Dead at the Take-Off (Lester Dent, 1946)

Let's start with the main plot and its subplots. As crazy as this stuff is, it is still the easiest to put into words.

A guy escapes an assassination attempt in New Mexico, fakes his death and flees to New York. But hired killers track him down, make sure their second try is the final one, and now have one day to transport his corpse back to the West Coast. The guy got killed because he wanted to sell some trade papers to our hero, who is now on the plane, accompanied by a couple of sidekicks, to meet him. The plane's stewardess, Mary, is his ex-flame and is currently being courted by both the pilot and the first officer, Carl. Also on the plane is the dead guy's sister (their father will join at the stopover in Kansas City), and also on the plane is Mary's asshole ex-husband. And, of course, the three killers are transporting the corpse on this very same fucking plane.

Is this a screwball comedy? A cosy mystery in the skies? Or, since the doors cannot be locked tighter anywhere but on the plane, could this be a locked door mystery? Nope, none of these. Not by far! It is actually a very high-brow intellectual character study. How else would one explain the writing as exquisite as this:

With terrified suddenness the sound of running water ceased in the bathroom.

Awareness of personal danger took a cold bite at his mind.

He saw now there were undercurrents, perhaps counterplots, on which he had not counted.

He shaded his pretended surprise overcarefully with an expression of dubiety, equally fake.

So, yes, it's one of those...  Where people are purloining, not stealing. They prevaricate instead of being truthful. They fall with jolting unexpectedness. Some have particular anatomical features like spatulalike fingers (but with square tips), and others have leonine heads. Some possess cold, calculating calm. 

The late great Elmore Leonard would be appalled because here nobody ever simply says something. They do it hoarsely (9), softly (4), bitterly (4), sharply (3), violently (3), quietly (3), coldly (3), grimly (2), archly (2), casually (2), gloomily (2), earnestly (2), harshly (2), urgently (2), levelly (2), thoughtfully (2), foolishly (1), feelingly (1), politely (1), unsmilingly (1), gravely (1), slyly (1), diplomatically (1), vaguely (1), pleasantly (1), instantly (1), lightly (1), gaily (1), cunningly (1), patiently (1), briskly (1), impulsively (1), wildly (1), unheedingly (1), stiffly (1), huskily (1), angrily (1), icily (1), positively (1), flatly (1), dryly (1), thickly (1), crisply (1), heavily (1), uncertainly (1)

For all you data science people out there: the grand total of all these adjective/adverb occurrences used with speech-related verbs is 257. Thank you very much, ChatGPT!

Mind you, these are just speech-related! They do it pallidly, sometimes with guttural vehemence. Other times with a timbrous voice. The voice that can also flow forth confidently, melodiously, and reassuringly. If required, they speak a language of slanderous vulgarity. And sometimes they appear moribund or trancelike. They can feel exultant, or at least vibrant. With beatific feelings...  

What can I say!? This is relentless and simply brilliant! But I must admit that without Kindle's built-in dictionary, I'd likely get unendurably agitated after the first chapter! In such a case, I might stare at nothing with splenetic violence or a peculiar expression of ferocious purpose.

About ten years ago, when I started to encounter such archaic prose in pre-50s paperbacks, I was taken aback, but I've since learned to enjoy it immensely. To be quite frank, I laughed my ass off as some of this shit is genuinely hilarious. Especially in the second half, when the story pretty much plays itself and we just need to go through a bunch of drama.

Another joy is reading about the commercial aviation industry, which was, in 1946, a complete novelty (I guess), and the author is fascinated with everything about it. There's a telephone service on board (but it's a new thing, so not everyone knows about it), there's a sleeper section, and separate lounges for men and women. The passengers are divided into compartments, so it sounds more like a train, if you ask me. Needless to say, they can smoke (and they do it a lot!) on the plane and also while having a stroll on the tarmac during the stopover wait. And yes, there's no problem bringing the guns on board. 

But let's wrap this up by returning to the story. Surprisingly, and very appreciated, there is no happy end; our guy doesn't get the girl! And the other romance with the triangle around Mary finishes odd - one of the lads suffers a heart attack, so it's not exactly clear (at least not to me) who our stewardess will choose.

So nothing conventional about this one! 

4/5

Facts:

Hero:

He considered and weighed Molloy. He had not been impressed by Molloy’s hard physical strength, but he had recognized a relentless efficiency in Molloy, and it worried him. Bitterly he told himself: I should have been more wary with that man, whoever he is. He is a capable man, accustomed to action, and he has confidence. A dangerous man.

His sidekick #1, George:

Thick, stolid, obviously a hard-muscled man, and probably a sudden one, George had the formidability of an army tank.

His sidekick #2, Kiggins:

Kiggins was a strange, icy woman from whom he had never seen a single display of a warm emotion. He didn’t think she was frigid inside. He suspected Kiggins of being made like a bomb, with a hard casing.

The bad guy(s):

Men like Senator Lord had to be stopped, made to pay. This, Molloy reflected, could be called socially essential.

Dames: 

Janet Lord, old pot o’ gold’s daughter, herself: 

Janet Lord’s face was rather monotonously oval, the way pretty girls’ faces are oval, but the mouth was nice, the nose had character, and there was alertness about the eyes. 

Mary Rounds, the stewardess:

She looked five years younger than she was—she was twenty-five—and she was lovely, her face having a sulky quality that was provocative; her body slim, rounded, exciting.

Location:

From downtown New York to the airport terminal (with a limousine!), flying to Pittsburgh and then to Kansas City (where the temperature at 10 pm is 92 degrees!). Airborne again, but turning back after the final shootout up in the clouds.

Worth mentioning here that Mr Dent invented a new colour: 

The terminal building was made of bricks that should have been clean but weren’t. The bricks were darkly filmed. They were Pittsburgh color, not dirty, exactly, but an industrial color.

Body count:

6

The object of desire:

Never, he imagined, would he again sleep well until Al’s death was avenged ... Morbid? ... Perhaps. But Al had been his only brother, actually all he had left of close blood kin.

Blackouts:

/

References:

In the seat beside George, Kiggins lowered the book she was reading. The book was Die Geburt der Tragödie, by Friedrich Nietzsche, in the original, which was enough to scare George by itself. 

But can you imagine the consternation of these representatives when they saw our Nick Carter-like approach to Janet Lord, the senator’s daughter? Their moves, being startled moves, might be crude ones.

Title:

Very accurate, there's a corpse on board at take off. And there will be several more when the plane finally lands.

Edition:

eBook

Cover:

Pretty generic one as expected for an eBook edition, but I'm including two old ones that I nicked off this blog with a nice review and this amazing site that has lots of information about the book publishing history.

Cool lines:

There are so many of them that I need to divide this section into several categories. 

First, the usual ones:

The corpse, she knew, was a corpse. She knew it instantly—horribly.

His thoughts turned and rushed at Molloy the way a small dog attacks a moving automobile.

“Dolan!” Batsie croaked.

“Huh?” Dolan wheeled.

“Oh. What do I do?”

“Add both of them to your sphere of observation.”

“Your enfeebled body, Senator, is an invitation for pity,” Molloy said harshly.

“You called the johns?” Batsie croaked. [johns are the cops]

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Molloy laughed. “For you, my little friend.”

A creeping paralysis took Batsie.

Some language acrobatics

Two days now, I tell myself nothing but no. I do it with flourishes, like this: ‘I deny, disavow, negate, and abnegate, and I disaffirm, abjure, disclaim, and contradict.’ 

Molloy had his gaze fixed on the small man and George. He was seeking to gauge the chances of an immediate flare-up. 

They sprang with horror-stricken singleness of purpose upon the corpse.

She waited. It was his venturesome nature to plunge at once into the matter, and he plunged.

Some true WTFs

He was abruptly hungry, ravenously hungry; then, in a moment, the hunger recoiled senselessly and he not only had no desire for food, but also felt as if he had never been hungry and might never be again.

The pillow, large and soft and as white as the inside of a nun’s hood...

...as if his ideas were frightened pigeons and he was trying to catch them and make them all sit in an orderly row on a rail. 

The eyes, large, clear, lustrous, an intense blue-black, could not have snapped more lustily over an algebra book at a high-school girl.

Molloy’s smile was the smile of a pleased satyr.

And let's conclude with some aerodynamic ones

The plane hit more down-currents. Usually turbulence extends for quite a distance, often as much as twenty miles, ahead of cold-front thunderstorms. The air liner had entered this. It flew unsteadily, first one wing tip going up or down, then the other, like an embarrassed but dignified lady who was quite drunk.

The turbulence of which was now behind and through with. The air ahead would be cool and hard with a feeling of life to it, not soft and without body, like the warm air mass they had left.

The wheels kissed. There was, for a moment, a tortured scream, the voice of a thousand agonies, from the tread of tires scrubbing the runway.

The passengers’ dinner had been served and eaten. Faces had the smug, titillated look that comes from full bellies and the pleasures of digestion.