Who Dies There? (James Duff, 1956)

Graphic Books has become one of my favourite pulp publishers in recent years. I love their dark covers, and it happened more than once that I would buy their books blindly when chasing the stuff online. You know how it goes when you find some good deal on eBay: you just have to check out the seller's other items... 

But we don't buy these paperbacks just for their covers (or do we?). We actually try to read some of them, and the great thing about the Graphics is that I'm yet to find one that would really suck. I have been pleasantly surprised by some completely unknown authors, and I'm happy to report that this happened again with Mr James Duff, of whom I had never heard before picking up this one.

It's pretty much a Ross Macdonald clone with the familiar theme of messed-up families where sins and neurosis are passed from one generation to the next with devastating effects that finally culminate in a tragic and sad ending. You can only keep your shit swept under the rug for so long... 

It's not flawless. The dialogue could use a bit of rewriting, and plot development is occasionally silly and not very believable. For example, our sleuthing hero spooks some guy by nothing more than simply calling him three times and hanging up the phone. Really?

But the plot is decent, easy to follow (unlike Macdonald, with all due respect...), and delivers a good twist at the end. True, there are some cliches (like best friend cop), but it manages to avoid the most annoying ones like sex bombs throwing themselves at the hero and similar juvenile nonsense. Plenty hard-boiled also, which is always a plus.

The biggest reason why the book works is the hero, John J. Phelan. He comes in the grand tradition of Marlowe and Archer as the disillusioned loner, full of self-doubts, a bit sentimental, and with his own moral compass. We don't get to know anything about his past except that he was in WW2, and we can speculate that, somehow, that experience damaged him. I liked the way he gets introduced: upon receiving the fee, he immediately calls his bookie and places a bet with the entire amount. Nice touch. We now know everything we need to know about him without going into the usual stuff about the unpaid bills pilling...

I also loved the way it ends. There will be no sense of justice being served or any redemption for the family involved (The hell with them, I thought; the hell with them all). Johnny gets the second instalment of his fee (another 100 bucks), promptly calls the bookie and places another bet. The horse's name? Missie Gloom. And the bookie's response? "Ah, Johnny-boy, you're nuts. She won't even get outa the gate".

How much more noir-ish can one get?

4/5

Facts:

Hero:

What in hell, Phelan, what in hell? Why weren't you an accountant or a ditch digger or a truckdriver or a bank clerk or any goddamned thing but a private eye?

A good question. The only trouble with it was that it was unanswerable to the guy who had asked it. Me.

The bad guy(s):

"I'm Egan. Richie Egan. This is my place."

I said: "I'll now turn four handsprings and look to the heavens for guidance."

Dames: 

Pendleton sisters:

Honor wasn't a bad-looking dish, if you liked them thin. I didn't.

Landrith "was as beautiful as anything I'd ever seen, and she knew it".

Finally, our hero's love interest is the beautiful redhead Jean Gibbon - Miss SeaVue of Astoria, Oregon, 1953.

Location:

L.A.

Body count:

4 + a nasty dog called Turk

Blackouts:

The guy kept hitting me, and hitting me some more. He used his fist on my face and midsection, and his knee on my groin. He would grunt each time he hit me, and the other guy in the chair would laugh.

The last thing I remember was him hitting me.

They sure as hell enjoyed themselves.

References:

It's not exactly a reference that I usually write about, but it was depressing to read that the radios in 1956 were already reporting "about the latest skirmish on the Gaza border".

Title:

It sounds cool, but it's pretty silly when one thinks about it. There's never any doubt about who died in some particular location in this one.

Edition:

Graphic #134, no printing date or edition specified

Cover:

By Walter Popp. It depicts a scene in which drunk Honor tries to kill Johnny.

Cool lines:

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