Oh, Murderer Mine

I love Norbert Davis, but if you're new to his work, don't start here. The third and final novel featuring Doan and Carstairs, the comedic man-and-dog detective duo whose adventures began in the 1940 story "Holocaust House," Oh, Murderer Mine crosses the line from self-awareness to self-parody. Davis was a master of weaving comedy into the standard hard-boiled format of tough guys and brassy dames (see his Bail-Bond Dodd and Max Latin stories), but in this book everything was played for laughs...and, for me, it quickly wore thin. I was left with an insubstantial feeling, as though I had just read a Bazooka gum wrapper cartoon instead of a novel. It's okay but hardly satisfying. Two and a half stars.

If you want to encounter Norbert Davis show more at his best, look for stories like "Who Said I Was Dead?" (Bail-Bond Dodd) and "Don't Give Your Right Name" (Max Latin). He really was a great writer. I'm sorry that he ended his life in despair and I hope he's resting easy, wherever he is. show less

Detectives Doan and Carstairs, man and dog, respectively, are are on the trail of a murderer on a college campus. As usual for Davis, the story involves an assortment of oddball characters, and the plot, while there is quite a lot of it, has a made-it-up-as-he-went-along quality and serves mostly as as a resting place for the author's ceaseless wry remarks, jokes, and witticisms. Luckily for the reader, Davis was a pretty funny writer, and this story, about half the length of a short novel, is a very fun read.

Another zany Doan and Carstairs mystery, the last and possibly the best. Things get absolutely hilarious, particularly with Carstairs loose in a ladies salon. As usual Doan and Carstairs get their man in the end.

The third Doan and Carstairs (he's the dog) novel from 1946 with the pair investigating murder on a college campus and in the beauty business. Pleasant but rather more silly than funny.