Welcome to Noir Journal 40
For the film noir portion of NJ40 click here to read a review of Otto Preminger's vintage noir, Laura (1944).
First, Some news from Irish Noir Writer Sam Millar:
Requiems for the Departed ( an anthology containing a Karl Kane short story) has won the prestigious Spinetingler Award. Requiems for the Departed is an anthology of seventeen stories by Irish writers with stories delving deep into the supernatural and into Irish mythology.
Congratulations Sam and your fellow authors on a richly-deserved award
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Now for our main features, so get your popcorn ready:
Review of Jack Starr novels by Max Allan Collins:
A Killing in Comics, (Berkley Trade, May 2007), the first of two Jack Starr novels by Max Allan Collins with illustrations by Terry Beatty.
Both Collins books reviewed by Ann Snuggs
Step back in time.
The year is 1948. "Manhattan is my town," Jack Starr begins, setting the scene for A Killing in Comics, the first of two Jack Starr novels by Max Allan Collins with illustrations by Terry Beatty.
Starr is a P.I. but only has one client, Starr Newspaper Syndication Company, the family business run by his stepmother, the beautiful and famous Maggie Starr, ex-stripper, now president of a comic strip syndicate. Or, as Jack puts it, "When she inherited the family business, that was the end of one kind of stripping . . . and the beginning of another."
A Killing in Comics brings to life a cast of characters from the world of comic strips.
It's Donny Harrison's fiftieth birthday. He's reveling in a celebration dressed as Wonder Guy, hero of the star strip of his Americana Comics. Fat and sweating, he bears no resemblance to the comic hero, a fact the party-goers pretend to ignore - to his face. What they can't ignore is the abrupt conclusion of his birthday speech. Cake knife in handbombastically spouting his happiness, the super-hero costumed blimp takes a dive - right onto the knife.
A freak accident? Oh, no. The knife was not the cause of death. Our boy Donny was poisoned.
Gathered at the birthday party are a host of characters with reasons to wish the party honoree ill will. However, the two most likely suspects provide one of the top strips of Starr Syndicate and it's time for Jack to go to work and find the killer before irreparable publicity damage can affect the Starr interests.
Did one or both of the creators of Wonder Guy finally become fed up enough to kill Donny over what they interpret as abuse of their rightful position? Or did his wife Selma let jealousy push her to do in her roving husband? What about his mistress? His death left her sitting pretty. Donny's partner thought Harrison hopefully out of step with the future of comics. He makes an appealing suspect because he's such a jerk. Don't leave out the mob. Donny and partners were mob-connected when they started out as purveyors of girlie magazines rather than clean-cut American heroes.
When police captain Pat Chandler starts investigating, close to one hundred relatives, employees, business associates, friends or paid killers had the opportunity and means to kill. Many of them also had motive.
The story is not twisted with curves and dead ends. It's straightforward and laid out for the reader to solve along with Jack. Many devoted mystery fans will have solved the crime before the end of the book. But the characters are interesting - whether or not charming - and Collins' vivid writing pops people from the pages into life.
One of the most attractive characters - who appears in both Starr novels - is Jack's step-mother.
. . . Maggie was, as I've said, stunning - even in her recluse-state wardrobe - pale-green scarf over her Lucille Ball hair, the faintest dab of lipstick on her trademark bee-stung lips, her big green eyes unaided by mascara, her pale, faintly freckled oval face as perfect as a carved cameo, her slender if bosomy figure hiding out under a green-plaid lumberjack shirt, sleeves rolled to her elbow.
Maggie is not just easy on the eyes, she's hides brains under that glossy red hair. She moves step by step with Jack to uncover the guilty party.
Collins also paints the scenery bright and clear.
I left my fedora at the hatcheck window and ambled into the gleaming marble-and-chrome chamber, rows of black-padded porcelain chairs at left and right, attended by a white-uniformed army of barbers, mirrors on facing walls making an infinity out of this world of scissors and hair tonic and scalp massages.
With this kind of talent for description one might wonder if the dialog holds up its part. It does. It flows naturally and moves the story just as dialog should. No sidetracking here.
[Chandler] . . ."A routine step in the autopsy procedure caused the hospital to notify the medical examiner's office."
"What routine step?"
"In the autopsy? A toxicity in the blood. Mr. Harrison had something unusual in his bloodstream - a quantity of a chemical compound, an organophosphate, highly poisonous, found chiefly in pesticides."
I [Jack] sat forward. "Then Donny Harrison was poisoned?"
"That's the opinion of the pathologist."
"And he . . . he was either dead, or dying, or passing out, when he fell on that knife . . . ."
Chandler was nodding all through that. "Exactly."
It's a real pleasure to read this kind of prose.
Strip for Murder, (Berkley Trade, May 2007), by Max Allan Collins with illustrations by Terry Beatty.
Strip for Murder, the second - and sadly last - novel featuring Jack and Maggie Starr and a comic strip cast, also begins at a party, a Halloween gathering this time.
Five years have passed since the first novel. The party takes place in the Waldorf suite of Hal Rapp, creator of the Tall Paul comic strip, basis for a new Broadway musical with a rapidly approaching opening night. It's a costume affair with a Tall Paul hillbilly theme. Cast members wear their show wardrobe. Other comics characters are also in attendance - Henry, Buck Rogers, Nancy and Sluggo, Little Orphan Annie. Even Jack puts his own spin on the comic strip theme in a suit and hat.
I touched the snap-brim in a little salute. "I'm supposed to be a detective. . . . Haven't you ever heard of Dick Tracy?"
Maggie is one of the cast members, her costume dictated by her role.
Maggie came over, her own gait nicely swaying if diminished by the needs of the very tight, low cut gown she was wearing. In the musical she played seductress Libidia Von Stackpole, whose gown was a shade of red the costumers had matched to Maggie's hair. . . .
With Maggie's energies devoted to the stage, Jack is left with the day-to-day running of Starr Syndicate. One of his tasks is dealing with the cartoonists to protect the syndicate's best interests.
Rapp has presented Jack with a proposal for a new strip. It looks good but there's a little snag. Sam Fizer, the creator of Mug O'Malley, Starr Syndicate's top strip, and Hal Rapp have a long-running, vicious feud going. The latest slap at Fizer was the casting of his wife in a major role in the musical version of Rapp's strip.
As Jack tries to juggle the two in an effort to soothe feelings and keep Starr Syndicate in the game, each man tells him that soon the other will no longer be a problem.
Now, at his party, Rapp is glowing obnoxiously with the celebrity of the new venue for his characters and spouting to Jack and Maggie his view that Fizer's O'Malley is losing popularity when the door buzzer interrupts.
Standing at the door is Fizer's ghost writer, Murray Coe, announcing that Sam Fizer is dead, one floor below the party, at a drawing board in his suite. Is it the suicide presented by the tableau they find there? Or is it murder?
Once again Jack must step into his real detective role and find the killer before the Starr Syndicate takes a blow from the negative publicity.
Strip for Murder dips the reader back into the realm of the funnies - which is not really a funny world - again using roman a clef technique.
Collins' flare for description manifests itself once more and the tale is a page-turner - hard to put down yet a little long for a one-sitting read.
A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder are fun. With Jack narrating the tales, the reader steps into the deadlines, grudges, despairs and triumphs of the people who create the funnies, a fascinating place that few non-passionate fans of the genre would ever think to go.
Devoted comic book and strip fans will recognize thinly veiled real-life icons and famous comic characters in the stories. Yet even if the reader is not erudite concerning the comic strip scene, enough hints are included to make many of the references obvious to even the casual peruser of the funny pages.
For those who are into hardboiled crime rather than comics there is Captain Pat Chandler of Homicide. Can it get any closer to Pat Chambers from Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer books? It's a tip of the hat to Spillane amid the comics tribute.
Speaking of: Call Jack a "Mike Hammer Lite." He's not quite hardboiled enough, drinks rum and Coke - minus the rum - rather than bourbon, and has no faithful Betsy tucked close to him. His .45 Colt automatic, inherited from his father, usually lies safely at home tucked in with his socks and boxers. He can take - and give - a beating and charm a dame or two but he lacks Hammer's edge. That does not make him any less appealing a character.
Another lighter aspect of the books is the language. That, too, is a step back in time. Collins limits himself to expletives and seductive sequences that would have made it to print in Jack Starr's era.
In an era when many mystery/crime writers feel compelled to use language as rough as the story, Collins treats the reader to murder and mayhem minus graphic sex and/or hard core language. And it is a treat to discover a hard (semi-hard?) crime tale minus the sideshow - almost like reading a classic. Refreshing!
The Jack Starr books most definitely are not noir. What they do offer is an interesting style of tribute to the old-time funny papers and those who created them, costumed as murder mystery.
Collins' writing is solid - providing sharp pictures of the people and their settings - and very readable.
Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty have collaborated on various comic book series. For the Jack Starr books, Beatty's illustrations appear only at the first of chapters and near the wind-up, but they add an extra zip.
Maybe some day Collins and Beatty will consider a welcome number three tale for Jack and Maggie.
Collins Beatty
No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.
Posted by: elliptical reviews | 11/30/2011 at 12:54 AM
Elliptical,
No offense taken.
I don't do Facebook though.
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Posted by: Noir Journal | 11/30/2011 at 08:58 PM