George Harmon Coxe (1901–1984)

Pretty decent read by longtime Black Mask contributor George Harmon Coxe. Here, his Boston newspaper photographer/inadvertent detective Flash Casey--older, if not much wiser--accepts a freelance assignment that lands him in a world of trouble and may have had something to do with the murder of a friend. Plagued by guilt, he attempts to track down the killer and soon uncovers a blackmail scheme targeting a psychiatrist's female patients. Can Casey and salty Homicide Lieutenant Logan join all show more the loose ends and bring the murderer to justice?

Unlike Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, Coxe was not a literary stylist: he was a solid, reliable storyteller and wrote many books. The drawback here is that Flash Casey had his origins in the two-fisted, rough-and-tumble brand of crime fiction, so that the older, slightly more introspective Casey isn't quite as engaging a character as his younger self. He just doesn't have enough depth to compete with Chandler's Philip Marlowe or Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer. (For Casey at his finest, see Black Mask stories like "Murder Picture" and "Once Around the Clock.") Still, Error of Judgment is a consistently entertaining novel; it's unlikely that you'll ever reread it, but you won't be sorry that you read it the first time. Three and a quarter stars.

(Originally published in 1961; reissued in 1967 as One Murder Too Many.) show less

Wow! I found this book and another like it at a church fair book table. I had thought I'd like me some pulp detective fiction from the 40s, and that's what this is. For some reason, GoodReads claims this book is from 1950, but the inside of the cover says 1937, and Wikipedia says 1938. The ambiance seems more 30s to me than 50s. As such it's great. As literature, of course not. It certainly merits a 3* rating, because it's a great example of its genre.

The story is about an ace newspaper show more photographer (in Boston no less) who is asked by his wife to see if he can bail our her best friend, who apparently has just murdered someone who had been blackmailing her. When the photographer gets to the place where the victim was murdered, he takes a picture of a street parade (that also has a bunch of odd people watching/by standing), then goes inside and takes a couple more shots of the crime scene. This, before the cops even know about the crime. Well, all and sundry start tracking the guy down to try to get the pictures from him before they get published, or even to the cops. Several more people get murdered on the way to a surprise ending.

That's as much as I'll tell of the plot. But it's wonderful pulp fiction. It's full of tough guys, floozies, rich people trying to pay off folks to get the odds bent in their favor, double crossing, adultery (alluded to, and only tastefully at that), con men, and so forth. Oh, and, of course, lots of drinking. This is stuff right out of Guy Noire or Humphrey Bogart, i.e. awesome in its tawdry way. The copy I had—a Dell paperback—has just about the worst typography one could imagine (although a campily lurid cover). But thinking about the time period, they were likely saving on money, so skimped on niceties like margins, white space and so forth.

Anyway, if you fancy an occasional cheesy 30s/40s dime novel, this is a great choice; if you want real literature, hunt up some Dickens of Murakami. show less

Ah, this is another wonderful example of cheesy pulp fiction. I should probably give it 4*s, but I figure that 4* works should be more uplifting than entertaining throw-away fiction. Literature, this is not, but it is rather a good read.

A commercial artist gets into a fight with his estranged spouse over conditions for a divorce. He takes a whack at her, and then realizing he's in danger of completely losing it, he leaves the house and takes a long walk to cool off. When he gets back, he show more finds her strangled. Naturally, he's the prime suspect. So, he works to uncover the true culprit before the police arrest him and lock him up. He discovers that his estranged spouse has been getting a little on the side, so to speak. Obviously, one of her ex beaux is the most likely culprit. At least that's what the artist thinks. The quaint moral values of the 1950s shine through. Who, in our current day and age, would think a spot of adultery would be grounds for murder? show less

In The Fifth Key, Coxe brilliantly reworks a long-standing mystery plot device - the hero of the story waking up in bed with a beautiful corpse and spending the next hours covering his tracks because there is absolutely no way to prove he wasn't the killer. Here, Coxe uses a street-hardened news photographer as his protagonist and the various suspects include a wide variety of show business types - writers, producers, radio stars, various spouses and hangers on, jealous love triangles and show more quadrangles. The best parts of the story are when Murdoch gets to play classic detective. The story suffers somewhat from too many characters few of whom stand out and a bit of a convoluted
plot. show less