Spencer Dean - Murder on Delivery (1957)

Lily Inez, beautiful television star, is set to receive a very exclusive gift from the Sak's-like Amblett's department store--a 100,000 blue sable mink coat which is to be delivered on her birthday by two employees of Amblett's. The coat, however, is hijacked at Lily's apartment, the two employees are missing and Don Cadee, the head of Ambletts' security suspects that Lily and her manager have more knowledge about the theft than they want to reveal. The knowledge that this pair has proves to be rather ludicrous, but without this twist there wouldn't be much to the story. Dean, to his credit, doesn't tie everything neatly up at the conclusion.

More information on the series can be found here.

Frank Kane - Syndicate Girl (1958)

"The syndicate runs this town. If they say go, you go. If they say jump, you damn well better jump. If they say you die, don't start reading any continued stories."

In a previous post I observed the disparity between the plot summary and cover artwork of a Rae Foley Mr. Potter novel, seemingly to make the book more palatable to a romantic suspense fan. Like that book, Syndicate Girl has a presentation at odds with its actual content. The cover blurb (She was as tough as the hoods she worked with--until she met a man who made her feel like a woman) along with the accompanying illustration of a long-legged blonde seductively posed on an armchair with a cigarette dangling from her fingers, would suggest that the novel is a crime melodrama involving the redemption of the syndicate girl (with perhaps a hint of risque action.) The trouble is threefold; the syndicate girl doesn't reform, doesn't meet a man who makes her feel like a woman, and since she isn't discovering her latent womanhood, there's no risque lovemaking either. Actually, the problem might be fourfold as the syndicate girl, Mary Lister, isn't even the main character in the book. That honour belongs to Mal Waters, a young and naive district attorney (and the future son-in-law of the mayor) who becomes involved in the battle against organized crime in a small city and the fight to prove that the suicide of a policeman was actually a mob hit tied to a corruption probe.

One's enjoyment of SG will depend on how much one can make allowances for the actions of Mal Waters. While he is supposed to be naive, a puppet placed in office by the crime-ridden administration, most of the story depends on the character doing foolish things such allowing himself to be set-up or revealing his plans to those he shouldn't trust (even though he learns early on about the duplicity of those close to him). Mal's development as a character is in contrast to what the blurb promises about Mary Lister: a "nice: guy who has to become as tough as the hoods whose downfall he wants to bring about, although the Mickey Spillanesque ending can be predicted early on.

Brett Halliday - She Woke to Darkness (1954)

"If she was a gal who passed out on her third Martini and developed nympho tendencies--that made it all the more interesting."

As the cover proudly proclaims, this is Mike Shayne's twenty-fifth case and it has a trifold narrative structure that sets it apart from the previous twenty-four. She Woke to Darkness opens with Brett Halliday recounting his experiences at the April 1953 Edgar Awards Dinner (which provides cameos from such luminaries as Frederic Dannay). Criticised as being a boring old-timer by several younger and arrogant MWA members, Halliday is pleased to be introduced to Elsie Murray, a fan of his detective novels, and after a brief conversation, accepts an invitation back to her apartment. Elsie is more than a mystery fan however; she's also an aspiring author with an uncompleted manuscript which she claims is based on a real-life experience. After their evening is interrupted by a telephone call (which Halliday assumes to be from a boyfriend), Brett  heads back to his hotel room and begins to read Elsie's novel and SWTD then alternates between Halliday's narrative and the incidents described in the manuscript. Elsie's mystery novel tells the story of a young woman, Aline Ferris, who wakes up during the night, after having one too many drinks, in a hotel room with a man's corpse in the bathroom. Aline doesn't recognise the man, flees the hotel and tries to reconstruct the events of the evening and discover the man's identity and who killed him.

Flattered by her attention, Halliday phones Elsie to give her opinion of the opening chapter of her manuscript and is surprised by two things. Firstly, that a man answers the phone, and secondly, that the man's voice has the official sound of a policeman. Worried by this, Brett phones a friend, true crime author Edward Radin who has contacts within the police department, to discover why a policeman would be at Elsie's apartment in the early hours of the morning. Radin promises to find out and phones back with the shocking news that Elsie has been strangled. Realising that he's about to become the police's main suspect, Brett phones Mike Shayne, a real-life detective whose cases he has been chronicling, for help in clearing his name. Brett is convinced that Elsie and Aline are one the same person, that Elsie was involved in a recent murder case and that the manuscript holds to key to discovering her murderer. The latter part of SWTD is the third-person account of Shayne's investigation.

She Woke to Darkness, with its placement of actual mystery writers into a fictional murder case, is a treat for Brett Halliday fans (who will also appreciate the in-jokes involving Helen McCloy and Matthew Blood) although with Shayne not appearing until well-past the half-way mark it feels more like a Mike Shayne novelette. The investigation, juxtaposing the manuscript with the "real-life" characters and locations is also a clever idea but one which is kept relatively simple (perhaps to bring the book under 200 pages).