Milton Lesser (1928–2008)

In the thirteenth Chester Drum novel, “Manhunt is My Mission,” Marlowe drops all pretense that he is writing hardboiled detective novels and plunges Drum full-steam ahead into a crazy Middle Eastern adventure more akin to Lawrence of Arabia than to Phillip Marlowe. Drum finds himself in an imaginary Middle Eastern monarchy beset by a violent civil war between a British-style foreign legion and a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist organization. In the midst of bitter battle, Drum rescues show more damsels in distress and an American doctor who is determined to be where he can do the most good for the most people.

This top-notch novel, that is an adventure/war novel as much as anything else, takes the reader through the throes of siege of the major city, the refugees wandering through the desert, the brutality of the soldiers, the Westerners fleeing to the last ship to sail from the port, leaving behind whoever is left to fend for themselves in the violence, anarchy, and dictatorship, and kangaroo courts that remains. This story is chock-full of adventure and action and there is almost no let up from beginning to end. This was written in the mid-sixties and, even then, Marlowe manages to trace a post-Colonial history of the region where even the most benevolent dictators are co-opted by fundamentalist forces beyond their control and the tentacles of terrorism emanate from there even to the States.

Don’t pick this up, thinking it is a who-done-it or a tangle-with-the- local-mafia-hoods type of tale. For a great adventure story, I thought it was terrific and absolutely, without reservation, do recommend it. show less

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog on a semi-regular basis knows that I love a good crime caper. If it involves private investigators, hardboiled lingo, and lots of supercilious metaphors, all the better. That’s why I nearly had a brain-gasm when the people at Mysterious Press asked me if I wanted to read Killers Are My Meat by Philip Marlowe.

Never heard of Marlowe? That’s O.K., neither had I until I started perusing the Mysterious Press book catalog. He was the author of a show more multitude of science fiction and mystery novels (59 according to my count) who wrote mostly during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. His real name was Milton S. Lesser, but he also wrote under other pseudonyms such as Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, Jason Ridgway, and even Ellery Queen (for one novel in the Ellery Queen series).

Of all of his fictional creations, though, he is most remembered for his hardboiled Washington D.C. detective Chester Drum. The Drum novels follow the predictable model of the Chandler-esque private eye. You know what I’m talking about—the 30-something, single, ex-cop with a one-man agency in a major U.S. city who tells his story in a metaphor-laden first-person narrative. Some people might say that that means these types of mysteries are trite and stale, but those people can just shut the hell up. These things are my bread and butter. I inhale this kind of stuff faster than a dozen hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Never had a hot Krispy Kreme? I feel sorry for you. I swear, those things disappear into a black hole when I’m around. And don’t even get me started on the “Hot Now” sign. I don’t care if there are eight lanes of traffic between me and that bad boy. When I’m driving and I see that beacon of melt-in-your-mouth-deliciosity, you might as well get out my damn way ‘cos I’ma run your ass over if I have to. Papa needs his fix!

But, erm… well, that’s a tangent for another day. And another pants size. Moving on.

Marlowe managed to set his stories apart from the pack by adding a dash of espionage and whole helluva-lot of international travel. Indeed, almost all of the books feature Drum traveling to some far-flung country in pursuit of whatever case he happens to be working. Killers Are My Meat (1957) is the third installment in the series and sees Drum winging off to India to protect a U.S. dignitary from his own self-destructive tendencies. The story begins with Drum on his way to meet a friend of his in a Maryland tourist town. His friend Gil Sprayregan—also a private dick—needs Drum’s help. He’s hiding out from some very nasty folks who want to kill him. See, Sprayregan decided to cash in on a bit of dirt he dug up and use it to blackmail some foreign dignitary’s wife about the affair she’s being carrying on with a Washington insider. Turns out foreign politicians don’t take kindly to extortion from two-bit detectives. Diplomatic immunity makes you ballsy like that. Who knew?

It’s not long before the bad guys come looking for Sprayregan, using a car to run down the two of them. Drum makes it. Sprayregan doesn’t. After some time spent recuperating in the hospital, Drum heads back to D.C. to lick his wounds and figure out who killed his old buddy. In the meantime, Mrs. Stewart Hoffman Varley, Jr. hires him in the middle of the night to drive out to some Maryland road house and rescue her husband, a soul-searching Washington diplomat who does most of his searching at the bottom of a bottle. Hubby dearest has managed to royally piss off a couple hoods who are waiting outside the roadhouse to bash his skull in. Drum does a little bashing instead, drives Mr. Varley home, and turns him in to the Mrs.

Somewhere in the mix of all of this, several things become apparent. 1) The guys at the roadhouse are attached to the Indian ambassador at their consulate in Washington, 2) these are the same guys that ran down Sprayregan in their car, and 3) Mr. Varley is the Washington insider who played part one of two in the affair Sprayregan was trying to use as blackmail fodder. I know, convenient how all of that works out, ain’t it? But it’s hardboiled detective fiction, so just roll with it. At the center of the plot is Sumitra Mojindar, wife to the Indian ambassador and the femme fatale for this little yarn. While the ambassador is a pacifist after Mahatma Ghandi’s own heart, she’s a man-eating bitch-whore if there ever was one. Drum discovers that she was the philandering wife who Sprayregan was attempting to blackmail, and that she and her party are behind his death. However, proving all of that is another matter. Before Drum can bring the slow gears of justice to bear upon the dastardly dame, she and her party scoot back to India to head up something called the Benares Conference, a gathering of Asian countries meant to establish solidarity in the region and shuck involvement from the Western powers.

In the meantime, Stewart Varley (the soul-searching diplomat, remember?) is assigned as a western observer to the conference, and off he goes too. His wife hires Drum to look after him, who, having that convenient excuse and source of expense money, wings off to distant India as well. For the rest of the novel (fully half), Drum shadows Varley as the diplomat seeks for meaning among Indian mystics, dogs the trail of Sumitra Mojindar and her stooges, and generally tries to navigate the customs and traditions of the Indian city of the dead.

The narrative that evolves is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s early work (technically proficient with spots of brilliance but without the heady over-indulgence of philosophical musings of later novels) if Raymond Chandler had decided to throw Philip Marlowe into a tale of international espionage (or espionage-lite, if you prefer). It has all the things you've come to expect from a hardboiled mystery of this era: the wise-cracking P.I. with a heart of gold, the evil femme fatale, hard-nosed toughs, gun play, lots and lots of alcohol, and a protagonist who repeatedly gets clocked over the head and knocked unconscious without sustaining any lasting damage (Concussions? What are those?). But Killers Are My Meat also incorporates a lot of deeper themes, such as the search for meaning in the modern world, colonialism in the far east, and western culture’s impact on emerging independent nations. True to it’s Noir-ish roots, the book doesn't attempt to answer any questions, but simply poses them as obstacles for its protagonist to overcome.

While he isn’t as good as the greats of the genre (Chandler, Hammett, MacDonald, etc.), Stephen Marlowe and Chester Drum are noteworthy progeny of the glory days of hardboiled detective fiction. Killers Are My Meat stands on its own despite the half a century since its original publication, and that’s why I give it four out of five stars. It’s just a shame that the modern literary conscience seems to have forgotten about old Marlowe. But hopefully, with the help of publishers like Mysterious Press, that will change.

http://www.ireadabookonce.com/2012/12/review-giveaway-killers-are-my-meat-by.htm... show less

Two Classic Detectives Meet

Chester Drum and Shell Scott together! It's like Batman and Superman getting together. The Shell Scott mysteries can often be a little too silly, a little too cornball, but this one is a flat-out solid adventure where the action never stops from beginning to end. Told in alternating chapters with Prather's Shell Scott narrating one chapter and Marlowe's Chester Drum narrating the next, this is a great story filled with crooked unions, monsters, thugs, secret show more documents, missing witnesses, sexy women, and more. The battle takes our detectives from coast to coast and back again and is just a whole lot of great action. This would definitely make a great movie. show less

If you read enough of the Chester Drum series, sooner or later you will feel as if you have explored all of Europe and South America without stepping on a plane. Marlowe was an intrepid traveler and he filled his books with the sights, sounds, and tastes of the exotic lands he favored. Drum is as cynical and hardboiled as any American detective, but Marlowe takes his detective and plops him all over the world for his adventures. These novels are punctuated by great writing with lots of show more action.

“Peril Is My Pay” is the 12th of the 20 Drum novels and it is a terrific read, but they all are. This one, however, doesn’t begin with an ordinary case in or around Washington D.C. Rather, it begins in Rome as the Olympic teams are preparing for the games only a week away. It takes Drum through the piazzas of Rome, the trattorias, the Spanish steps, and involves him a case involving Olympic athletes, possible Czech defectors, the Communists racing around to stop defections, a mad artist who does it with mirrors, an international smuggler who Drum had captured years earlier, and a collection of odd characters.

The story also may begin in Rome, but it also takes Drum into the heart of France and Germany, from medieval festivals to Hamburg’s mudwrestling and topless horseback riding nightclubs.
At times, the plot and the motivations of the various characters gets a bit convoluted, but the story is so filled with action and shoot-outs and fights and crosses and doublecrosses that it really doesn’t matter.

If you are looking for a hardboiled adventure novel with international intrigue like a James Bond story, you can’t do any better than this yarn. This is pure good stuff, indeed. show less