Wax Apple (Donald E. Westlake writing as Tucker Coe, 1970)

Structured somewhat similarly to the first one of the Tobin series Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death. Once again, our disgraced hero must pause his work on the garden wall and investigate a crime in unusual surroundings. But nothing as exciting as a mob underworld this time - he needs to find an injurer in some local sanatorium. An injurer? A person who plants nasty booby traps in a sanatorium, thus injuring patients.

Again, his investigation is based on a list of suspects, and he methodologically checks them one by one. At least he tries to. But to be honest, he has no idea what to do. Three-quarters through, he gets so lost that (out of boredom) he even starts reading some psychoanalytical books. It is never explicitly confirmed whether those books have enlightened him, but he finally gets an idea!

Everybody thought that was a fine idea. At least, everybody thought it was an idea, and it gave us something to do, something to think about, and that was fine.

So what's this brilliant idea, you might ask?
- Let's search the suspects' rooms to get some clues.

Mitch and his team of amateur detectives, comprising two doctors and one trustworthy patient, promptly perform this room-by-room search and... find nothing. So still no breakthrough. In fact, they remain totally clueless until the very last ten pages before the end. Which got to be some kind of a record in crime novels. But even if I'm wrong here, this uber incompetence isn't something I'll remember Wax Apple by. It's the grand finale, the mighty round-up and culprit-revealing scene, which probably still makes good old Agatha spin in her grave.

By now, our hero has managed to narrow down his list of suspects to the last six and has decided to wrap up the case during the group therapy session, with all of them present. Even though he still doesn't know who the guilty party is, he is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. Somehow. His first technique is to reveal to the group that the killer left him a note... and then observe suspects' facial expressions when reacting to this shocking news. But nothing. Then he tries to bullshit them by pretending that he knows who the killer is but lacks the evidence. This bluff also doesn't pay off. As a last resort, he starts pleading with a culprit to reveal themselves and surrender. Which, of course, doesn't happen either... so there's nothing left to do, and the session continues without anyone even mentioning the crime!!! But eventually, Mitch gets another brilliant idea (pretty sure that those books did help him on this occasion) and breaks the case.

I like unconventional and unintentionally funny anti-climax endings (this one isn't too bad), but this crap is simply pathetic.

150 pages of small print. Endless dull descriptions. Poor dialogues don't help bring characters from their comatose state. Uninspired and simplistic plot... It was just a struggle to finish this one.

You never know with Westlake. The last one of his that I read was "The Comedy is Finished", a few months ago, and I really liked it. He is the Grand Master, but I think he was too prolific, and some of his stuff is very mediocre. Like this one, which is memorable only for its crazy ending. Skip the whole thing or just read the 24th chapter.

2/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mitch Tobin, an ex-cop

Location: 
A little town called Kendrick - "two hours from New York and a hundred million miles from home"

Body count: 1

Dames: /

Blackouts: 
Yes, almost immediately upon his arrival, he becomes another victim of the injurer when he falls down the stairs and breaks his arm: "When I hit I heard the dry quick snap in my right forearm. And nothing more."

Title: 
Mitch is admitted into the conservatory in a "Shock Corridor" manner. Undercover, pretending to be a patient:

"But I was in neither camp, really. The man in the brown suit would no more accept me as a policeman than these people would accept me as a resident. I was a wax apple in both bowls."

Edition: 
No Exit Press, 1989

Cover: 
Generic but pretty cool. I like the vivid colours on a white background. 

Cool lines:

/

Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death (Donald E. Westlake writing as Tucker Coe, 1966)

Interesting and original premise. An ex-cop, disgraced and fired from the police force after some serious fuck up (his partner got killed while Mitch was cheating on his wife), is hired by a mobster to find his mistress’ killer. Our hero Mitch is more or less happy with (literally) building a wall around him, but he also feels bad about his wife needing to support the family. So he decides to take a well-paid job.

So it’s a kind of PI mystery combined with a police procedural, and it works pretty well. My only minor objection is that it’s a bit too procedural, which makes it slowly become repetitive. Mitch’s modus operandi basically consists of systematically interviewing suspects on the list compiled by his employees. With a few exceptions (like blowing up his improvised office), nothing much happens in his investigation and revealing the culprit at the end is done in Poirot-like classical whodunit style. Which is okay. I certainly didn’t see it coming.

Since this is Westlake’s (and mine) introductory novel of Mitch Tobin, I guess our leading man deserves a word or two. He’s definitely neither the stereotypically Parker-like tough guy nor the comically eccentric Dortmunder-like joker. Tobin is just an ordinary (and quite likeable) guy, a smart cop who had a bad break but isn’t too bitter about it. Plus, I think Westlake made a good decision by not portraying him as a guilt-ridden jobless drunk deserted by his wife (who, in fact, forgave him for cheating and hadn’t deserted him at all). Which is another thing I liked about this book: there’s no family shit or drama whatsoever. Mitch sends his family away when things get hot, and they return once the case is solved. Nice!

A quick and entertaining read. Solid, fluent and easy to follow, without heavy character studies or complex sub-plots. At times, it felt like something Westlake decided to put together quickly after becoming bored with Parker novels.

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Mitchell Tobin, ex-cop. Doing private investigations these days.

Location: 
New York

Body count: 

4

Dames: 
Rita Castle, the victim

Blackouts: 

/

Title: 
One of those poetic types. The "Kinds of love" part makes sense, and it's pretty easy to decipher. It relates to either Rembek's feelings towards Rita (It was guilt that kept him tied to his wife, but it was desire that had linked him with Rita Castle) or Donner's feelings towards his disturbed sister. Not sure about the kinds of deaths part, though. People die in this one in pretty usual ways (strangulation, bomb explosion, shootings)

Cover: 
Pretty cool, showing Mitch being tempted by the money.

Cool lines:  
"Failure is your way of life," I said. "Don't try to change it."
She turned her head, with puzzled animation in her eyes. "That's a rotten thing to say."
"Bring me the money, Betsy."