Brett Halliday (1904–1977)

It's no secret that I love vintage crime fiction. One look at my 2011 reading list will tell you that much. My favorite authors in the genre are Hammett and Chandler, but a close runner up has to be Brett Halliday. He's not as hard-hitting as Hammet, nor is he as artful as Chandler, but there's a vintage charm about his writing that I find utterly enthralling. When reading one of his novels, I feel I've been transported back into the heyday of hardboiled gumshoes, into a world of molls and show more gats and grifters. Even Dashiell Hammett, the pater familias of all things Hardboiled, can’t utterly engross me the same way. Sure the plots can be formulaic, sure the writing isn't especially amazing (it's still a long way from being bad, though). I don't care. I'm in it for the ambiance, and Halliday has that in spades.

Halliday was actually the pseudonym of Davis Dresser, the author of no less than fifty Michael Shayne detective novels. He later commissioned other authors to ghost-write another 27 titles under the Shayne series for a total of 77 books. His first Shayne novel, Dividend on Death was rejected by 21 publishers before being accepted by Henry Holt & Co. in 1939. So for all you aspiring writers out there, the lesson is: persistence pays off. A few more interesting tidbits: Twelve movies were made using adaptations of his Michael Shayne books, he wrote a slew of non-series mysteries, westerns, and romances under other pen names, and he was given an Edgar award for his non-fiction writings on the mystery genre--quite a pedigree, all told.

The titular character of the Mike Shayne series is a tall, red-headed, wise-cracking P.I. with an unflinching sense of justice. In the first novels he was based in Miami (and married, no less), but after his wife's untimely death in a later book he moved to New Orleans... and then back again, but that's beside the point. Murder and the Married Virgin takes place in New Orleans. Shayne is hired by the fiancé of a dead girl to find out what happened in her apparent suicide attempt. They were supposed to be married the very next day, but she supposedly went into her room, turned on the gas grate in the fireplace, and drifted off into the final sleep with a smile upon her lips. She worked as a maid at the home of the Lomax family, the very same house where upon the night of her death an emerald necklace insured for $125,000 was stolen. As it so happens (very conveniently so) the insurance company that issued the policy also hires Shayne to recover the necklace, and off he goes to rattle cages, stir the pot, and generally stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. It quickly becomes obvious that both cases are related (duh) and that everyone involved knows more than they’re letting on (double-duh). Shayne continues to bang his head against the wall until he finally breaks through to the truth, gathers all the players together, and then explains the mystery and sends the perpetrators off to the iron bar motel.

I warned you these things could be formulaic, didn’t I? But formulaic or not, it’s still a lot of fun. The writing is utterly pulp, and it’s so hardboiled it’s practically granite. What I find most endearing, however, are the minor aspects of the story and the style. The dialogue is crisp, the action is pumped with machismo, and the period-specific details (telephone operators, typewriters, drug stores, etc.) are as fascinating to me as shiny stuff to a barracuda. I love just about everything vintage anyway, so when you throw mystery and murder into the mix I’m in hog heaven.

I do have a couple of gripes, however. After all, what self-respecting wannabe literary critic could pass up an opportunity to gripe? First, the coincidence of being hired to work two sides of the same case is a little bit too coincidental for me to willingly suspend my disbelief (thank you S.T. Coleridge). Coincidences are fine and all, it’s just that when applied incorrectly they can smack of “author fiat” rather than “random quirk of fate.” In this instance I was able to get past it since it happened at the beginning of the book and the rest of the plot didn’t totally hinge upon it. Second, the plot twist at the end was way too reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s 1939 short story “Pearls Are a Nuisance.” If you haven’t read a lot of vintage crime fiction, you probably won’t even notice. If you have, well, you won’t care all that much since you obviously like the genre to begin with. You won’t mind that I just spoiled the ending either because you will have seen the ending coming a mile away anyhow. I just can’t pass up an opportunity to sound smart and well-read. It’s a curse, really.

At any rate, if you like old mysteries, or even if you don’t, I encourage you to give Brett Halliday’s Michael Shayne series a try. They’re short and sweet, so you won’t have to invest much time in them. You won't have to spend much money on them either, as they usually go for around $3 or $4 a pop from a used bookstore (if that). With all that considered I give Murder and the Married Virgin a healthy four out of five stars.

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Murder and the Wanton Bride is just about everything you could want out of a hardboiled pulp-era mystery. It starts with a crazy setup of a street execution of a run-of-the-mill boring bank executive while Shayne is having a romantic interlude with his secretary Lucy Hamilton. But very quickly Shayne is involved up to his eyeballs in this crazy case with Miami Beach Chief Peter Painter ready to throw the book at him. Murder, adultery, blackmail round out the festivities here.

Belle Carter is show more introduced as one of the most voluptuous sirens ever to grace the pages of pulp fiction. "Belle Carson was a lot of woman. Long-legged, full-breasted, slim-waisted, she was a symphony in green and black as she stood facing Shayne in the hallway, sultry lips parted and sharp upper teeth showing, and there was the clean, acrid smell of gin in the air between them." Every mention of her oozes femme fatale, lushness, drunkenness, and Southern charm.

This Shayne mystery is full of action from start to finish. You would think it would get old with Shayne always running one step ahead of Painter, but it never does. Indeed, this may just be one of the best of the series. show less

This Mike Shayne mystery stands out because it starts out with two parallel narratives, one from the criminal's point of view and one from Shayne's point of view. In fact, given the manner in which it starts out, you might be forgiven if you think this is simply a hardboiled pulp novel about a convict and a gorgeous blonde he finds waiting for him outside the prison. In fact, the convict (Clayt) has no idea who Miriam is or what she wants from him. He just knows he never had it so good.

The show more interplay between these two tough pulpy characters is perfect and shows another side to the writing skill of whoever was writing under the Halliday name at the time.

Meanwhile, someone is trying to rub out Shayne and the entire town is an uproar. Of course, at some point these two narratives coalesce.

Found this to be a solid read and quite different from the regular who-done-it plots found in Shayne novels. This is one where the reader knows more than the characters. There's a bit of a harder edge to this one, particularly when Bonnie and Clyde - er- Miriam and Clay are
involved. She's the perfect blonde femme fatale, tough as they come,
focused, determined. He's a great criminal, particularly being a master
of disguise.

Lots of action in this one from bombings to armed robbery to shootouts.
Great stuff. show less

Counterfeit Wife is the fourteenth Mike Shayne novel, first published in 1947 by Davis Dresser, the original Brett Halliday, a house name later used by a number of different writers. This PI novels begins with Shayne relocating his office to New Orleans and his secretary Lucy Hamilton quitting on him, but neither fact has much to do with this story, surprisingly enough. By wild coincidences, Shayne stumbles on a number of different schemes and, as the bodies keep appearing, one stabbed, one show more suffocated, one bludgeoned, one with his face ripped apart and burned to a crisp, he becomes a prime suspect. Between following an Amazonian blonde to being imprisoned by a gang of hoods and walking away from a car wreck, Shayne's adventures never cease in this book. This is a crisp, well -written PI story that is a fun quick read, just what Mike Shayne novels were supposed to be. What I liked about it was that the storyline kept me interested and it was true to its 1940s PI genre. It didn't matter that Shayne never had a client or that the the New Orleans business was nothing more than a red herring. show less