pregnant, and he wants Cannon to find out who the father is.  Before Cannon could get started on the case, Betty is found dead, her head smashed in by a blunt instrument...
• "Sweet Charlie" by Henry Kane.  First published in Manhunt, March 1955, featuring P.I. (Richard) Peter Chambers; my Short Story Wednesday post his week.  Chambers is a somewhat loose and quirky detective who has appeared in over thirty novels and nearly two dozen short stories.  He is an acquired taste and the earlier stories are far better than the later ones.  This time around. the dame is Belinda fears, a professional snake dancer -- one who wears only trained reptiles and nothing else.  I don't know Kane made her a snake dancer other than some second-hand titillation at the beginning of the story -- snakes and dancing had nothing to do with the story,  Belinda tells Chambers someone is trying to kill her, then gives him $10,000, and tells him to meet her at her apartment that evening, when she will explain it all.  When Chambers gets there, she is already dead, stabbed with a letter opener, supposedly a suicide (which makes no sense to me and should make no sense to the police -- except it does).  Also no mention of snakes anywhere in her apartment, so the snakes were just a gimmick to open the tale....
• "Squeeze Play" by Richard S. Prather.  First published in Manhunt, October 1953, featuring L.A. P.I. Shell Scott.  Scott is a white-haired ex-marine with a healthy libido, a wise-cracking sense of humor, and a love for tropical fish; he was one of the most popular fictional private eyes of the Fifties through the Seventies, appearing in three dozen novels and four short story collections.  When I was in high school, even guys who wouldn't be caught dead reading a book eagerly devoured Scott's adventures.  A Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, edited by Leo Margulies' wife, lasted for nine issues in the mid-Sixties.  Scott is asked to locate Leroy Crane, who had gone into hiding, by Crane's wife.  But vicious mobster Wallace Hackman wants Crane first.  The dame in this story is Billie: "She had on a robe which covered every inch of skin from the neck down, but it was thin enough to suit me, and that's pretty thin."  She offers to lead Scott to Crane, but hitman Pretty Willis may get to her first...
• "Death Goes to the Post" by "Brett Halliday" (Davis Dresser).  First published in Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine, January 1943, featuring everybody's favorite red-haired P.I., Mike Shayne.  This is the oldest story in the anthology, and the only one not from the 195301956 digest era.  Shayne first appeared in 1939's Dividend on Death; Dresser continued the series until 1958, after which time the books and short stories were ghost-written under the Halliday pseudonym.  A Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine (later Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine) would feature a ghost-written Shayne story each issue from 1956 to 1985; among the ghost writers were Michael Avallone. Hal Blythe & Charles Sweet, Edward Y. Breese, Richard Deming, Dennis Lynds, Sam Merwin, Jr., James Reasoner, and Max Van Derveer; many of the paperback novels were ghosted by Robert Terrall.  Mike Shayne also appeared in twelve films from 1940 through 1947, in three weekly radio series, a 32-episode television series beginning in 1960, and -- briefly -- in a comic book series in 1962.  "Death Goes to the Post" marked the third appearance of Mike Shayne in a magazine, and the first short story -- the previous two appearances were serialized. Two of the characters from the wider Mike Shayne universe also appear:  reporter Tim Rourke and Police Chief of Detectives Will Gentry.  "Death Goes to the Post" is a race track story.  Colonel Pembert owns a racing stable and, to avoid any possible impropriety has ordered all of his employees never to bet on any of his horses.  He has been quietly training a horse named Speed Queen and keeping all information about her secret; Speed Queen turns out to be an amazingly fast horse and is bound to win her big race -- because nothing is known about her, she is running at 13 to 1 odds.  The Colonel's wife, Angela -- the main dame in this story -- has secretly pawned her jewels to get money to surreptitiously bet on Speed Queen; with that money she plans to run off with the horse's trainer.  Shayne places a hundred dollar bet on Speed Queen, fully expecting to win $1300, but with Speed Queen in the lead, her jockey suddenly falls from the saddle and is crushed by the other horses in the race.  An accident, surely; the jockey's body was so badly damaged that nothing else could be proved.  Shayne is out $1300, and suspects the jockey had been killed by a high-fire rifle shot.  He holds on to the worthless ticket and sells it several times to his main suspects.  And there is another dame in this tale, an innocent nightclub singer named Peggy Davoe...
• "A Lady of Talent" by "Jonathan Craig" (Frank E. Smith).  First published in Accused Detective Story Magazine, July 1956, featuring Steve Manning in what might be his only appearance.  This story is an ooitlyer because Manning is not a private eye -- he's a cop.  Craig's most popular character was police officer Peter Selby, who appeared in ten novels, but did not appear in any short stories.  Craig published over 100 novels and 330 short stories in his lifetime.  (Accused was a short-lived [four issues in 1956], Manhunt wanna-be hardboiled detective magazine which featured top authors in the genre [i.e., Richard S. Prather, Hal Ellson, Richard Deming, Jack Webb, Gil Brewer, Evan Hunter, Robert Turner, John Jakes, Laurence M. Janifer, Bryce Walton, Frank Kane, Fletcher Flora, Ted Thomey, Stephen Marlowe, and even B. Traven]; a collection from Accused is long overdue.)  The dame in this story is dead from the second paragraph.  Her name was Nadine Gillen and she was found stuffed into a phone box in a back room of a saloon, an icepick shoved in her ear and her skirt pulled up, revealing rhinestone-encrusted garters.  Nadine.  Nadine has pretty loose morals; the heels on her shoes were tennis balls.  the suspect include Nadine's dumb, trusting, and violent husband, both the bartender and the owner of the bar (which has a cot in the back room for entertaining), various lovers, and their jealous wives.  The author's brother was a New York city policeman and he helped Craig get a realistic feel to his stories.
• "Sleep Without Dreams" by Frank Kane.  First appeared in Manhunt, February 1956, featuring Johnny Liddell; the story was reprinted last year in The Stark House Anthology, edited by Rick Ollerman & Greg Shepard.  Liddell, a bit of a generic private eye, who first appeared in short stories in 1944 and book publication in 1947.  He was able to adapt with the times; James Reasoner put it thus"  "Johnny Liddell is my kind of private eye:  smart, tough, a bit of a wise-ass, a little world-weary at times, and hell on killers."  There were 28 Liddell novels (many of them with great paperback covers by Robert McGinnis) and some fifty short stories.  {An Aside:  In the past I have sometimes confused  frank and Henry Kane -- two very distinct writers.  I  remember watching an old episode of To Tell the Truth in which one of the three contestants was either Frank or Henry Kane -- I honestly can't remember which; when he revealed his name one of the panelists [Henry Morgan, at least I can recall that] gushed about being a big fan of his detective novels.  My confusion was not helped by Dell putting out two paperback television tie-ins around the same time:  Peter Gunn by Henry Kane, and The Line-Up by Frank Kane; I enjoyed both but had to give the edge to Peter Gunn, because Henry Kane had a scene where Edie Hart -- the Lola Albright character -- slept in the nude; I was about fourteen and that sort of thing impressed me then.  End of Aside]  Liddell's friend Hal Lewis is the director of a popular radio show.  His wife Libby, the dame in the story, is a lovely and talented soap opera star.  Libby is having an affair and Hal wants Johnny to find out who the man is.  This is not the sort of case Liddell handles and he turns it down.  Two weeks later, Liddy (who is referred to throughout the story as "the blonde") enters Liddell's office.  She admits she is in love with another man and wants to leave Hal.  The other man is the star of Hal's radio show, and Libby wonders if Liddell can help break the news to her husband.  Just then the phone rings.  It's Hal and he tells Johnny that he has just shot and killed Libby's lover, but things turn out to be far more complicated than that...
• "Optical Illusion" by Richard Deming.  First published in Accused Detective Story Magazine, July 1956, featuring Clancy Ross, who appeared in at least half a dozen short stories.  Ross is also not a P.I.  Deming's  most popular detective, of course, was Manville Moon, the one-legged St. Louis detective who appeared in three novels and nineteen short stories.  It's hard to get an accurate fix on how many books Deming wrote -- probably over a hundred, including juveniles, non-fiction,  and television tie-ins -- as well as several hundred short stories.  Clancy Ross is only owner of a gambling joint in the city who plays it straight and is not corrupt.  He gets conned into an all-night poker game with four of the other owners of betting places in the city.  During the game, a low-level gambler who had heavy debts to the four other players is murdered miles away.  Ross knows the four did it and that he is their solid alibi.  Ross did not like to be used like that and is determined to prove the four are guilty  -- moreover, that the killing was not hired out and that one of the four did the actual murder.  But the facts determined by the autopsy prove the victim died during the time Ross could alibi the four.  A perfect case, perhaps, for television's Death in Paradise.
• "Classification:  Dead" by "Richard Marsten" (Evan Hunter).  First published in Manhunt, November 1953, featuring Richard Silverstein, another one-and-done detective -- again, a police officer and not a private eye.  The dead woman -- dame -- was Sheryl Snyder, married.  She used to be Shirley, then began spelling it Shirlee, until the name morphed in Cheryl.   Now Shirley-Shirlee-Cheryl had been shot to death on the same day she had an abortion.  The suspect included her husband, her abortionist, and a woman who's boyfriend Cheryl was having an affair with...

A decent sampler of mid-Fifties hard-boiled crime fiction.

Leo Margulies (1900-1975) was an important editor and publisher of pulp magazines.  As the one-time editor of Standard Publications he was reputed to edit 46 magazines, including Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Adventure, Thrilling Love, Thrilling Western, Startling Stories, Phantom Detective, Sky Fighters, and Lone Eagle.  Margulies also founded the Paperback Library line of paperback books.  He was the editor of Satellite Science Fiction, Fantastic Universe, The Saint Detective Magazine, Mystery Book Magazine, and many others.  He published Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, Zane Grey's Western Magazine, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, and a reboot of Weird Tales.  Margulies also edited dozens of anthologies, mainly in the science fiction, mystery, and western genres.  among his anthologies of hard-boiled crime stories were the paperback originals Back Alley Jungle, Bad Girls, Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve, Mink Is for Minx, and Young and Deadly -- all provide entertaining reading.