Target: Mike Shayne (Brett Halliday, 1959)

End of the hiatus, I'm back! Plenty of time to kill in these strange covid times, and besides, I've been missing the quiet nights in the company of my good friends Arthur Guinness, Joe Camel, Tom Waits and such. So, let's make social distancing fun again!

The good old gumshoe Michael Shayne is as good as anyone to help me restart this blog. I keep chasing these books on eBay because of their incredible McGinnis' covers and keep reading them even though they turn out to be pretty lame for the most part. Especially the latter additions to the series, when they were penned by God knows which ghostwriter, vary a lot in quality. With over 200 pages, this one is quite hefty, so I was reluctant to pick it up. But as usual, I was eventually persuaded by the voluptuous blonde giving me looks from the bookshelf.

Glad I did, and I'm happy to report that the book's length is more than justified, as it covers two intertwining stories. They both revolve around an ex-con who's planning a heist while also dividing his attention to plot the murder of a particular private detective who had put him into the slammer.

The heist part is excellent. It's not the usual bank or armoured car job, but a high-stakes private poker game on the top floor of a luxurious hotel, which makes it a bit more elaborate. The author puts in a good effort to describe just enough details of our team's preparation and execution. Which goes reasonably smoothly, and they actually manage to pull it off! During the heist, there's a cool detail that reminded me of Melville's Bob le Flambeur when Clayton (the inside man) gets on the roll with the dice and starts winning big time. Don't know; maybe our mysterious ghostwriter also saw the movie and got inspired. It was released only three years before the publication of this book.

The team of misfits makes it interesting: along with Clayton, there's a femme fatale past her prime (both of them on their "last job") and a trigger-happy, somewhat psychotic kid. A well-known template that has been used countless times before and since, and it works well here. The shifting alliances and relationships between the three are sometimes more compelling than the job itself. Good stuff, indeed.

What ruins it for me is our main man himself. Shayne is Mike Hammer's distant cousin, so excessive drinking and a conservative, macho persona do come along with the territory. And we've got used to this. Fine. However, in this case, his "lone wolf against the system" attitude is taken to absurd and even comical extremes. His dogged determination goes as crazy as beating the cops (twice!), and in the final showdown, he literally uses his wheelchair as a weapon. It stopped being funny after 50 pages and became simply annoying for the remaining 150+.

But all in all, this one is an interesting addition to the series. Also, to be fair, it does have a cool identity swap twist at the end that I didn't see coming. And now, when this one is off the shelf, I can see another beauty smiling straight at me. So stay tuned.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero:

"Is Shayne still around?"
"Who?" she asked sleepily.
"Mike Shayne, the fearless, incorruptible, two-fisted private eye."

And then a tall, rangy figure came out of the hotel. His shoulders were wide and powerful, and he had the narrow hips and long legs of an athlete. His face was deeply lined. Even before she saw the red hair Miriam knew that this was Mike Shayne.

Dames:

Barring Shayne's faithful secretary and love interest, Lucy, Miriam is the only woman in this one. I'm including the back cover scan, but that description doesn't do her justice. I found her to be quite a complex and likeable character.

Location:
Miami

Body count:
Only 2. Possibly another one, as Clayton is badly injured, and doctors don't know if he will survive.

The object of desire:
For Clayton - killing Shayne while getting some money and eventually going away with Miriam

For Miriam - getting some money at first but at the end simply keeping Clayton 

For Fran - killing some people

Blackouts:
None less than on three occasions. During the climax, he first gets shot point-blank in his side with a dummy bullet, but he's such a tough guy that it doesn't put him out yet. But the next bullet, this one to his head (and obviously dummy too), does the job and "The night closed down around him".

Once he's in the hospital and interrogated by the cops, he blacks out due to exhaustion: "Shayne could feel the mists beginning to close in around him again."

Finally, after his semi-successful wheelchair attack, he loses consciousness because he's totally exhausted from the fight and preceding chase. This one is also pretty straightforward: "He felt a violent explosion behind his eyes."

Title: 

Clayton holds a grudge against Shayne for putting him in prison thirteen years ago. Now he's out, and it's payback time.

Dedicated to:

"For Leah and Lee with Love"

Blame it on covid-19 psychosis, but I actually did some sleuthing myself to find out who the author is. From this very informative page on Shayne, I got the list of ghostwriters and then checked their biographies for kids, spouses or friends named Leah and Lee. Came up with nothing. So far...

Edition:

Dell D355, first printing - June 1960

Cover:

Another gorgeous and iconic illustration by Bob McGinnis. A fantastic job that must have substantially accelerated the sales (it definitely made me buy it). 

Cool lines:

As he crouched on the floor, his forehead was on a level with her automatic. He started to bring up the tommy gun. She shot him between the eyes.[Fatale]

Dolls are Deadly (Brett Halliday, 1960)

Pretty cool opening. Shayne is in his office nursing a glass of his Hennessy cognac, working on the dilemma of putting out his cigarette. He opts for the hardest of the three available choices by swinging his long legs to the floor and thumbing it out in an ashtray. And then the trouble comes knocking on his office door. Only this time, the trouble isn't shaped as some beautiful damsel in distress. The distressed one is a muscle man of the local loan shark, and there are two reasons for his disturbed mental state. Someone has sent him a couple of voodoo dolls!

After a mere five pages (of pretty large print), our shamus throws the big man out and reminds his secretary (who stopped typing and looked up reproachfully):

"I draw the line, Lucy, at keeping a professional murderer from being murdered. I know the law doesn't, but I have a code of ethics which I don't think it would hurt the law to embrace."

And then off he goes fishing with his Cuban friend Sylvester!

Pretty funny, I liked it. But in the very next chapter, things start to go downhill a bit. His little Cuban captain is being exploited by three shady characters, and it doesn't take long before he ends up under his ship tied to an anchor. Which is not that good. I mean, obviously, it's pretty fucking bad for Sylvester, but what bothered me was that personal crap got involved, and I don't like that in P.I. stories. However, on a positive note, at least it's not family crap which is the worst kind of personal crap.

But I'm digressing. So, we have two unrelated cases that our sleuth needs to solve. It won't be much of a spoiler to reveal that it turns out they are not unrelated. Nothing unusual, of course, about that. It follows well-established and proven formulas, and we read such stuff all the time. What is worth mentioning is that these two affairs are linked by sheer coincidence. Protagonists of both sub-plots simply attend to Madame Swoboda's mystic seances.

Unlike coincidences combined with personal/family shit is usually a recipe for disaster (sometimes for laughter), but it still works in this one. The story is quite complex, and it culminates in a cool twist, reminiscent of a Ross Macdonald-esque tragedy.

I also liked the style. This is one of the first Shayne novels that were ghostwritten (according to this website by Walter Ryerson Johnson). The writer attempted to capture the original style of the 1940s and succeeded remarkably well (check out the 'dames' and 'cool lines' in the facts below). But at the same time, it also feels like it was penned out pretty quickly without much reviewing and/or rewriting. Some scenes simply don't make much sense and feel like leftover ideas that the author forgot to drop when trying to reach his word count before the deadline. Why would Shayne take his secretary to an interview with his client and then leave her waiting in his car?

Charming. The coolest Shayne I can remember.

4/5

Facts:

Hero:
"Michael Shayne?" Ed repeated quickly. He looked at Shayne, as did Slim and Vince, from the wheelhouse. "You mean," Ed said with unsteadiness in his voice, "you're Michael Shayne, the private detective?"
"The same," Sylvester said proudly. "My friend, he is famous everywhere."
"Well, I'm damned!" Ed smoothed his angel's halo of graying hair. "Miami's best-known detective on our boat. Wait'll I tell the folks back home."

Bad guys:
It was rumored that he had known Lucky Luciano before Luciano was deported to Italy, and had since visited with the dope and vice czar there. However, as yet no crimes of consequence had been hung on De Luca by local or federal lawmen, for he was cunning and capable as well as ruthless.

Location:
Miami

Body count: 

3

Dames:
There's Clarissa Milford with a smooth golden head... tall, but her bones were light... she gave the impression of delicate fragility... she seemed to be one of those rare feminine creatures without imperfection.

But the real star is the mystic Madame Swoboda. Check out her anatomical details: 

...ample and worldly breasts, extraordinary long lashes, slim fingers, aquiline nose. Her features were regular, her skin clear and fair, her face beautiful and tantalizing. 

Blackouts:

/

Title: 
Someone is sending around voodoo dolls, and some recipients end up dead.

Edition:
Jove Books, May 1989

Cover:
A horribly generic photo, so I'm also including the original McGinnis illustration. 

Cool lines:
In any case, since murder unaccountably was breathing down the necks of some people, a talk with Sylvester was strongly indicated.

Pay-Off in Blood (Brett Halliday,1962)

Blackmail goes wrong as the victim is murdered shortly after the money handover. What makes this short little pulp unusual and memorable is that none of the protagonists seems much interested in the blackmailing aspect of the crime at all. Our gumshoe hero, his sidekick friend and the cops just want to find out who the killer is.

Fast and furious. A lot happens, and it happens in under a couple of days. Shayne is super busy and relentless in his pursuit. Even though he has a reputation as a ladies' man, he ignores the advances of Miss Belle. Two goons "put him out cold" (see the facts below), but he returns the favour by kicking the shit out of them and their asshole debt-collecting boss. Where does he get all this energy, I wondered. Maybe all those cognacs helped?

Good stuff with some excellent plotting and a clever twist that I didn't see coming. Maybe a bit too old-fashioned for the 60s, but that's the way I like them. My only objection is that it's slightly too fast. Apparently, Davis Dresser got tired of writing Shayne in '58 and handed the series to a publisher. I assume that he supervised the novels anyway and maybe imposed the word count limit on his ghostwriters? It doesn't really matter, Pay-Off in Blood definitely pays off!

4/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mike Shayne P.I.

"Give him a fast shake-down, Jud. This joker has a rep for having all sorts of tricks up his sleeve." 

By the way, I watched The Man Who Wouldn't Die after reading this one and found the whole thing too silly. Are the TV episodes from '61 with Richard Denning as Shayne any better? I can see on Amazon that a DVD was released in 2007 with a couple of episodes, but it's a bit pricey...

Location: 
Miami

Body count: 

1

Dames:

The widow:
"...one of these, well, sort of professional southern belles... pretty and plump and young-looking, and never forgetting that her family was real southern gentility... the way she'd been brought up, she just couldn't help flirting... soft, platinum hair... very wide and very blue eyes..."

Miss Belle Jackson, Dr Ambrose's nurse:
"quite a hunk of a woman... beautifully formed thighs... big breasts... well-fleshed, un-lined face and soft, blue eyes..."

Had some trouble imagining Belle: what the hell is a "well-fleshed, un-lined face" supposed to be!?

Blackouts: 
"Put him out cold, Jud."
Jud was, as Shayne had realized the first moment he saw him, a professional. He carried out the boss's order swiftly and efficiently. Shayne felt numbing pain, and then he heard no more and was conscious of nothing more for a long time.

Title: 
A bit overdramatic. The blackmail money handover occurs without any problems, so pay-off is not exactly in blood... But still sounds cool and definitely better than something like "Bloody Pay-Off".

Edition: 
Mayflower-Dell Paperback, 1963

Cover: 
By Robert McGinnis, beautiful and hot as they all are. I would assume that it wasn't commissioned for this novel specifically, since the lady is neither the Doctor's widow (with soft, platinum hair) nor his nurse (a hunk of a woman).

Cool lines: 

"Lots of people come to me who are being blackmailed. Just as people come to you with venereal diseases. Some deserve it and some don't. How bad is it, doctor?"

To be honest, this is one of Shayne's rare witty ones. Mostly, his retorts go as far as a cynical "Very, very funny". But there are some cool lines reserved for the bad guys:

He relaxed against the seat cushion and asked, "All right if I reach for a cigarette?"
Jud said indifferently, "Sure. Just don't make any sudden moves because my trigger-finger is nervous."

"I see him, Jud. I guess he likes the kind of games we play."
"Sure," Jud agreed happily. "I bet he's one of them mas-so-kists."

Fit to Kill (Brett Halliday, 1959)

Basic detective novel structure dictates that our gumshoeing hero gets hired by some unfortunate soul, or gets involved in a crime accidentally, or is pulled into some family shit. But not this one: Fit to Kill starts with some sort of journalistic investigation spy-ish background story, and it spends quite a hefty 50+ pages on it, which means that our main protagonist, PI Mike Shayne, makes his entrance as late as in the 7th chapter.

Which is a good and a bad thing at the same time. It's good because it's a bit unconventional (and therefore interesting), but it's bad because the background story is mediocre. Standard stuff involving some dictator of an unidentified banana republic, resistant fighters, a damsel in distress, a mysterious package and so on. Its main character, Shayne's friend Rourke, isn't exactly convincing and is, in fact, pretty fucking boring. He's supposed to be this stereotypical kind of hardened newspaper reporter, but most of the time he acts like some naive horny kid. I don't know, probably Halliday characterised him intentionally this way so Mike Shayne would be cooler in contrast.

With Shayne's arrival on the scene, the novel's pace shifts several gears up. In fact, it turns into the "real-time mode" which - once again - turns out to be a good and a bad thing. Good thing being that shit really starts to happen pretty rapidly, but the bad aspect of this is that it simply doesn't work too well. Don't get me wrong: the plot is not terribly complex, and it's easy to follow, it's just that its timing is way off sometimes. Simply too many things happen in twelve hours to make the story believable.

But it was still cool to read. Shayne is a pretty interesting character because he's supposed to be this cliched hard-boiled detective, but still he makes a few mistakes. Right at the start of the case he loses the girl he was tailing (He was frozen with indecision, which was an unusual state for Shayne), later moves a corpse before police arrives to the crime scene, walks into the Professor Quesada's house without any plan (so he gets knocked out) and other silly stuff like that. But still, he manages to tie up all the loose ends very efficiently in a great ending when all the pieces fall in place.

3/5

Facts:

Hero:
Michael Shayne, PI

Location:
First part in some unidentified "Central American republic", second part in Miami.

Body count: 

3

Dames:
Carla Adams with "elegantly nyloned legs" - She had the delicacy of colouring that is only found in girls with precisely that color hair.

Blackouts: 
Yes, but it's just "Shayne fell forward and the mist closed in about him." 

Title: 
Cool sounding, but also pretty puzzling one. The badass who does all the killings seemed very fit to me. Or is it referring to Rourke, who is finally fit to kill someone after his whole ordeal? If yes, who is he supposed to kill?

Cover: 
Not the usual paperback half-naked chicks & guns stuff, but quite interesting and nice one. This is relevant to the story, too, because thick glasses play a part in the novel, although it is far-fetched. Let me explain: the killer wears glasses, so without any second thoughts, Shayne links him to the asshole Renzullo, and - even more far-fetched - the police buys this idea without any reservation, so - check this, I shit you not! - they start a manhunt for a guy wearing glasses - "I want every outgoing train, bus and plane checked for a man wearing thick glasses"

Cool lines:  
Rourke asked the switchboard girl for the right time. It turned out to be time for supper, so he called room service, and ordered a bottle of rye and ice.